It Could Happen Here - Operation Pridefall, Groomers, and Kink at Pride: Part 1

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

We discuss the influx of “grooming” accusations levied against queer people in recent months alongside “kink at pride” discourse.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy

Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chez Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun,

straight up comedia, and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, the podcast where we spend all of our time talking about skincare. Now, personally, and a lot of people say this is a bad idea, I enjoy using concentrated chlorine with a little bit of ammonia.

It just cleans the pores. It cleans the grout. It gets all of that pesky code out of your lungs. You know, an entire generation of British and German and French boys all agree chlorine gas does the trick. How are we doing? What's this episode about? Hi, welcome to It Could Happen Here,

a podcast about things falling apart and how we can maybe put them back together. I'm Garrison. I'll be leading this soad. With me is Chris and this random person that we brought on from the street named

Robert. And we'll be talking about some things that are not great and kind of current problems. We sure will. So I spent a lot of my formative youth lurking, studying and kind of documenting some of the bad places on the internet,

you know, Nazi chat rooms, chan sites, Facebook hate group, you know, whatever. All of the things. And, you know, growing up in Portland, Oregon, in like the 20 teens, this was something that felt kind of foisted upon me as, as a kid discovering my own queerness and, uh, coming out of an extremely homophobic, uh, like insular Christian community. Um, meanwhile in Portland, having, you know, self-described fascist march alongside gay hating Christians on my city streets,

Nazis murdering people on our public transit. You know, that put a lot of fellow scrawny gay kids to put on black hoodies and balaclavas to mace and fight far-right extremists that were like two to three times their size. But the problem is, of course, 100-pound depressed teens aren't necessarily the best brawlers um under under some circumstances although they can handle a a fire extinguisher filled with paint pretty well that's true um but a lot of us also started doing like online research

and stuff um to find like the names and addresses of like fascists and members of hate groups and all that kind of all that kind of stuff i i still remember the kind of the the the thrill and the buzz of my first like big find uh as as a as a baby online lurker um it was i think it was it was the leader of the uh hell-shaking street preachers who was living in tillamook oregon at the time fucking prick that that was that was the first guy i did um and i remember being very excited being because yeah he was he was a massive asshole um so yeah he's like a you know very extremely homophobic quote-unquote street preacher just a big old chode yeah but a lot of like this like online research work wasn't

wasn't just cross-referencing social media posts with the white pages, property records, and voter registrations to send nice postcards to hate group members. Time was often spent tracking the use of memes and cataloging and sharing fascists' plans for projects and events, keeping tabs on their current propaganda trends that online white supremacists were trying to push. And one of the things that I came across about two years ago was called Operation Pridefall.

This is one of these, like, it was an organized campaign ran by people on 4 discord and telegram i came across it a few a few days after the the plans were published online and if you already know what operation pridefall is or have heard that term before uh and if you're you know like me and we're on similar online spaces you've you've probably found the past few months of anti-queer propaganda uh the massive increase in the gay and trans people are groomer shit and the, uh, uh, shutters, uh, kink at pride discourse to be all very, very predictable, uh, as strangely familiar, like the worst case of deja vu and in large part of the result of years of work behind the scenes

by social engineering, uh, online bigoted trolls, and self-described fascists. So we're going to talk today about kind of the overlap between this thing called Operation Pridefall, the groomer discourse, and how that kind of feeds into kink at pride discourse. So three things that are not great, that don't go great, that actually do kind of go great together yeah i mean unfortunately yes so um a first first of all a little a little background on the whole recent groomer thing because we haven't actually discussed uh the groomer stuff in depth on the pod yet um sure haven't you know why we haven't because i hate it it's true i mean like whenever

like horrible things happen in the news i try to push back on just releasing an episode immediately covering it in case we have something like actually good to say um so we've kind of waited to talk about the grimoire discourse stuff for a long time. And I think now is totally fine to do so because we've had months to let it simmer, look at the types of things they're encouraging, look at all of the physical action they're trying to do. And with Pride Month approaching, we're going to see a resurgence of it

in the next few weeks here. So as mentioned in our week-long War on Trans People episodes, which was released right before the new wave of the groomership accelerated. But in those episodes, we talked about the long history of conservatives and evangelical organizations promoting the false narrative targeted at parents and like concerned citizens that gay people especially gay men are more likely to be child predators than their heterosexual counterparts along with the idea that queer people are out to quote groom your definitely 100 straight child into being gay right uh so insinuating that they that they can then like have sex with them or something.

