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~tate of m;ennessee
PUBLIC CHAPTER NO. 1021
HOUSE BILL NO. 2317
By Representatives Barrett, Fritts, Powell, White, Reedy, Terry, Reneau, Hawk, Hurt,
Cepicky, Powers, Maberry, Brock Martin, Salinas
Substituted for: Senate Bill No. 2566
By Senators Bowling, Lowe, Stevens, Yager, White
AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 39 and Title 40, relative to the
"Tennessee Anti-Grooming Act".
WHEREAS, the General Assembly finds and declares that:
(1) Child sexual abuse is a serious public harm. Research published in peer-
reviewed scientific literature indicates that between thirty percent and forty-five percent
of child sexual abusers employ preparatory behavioral patterns, commonly referred to as
"grooming," prior to the commission of contact sexual offenses, and that nearly all adult
survivors of child sexual abuse report having experienced such behaviors;
(2) The sexual grooming model, developed and content-validated by Winters,
Jeglic, and Kaylor (2020) in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, represents the first
empirically validated, comprehensive model of the sexual grooming process, identifying
five stages and forty-two specific behaviors recognized by experts in the field as
constituting sexual grooming tactics. This model has been further validated in
subsequent peer-reviewed research, including Jeglic, Winters, and Johnson (2023),
published in Child Abuse & Neglect, which identified specific "red flag" behaviors that are
statistically and significantly more likely to occur in cases of child sexual abuse than in
non-abusive adult-child interactions;
(3) Key findings of that research include that behaviors involving physical and
psychological isolation of a child from parents or guardians were twenty times more
likely to occur in cases of child sexual abuse; behaviors designed to desensitize a child
to sexual touch or sexual content were thirty-four times more likely to occur; and
cultivation of secrecy between an adult and a child was a statistically significant predictor
of abuse;
(4) Existing Tennessee law, including Tennessee Code Annotated, Sections 39-
13-528 and 39-13-529, effectively addresses the later stages of sexual grooming
specifically, direct solicitation of a minor to engage in sexual conduct and the display or
transmission of patently offensive sexual material to a minor. However, existing law does
not address the earlier, preparatory stages of grooming, specifically, the deliberate
pattern of access-seeking, isolation, inappropriate physical boundary violations, and
secrecy cultivation that the scientific literature identifies as precursors to contact
offenses and that may not rise to the level of conduct already criminalized under existing
statutes;
(5) Because many individual grooming behaviors are superficially similar to
normal adult-child interactions, the scientific literature establishes that it is the pattern of
such behaviors, their clustering, frequency, and combination with specific intent, rather
than any single act, that reliably distinguishes criminal grooming from lawful conduct. A
course-of-conduct requirement, combined with specific criminal intent, is therefore both
scientifically grounded arid constitutionally appropriate;
(6) The age-differential framework established in Tennessee Code Annotated,
Section 39-13-5061 reflects the General Assembly's considered judgment that the
degree of age disparity between an offender and a minor victim is a meaningful indicator
of culpability and exploitative potential. The General Assembly finds it appropriate to
apply a consistent age-differential framework to the offense of grooming a minor, so that
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the general offense captures conduct directed at younger children by any adult and
conduct directed at older minors only where the age disparity is sufficiently large,
specifically, ten or more years, to reflect the power imbalance already recognized in the
aggravated statutory rape provisions of Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 39-13-
506(c); and
(7) It is the intent of the General Assembly to fill the identified gap in existing law
by criminalizing the preparatory pattern of grooming conduct that precedes and
facilitates child sexual abuse, without duplicating offenses already addressed in existing
Tennessee law, and to do so with reference to scientifically validated behavioral markers
and an age-differential structure internally consistent with existing Tennessee criminal
law, thereby providing fair notice of prohibited conduct and limiting prosecutorial
discretion to cases presenting the most significant risk of harm; now, therefore,
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 39, Chapter 13, Part 5, is amended by
adding the following as a new section:
39-13-536. Grooming a Minor.
(a) As used in this section:
(1) "Course of grooming conduct" means a pattern of two (2) or more
predicate acts, directed at the same minor, evidencing a continuity of purpose. In
determining whether a course of grooming conduct exists, the trier of fact may
consider the frequency, escalation, and combination of predicate acts. Predicate
acts need not be of the same type and may occur in any order;
(2) "Position of authority" means the defendant is in a position of trust, or
had supervisory, disciplinary, custodial, or evaluative power over a minor by
virtue of the defendant's legal, professional, occupational, or organizational
status, including but not limited to a teacher, coach, tutor, employer, clergy
member, or youth program leader;
(3) "Position of special trust" means a relationship in which a minor has
been entrusted to a person's care, supervision, or guidance by the minor's parent
or guardian, or by operation of law, and in which the minor reasonably relies
upon the person for guidance, safety, or support, including, but not limited to, a
babysitter, family friend, mentor, counselor, or other person in a similar
caregiving or supervisory role;
(4) "Predicate act" means the following acts directed at a minor when
undertaken as part of a course of conduct with the specific intent described in
subsection (b):
(A) Access and isolation conduct, including physically or
psychologically isolating the minor from the minor's parent, guardian, or
other supervising adults, including by seeking unsupervised time alone
with the minor by means of deception or misrepresentation, or by
encouraging or instructing the minor to conceal their interactions with the
person from parents or guardians;
(B) Secrecy cultivation, including instructing, encouraging, or
inducing the minor to keep secret the person's communications, gifts,
activities, or physical contact with the minor, or warning the minor that
disclosure of such matters would result in harm to the minor or to others;
(C) Dependency-building, including providing gifts, money, special
privileges, or other material benefits to the minor or to members of the
minor's family, in a manner and under circumstances that a reasonable
person would recognize as designed to establish emotional dependency,
obligation, or special loyalty in the minor toward the person, and not
consistent with the person's legitimate relationship to the minor;
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(D) Physical boundary violations, including engaging in physical
contact with the minor that violates age-appropriate and role-appropriate
boundaries, including touching the minor's intimate parts under the guise
of incidental or innocent contact, exposing the person's own intimate parts
to the minor, or engaging in progressive physical contact designed to
normalize or desensitize the minor to sexual touch; and
(E) Sexual content introduction, including introducing sexual
topics, sexual humor, sexual language, or descriptions of sexual activity
into communications with the minor in a manner that is not age-
appropriate and not consistent with any lawful educational, healthcare, or
parental purpose described in subdivision (d)(2)(D); and
(5) "Sexual activity" means the same as defined in§ 39-13-529(d).
