#Grooming Kids To Be Queer

[msclaritea]

[infizero-draws]

til death do we part

[b-rainlet]

You know you're close to losing it when you start thinking about the potential queer reading of Shades of Grey

[florenceisfalling]

aside from the common note that the people who say "this internet discourse doesnt matter to me because im a real adult with a job who touches grass" typically are people who are chronically online and just in denial about it, the whole sentiment is fucking stupid regardless. the internet, especially now, is very much a part of real life. there is no total switch of traits between online and offline behavior. do you people think that the 13 year olds who consider it a moral good to tell twitter users shit like "you deserved to be raped" just act perfectly normal and well-adjusted as soon as they turn off their phones? do you think the adults are any better? you don't have to have a stake in every race, arguing and caring all the time is exhausting and it's not like we would agree on everything anyway. but the bare minimum is to not pretend it doesn't matter to anyone at all just because it's not your problem specifically. all the silly little words on your screen are being typed by an actual human being and they have to see it when you deny the existence of things that they have experienced repeatedly and in a very tangible way. some of you forget that regardless of how silly a subject matter is, people joining together because they are passionate about it is going to lead to real, actual tension and feelings and occasionally danger. it doesn't just "spill over" into the real world, it is a large part of the real world. you have to stop acting like distant, detached neutrality/denial on every subject is the most "normal" opinion possible, much less the most appropriate, reasonable or mature

[sweetbirdofparadox]

rant in tags

[b4st4rd-420]

seeing all this stupid right wing propaganda claiming that queer people are groomers makes me angry for all the obvious reasons but also because i am a queer person myself who got groomed. i was not used to adults giving me positive attention and being neutral/supportive of my identity. it felt good. but i wish i never trusted those people and i'm sad that i didn't get the support i needed from home and ended up in a dangerous situation.

no one who makes these claims about queer people actually cares about children. especially ones like me and other queer teens who would very much need the protection of being accepted and supported by adults around us. with that you don't feel like you need positive attention bad enough for you to go and get it from shady adults (with potentially very bad intentions).

[flower-zombie-rob]

God i almost forgot why i hate tiktok so much

[vanyafresita]

actually, you know what ? im glad my ex gf ghosted me, i dodged a bullet it seems

[shibbledibble22]

I'll never understand calling queer people groomers like most of us weren't aware we were queer since we ourselves were queer

Like I started secretly deep diving into gay content in 3rd grade with only the help of deviantart sonadow fanart and sasunaru fanfics like hello

[heathenkweer]

also I had a woman ask me if we still sold purity rings...........

[littlebirdy0301]

(cw grooming mention) TELL ME WHY IM JUST SITTING IN MY ROOM CHILLIN, REMINDED OF MEMORIES FROM EALRY HIGHSCHOOL AND ALL THE SUDDEN HIT LIKE A FUCKING TRUCK THAT I GOT GROOMED AT 14/15

[moonlightsapphic]

Releasing Nimona on the last day of pride month 2023 was such a great move because it’s a really needed piece of media right now. Lots of countries that legalised gay marriage years ago have been grappling with this rising TERF narrative of “if you’re gay it’s whatever but if you’re trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming in some way you’re a PERVERT! A MONSTER trying to GROOM CHILDREN!” The outrage against simple things like pronouns and drag events, and the movement against gender affirming healthcare have reached a terrifying peaks for contemporary times.

So a kid’s movie set in a fictional country with controlling government officials with personal agendas, with an openly gay couple but also a shape-shifting kid who cannot even be afford to be out is our reality in the US today. Nimona’s feelings about her vibe, body and form, her insistence that she is only “Nimona” no matter what she looks like and her aversion to “small-minded questions” together forms such a beautiful allegory about trans, genderfluid individuals.

Ballister asks her to be a girl, but for whose sake? It’s only for the comfort of people who refuse to understand her, and would rather see her die than let her be herself. And it’s this widespread rejection and loneliness that has eventually made Nimona indifferent to pain, that makes her feel suicidal.

In the end, it is another member of the LGBTQ+ community that truly sees and accepts Nimona for who she is. And that should be a reminder that we cannot let them divide us. Trans people stood up for the rest of us and made historical change happen, and we need to do the same for them. Besides, cis queer people are only the “good ones” until they’re done with trans people and then will turn on us.

[yikez]

i think I like my Dutch teacher because he's like a decent human being?? wow, i have low standards. but he's so cool. omg he's like so so so cool. like extremely cool. think of stoner childfree uncle vibes. it's him.