But yeah, they're trying to scare parents to be like, gay people are out to get your kids. So the actual idea of what being a groomer means changes based on who you're talking to. In part two, I'm going to quote a conservative writer who admits this as such, but still defends the use of the term. Because at the very least, if they use grooming within the context of turning your, again, absolutely, completely heterosexual child into a gay person, thus they would begin to hate you and resent you as a parent for your godly Christian values.

They also consider that grooming. It's not actually just... As a general rule, the attitude is if they do not turn out to be the exact kind of weirdo Christian as their parents, they were groomed by somebody. And it's merely a matter of picking the topic, the person to blame. Yeah. And all of that sort of rhetoric was extremely popular through like the 80s, the 90s, and the early 2000s.

But then came the noughts in the 2018s. And this kind of had an attitude shift. And some of that started to go away. We got Queer Eye, we got Ellen, the rate of conversion therapy started to decline. It was getting banned in more states. There was more queer acceptance in certain sects of the church even. Of course, gay marriage went national in 2015. And eventually being aggressively homophobic became not a good look. It was not, you were not able to do that anymore and still be able to have,

and do it as nonchalantly as you used to be able to, whether that's in your like TV show or whether that's you as a corporation or, you know, some random other sectors of public life. But then, of course, Trump got elected 2016, a year after gay marriage went national. And then there's this resurgence in far-right extremism. And the more commonly accepted kind of nonchalant gay bashing of old gets passed down to the next freak down the line, which is trans people. So with that, the adage of like the disgusting groomer freaks are going to turn your kids gay turns into the gender ideology freaks are going to turn your kids trans. It's all the same stuff just passed on to the next thing. kids trans. It's all the same stuff just passed on to the next thing. And so we have that anti-trans and therefore anti-queer hate festering for a few years. And this inevitably opens up the door to just a revival of classic homophobia. Even liberals like Friend of the Pod and J.K. Rowling

and lots of the original TERFs got to apply the same homophobic rhetoric to trans people and gender nonconforming folks, which then obviously results in that propaganda and rhetoric being used to attack LGBTQ people on a whole once again. So it's resurrecting these old homophobic tropes and just applying it to a new generation of queer people. people um and uh and so for this next part we're gonna we're gonna talk about libs of tiktok because they they did play a big a big part in what's what's some current discourses today and i i promise we'll get to operation prideful here shortly just just hang in there with me uh but before we talk about again other friend of the pod libs of tiktok um do you know what else it wants to turn your kids gay oh are you talking about the washington state highway patrol because yes they absolutely do garrison that's the one guarantee the washington state highway patrol makes they'll make your kids gay Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. Modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Atian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Piece, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they

won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories.

Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and refuge between the chapters. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Libs of TikTok joins the fight. Let's just take a moment

to acknowledge how fucking frustrating it is that we have to discuss seriously Libs of TikTok. That it matters like the worst it's terrible it's terrible i people always criticize the show for being like why do they talk about all these dumb social media things so like yes i know that they're stupid but the the bad part is is that they actually matter yeah i mean maybe yeah we talk about it because of the 17 year old trans girl in texas who just got assaulted by like five dudes because she was blamed on the shooting.

