How Parents Can Find Trustworthy LGBTQ Guidance in a Misinformation Era

Welcome to Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen, the podcast transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child. My name is Heather Hester, and I am so grateful you are here. I want you to take a deep breath and know that for the time we are together, you are in the safety of the Just Breathe nest. Whether today's show is an amazing guest, or me sharing stories, resources, strategies, or lessons I've learned along our journey, I want you to feel like we're just hanging out at a coffee shop having a cozy chat. Most of all, I want you to remember that that wherever you are on this journey right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone.

Welcome back, my friends, and welcome if this is your first time listening to Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen. I am So happy you are here. And for those of you who are watching this on YouTube, I'm super excited because I am trying out my new studio setup today. So I've been playing around with moving things around and some lighting and some different microphones and all of, all of those fun things. So I know you can't tell that if you are listening, but if you are watching, I'm Very excited about my new setup. So as you may remember, I am leveling up the tradition of sharing beautiful reviews with you all. If the review I read is yours, DM me on Instagram @chrysalismama, and I will answer your most burning question. The big question you have, a couple of questions that you have, something that you really, really wanna know the answer to. We'll do it super detailed and, and I will do it on video that I will post to Instagram and YouTube. So if you want questions answered, make sure you leave me a review on Apple Podcasts if you have not already. Leaving a review also helps Just Breathe find its way into the hearts of more people like you. So think of it as your pay it forward moment today. Today's review is from Society Hill Mom, and they say, this podcast is so insightful and important to families today. I learn something new in each episode. Thank you for putting out content to help families navigate through difficult times, to help our children be the best versions of themselves. It means so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Society Hill Mom. Honestly, I have to tell you, there are times that I feel so exhausted or overwhelmed that I actually contemplate whether or not I continue doing this podcast, um, and continue doing everything else that I'm doing. And then I get a review like yours or a thoughtful email that connects me back to why I'm doing all of this, and that is you. So thank you for taking a moment to share your thoughts. It means the world to me too. Today we are going to have a brief discussion about finding accurate information online and how to develop a discerning eye for misinformation. This is a topic I realize that we could have a really intense discussion about, and I do welcome any thoughts and questions you have, but for the purposes of this episode, I just want to share a few strategies you can use to help you on your quest for information. There is nothing worse than being derailed by misinformation and then following it down a rabbit hole. It can be a huge time suck and not the way most of us wanna use our time. So follow along, take some notes, and let me know if there's a thread you'd like me to follow in another episode. Learning to be a savvy researcher was one of the great lessons I've learned on our journey. We had so, so many questions, as you well know, when Connor first came out, and as one would get answered, 2 more would pop up. We all know that there is a ridiculous amount of misinformation out there on all topics. And if I had to guess, LGBTQ topics would be near the top. So how do we hone our discernment? How do we figure out what is true and what is not true? After all of these years, I've come up with a few strategies that help, and that's what I wanna share with you today. Visualize credibility as a compass and your north, or your north star, as reliable and accurate information. Evaluating the authority of a website, considering domain trustworthiness, and scrutinizing the expertise of authors are pivotal steps in anchoring this trust. It's essential to discern truthfulness by cross-referencing facts and employing credibility checkers, ultimately creating a fortress of verified knowledge. Now, I know this takes extra time to do these things. Everything that I'm going to be recommending to you today takes an extra step or two extra steps, but in the end, it's worth it. So think about that as you're like, I really just, I just wanna know something and I'm just gonna go with it, right? Think about taking at least that one extra step or taking a moment and just listening to that voice inside of you that is never wrong, that will tell you, hmm, maybe you should look, maybe you should check one more thing or two more things, or This is, this is good. This is good for now. When we leverage the wisdom of peer-reviewed journals or peer-reviewed articles and the insights from expert interviews, it significantly enhances the solidity of online research findings. We must remain aware of biases and seek a balanced perspective from various sources. So let's explore some of these strategies that will build your ability or bolster your ability to determine the trustworthiness of online content. It will fortify your search strategies and steer your research journey from doubt to trust. So the first strategy is about understanding the source's authority. Evaluating a source's authority isn't just about checking credentials. It's about ensuring the information stands on a solid foundation of expertise and trustworthiness. Here's how to delve deeper and confirm the authority of your sources. The first thing is expertise assessment. Look for information about the author's expertise, such as their degrees, their academic degrees, their professional affiliations, their life experiences. Verify the author's role as the original content creator. For original research, it should appear in peer-reviewed journals. The next one is the publisher's reputation. Assess the publisher's credibility by considering their mission and whether they present content through a specific