[coolgamingfacts]

Resisting the urge to kung pow penis everytime I see this bullshit because even this isn't fun anymore I just want it to stop

Friendly reminder that this is why we don't refer to people as their agab because 1. it is not who they are but what happened to them 2. Those fuckers use it

[alternautxyz]

you lgbtq+ people are so powerful you make bigots scream in terror just by existing you’re all so cool 

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's so frustrating is how often the arguments against us are actually happening to us. we said - you need to watch out, this will evolve into allowing fascism into legal statute. and we were told: you're a sensitive snowflake. you're annoying and stupid and have no concept of reality. nobody really believes that stuff.

but it's indoctrination for kids to even see queer people. it's grooming for kids to even be around queer people. it's disgusting to even put rainbows on kids clothes. it's inappropriate, shameful, still-an-argument. like any of this is new - we know already. for you, even seeing someone unashamed is the same thing as "forcing" it onto you. because god-forbid you confront any internal thought you have. because god-forbid you practice empathy. rage is better, i guess. it keeps you pretty.

this has always been the way of some people - a while ago, it would have been "sinful" for my white mom to marry my hispanic dad. once, in the year of our lord 2015, someone told me that "mutts" deserve a woodchipper. that one particular insult stayed with me - not because it was the first or last, but because there was something so unbelievably violent about it that i couldn't figure out how to hold it. the idea that someone is so assured of their bigotry and rage that they would paint this kind of a picture. even jokingly, even with the anonymity of the internet, it kind of centered things for me. a sense that, for some people, their rage burned so unimaginably large that it blocked even the basic fact of my humanity.

at one point, while i still had enough fire in me to get into long arguments, one of the bigots i was "debating" (being harassed by) said: to be honest, it's about the sex, not the love. between you, me, and the four walls of this blue hellsite, i actually didn't really care for "love is love" as the slogan of our community. it seemed so placid, so gentle, so ally-focused. where was the vitriol? where was the hours i spent agonizing over myself? where was the quiet moments of my life, filled with the sound of other people's hatred? this static that settles over everything; even for the action of holding her hand.

the world is unfair. i am an adult, and without the veneer and small-pond syndrome of my teenage years, the slogan has started sounding more desperate. the more places i went, the more people i met. love is love. love is defending him on a rooftop bar. the drink she throws at me goes down into my shoes while i stand there, wishing i had a better retort than what the fuck. love is both of us, keeping our heads down, the black SUV full of frat boys (?) pulled up next to us, howling, for five whole blocks, until we both gave up and had to stick our bare legs into the thicket by the side of the road, giving over into tick country rather than let it go on any longer. love is a lazy spring afternoon, my hand on her belly, the fan spinning overhead. did you hear the whole thing about target?

did you hear about being the target? that's a fun little parallel, isn't it. it almost feels like the game that-is-about-me is being played without-my-participation. someone wants to set fire to my life, and i have to wait for a response from a capitalist institution. i am watching a tiktok where a white woman under white lights complains about adult swimsuits, even though i think a lot of people would benefit from having swimming options that are not "instagram-inspired bikini" or "impossible to move in but otherwise pretty".

sometimes it just seems so fucking stupid. like, just to check, the rage you feel and the hatred - you could really just avoid all of that by minding your fucking business. sometimes (and this is true): it's not about you, and people don't need your permission. like, i don't understand any obsession with sports, but it seems to make other people happy. american football literally results in grievous bodily injury - and yet there are onesies for babies that say future quarterback. i personally don't love it, so i just don't buy that stuff. i walk by it, and don't let it bother me. there have been so, so, so many times that i was told - "so what if he's a little bit homophobic, if you don't like him, don't watch his movies." "so what if they fired her. don't buy their product." "so what if they wouldn't make a rainbow cake. just don't support them."

sometimes i feel the meaning of it scud against my body, an orca whale inside of me, threatening the boat. it is too large to see from my place; this shadow of a thing that dwarfs my petty other-concerns. i need to find a dress for an event, and florida is passing more anti-gay legislation. i need to text my friend back and confirm our plans, and someone is throwing beer bottles to the floor in a walmart because a different case had rainbows on them. it is a long fall, if i look down into it; this sense like the bottom doesn't exist. like i have only ever dipped my toes in.

sometimes i am unbelievably tired of talking about it. it feels like it has become too trite in my own poetry - queer writer complains about the state of the world! how original! - and then something else happens, and i am here again. i remember that it isn't a moment. i remember it isn't a scattered population of cartoon evil-doers, intent on world domination from behind handlebar mustaches. it is a concerted effort of real people with real power who really-do want to see my end. it is a lifetime of dodging the beercan as it sails out of the back of the van. it is a lifetime of not-kissing once we leave the apartment. it is a lifetime of watching someone protest our existence and then, very slowly, giving them the finger. it is a lifetime of holding my friends' hands and hearing the same agony in their life that i lived through. it is us, together, our faces turned upwards, the night sky so vast, milky way overhead like a lacework zipper.

it is a lifetime of staring down woodchippers.