And she was blamed for the shooting because in part of a lot of shit that Libs of TikTok helped to stir up. Because they proved there was a market for it, that if you're like a right-wing shit grifter, attacking trans people is a great way to get engagement. Anyway, sorry, Garrison. Yeah. way to get engagement. Anyway, sorry, Garrison. Yeah. So Libs of TikTok is a social media account turned social media campaign started in April of 2021 by a Brooklyn area real estate agent named Chaya Raichik, who, by the way, attended the January 6th attempted fascist insurrection. When violence broke out that day at the Capitol, she actually tweeted a play-by-play on a previous twitter account of hers uh posting videos from the crowd and uh talking about tear

gas and rubber bullets being like shot right next to her um and then after she left the riot she she tweeted on twitter that uh that the the event was peaceful compared to a blm protest so that's yes anyway five five people died um we've now reached the part of it we're we're now in tragedy of as farce of the thing that happens in every single state that goes fascist where all the fascists try to do a coup and it fails and then nothing happens and then they take over the state like yeah years later except our version of that instead of like i don't know weird fascistakuza guys, it's the libs of TikTok. It is the libs of TikTok. So the libs of TikTok was around like the third attempt by RightChick to start a viral social media account.

You know the saying, third time's the charm. But in this case, it actually was. times the charm. But in this case, it actually was. So the account's gimmick is reposting and often grossly misrepresenting select clips from quote-unquote libs on TikTok. Big shocker, big surprise. But more often than not, that really just means posting videos of queer kids and trans people, captioning it with something reactionary and then leading a targeted harassment campaign against those individuals. On May 31st, 2021, so just about a year ago, she made her first grooming-related post, just tweeting, STOP GROOMING KIDS, in all caps. This is the first time she tweeted anything related to grooming.

Grooming Kids, in all caps. This is the first time she tweeted anything related to grooming. The day before that, she tweeted a video of a trans person alongside the vomit emoji and a caption that just says, Men should not wear dresses. You can't change my mind. Her first super viral video related to LGBTQ people was later in June, next month, during Pride, people was later in June, next month during Pride, by posting a TikTok of a kid explaining the concept of gender fluidity, a pretty basic concept. But LivesUpTikTok commented, this is so messed up in so many ways. Her post racked up half a million views and indicated to her that the way to grow her little social media project into a right-wing viral sensation was going to be with homophobia and transphobia. This is how she decided to continue her online

career, essentially. She called the prominent LGBTQ youth suicide prevention group, the Trevor Project, a grooming organization. And towards the end of 2021 and into 2022, she kept using that term, grooming, groomer, at an ever-increasing rate, right? It starts in like May and June of 2021, continues throughout the summer and fall. And then in the fall and winter, she starts really kicking up all of the stuff around grooming and queer people. I mean, all of her posts are already mostly about trans people and like like, trans people at schools. Obviously, she was a big part of, like, the whole school board thing from last year.

So, but towards the end of 2021, though, is when the groomer thing started becoming more of a recurring trend. Quoting Slate, toward the end of 2021 and into the new year, Rychek found her rhythm with memes and videos calling LGBTQ people and those who supported LGBTQ youth, quote-unquote, groomers. She has even attempted to smear one of the most prominent gay men in the country as a groomer. In a deleted tweet, Reitschek's account accused Transportation

Secretary Pete Buttigieg's husband, Chastin, of grooming kids for his work at supporting LGBTQ youth organizations. Look, this isn't fair, but I hate that his name is Chasten. I know. I don't like that name. I don't like that name. I'm sorry. That has nothing to do with anything.

I'm not a Chasten stan either, but yes. Oh, it's so shocking. a chastened stan either but oh yes so shocking but but yeah it's like finding the most prominent lippy gay men and being like hey these people probably groom kids and you know that that obviously riles up their base yes um she's she's called for any teacher who comes out as gay to their students to be quote fired on the spot uh which actually has happened since then uh sure has this has happened multiple times since since since this account has been has been launched um the account's popularity grew alongside uh last year's racist homophobic and transphobic attacks on school boards across the country she would often posting videos of queer teachers and lying about them grooming kids

into being gay or whatever. She was promoting organized harassment campaigns against those teachers, interspersed with tweets and screenshots of news articles about teachers who sexually assaulted students. Importantly, not posting the article, but just like a screenshot of the headline along with comments like, funny how this keeps happening which is like neglects to mention that like all these incidents are from heterosexual teachers uh or like that one story from last year of a cop and his wife who was a teacher working together to sexually abuse children like none of them are actually about gay people it's all i mean i'm not certain if a school resource officer has ever stopped a mass shooting but i know that something like 50 of them have been fired for molesting kids.