lens. So you can do this by going to a publisher's website and reading about about them. Typically there is, you know, there's the About Us page or paragraph or something, their mission, that will give you an idea of who they are and perhaps even the type of materials that they publish and put out into the world. Look at what else they have published while you are there and where it has been published. So meaning, look to see if it is a book, like a non-fiction book, or is it an academic book. It could be mix of book, online material, um, digital courses, that type of thing. So take a look at that and then recognize the publisher's role in establishing the source's authority, especially when the author details are scarce. So what has the publisher done to help create or create information about the author? The next one is domain and design scrutiny. Check through a website's domain. Um, is it, you .com, .edu, .gov, .org. This will help you gauge the source's initial credibility. And then evaluate the professionalism of the website's design as an indicator of resource seriousness. Is it— does it seem like it was just slapped up there? Is there any type of design to the website? These are things that, you know,. You can just, with a few minutes with your eye, you will know. The next is comprehensive credibility checks. I love a good acronym to help me remember things, and these two do not disappoint. The first is to apply the CRAAP test. C-R-A-A-P. Currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose to each of the sources, as well as the SMART check. And this isn't the typical SMART that we're, you know, often used to for creating SMART goals, for instance. This one is for newspaper sources, and this focuses on source, motive, authority, review, and the two-source test. So again, these are two really, really important ones. Write them down. The CRAP test—currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose—as well as the SMART check, which is source, motive, authority, review, and the two-source test. And then engage in lateral reading, meaning exploring fact-checking sites and more information about the author and the site. By considering these factors, you'll be better equipped to discern the credibility of online content, ensuring you cover the bases of authority and reliability. Remember that authority is constructed and contextual. It evolves over time and must be considered from multiple angles. Keep these checkpoints handy as you continue to gather information. Number 2 is assessing the accuracy of content. In searching for truth online, it is crucial to assess the accuracy of content meticulously. Here are a couple strategies to help with this. The first is verification through multiplicity. So what does that mean? It's a lot of Awesome sounding words. Well, it means cross-referencing information with multiple reliable sources to confirm the veracity or the truth. Validate claims using esteemed fact-checking websites like PolitiFact and Snopes. I have a really, really good article that I found linked in the blog version of this episode that gives really good context and background on the accuracy of fact-checking websites, because I know that's something that does get thrown around a lot that we've heard so much more about in reference to in the past few years. And I thought this article is super helpful in understanding why certain ones were used in different instances. So go ahead and pop on over to the website and check out the blog version of this, which is much more detailed, and you can read this article as well. The next is to use technical checks for trustworthiness, meaning inspect for typographical errors, uh, which indicate a lack of professionalism. Um, test for broken links and, um, check the site's uptime, the how fast it uploads pictures, those types of things. And then here's a big one. Conduct reverse image searches to trace the origin of online images. This will ensure that they are not misrepresented. This is a really, really important one to do, um, especially as AI gets bigger and bigger. The next one is content maintenance and standards. Establish a clear set of standards for source credibility, including format, styles, and citation requirements. Check that they regularly update content to maintain its relevance and accuracy over time. And then finally, use tools such as Grammarly or Copyscape, uh, for grammar, for plagiarism, and those type of things. And really the biggest thing, and I cannot say this enough, your biggest strategy is always, always going to be to use your critical thinking skills. Do not assume anything and ensure that opinions are supported by solid evidence. And this really kind of puts us into our number 3, which is analyzing the objectivity and the bias. This is where those critical thinking skills will really, really come in handy. Analyzing the objectivity and the bias of what you are reading. Objectivity is the bedrock of credible research, representing facts unaffected by personal feelings or opinions. I'm just going to say that one more time because I think this is really, really, really important. Objectivity is the bedrock of credible research, representing facts unaffected by personal feelings or opinions. Now, before I go any further, I just wanna say that I know a lot of what I enjoy reading, and a lot of times I'll do, you know, a percentage of my, what I'm reading online when I'm trying to find an answer are pieces that are opinion pieces or have bias or opinion in them, right? I bring that up because I think it's necessary to have a mix of both. And really what I'm talking about today is the other, not the opinion pieces, but the, the strict research, the objective pieces of information that are out there that that we are looking for. So I just wanted to kind of throw that in there right now while we're discussing that and to give you a couple of tips on how to discern the neutrality of content, um, or, you know, the objectivity. So the first is to look at the purpose and the goals. Assess the content's purpose and the author's goals. Try to figure out what they are. Is their information— is it meant to just inform? Is it meant to persuade you one way or another? Understand the difference between an opinion piece and a peer-reviewed academic article, and understand that there is a huge spectrum