With the rise of violent episodes perpetrated by trans-identified people, the long overdue concerns of the negative impact of chat platforms are finally being addressed. This matters to us because our son was groomed while in college and disappeared six months later, never to be seen by us again. I’m not suggesting our son is potentially dangerous but I have no doubt that there are certain people in his community who are.

When I asked our son who was helping him navigate this new identity, he mentioned Tumblr. Back in 2014, I was unaware of this platform, or any others, so I did a quick search and was overwhelmed by the threads I stumbled upon. I later learned that what happened to our son was called “grooming” and it runs rampant in these spaces, in social media messaging, and gaming. Herein lie a multitude of predators or peers that find other vulnerable kids, convincing them that they too are trans. I’ve recently learned this effort is called “cracking eggs.”