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Homophobic, Transphobic and Creepy!
The suggestion that conversations about LGBTQ+topics are “adult” is hypocritical in the extreme, and betrays a deep ignorance of contemporary culture.
Content warning: contains discussion of “adult” themes in explicit language.
Yesterday I wrote about (aka eviscerated!) the crude premise that children should be protected from all awareness of LGBTQ, and to highlight the harm done by such presumption. I was pleased — delighted, even, in a bitter-sweet way — by how many responded with tales of lives blighted by lack of information: how glad they were that young people no longer faced such enforced ignorance.
But there was a second strand: the assumption that LGBTQ is a thing only adults can or should know about. Inevitably, you’ll link this to THAT tweet and the individual that kicked this off. That, though, would be wrong. Because as attitude, it is far from unique: is, rather, pretty commonplace amongst a certain set of social commentators.
“A twelve-year-old is a child”, they claim: allowing them to know they might be LGBTQ+ makes them adult. This is not the own they think it. Rather, it is homophobic, transphobic and creepy as hell. Hypocritical, too. Along the way it displays such ignorance of common…
