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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:
Here’s the thing. The original pride flag had a very important role and actually did do its job very well! The current flag, as well as the old rainbow flag in current year, no longer has such a specific purpose and thus is rudderless and even harmful.
The original goal was about gay marriage and gay and lesbian recognition. A significant portion of the population have these orientations, and the broad public didn’t realize how widespread it was. Furthermore, the winning strategy in the gay marriage fight was fighting an abstract opposition to homosexuality with real-people stories. If you became aware of someone you personally knew being gay, you were much more likely to listen to the “love is love” stuff and be sympathetic, as these people were in many cases supremely “normal”. Pride flags then had a legitimate case for visibility leading directly to opinion change.
This is no longer the case. The forefront of the LGBTQIA++ movement resides primarily in a small population segment, a very tiny one. Awareness campaigns are this no longer productive, because if only 1-2% (being generous) of the population fits in the TQIA++ category, compared to say 15% in the LGB category, you no longer have the same benefits of “oh I know someone personally like that”. Thus the presence and prominence of the flag serves no practical purpose.
Well, no.
It's pretty much always been 3-5%. The recent uptick has been because people get social status for calling themselves bi while never, ever actually engaging in bisexual behavior.
But the propaganda has worked
And this is exactly why the PMC is so insidious - it takes its preferred hyperminority positions, signal amplifies them to the moon, and then targets as immoral "literal hitlers!" anyone who doesn't pledge histrionic fealty to the issue.
Don't forget questioning and queer as allowing weirdos with innocent fetishes to be considered members instead of allies.
Sapiosexuals and demisexuals and aromantics all consider themselves within the LGBT+ umbrella, so they get easy entry.
The lack of internal accountability means sexual abuses in the community that are happening face disincentives to report out of concerns that the community will be discredited means the abused just retreat instead of holding the abusers accountable.
The most obvious are trannies preying on children, especially girls. Most of the community is pretty ugly so perverts focus their attention on young girls seeking an identity, and since these girls don't speak up, the ++ continue unrestricted. I have unfortunately observed a steady supply of young boys eager to pimp themselves out for rich sugar daddies flush with money and drugs, and none of my male friends who were active on grindr as teens show any regrets in their adult life.
With the lack of whistleblowers and a nebulous definition of the community, the entire circus is likely to continue growing, even if public disapproval from rebellious teens grows.
AFAIK, this was common among gay men back in the days when it was illegal. John Maynard Keynes, for example, had a thing for very young men/older boys. I think the hope was that this would go away if homosexuality was normalised.
What was the mechanism to accomplish this?
It's like hoping for less crime if we stop arresting and prosecuting criminals.
I think the idea was that pederastic men REALLY wanted to have egalitarian relationships with men their own age, but couldn't under the conditions prior to legalisation, and would switch if these egalitarian relationships were possible.
I guess some have, sort of. Pairs of pederastic and pedophilic men can now abuse their victims together. Sometimes they even adopt their victims.
Asserting that homosexuals = pedophiles really requires evidence, not just asserting it because you really super believe it.
On the one hand, it's been months since your last ban. On the other hand, you now have a lot of warnings and bans stacked up and you've already been told that you're running out of warnings, and low effort shitting like this is pretty much all you do.
I'm giving you a 3-day ban and telling you knock it off with the naked culture warring.
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