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The biggest problem with the Trans specific community is that there's a lot of hesitation from within and surrounding allies to call out the crazy stuff that's being pushed. Most people are okay, for example, with queer books being in schools. Most people are not okay with pornography in certain books. Can't we push queer books that talk about age-appropriate sexuality without pictures of people giving blow jobs to strap-ons? My mom would have had a fit if she found anything like that between straight couples in my school library.
So, it comes out that some books contain this explicit material, and instead of the queer activists/supporters saying: "Alright, yeah, this material shouldn't be here. How about replacing them with these queer books that don't contain explicit material?" They said: "fuck you, there's nothing wrong with this, you're just a bigoted transphobe."
That's where we're losing a lot of support. Because most people draw a line at explicit material for those underage. If they physically see that it's there, and advocates are shouting that it's not there (and if it is there, that it's a good thing anyway 🙄) then rational supporters are going to take a big step back and say "whoa, that's going too far." And you're going to get some who say: "yeah, let's take it all out, at least until we can be sure the explicit stuff is gone." The tactic of denying that the explicit stuff exists in the face of reality does not work. It causes people to pull away instead of supporting the overall goal.
What pornographic books with strapons are you talking about
Yeah, I'd like specific examples, this sounds like a strawman.
Gender Queer has over 200 pages, and in it there is this one scene on one page. According to https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/gender-queer-book-in-elementary-schools/ it was never recommended for kids. Maybe it was in some school libraries in the 16+ section or whatever, which can be argued how age appropriate that is, but pragmatically, at that age they've probably seen way worse.
It's no wonder that people are called bigots over this if their approach is totally in bad faith; they don't want a constructive discussion, it's just performative outrage and virtue signalling.
The books aren't pornographic in their whole, but they have pornographic material in them. The two that have gotten major publicity are:
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Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Where the described strap-on blowing scene is from. It also has explicit sexting scenes where a character describes how hot certain sexual acts would be. I have no problem with coming-of-age stories for queer people, and I have no problem with books with this kind of material being in public libraries. For high schools, you want to talk about/show queer people kissing? Cool. Want them to talk about having sex in general? Cool. But those explicit scenes should probably not be in school libraries. Keep them to general community libraries and let parents decide what's appropriate to read beyond what's school-appropriate.
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Trans Bodies, Trans Selves by Laura Erickson Schroth. While again, I think a lot of good can come from seeing pictures of normal, naked bodies not in a state of arousal, the book goes beyond that in sections, discussing ways in which to search for trans porn, or to make trans porn youself.
“The use of feminist, queer, and sex positive broadens the search for trans women/femmes, trans lesbians, trans fags, gender fuckers, and all trans no/op, pre-op, and post-op folks.”
“If you find a porn star you really like, hit them up on Twitter or another platform and ask them what they would recommend.”
“It may surprise you how little people talk about porn or respond to your work face to face,” wrote another contributor, “but if you make something wonderful you could change someone’s life.”
“Just start filming and get comfortable around the camera,” another contributor wrote.
And listen, I have no issues with porn. Most of us find it online when we're young anyway. But that doesnt mean it should be offered how to navigate it, or how to start doing it yourself in school, even in high schools. Most people, including most people in the LBGT+ communities agree that there's a line to draw here. Leave it up to individual parents to decide how to manage what their kids come into contact with.
These two books caused a firestorm, and when it was shown what had parents upset, instead of saying: "here are some alternatives that have the same themes with no explicit content" activists said: "fuck you, you're lying" or "fuck you, there's nothing wrong with showing this."
Such a dumb response, because it pushes rational people away who see/hear that response and think: "wtf, why are they denying what I'm seeing with my own eyes?" Or "of course there's something wrong with teenagers in high school reading text about how to make their own porn, these activists are crazy". It literally ensures there's going to be a bigger backlash and they'll start going overboard.
I don't like the source I have, by the way. It's incredibly politically biased and one sided, but it's the only site that lists the explicit parts. I also need to point out that I don't agree with everything that's listed in this writeup as being bad. I think talking about what goes into being a trans person is a good thing, and would 100% be on board with these books in high schools if the sexuality explicit stuff weren't in them. Source.
Like, there have to be queer books out there that are actually age-appropriate, right? Why aren't we pushing those?
it comes across as bigoted lies because nearly every time, even the most reasonable sounding arguments contain blatant misinformation at best and lies at worst
framing gender queer as porn because it includes one sex scene is just slightly less ridiculous than framing stephen king's 'it' as porn
its hard to take your comment as sincere when the most genuine and reasonable speech folks can muster still relies on distorting the truth
its also hard to take concerned citizens as genuinely concerned when their concern only ever seems to kick in when it lets them yell about the alphabet people
Okay, so what about the hooks and my post is misinformation or lies? Seeing examples of the exact problematic pages shows you its true and the information is correct.
I didn't say gender queer as a whole is porn, but there are sections in it that are pornographic in nature. To be clear: These scenes would still be an issue if it were a book about straight people.
It makes no sense not to just replace it with queer books and stories that don't contain this sexually explicit stuff.
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This sounds like a lot of hypothetical situations strung together to sound reasonable. Inflate (or make up, or exaggerate) examples to make your stance seem more credible. If there are concrete examples of this I will gladly retract, but in what children specific library is a book about blowing a strap-on being pushed?
I would just like to point out that I do think this is a very reasonable take even if you're being downvoted. Perhaps there's no literal books of people blowing strap-ons, perhaps plenty of people don't consider that inappropriate for children. But it's never unreasonable to try to understand your "opponents" in a battle, and even perhaps come to compromise. Most social movements start by asking for a lot, then dialing back to more "agreeable" terms. Sure, the fight isn't over yet, but a battle being won is still important.
What's explicit about somebody licking a piece of plastic? I think teenagers draw worse things on their desks.