Elena Barbera had always considered herself an informed parent and citizen. But when President Donald Trump launched his first presidential campaign 10 years ago, she realized that the media was not as accurate and unbiased as she had believed.

“I would watch Trump speak, and then I would watch the mainstream media’s recap of what he said, and they were reporting things that were absolutely out of context or untrue,” she told IW Features. “I started to realize that there were a lot of lies being told. And I started to pay really, really close attention.” 

Barbera, who goes by “The Based Mother” on her social media accounts, has come a long way since her political awakening in 2015. That path has led her into the raging debate surrounding sexualized materials in public schools—the topic of her new documentary “American Groomer.” 

“My mistrust of the media is what led me to learn about what was going on in the schools,” she said. “I saw a news report about people banning books, and I thought, ‘I certainly am pro-First Amendment and absolutely against banning books,’ but I also didn’t trust the media.”

According to Barbera, instead of simply accepting the media’s narratives about public education as fact, she decided to look into the issue herself, going so far as to read the so-called “banned books” championed by leftist activists, including infamous titles like “Gender Queer: A Memoir.”

“I realized that they were lying, that there was pornography in schools, that no books were being banned, that parents were just trying to raise the alarm, and that sexually explicit material was being given to children,” she said. “And when I bought the books and read them, there was no question that we were talking about X-rated material.”

Barbera, who had a high-school-aged son at the time, said she was horrified by the betrayal of institutions she and other parents had trusted.

“When you are sexualizing children, you’re setting them up for a lifetime of being sexually abused by each other, of thinking it’s normal to be sexually abused by online predators, because you’re telling them this is good and normal, and if you don’t like it, there’s something wrong with you,” she said.

Barbera said she quickly went from being just a parent to an online activist and filmmaker—a transition that she considers a “divine intervention” brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was one of the first people to lose my job because I worked in live entertainment. It was a very tough time,” she said. “I just said to God, ‘What do I do now? Help me figure out what my path is.’”

Three months later, she said, her son told her he was starting a YouTube channel and asked her to make a “Mom Reacts” video with him. In less than a year, they had over 500,000 subscribers.

“I became comfortable in front of the camera, and that’s what prepared me for the film,” she said. “And when I found out that pornography was being put in front of children across the country, I prayed about it, and I thought, ‘You have to get involved and make a movie.’”

Having no experience in the film industry, Barbera said she recruited the editor from their YouTube channel to help her figure out the process. 

“I literally Googled ‘How to make a documentary,’” she said. “And in three months, we made a film that’s actually starting to make a difference and wake people up.”

“American Groomer” delves deep into the history of American education, revealing that the push to sexualize children began not 10 years ago, with the rise of gender ideology and LGBT activism, but in the 1940s—due in large part to the work of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey.

“The Rockefeller Foundation was a funder of Kinsey’s work, and they glommed on to his idea that children were sexual from birth,” she said. “Through their legal guild, they wrote obscenity exemption statutes that created a criminal exemption for showing pornography to children in schools and libraries.”

According to Barbera, it was during the 50s, 60s, and 70s—decades that most Americans remember as a heyday of childhood innocence—that legislators and lobbyists got those obscenity exemptions placed in 44 states. To this day, schools and libraries are given a “free pass” to show pornography to children for so-called “educational purposes”—a fact many parents are completely unaware of. 

“Parents are not nearly aware enough,” Barbera said. “Usually what you hear when you present this idea to them is, ‘There’s no way that’s happening.’ And then you show them that it’s happening, and they say, ‘Well, if it’s happening, there’s no way it’s happening in my district.’ But it is.” 

Since taking a stand online, Barbera said she lost her TikTok account once and her YouTube channel twice. Despite these setbacks, however, she continues to fight for the removal of all pornographic material from schools, and urges parents to take immediate steps if their children are affected.

“The first thing I would say is, if you have the ability to homeschool your children, please do it,” she said. “The second thing is, go to takebacktheclassroom.com. That’s an organization I work with, and they have a lot of school districts listed and which books are in which schools.” 

“You have to fight,” she said. “It’s up to us.” 

You can watch “American Groomer” for free at https://americangroomerfilm.com/