Yeah. It's really insidious because she's posting all this stuff about teachers grooming kids into being like queer teachers grooming kids. Like alongside headlines of teachers actually assault teachers actually sexually assaulting kids. But those headlines are all stories about heterosexual teachers. So she posts both of those things. So it's like to have this correlation for her audience, despite them not actually being related. Because yeah, lips of TikTok sure ain't posting

about how cops should be kept away from kids for the safety of the children um they're they're they're never going to post about how many people who do the grooming stuff have been arrested because like several of the organizers of of of this whole like gay people are like grooming kids thing like have been arrested for child abuse since this started which which... Yeah. Never gonna show up. No, it's not. It's never gonna matter. But, you know, posting and lying about queer teachers grooming children next to headlines about teachers sexually abusing kids to manufacture this correlation, which is, of course, false, but it's still highly effective.

Now, believe me, I would love to not talk about Twitter nonsense. But unfortunately, Twitter accounts like Libs of TikTok actually do play a massive role in shaping offline conservative politics. Libs of TikTok was very soon being interviewed by New York Post, being boosted by Joe Rogan, going on Tucker Carlson. Other Fox News hosts like Jesse Waters began featuring content straight from the Libs of TikTok Twitter feed, and Tucker encouraged his viewers to follow the account before it's banned if you want to know, quote, what may be happening in your child's school. Last March, when Libs at TikTok posted a video of a woman teaching sex ed to kids in Kentucky, like, you know, preteens or whatever,

she called the woman a predator. In the next evening, the same clip was featured on Laura Ingram's Fox News program with the host saying, when did our school, any of any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals? So yeah, this is just content straight from Lizzy TikTok being put onto the most watched news programs in the world. And as we'll see, also being taken in by some of the most powerful conservative politicians. Mainstream conservative politicians quickly joined in in the tooting of the Libs of TikTok grooming horn. Obviously, Ron DeSantis is a big, big part of this. One of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' top aides and press secretary is a huge fan of Libs of TikTok and is in frequent communication with them. Quoting the Washington Post, quote, by March 2022, Libs of TikTok was directly

impacting legislation. Ron DeSantis' press secretary, Christina Pershaw, credited the account with, quote, opening her eyes and informing her views on the state's restrictive legislation that bans discussion of sexuality or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, referred to critics as the Don't Say Gay Bill. The bill has been, unquote. So this bill has already been used to get middle school teachers fired for saying that they are not straight. And you'll notice that middle school is not in kindergarten through third grade. So remember when we were all saying,

hey, it actually doesn't matter that the bill says it's only up for kindergarten through third grade. It's just going to be applied for anyone. Yeah, it turns out we were right. So the bill's already been specifically cited in the firing of multiple teachers from Florida for just not conforming to the heterosexual Christian hegemonic worldview. And Libs of TikTok is still currently among the most prominent influencers affecting actual material conditions

and shaping both the rhetoric and propaganda while impacting legislation. A friend of Libs of TikTok and DeSantis' press secretary, Christina Pershaw, has said, quote, the bill that liberals inaccurately call Don't Say Gay would be more accurately described as an anti-grooming bill. If you're against the anti-grooming bill, you probably are a groomer, or at least you don't denounce the grooming of four to eight year old children. Silence is complicity.

This is how it works, Democrats. This is how it works, Democrats. And I didn't make the rules. So yeah, see how we have, see how that works? You call the don't say gay bill a anti-grooming bill. So then everyone, anyone who criticizes it is now a groomer. Isn't that a fun way to play with words? Isn't that nice?'t that a fun way to play with words isn't that nice that is a fun way to play with words garrison i love it so the the past few months we've seen this you know queer people are groomers meme reach seemingly uh never never before seen heights and uh and at least is is and at the

very least is the highest and most memetic it's ever been in the past two decades uh you know, it's really building off of all of the kill your local pedophile shit, right? It sure is. Robert, do you want to briefly talk about kill your local pedophile? Yeah, I mean, it's a bunch of bumper stickers. It's a slogan. Like, I know dudes who are not at all fascists and say that because they're like new dads and they're horrified at the, but like the whole – like the core of it is this right-wing – and it kind of started off in like the sort of libertarian gun nut communities. But it's really used a lot as sort of – it's a group that you can talk about doing anything to.

