More than any other person or event, Anita Bryant and her 1977 "Save the Children!" campaign against gay rights symbolized the transition from gay liberation to LGBTQ+ assimilationism, a process that involved abandoning youthlovers and youth sexual liberation.
In response to Bryant's homophobic activism, the gay movement booted us out and agreed to keep its hands off kids. This path of compromise and betrayal led, eventually, to the great "victory" of gay marriage. (Gay liberation, in solidarity with radical 1970s feminism, opposed marriage as the oppressive institution it is.)
Now that compromise is being called into question by the "T" part of the Rainbow Alliance. Trans people really have no choice but to renounce the deal under which agency in matters of sexuality is postponed until age 18 (or some other arbitrary age of legal majority). It leaves many trans adults coping with intrusive and often ineffective measures of undoing the drastic physical changes puberty brings if they wish to live and be accepted in a social environment of intense anxiety over, and repression and stigmatization of, gender ambiguity. These changes can be prevented, but only by interventions at or before the onset of puberty.
For trans adults to abide by the "hands off our kids" agreement struck in the 1980s to placate Bryant and her homophobic hordes would be to re-enact once again the LGBTQ+ abandonment of youth two generations ago. It's entirely to the credit of the trans movement that it is unwilling to do this.
Bryant's death could not come at a better time. "Save the Children" means today what it has always meant: save kids from sexuality.
The blocker bans pose starkly the exact same issue that the gay movement failed to fight 45 years ago: youth sexual agency.
Defeat youth safetyism! Defeat the blocker bans! Boys decide!
hugzu ;-p
| Thesis | Antithesis | Synthesis | Norm | Adjacency | | Sex is good | Rape culture | Feminism | Gender | Sex workers | | Boys decide | Grooming | Youth liberation | Age | Transboys/Tomboys | | No sex police | The nanny state | Anarchism | Identity | RSOs/SVPs |
Click on the table for a larger version and brief explanation
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