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Is there a youth backlash brewing against LGBT?
I came up out of the subway the other day, and nearly my entire field of view was filled by a massive glowing screen full of flapping pride flags, wall-to-wall and six feet tall. It was a project by some charity or other claiming that "hate crimes" (or victimization, or incidents, or whatever they measure) jump by 60% during pride month. I've been so burned out by the sight of that flag everywhere that the only reaction I can muster is "maybe stop being so obnoxious about it then?" From the POSIWID perspective, one could consider the purpose of pride month to be to spike hostility against LGBT people, so why do it?
A long tweet from sci-fi author Devon Eriksen claims that pride month is downstream of the "toaster fucker" problem, in reference to an ancient greentext. Condensed: the internet brings together people with bizarre niche interests (what he calls "toaster fuckers" — he claims it's meant to be a general term but he's clearly writing about the LGBT theater of the CW). A supportive online community stops these people from leaving the toaster in the kitchen and adjusting to the normal world around them, and instead these online groups metastasize, eventually spilling over into the wider world: intra-group status competitions start with "who can fuck the most toasters", lead to "'toaster-fucker pride' bumper stickers" and then "bragging about how they sneak into other people's kitchens and fuck their toasters, too" and "swapping tips for how to introduce kids to the joys of toaster-fucking."
I think I agree with some of that description but not all of it, and may write it up in another thread if I get time, but it's not so important for this post. I need it as context for the bit that I think is more accurate: the normies getting fed up with all the toaster-fucking, the backlash, and the response (lightly edited to concatenate multiple small tweets, but no words changed):
I think this explains the split in normie opinion pretty well: red states have had more than enough and that's led into the various legal battles that Devon alludes to, school choice advocacy, campaigns to replace progressive school boards, etc. I don't think I've seen "beaten with fenceposts"-level backlash (I figure it would pop up here if it was an issue), but even the memory of such events in the semi-recent past could explain normie "I want to be a good person so I'll call myself an ally"-ism. Compare the number of "racist hate crime" hoaxes over the past few years, to the point where "the demand for racism exceeds its supply" has become a dark joke among cynical online commentators. I don't think I've seen LGBT activists fabricate incidents (certainly none as badly as Jussie Smollett did), but it seems useful for a group to have opposition to keep its supporters energized ("our work is not yet done!") and I could definitely see obnoxious pride month displays as accidentally serving this function.
Onto youth. A recent tweet by a newish Twitter account, America_2100, claims a drop in support for LGBT over the past few years (2022–2023: US-wide: -7 points; Republicans: -15 points, to a 10-year low of 41%; Democrats: -6 points; "young people": -8 points). In particular, they claim Gen Z's support for gay marriage dropped by 11 points between 2021 and 2023, which is double the time span of the other stats but could indicate an ongoing decline in support. Unfortunately the tweet doesn't source the surveys it refers to beyond saying that it came from PRRI and I don't have hard data beyond a couple of anecdotes. Lime, a scooter rental company, made a pride-flag crosswalk in Washington a 'walk-the-scooter' zone after several teenagers were arrested for leaving skid marks on it. I saw a recent comment on a gaming subreddit (sorry, I can't find it), in response to yet another pride-month-themed mod, saying something like "don't be discouraged! 50% upvotes for a pride mod is pretty good these days". But when I interact with university students, the discourse is still very pro-LGBT: they talking about being excited for pride events, etc.
So, questions for the floor:
There is no anti-gay backlash, because it was never about the gays. It was always about social status.
As was written in the scriptures, Right is the New Left.
Gay flags everywhere did not originate with the gays, it originated with PMC young adults using the gay flag as a way to gain status over their older rivals. A young PMC woman would ostentatiously support gays, showing she was more empathetic, and thus higher status, than her mom or her boss. This was a costly signal to send, as gays gave older people the ick.
By the early 2000s, as gays were unquestioningly accepted in PMC culture, the signaling moved to the lumpen-PMC. They aped the mannerisms of the upper-PMC, as a way to show they were PMC. A gay flag and a degree from a third tier school was their way of signalling they had transcended their suburb. The upper-PMC, meanwhile, moved to trans, as a way to signal they weren't backwards, behind-the-times lumpen-PMC
Now the lumpen-PMC is all into trans, and the young and well-off PMC I know are sheepishly and ironically supportive of trans. Being too loudly into inclusion is now a marker of being that worst of all things, a social climber.
We're now at a moment where loudly supporting LGBT causes isn't a way to thumb your nose at your fat middle-aged lumpen-PMC teacher - it's the ideology of your fat middle-aged lumpen-PMC teacher. Gen Z Believes Wokeism Is Only For Ugly People. Young women don't want to be seen as frumpy, and young men are inherently oppositional.
I'm guilty of this myself. I'm about as supportive of LGBT people as you can get without actually sucking a dick, but I'm very quiet about it, because I just don't want to be, or be associated with "those people" - the fat, half-head-shaved, mask-wearing, purple-haired screechers.
I'm sorry, gays.
That might be some of it. But part of it was a lot simpler than that- it was just a way for gay men to easily meet so they could hook up. This was especially important in the pre-grindr days, but even now they seem to like having a summer-long outdoor sex party.
Unfortunately, that means the rest of us having to endure all outdoor public places turning into a summer-long gay sex party, but whatdya gonna do.
https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/06/19/three-gay-men-hunted-in-phoenix-park-by-six-men-with-knives-in-shocking-incident/
It's possible that in this incident from last week the purported 'victims' were just walking at night in an area known for public sex between men, when they encounterd an armed homophobic gang. There are other scenarios that seem more likely.
well, that does sound horrific. I am sorry that it happened, and I hope that my stupid comment was not read as encouraging that sort of menacing behaviour.
No I didn't read your comment as promoting menacing.
Our societies used to have solutions to the outdoor gay sex party problem. Buggery was illegal in many jurisdictions. Even after it was decriminalized public sex in parks or toilets was still criminal and there was a stigma still to participating in homosexual activities.
Now that buggery isn't a crime in the west. The stigma on homosex is largely gone, in the west. Policing and prosecuting public sex acts is virtually non-existent in the west, people are left to solve their own problems. In some areas I suspect this would look like armed neighborhood watch groups rousting those they suspect are up to public buggery.
I'm not sure this encounter rises to horrific.
How do you limit or reduce undesirable behavior by a determined cohort if it's not prosecuted or stigmatized? Vigilante groups have been a traditional answer.
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