You can talk about killing. You can like fetishize murdering. to you can talk about killing you can like fetishize murdering um and if you can then like define other groups as inherently pedophilic then you can do anything to them right like that's the basic idea is if you get people saying it's always okay to use vigilante violence against this group um and obviously no one's going to fucking defend child molesters but then you start making the case that people who are not in fact molesting children are somehow pedophiles or you know or somehow related to pedophiles and then suddenly it's okay to kill them it's okay to do violence massive social groups like yeah all of gay and trans people

so if you conflate these two things you're able to make these things represent the same thing in someone's mind that makes homophobia now not a bad thing but like a moral imperative like you have to be homophobic because these people are grooming children yep and you can get you get this interesting thing too which like there are people who are like not quite as far in who will do who will say i see things a lot where it's like someone's like oh well i don't have a problem with gay people but like they shouldn't groom kids and it's like yep this is that's not what's happening bro yeah no i do you know do you know what else doesn't groom kids i mean the washington state highway patrol definitely does but let me tell you if you want somebody to groom your children

the washington highway state Highway Patrol will do that. But you know what they won't do is protect those children in the event of danger because that might endanger them. So look, look, sometimes, right, someone is killing your kid and you need to get pepper sprayed. And when that time calls, you will beg for the Washington Highway State Patrol. Well, you'll beg for a different police department. But when those police get in trouble because of their failure to act, then the Washington State Highway Patrol will show up to protect those cops. Anyway, here's some ads. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.

His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeart

radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.

I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature.

I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry,

we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. So as the queer people are groomers shit was reaching the most memetic and the highest rate of trending that it has had in decades, this past April, at the height of the recent increased wave of anti-queer legislation and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, this is when some terminally online teenagers

tried to start kink at pride discourse once again. And I do not want to talk about this, but I've written stuff about it, so I'm going to. This was legitimately when I was thinking about, going to this was legitimately when i was like thinking about i like realized i was gay and i was like oh my god i should come out and then i would like one of the things that i spent a long time thinking about was does this mean i have to do kink at pride discourse and this is like a serious consideration for me for a long time i would have said no of course not i'm never gonna do this that? We're doing it live. But here we are. So anyway, doing kink at Pride discourse then and even still now, while the anti-queer onslaught is accelerating at the highest pace it's had in years, sure seems to be like dumping fuel

on the fire. What's up with that, kids? Why? So anyway, the discourse itself revolves around whether kink apparel or paraphernalia render the pride space unsafe for minors or quote unquote non-consensual observers. by the way. But also it is heavily rooted in assimilationist and respectability politics and a push for LGBTQ people to be seen as more acceptable or more normal while still existing in a heteronormative society. And now, obviously, I'm not a fan of this discourse happening in the first place, especially now. Like, why are you doing it now during all the groomer stuff? Stop it. Stop it. Don't do that. Quit it. Why are you doing this? during all the groomer stuff? Stop it. That's, stop it. Don't do

that. Quit it. Why are you doing this? But first of all, I also want to point out how this entire discourse runs on the same train of thought that fuels all of this groomer stuff in the first place. It's picking at the same part of human brains. So here's, I'm going to read this post that went super viral about a month ago that sparked the new wave of this much, much frustrated discourse. Quote, LGBTQ youth being uncomfortable with kinks at pride is not homophobia. Kinks at pride might have been fine if this was still the 1900s where adults were the only ones attending pride but it's not the 1900s anymore and now kids are way more involved in celebrating our identities the celebrating our identities part there is really important and we'll talk

about this more soon but largely in the past like 20 years there's been this shift with queerness and sexual orientation being less about who you fuck and more like a personality aspect or a social identity with a branded aesthetic um it's it's this it's like it's it's which is in some ways good like it's some ways good that people are more able to express themselves however they want but you know kids at school aren't getting bullied for being gay anymore uh which again is good well less than they were they're getting bullied less somewhat depending on where you live yeah but it's also kind of it's made people forget the whole like uh like gays bash back or gays don't bash back but shoot first.

