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Notes -
#”We’re coming for your children.”
The LGBTQ+ movement kicked out NAMBLA, genuine pederasts, in the 80’s in order to get sodomy laws aimed at consenting adults off the books. The American anti-pedophilia majority took a generation to accept this disavowal at face value.
The Pizzagate section of the Q or QAnon movement revived the bailey that gay people generally want to rape children to cultural relevance, and did so around the time the trans rights movement was pushing acceptance of transition. The motte version is that the gay community reproduces through social memetic contagion since they won’t reproduce sexually. One potent variation is the ironic and practically self-parodying “trans genocide” meme
The drag queen story hour program made the idea scarily realistic even to parents who didn’t subscribe to any of that conspiracy theory nonsense. And now there’s a new twist.
As chronicled by NBC News:
In the 21-second clip, circulated by a right-wing web streamer channel, dozens of people march in the streets and are clearly heard chanting, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going shopping.” But one voice that is louder than the crowd — it’s not clear whose, or whether the speaker was a member of the LGBTQ community — is heard saying at least twice, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children.”
To conservative pundits, activists and lawmakers, the video confirmed the allegations they’ve levied in recent years that the LGBTQ community is “grooming” children.
But to Brian Griffin, the original organizer of the NYC Drag March, if that’s the worst they heard, it’s only because he wasn’t there this year.
Griffin said he chanted obscene things in the past, like “Kill, kill, kill, we’re coming to kill the mayor,” and joked about pubic hair and sex toys during marches. People at the Drag March regularly sing “God is a lesbian.”
“It’s all just words,” Griffin said. “It’s all presented to fulfill their worst stereotypes of us.”
The “coming for your children” chant has been used for years at Pride events, according to longtime march attendees and gay rights activists, who said it’s one of many provocative expressions used to regain control of slurs against LGBTQ people. And in this case, they said, right-wing activists are jumping on a single video to weaponize an out-of-context remark to further stigmatize the queer community.
Conservative politicians and pundits have increasingly referred to advocates for LGBTQ rights as “groomers,” associating people who oppose laws that restrict drag performances or classroom discussions of gender identity with pedophiles. The charge is an echo of a decades-old trope anti-gay activists have used to paint the community as a threat to the country’s youths, an allegation that some advocates say endangers LGBTQ people. And the intense reaction to the video has scared some attendees, who insist the quip has been taken out of context.
“It’s really scary to us,” said Fussy Lo Mein, a drag performer and activist who was at this year’s march and declined to give their real name because of safety concerns. “It doesn’t represent everybody — it represents that individual. I thought it was a dumb idea, and I started chanting on top of it with alternate verses.”
This seems to be equivalent to the Charlottesville “White Rights” event where “Jews will not replace us” was supposedly chanted. The outgroup only hears “WE ARE A THREAT TO EVERYONE YOU LOVE AND EVERYTHING YOU HOLD SACRED,” while the ingroup appreciates the nuance and gets a bit freaked out at the outgroup seeing only the surface level interpretation.
The grooming accusations feel like a motte and baily to me, where the motte is "Trans people want their culture to be normal enough that people aren't worried about their kids seeing a trans person and considering being trans too, the same way they might see a firefighter and decide they want to be one." and the baily is "gay people are doing all these things because they want to rape our children."
There's also the facet where- forget the baily- people actually are afraid of the thing I just described as the motte as well. But when the "groomer" rhetoric is used, it often still seems like an exaggeration and catastrophisation of this fear into the "gay people are doing all these things because they want to rape our children" implication.
I do like how people here on TheMotte will actually come out and say it when what they care about is that they don't think queer culture should be normalized and explain their reasons. I wish the greater culture war would focus more on object level concerns.
At least for me, it's on a bit of a different vector. My concern is activists who want people, including kids, to be self-critical of their identity characteristics in a social, cultural and political fashion. Everything else comes after this point. It's the symptoms of that original cause.
Self-deconstruction is inherently very unhealthy. It's not something that should be encouraged in any way, shape or form. Yes, I'm talking from personal experience about this. And yes, I do think it makes kids vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
Would you mind expanding on this with examples of what you mean, especially any examples outside of trans stuff?
I think you're getting at something interesting here but I'm not fully understanding it.
I actually do think it manifests in a lot of ways, especially in a gender fashion, although it also pops up from time to time in regards to race. For example, encouraging men to not speak up and to let women speak, because historically women don't get a chance to speak. Or the whole diAngelo approach to race relations.
What makes this hard, is that I don't think that most people actually internalize/actualize these ideas in this way of course...especially advocates for these ideas. They really don't self-deconstruct, and this is why this isn't a recognized danger. However, I do think there are some people who are vulnerable to these messages. And I do believe this is one of the big reasons why we see links between autism and a desire to transition...they're people who are more likely to internalize these messages and self-deconstruct. And again, there's no shade being thrown here on this. I'm one of those people.
My take on a lot of the culture wars, especially when it comes to kids, is that Progressive ideas need "guardrails" to prevent vulnerable internalizers from taking these messages too seriously and personally. As well, they need help after the fact in being "deprogrammed" from these messages. The problem is again that this isn't a recognized problem, so there's very little ability to get effective help out there.
Personally, to be blunt, I don't think there's much interest in actually putting up said guardrails. Which is why I think kids shouldn't be exposed to this stuff. But I'd be OK with these ideas put forward alongside alternatives if those guardrails were there. (The truth is, the alternatives themselves might be effective guardrails on their own).
As a side note, to maybe throw some fuel on this fire, much of this I believe goes for the whole Incel thing as well. People argue about how to fix that problem, and a lot of it is deprogramming the anti-male/anti-masculine rhetoric that's been common for a few decades now.
Thank you for elaborating!
Yes, absolutely. On the more serious side, this brings to mind Scott Aaronson's comment quoted in Untitled, on the less serious side of this David Mitchell bit.
Unfortunately I believe you're right. To the extent the trade off is even acknowledged (and it is generally treated as though it does not exist), it is acknowledged as being worthwhile.
Yup. Like I said, I really do think, especially in the Aaronson case, we're talking about very much maladaptive socialization.
My experience is always being blamed for taking this shit too seriously. Just to make it clear. The response is something more like you're just messed up, go get therapy. (Even though there's a good chance the therapy is going to reinforce these ideas)
I think the problem is a desire to maintain Kayfabe, the idea is one side is good, and the other side is bad. I do think this is almost a necessary function of a power-based political movement, be it left right or center. You simply can't acknowledge costs and trade-offs, or find ways to mitigate them. So what happens is that the costs are simply excised as much as possible to whatever out-group you have.
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