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Last week, right-wing gadfly David Cole wrote a banger exploring the parallels between the childhood transgender craze and the “childhood sexual abuse”/“ritual satanic abuse” panics of the 1970s and 80s. Cole points out the irony of the “say groomer” obsession on the right, and the larger moral panic in right-wing spaces about how the “trans kids” phenomenon is primarily about “sexualizing children”, given that the first wave of moral panic about the molestation of children was driven primarily by leftist women, which is the same demographic now primarily driving the movement that is in turn being accused of molesting children. I think Cole makes a very convincing case that the “groomer” thing is a red herring, a distraction which has blown up into a full-blown purity-spiraling moral panic in the hothouse ecosystem of the Extremely Online right. If you think that the people teaching kids that they’re trans are primarily doing so because they’re interested in molesting kids, why are they so overwhelmingly women?
His observations ring true for me; from the constant sharing of the Auron MacIntyre sign-tapping meme and the Sam Hyde quote, to Pizzagate and the obsession with Epstein, the right wing is proving that it’s every bit as susceptible to purity spirals and moral panics as the left wing. And as Cole points out, it’s especially odd because the “groomer” panic on the right is itself a response to the “trans kids will all kill themselves unless we affirm them” panic on the left. The “groomer” panic also features the same obnoxious and cancerous motte-and-bailey strategic-equivocation tactics that rat-adjacent rightists despise so much when it’s used against them; figures like James Lindsay, Rod Dreher, and even Marjorie Taylor Greene, are all involved in a linguistic shell game, wherein they use a word which they know for a fact is supposed to refer to grooming children for direct sexual abuse, and when pressed they retreat into “well, they’re saying that children have a sexual identity, which is kind of like sexualizing them, which is the same thing that child molesters do.”
There are certain topics that I won’t publicly touch even in a space like this; I’ve thought about one day trying my hand at starting a Substack and joining the right-wing online commentary/content-creation ecosystem, and there are certain subjects where I fear that if I deviate too much from the party line, I will be cast out into the outer depths before I even begin. The whole issue of child sexuality, how it relates to teen sexuality, whether or not queer theorists want to rape kids, etc., seems like the most high-voltage of any of those third rails. Being seen as an apologist for child molestation is a hell of an accusation to face, no matter how specious and lacking in credibility, and it’s nice to see a writer with some level of clout in right-wing commentary stick his neck out there and identify this moral panic for what it is.
I’m even hesitant to offer too much more of my own larger commentary on the issue, but I wanted to put this piece out there for commentary, particularly for those who do take the “groomer” thing more seriously than I do.
I think cutting off a child's sexual organs meets a very clear and universal definition of "sexual abuse". And saying the 12 year old consented to the sexual harm would be considered pedophilic and evil in any other circumstance.
I cannot express how NOT euphamistic and how NOT a motte and bailey the accusation of grooming is. Right wingers do not believe "gender affirming care" is anything but butchery, that any transition social or biological is irreparably destroying a child's mental health and at the point of medical transition, their bodies as well.
These are not metaphors, these are not euphemisms, this is literally what the right believes is happening and they have THOUSANDS of weeping detransitioned boys and girls who no longer have sexual organs because some doctor hacked them off that they can point to.
Do they think the muchhausen by proxy mothers pushing their kids to be trans are motivated by peadophilia... probably not, but the actual damage is so SO much worse. If I had a daughter I'd wish she'd be simply molested by a teacher instead of groomed into the trans ideology. I wish a son of mine might merely be sodomized by a creep, instead of chemically castrated by a doctor.
I'm honestly shocked, and believe its almost certainly an indictment of the American right, that there haven't been terrorist attacks on gender clinics and assassination attempts against transition doctors.
According to ny basic assessment of what's going on from a non-progressive lens They are sexually butchering children. And teachers and progressive activists are actively grooming them to be sexually butchered.
This is what we're talking about. this is what the American right believes. And the boomercons are so poisoned by "tolerance" they're actually letting it happen.
Equivocation. Sexual abuse for my entire life has refered to using children for the sexual gratification, not just "abuse that involves primary sexual characteristics". Why not call it "child abuse" or "child disfigurement" except to free ride on the negative associations of the term? Same with "grooming".
That would only build political capital for the other side. Regardless, if the only correct response to the government/society doing something horrible were a terrorist attack, no decent man would yet survive. Be nice until you can coordinate meanness.
And people here believe AI apocalypse is three years away. Why aren't they bombing Nvidia factories and sabotaging electrical converters?
I've been saying for 10 years that that was what Yudkowsky should have been doing if he actually believed the AI stuff, that or smuggling coke and heroin so as to fund his future Turing death squads.
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