Like, it's forgot. We don't have that. That's not as a core component of queerness anymore because queerness is now able to be kind of more safe and sanitized. And it's a personal identity in a way that it's not just about who you fuck anymore. It's like this personal identity aspect, which I'm not saying is bad. It's just that there's this thing that's happened that's changed the way we talk about sexual orientation.

Hey, quick pause. This is Garrison from the future here, just popping in to clarify a bit on what I mean regarding this note on identities and identifying as various shades of queer. on identities and identifying as various shades of queer. What I'm getting at is that when observing some of the baby queers around my age, or maybe a bit younger, queerness is seen as a more available option for young people when putting together their personality or sense of self, and more separated from the nitty gritty details of who you fuck, now that queerness is generally more tolerated. Now, don't get me wrong, I do like the idea of being free to choose queerness. In many ways, I consider myself as having chosen to be gay. The thing about framing that as your quote-unquote personal identity,

as opposed to simply choosing to be what you are, is that the former lets you wield that quote-unquote identity against other people or other queer people that disagree with you. It's this thing where queerness is filtered through the lens of brands and like brand recognition, which is definitely made worse by social media, dating apps, personal profiles, and personal bios. And it's part of this cultural push to, like, have everyone create their own personal brand. And, like, I don't want to identify as genderqueer. I just am genderqueer. I don't identify as gay.

I just like catboys, therefore I am gay. It's a different ontological framing, and one that I think is less susceptible to heteronormative assimilationist ideas and like the capitalist marketing to queerness as a brand or as a market demographic. If your queerness is a personal identity that's more sanitized, more approachable for a heteronormative society, then you get to use your identity to attack gay people whose queerness is more based in deviant sexuality and alternative communities. I'm going to read the follow-up tweet to this thing that sparked the new discourse. Quote, follow-up tweet to this thing that sparked the new discourse. Quote, not even all LGBTQ adults are comfortable with seeing kinks at Pride. There's nothing stopping you guys from adjusting or having after events strictly for adults who want to partake in

that. Y'all need to adjust so that every LGBTQ person feels comfortable attending. So let's just do some queer history here for a sec. The first Pride was a riot on that night in June in 1969. Nice. The police raided the Stonewall Inn, one of the largest private gay clubs in the U.S. at the time. The patrons of the bar, trans women of color, homeless queer teens, drag queens, lesbians, and leather daddies fought back. Lots of trans teenagers threw bricks at cops, and a fair number of those

trans teenagers were also sex workers. Kink, including leather daddies and lots of aspects that we now view as kink or BDSMM has been a part of pride since its literal inception, like way back in 1969. And while like, while drag isn't considered kink now in 2022, it still is considered sexually deviant. But back in like the 20th century in, in,

you know, in, in 1969, New York city still had laws that prohibited cross-dressing. So drag used to be way more kinky than it is now uh and like basically all queer sex used to be unacceptable kink and it was illegal it was literally legal or just a crime yeah it was a crime in texas until like 2003 like i think the law is still in the books right around when i graduated high school 2003 was when the supreme court also it's no longer an enforceable law also it might go back

to being illegal again what and it's illegal it's still illegal to own more than five dildos yeah is it six or is it five i think it's five but it might be six so like all queer sex used to be unacceptable kink and many logistical aspects of gay fucking used to happen in public. I'm going to quote an article from them.us. Quote, For some people, gay rights and gay liberation do not hinge on particulars of sexual desire. For years, I've heard that we aren't just our erotic identities. But for many of us, it does begin there, and it does revolve around the ways we organize our erotic identities. But for many of us, it does begin there, and it does revolve around the ways