in between those two. Huge spectrum of information that you will find in between those two. And then consider the intended audience. Who is the information aimed at, aimed toward, and why? Next, you want to consider the author's background. Consider their affiliations, consider their expertise, Any groups that they may be, you know, representing or associated with or working with? Do they have any kind of particular agenda? And then take a look at the language that's used. Is it language that is really emotional or is it neutral? Is it really academic in the type of wording that is used or is it more conversational? And colloquial. And then check the depth of the information provided. A well-researched article will support its claims with facts and data, so keep that in mind as you are online or in books reading and researching. When you are looking at a source's purpose and objectivity specifically, Consider the abstract or the summary or table of contents to understand the scope of content. Check for any institutional affiliations that could influence this perspective, and then note the domain extension. For instance, .edu domains often indicate educational institutions, which may present information more neutrally. And then finally, to effectively evaluate bias, take a look at any rhetorical fallacies and check if credible resources or sources back these claims. Be wary of content framing and selective fact reporting. Acknowledge personal biases that could color the evaluation process. Research using multiple sources to find consistency and counteract confirmation bias. I am going to say this one, one more time because it's really, really, really important. I know that as we research and, you know, the type of research that I, I do, a lot of it has to do with LGBTQ topics and LGBTQ issues, and it is so easy to fall into looking up information that confirms what I already believe, right? What I already think. It's important to push yourself outside of that comfort, outside of that zone of knowledge, your zone of genius, I guess, to see— look at everything that is out there, right? And look at multiple sources. To see what's being said, even if, and maybe even especially if, it's different than what you believe or different than what you think. This is an important practice, a good practice, as difficult as it may be, to help you really hone your skills. By applying these analytical lenses, you can sift through content with a balanced view. You can separate fact from opinion and gain a clear understanding of the information landscape. Remember that we all have biases. This is not a judgment call. It is a statement of fact. These biases affect how we receive information and how we put it back out into the world. This is a topic that we will explore in another blog post and in another episode, um, podcast episode. But for the time being, it is worth remembering this as you hone your information gathering skills. Number 4 is utilizing advanced search strategies. So what are those actual tools that you can use as you gather information online that will save you time or help you find more information in one search or better information in one search, um, because it can be incredibly overwhelming and time-consuming. So here are some of the ones that I use most often. The first batch are to help organize and synthesize information using analysis, your critical eye, and then synthesizing. Compare and contrast varying perspectives and findings. Look for gaps, inconsistencies, contradictions, and then integrate diverse information to form a comprehensive understanding. This will really help you find that broad landscape. Actively use advanced search tools and techniques. Search engines, use Google Scholar. Um, if you're looking for medical-specific information, use PubMed. There are search engines, powerful search engines. One of that I don't think it's, I mean, I know it's used a lot, but we don't often remember to reference it is YouTube. As an incredible search engine for information. Use search filters, apply filters for dates, for language, and this will really help you hone in on precise results. Combine keywords with the words and, or, or not. To expand or narrow your search. And then use quotation marks for exact phrases and the asterisk, the star, for truncation. Use Google Analytics, Hotjar, or SurveyMonkey to gauge content impact. Stick to specific keywords related to your topic. This will help you be consistent over time. Employ hashtags and keywords on platforms like X, um, even Instagram for the latest insights. LinkedIn, oh my goodness, really any of the social media platforms where hashtags are really useful. And then keep track of your sources and tools and whatever tracking, whether it's Google Sheets, Google Docs, a, a Word doc, your Notes app, any of these things will help you track what you're doing. By weaving these strategies into your research fabric, you will be able to craft a tapestry of credible and relevant information. Awareness and practice of these methods help you not only refine your critical thinking skills and discernment, but more broadly, grow as a human being. Before we wrap up today, I want to remind you all about my book launch team. If you love what I do and would like to help me get this book into as many hands as possible and in return receive some really cool perks, Click on the link in the show notes or email me at hh@chrysalismama.com to let me know that you are interested. As a member of the book launch team, you will become part of my mission of transforming the conversation around loving, raising, and empowering LGBTQ people with unique solutions for parents and families organizations, and global outreach. Many more details will be available through the book launch team communications, so if you're interested, make sure you click on that link or you email me. Until next time, big hugs and lots of love.

Thanks so much for joining me today. If you If you enjoyed today's episode, I would be so grateful for a rating or a review. Click on the link in the show notes or go to my website, chrysalismama.com, to stay up to date on my latest resources as well as to learn how you can work with me. Please share this podcast with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone and remember And remember to just breathe. Until next time!