Thread by @ZJemptv

"In the gay rights movement, there had always been an unspoken golden rule: Leave children out of it."

Uh, we never agreed to that. Queer and trans kids are the LGBTQ community's children, much more than they belong to their assigned families, given how those families treat them

https://twitter.com/MaudMaron/status/1938299108101345614

Queer and trans adults come from somewhere: queer and trans kids. Treat them well or you don't get to keep them as part of your family

"You can bring up your children however you like, we promised. We will leave you alone. We will leave your children alone."

"you"? "your children"? As if children are just a ciis heterosexual thing?

The fact that queer and trans kids already exist makes it inherent that the LGBTQ community is not leaving "their children" "alone". It shows that this idea of being left "alone", as a presumed ciis heterosexual, was a false assumption. And it shows these are not "their children"

Why would I ever accept Sullivan's framing that "children" as a broadly construed concept are something that ciisgender heterosexuals get to claim sole proprietorship of, and the LGBTQ community doesn't get to have anything to do with this? Unreal nonsense

"We knew very well that any overreach there could provoke the most ancient blood libel against us: that we groom and abuse kids."

When recognizing and supporting LGBTQ kids is slurred as "grooming", we still have to recognize and support LGBTQ kids

"Grooming" only recently became overloaded with its blood libel meaning against queer and trans people, an accusation that our open support for LGBTQ kids is somehow just inherently bad. You can groom people as your successors. You can groom people for style or personal care.

They're accusing us of supporting trans kids, for supporting trans kids

They're accusing us of grooming, for grooming our successors to have better lives than we had

So accusing us of "grooming" is just a way of saying LGBTQ kids shouldn't be supported, and the LGBTQ community shouldn't support them

If Andrew Sullivan, the New York Times, or every other paper, government, and human being on earth blood libels us as "grooming" for recognizing and supporting queer and trans kids, it would still be the right thing to do. Nothing would get me to abandon them

The more they call us groomers, the more meaningless it becomes, especially when they insist on isolating "their" children from any hint of possibility that they might be like the grooming, abusive LGBTQ community. The truth is they've been doing the grooming this whole time

You think you're protecting "your" children from the "groomers", who you think are us

We're actually protecting our children, the emerging LGBTQ community, from the real groomers - you.

"the most ancient blood libel against us: that we groom and abuse kids."

Forcing children to be heterosexual and ciisgender is abuse. Conditioning them to believe that's the only reality, and sexual orientation and gender identity pop into existence at 18, is abuse.

Any ciis gay man like Andrew Sullivan, who pretends he was issued his sexuality on his 18th birthday along with his voter registration and a credit application, is brazenly lying to all of you. The fact is that ciis people and heterosexuals are the most ancient abusers of all.

So his little maneuver of "we can't support queer and trans kids or the ciishets will blood libel us" is not convincing, persuasive, or moral

Even if he was completely right about that, and completely right about what would happen, he would be completely wrong about the course of action it would justify. He's a coward who's unwilling to stand up to bigots and stand up for vulnerable LGBTQ youth.

He's unwilling to articulate his own principles, advocate for them to others, or change these people's minds. All he represents is blithe acceptance of their framing and defamatory accusations. We shouldn't be accused of this in the first place. The people accusing us are wrong.

The fact that they're accusing us of grooming isn't going to make us stop supporting queer and trans kids in every respect, because it's the right thing to do. If you don't understand that, how are you prepared to advocate or recommend any course of action?

He doesn't stand for anything but capitulation.

The fact is Andrew Sullivan is one imploded self-hating man against an entire tsunami generation of trans kids who were supported ("groomed", as he says) in who they are, who grew into trans adults, and who are now openly supporting ("grooming") the next generation of trans kids

He's never even experienced what it's like to be trans, be a trans kid, not have support, try to find support, grow up as a trans kid trying to figure this out, or what it's like to be a trans adult and try to help people in your community not have to go through that experience

"Almost all of the gay men, trans people and lesbians who have confided in me that they don’t agree with this, or think that J.K. Rowling or Martina Navratilova have some good points, have said so sotto voce lest anyone overhear."

Her point was mobs attacking us in a bathroom

Were those the good points that "almost all the gay men, trans people and lesbians who have confided in me" endorsed, Andrew? Are the good points in the room with us right now?

"That’s the extremely intolerant and illiberal atmosphere that now exists in the gay, lesbian and transgender space."

Yes, trans women could use women's restrooms before, and now there are irregular mobs of men waiting to beat them because of a beloved children's author

"This little community used to champion all manner of expression or argument or speech, eccentrics and visionaries. Now it’s fearful, self-censored and extremely uptight."

Who declared the eccentrics and visionaries unwelcome from our own public spaces?

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1936542508688842878

There's no compatibility in Sullivan's arguments of "my gay and trans friends secretly agree with J.K. Rowling" and "this is about 'leaving children alone'". J.K. Rowling is a ciis straight woman who can't even leave trans adults alone.

What else do Andrew Sullivan's secret band of Martina Navratilova-endorsing gay and trans friends agree with?

Slurring furries and trans people as promoting bestiality, then lying to the BBC and saying "There should be no ostracism, there should be no bullying":

The fact is the New York Times allowed Andrew Sullivan to promote some of the most vulgar accounts that regularly post open calls for violence against trans people as well as obvious slurs and personal attacks.

And the fact that those accounts are J.K. Rowling and Martina Navratilova doesn't really change anything other than making it much worse

It's a glaring inconsistency to suggest that children can't consent to having a gender, but LGBTQ children can somehow consent to being abandoned by adults to ignorance, misinformation, and a narrowed aperture of reality that omits their entire existence

See also: "this is not propaganda unless you look at it through the lens of homophobia, and unless you think that the mere depiction of gay people as being acceptable is noxious and something you must protect children against." slate.com/news-and-polit…