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And I might even have believed that, were it not for things like the Kermit Gosnell case, and now the whole "Drag Story Hours" rubbish. Are trans people disproportionately represented in modern drag is a theoretical discussion I have no idea about. But taking primary school children to drag shows for some nebulous notion of "allyship" or even worse is stupid. If anyone suggested "let's bring kids to strip clubs because sex work is real work" then they'd be pilloried. "Let's bring kids along to a club with signs like this in the background, but oh no it's nothing sexually-tinged at all, how dare you say that you bigot" is the new orthodoxy.
And then we get stupid, stupid clashes like antifa versus Proud Boys because both sides want an excuse for a rumble, and some UU church was dumb enough to provide them with one.
So "the left just wants trans people to be left alone" is not going to wash anymore.
Don't give anyone ideas.
If I left this comment at that, I'd have to mod myself for low effort, so to expand on this: among the things that have nudged me further into sympathy, if not allyship, with the right, is the speed at which drag shows - which have always been explicitly sexual events, the whole point is for men who like to dress as women and act slutty to parody and exaggerate female sexuality - have been relabeled as "family-friendly" events that are intended to show children the beautiful rainbow of diverse gender expressions. Like, no, everyone knew until a minute ago that a drag show was meant as adult entertainment. The fact that a child too young to know much about sexuality or "gender expression" just sees a man dressed as a lady clown doesn't mean it's children's entertainment.
And I'm not even addressing the sexuality of drag show participants, because it doesn't matter if all or most of them are gay or trans or just straight men who like dressing as women or whatever. Their costumes, their dances, their displays, are very obviously sexualized. I would have qualms but not severe apprehension about a drag queen just going into a library and reading books to children who only see a pretty clown, but apparently sometimes they do the routines too. This really pushes it over the edge for me: I definitely do not think most drag queens are groomers, but I do suspect some groomers are drag queens.
Right now, if you suggested taking children to a strip club to show them that sex work is real work, yeah, you'd get pilloried. But if I were, say, the leftist accelerationist groomer out of right-wing nightmares who actually wanted to achieve that, I do not have a hard time imagining a campaign to first introduce strippers and the concept of sex work as legitimate and worthy of respect, and then some strip club putting together a very cleaned-up version of a strip show (no actual exposure of R-rated parts) for kids, who just see a pretty lady dancing in swimwear, and that being pushed as a family-friendly event. (I mean, pole-dancing is now marketed as a kind of aerobic exercise and you can buy pole-dancing kits for children, ffs.)
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