we organize our erotic choices. Before LGBTQ plus people had pride parades, our community spaces were not just bars, but cruising spots like bathhouses, dungeons, and public restrooms. It should be no surprise that many queer folks find their sex lives and their sense of community So, like, all of this discourse around pride and kink of pride reflects a modern but regressive idea that sexuality is inherently damaging to see, experience, or think about in a public context, especially if that sexuality is inherently queer. And there's this other idea that we see a lot of in this type of discourse, and it's mirrored a little bit with like the groomer stuff too, that if you see someone, quote unquote, engaging in kink,

and like in the case of Pride, that's like what? Wearing a collar, a harness, or a pup mask? That just the act of observation is somehow a violation of consent. And it's really frustrating because indication of sexuality in a non-vanilla sense, while in public, is not a violation of consent. Like, I didn't consent, quote-unquote, consent to see the rainbow cops, right? But public indication of sexuality is not a consent violation. And again, indicating sexuality is like the entire point of pride. Weaponizing

quote-unquote consent to call out people that we see but don't interact with, who are quote-unquote dressed too sexual in our own mind, bad for multiple reasons it also potentially dilutes legitimate claims of non-consent in cases of actual sexual violence and it's it's like this thing like if you look at someone in a pup mask there is no consent violation there that's a really weird thing that people that people talk about and it's not it's not like i i'm not trying to start fights on the internet uh with like these tender queer children um because like and i i don't want anyone to find like these like you know months old posts and start harassing these people but that post has like over 30 000 likes and thousands and thousands and thousands of retweets

and it basically just repeats like old queer bashing talking points that conflate kink and queer visibility with public sex that endangers children. And like conflating gays being visible and semi-clothed with being like dangerous to children are the same talking points that it gets used for book bans, conversion therapy, and the don't say gay bills, right right this idea that if you look at a gay person shirtless that's dangerous to a kid that's the same that's the same underlying motivation that fuels all of this grimmer discourse uh it's it's the whole thing where it's like i'm okay with gay people i just don't want to see it right it's like that that that idea in and of itself is like is still like exists on that you know i didn't consent to look at it

type of thing uh you know this this is other other tweet from somebody being like forcing people to see kinky stuff without consent is really weird i'm sorry but i don't want pup masks at pride events for families i saw that shit in real life and it made me uncomfortable don't involve other people in their kinks if they don't consent and like looking at someone in a mask isn't involving you in any of these kinks you're if you're looking at someone in a leather mask like if that makes you uncomfortable that that's your problem you don't have a right to not be uncomfortable with how people look or are in public look every time i go out into the world i see something that makes me uncomfortable um i see a lot of people with children now do i think it should be legal to have children yes we do i do think that it should be

it should be illegal exactly so i like look we all have to deal with things that make us uncomfortable look like we have a clear solution here the the the way to deal with events not being family friendly is to get rid of families that's exactly right we have to eliminate the concept of the family yeah come on come on come call me this manifesto was what this is 101 shit people we can do this you were you were quoting from the communist manifesto huh okay that's interesting that's that's not where i got it from but i i feel like i feel like a lot of these people many of them like young teens who are complaining about being forced to look at quote unquote inappropriate things at pride. I've never actually been to a pride because most of,

most of modern pride is like really sanitized and chill. Like it's like it is, it is overrun with corporate sponsors, politicians, and cops. Like you, you are, you,

you are way more likely to see armed police at like a pride march then you're then you'll be likely to see like tits or like gags or whatever like most i it's funny to me because like i started going to these and this is before the internet was what it was or moral panics were what they were but like in texas i would go to these events where there would be people of all ages and families these are like little burning, I would go to these events where there would be people of all ages and families. These are like little burning regions. People would be like – at like – on the big night when people are doing like the fire shows and the fireworks stuff, people would be like fucking and like manning flamethrowers like while having sex. There were like – there was a whole chunk of it that was just like the kink row, and you could walk down it and watch people get like whipped and fuck a Sibian and stuff.