(b) A person commits the offense of grooming a minor when:
(1) The person engages in a course of grooming conduct directed at a
minor with the specific intent to:
(A) Commit, or facilitate the commission by another person of, a
sexual offense or violent sexual offense, as defined in § 40-39-202,
against the minor; or
(8) Cause or induce the minor to engage in simulated sexual
activity that is patently offensive or sexual activity; and
(2)
(A) The minor is under thirteen (13) years of age and the person is
eighteen (18) years of age or older; or
(8) The minor is at least thirteen (13) years of age but less than
eighteen (18) years of age and the person is at least ten (10) years older
than the minor.
(c) A person commits the offense of grooming a minor while in a position of trust
when the person:
(1) Is in a position of authority or position of special trust with respect to a
minor who is under eighteen (18) years of age;
(2) Is at least four (4) years older than the minor; and
(3) Engages in a course of grooming conduct directed at that minor with
the specific intent to:
(A) Commit, or facilitate the commission by another person of, a
sexual offense or violent sexual offense, as defined in § 40-39-202,
against the minor; or
(8) Cause or induce the minor to engage in sexual activity that is
patently offensive or sexual activity.
(d)
(1) This section is intended to address preparatory grooming conduct that
does not constitute a completed offense under § 39-13-528, § 39-13-529, § 39-
17-1003, § 39-17-1004, or § 39-17-1005. This section does not prohibit
prosecution under any other applicable provision of law. A person shall not be
convicted of both a violation of this section and a violation of§ 39-13-528 or§ 39-
13-529 arising from the same course of conduct; in such cases, the prosecution
shall proceed under the higher-grade offense.
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(2) This section does not prohibit a person from engaging in any of the
following:
(A) Teaching curricula on human sexuality, sexual health, or
sexually transmitted diseases in accordance with state law and applicable
educational standards;
(8) The diagnosis, examination, or treatment of a minor by a
licensed healthcare provider acting within the scope of professional
practice;
(C) Communicating with a minor in the course of a lawful
investigation to determine whether the minor is dependent, neglected, or
abused;
(D) Age-appropriate conversations about puberty, human
sexuality, or personal safety conducted by the minor's parent, guardian,
or sibling;
(E) Physical contact that is customary and appropriate to a
legitimate professional, educational, athletic, or caregiving role; provided,
that such contact is not part of a pattern of conduct undertaken with the
intent described in subdivision (b); or
(F) Conduct by a law enforcement officer, or a person acting at the
direction of a law enforcement officer, in the course of a lawful
investigation or undercover operation.
(3) The existence of a close personal, mentoring, educational, or religious
relationship between an adult and a minor shall not, without more, constitute
evidence of grooming conduct or grooming intent under this section.
(4) It is not a defense to a violation of this section that no sexual contact
or sexual offense was completed or that the minor assented to or was unaware
of the grooming conduct.
(5) It is not a defense to a violation of this section that the minor
consented to any predicate act or that the minor misrepresented the minor's age
to the person.
(e)
(1) A violation of subsection (b) is:
(A) A Class A misdemeanor;
(8) A Class D felony, if the course of grooming conduct includes
one (1) or more predicate acts described in subdivision (a)(4)(D) or
(a)(4)(E);
(C) A Class C felony, if the minor is under thirteen (13) years of
age; or
(D) A Class 8 felony, if the course of grooming conduct includes
one (1) or more predicate acts described in subdivision (a)(4)(D) or
(a)(4)(E) and the minor is under thirteen (13) years of age.
(2) A violation of subsection (c) is:
(A) A Class D felony;
(8) A Class C felony, if the course of grooming conduct includes
one (1) or more predicate acts described in subdivision (a)(4)(D) or
(a)(4)(E);
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(C) A Class C felony, if the minor is under thirteen (13) years of
age; or
(D) A Class 8 felony, if the course of grooming conduct includes
one (1) or more predicate acts described in subdivision (a)(4)(D) or
(a)(4)(E) and the minor is under thirteen (13) years of age.
SECTION 2. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 40-39-202(31 ), is amended by adding
the following as a new subdivision:
(Z) Grooming, under§ 39-13-536;
SECTION 3. This act takes effect July 1, 2026, the public welfare requiring it, and
applies to acts committed on or after that date.
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HOUSE BILL NO. 2317
PASSED: April 23, 2026
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CAMERON SEXTON, SPEAKER
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
RANDY ~NALLY
SPEAKER OF THE AENATE
7 APPROVED this JCftl day of (V\a .... 2026
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BILL LEE, GOVERNOREvery fact on this page links to its source, starting with the official bill record.