The organization Concerned Women for America released its findings from a study, saying that Netflix is an "active driver" of the LGBTQ agenda.
Melissa Henson is a senior policy advisor for Concerned Women for America.
"We were interested in actually looking beyond just what sort of superficial anecdotes that have been shared online to see how deep the problem actually goes,” Henderson said.
The problem applies to other streaming services as well, Henson said, but in this instance, the report focuses solely on Netflix and how it is “pushing gender ideology or sexual preference ideology into programming that is specifically aimed at children."
She said she thinks what's important to recognize is what she described as the "utter failure of the television rating system to adequately warn or prepare parents for the presence of this content in children's programming."
"I think what a lot of people fail to recognize is that the television rating system is not administered by any kind of independent body. It's basically each network, or each streaming service in this case, deciding for themselves what a program should be rated.”
The rating is on concern. The lack of information provided when this kind of content is present in a show is another.
"There is nothing in the current rating system that would flag this kind of content for parents so they could make an informed choice when they turn on the television. They can know this (show) is going to contain content that they would rather their child not be exposed to at this stage of life and development. Then they could choose something else.
In fact, she said that right now, parents have no way of knowing that unless they're prescreening every episode of every children's series out there.
“What happened to the trust that parents should be able to imbue in a system that says if it's rated Y for young children then it's OK for young children to watch? That trust has been completely eroded."
The quantity of LGBTQ material presented by streaming services creates “chicken or egg” quandary for parents.
“Are these kids identifying this way because they were fed this kind of content during their formative years, or are we seeing more of this kind of content now because of the higher percentage of children identifying as gay or non-binary or trans. I tend to believe that it is more the former than the latter.
“The amount of content like this that came online when Gen. Z'ers were in middle school, early years of high school, or even younger … I think that is definitely informing their worldview."