It was just like – I don't remember any of this fucking like the only discourse was like well okay we should probably like make sure that people know where that kind of stuff mainly happens so that like they don't have to walk around it if they don't want to but like it was yeah it's like this idea that like not even full nudity but like semi-nudity within a queer context is inherently more dangerous to children if it's if it's in a queer context than a straight context right we have all of these even like queer kids can like complaining online about being forced to see things at pride just like they would see way more skin if they went to like a beach in the summer like it's it's there's

it revolves on the same homophobic idea that like if if you look at these things in a queer context that is like more adult than looking at it within a straight context yes um it's i don't know frustrating it's frustrating and like another another reason why that i think many of these like baby leftist tender queers are who are who are crusading against kink at pride and complaining about like leather and or like sexy underwear. Lots of them even, first of all, most of them, I think lots of them haven't been to pride because there hasn't really been pride for the past two years. And lots of these people are like 15 years old. But a lot of them also just like admit to never going to pride because they're too terrified to see a pup mask. Like they openly say like, I've never been because I don't want to see these things.

Like, sure, you're allowed to do that. But then don't make don't like don't campaign against pride, which will result in your posts getting used by like homophobic trolls and bigots i don't go to chicago because i don't want to see a deep dish pizza but i don't try to ban them like i understand that that's the thing you people like like the first time i saw a pup mask was at fucking comic-con like it's like like you like it's not you don't see, like, banned put masks from Comic-Con. Like, what? Like, these people, like, these kids are basing their fears off of, like, a few viral photos that are often shared in a disingenuous context. Now, we'll talk about these photos in a bit.

But, you know, these people are, like, 15 years old, have never been to Pride, and are just simply terrified of actual sexuality. They engage with queerness as a personal identity and stuff, but once they get into the nitty-gritty of sex, that makes them really uncomfortable. Because they're teens, because they're kids. That's okay. You can be uncomfortable with sex. That makes sense. That is appropriate for your age. But then don't make your entire online presence about trying to shut down

this massive aspect of queer history. Because the kinky stuff that I've seen at Pride is, yeah, on par with what you see at Comic-Con. I often will see more nudity at Portland's Comic-Con than I will at any of the Pride events I've been to. All of the more openly fetish folks or kinky folks are really responsible and act pretty appropriately at pride and and the people who like say otherwise online generally just have not actually been to pride in their entire life um because like this complaining about quote unquote, like inappropriate fetishes or like kinky conduct is basically code for I am uncomfortable with you being positive about the way you view sex.

And I want you to not show it. And I want you to not and I want you to not talk about it, which is the same underlying thought process that people use to be homophobic. It's the it's the exact same thing. Um, now a lot of this discourse oversimplifies kink and BDSM, right? Queerness can be about love, it can be about sexual attraction, and both, or sometimes for asexual people, lacking one or the other, or both. But by that same token, right, kink, leather, and BDSM aren't all exclusively about sex. To a large extent, they're also about community building. And I just think these earnest

think-of-the-youth arguments are very silly, because even when it comes to youth, because if you're uncomfortable with things, that's totally fine. But in a lot of cases, queer teenagers also have sex, generally with other queer teenagers, sometimes even in a kinky context. And that's okay. Pride is about celebrating everyone's individual ability to do that. And I don't like it when people just rehash old homophobic talking points, of this all of this groomer discourse because a key key part of key part of kink a key part of like queer sex is is uh is consent and once you're start you start conflating what consent is by saying that me looking at you wearing a collar is a violation of consent once you start undermining what consent actually means that's

like not a good thing it's actually good thing that is actually a bad thing especially right now during all of the Grimmer stuff so we've gone kind of over on time here but we're going to make this a two-parter

in the next episode we'll talk a bit more about tender queers and we'll actually get into the plans of Operation Pridefall and talk about how we kind of got to this point because man, there's a lot of kids sharing, uh, sharing pictures online and oh boy, do those pictures originate in some, uh, dubious, dubious places. Um, so that, that, that does it for us today. We will, we will see you tomorrow. Um, Pride's fun. We should not police what other people do. So, yeah. Anyway.

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