Thread by @LaraAdamsMille1

I’ve been thinking all day about the gay man, now deceased, who stood up to oppose drag queen story hr.

It’s so important for LGB voices to be heard rn. It’s important people know we do NOT want children exposed to inappropriate influences.

#NotInMyName
#DragQueensAreNotForKids

If I was going to create a sweeping backlash to decimate the hard-won rights of lesbians & gays, this is how I’d do it, by pushing for wild excess, fulfilling the worst fears of the religious right.

FFS, leave the kids alone. For the kids’ sake, for the LGBs’ sake, just stop.

Half the time, when a moderate or semi-conservative friend says they support gay rights, they awkwardly add, “As long as you’re not recruiting!” Their support reasonably ends at the point where they feel their own lifestyle rights, & those of their family, are being threatened.

We can fight for reasonable liberties and protections, and we should. The lovely part is that the majority of people in western democracies don’t much care what consenting adults do if it doesn’t involve them.

This is good. This makes constraining us not worth the trouble.

Do you know what happens when you go for the kids? When “education” about gender & sexuality extends into libraries, schools, pediatricians’ offices?

You make the fight worth the trouble. You turn millions of disapprovers into active enemies.

This is a BAD idea.

I don’t agree with using drag queens to entertain kids, or with indoctrinating children about gender, or bringing lessons about sexuality into kids’ spaces. But even if I thought those were desirable developments, I’d still think they were strategically idiotic.

This is what happens when power and money run a movement. They get greedy and run a dominance-based campaign. They can’t imagine a future in which they don’t have the power to overwhelm all objections.

I know that future exists, because it’s also our past.

The pendulum does swing, & it’s natural to try to make all the changes you can while you have the power to do so, when it swings in your favor. But you HAVE to respect the rights of others, & you have to bother w PERSUASION rather than relying on peer pressure & social coercion.

Right now, the genderists are squandering the favor LGBT has built for decades. They’re taking people from “Well, that’s not what I call marriage, but what can you do?” to “These people will not interfere with MY children.” And I get it. I really do.

Wilson Gavin was a conservative gay man, and I would guess that he and I disagreed about many things. But we agreed that drag is adult entertainment, and we agreed on the necessity of LGB standing up against the overreach of a movement that ostensibly represents us.

I can’t imagine the abuse Gavin received after that video spread, and I’m certain Gavin himself wasn’t prepared for it. But he died doing what he believed was right. He was courageous. He stood up for us. We should remember that.

Go with peace and pride, brother.

#WilsonGavin