all 3 comments

[–]MarkTwainiac 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

BTW, someone came to this sub on Saturday Nov 28 and started a thread saying that Malcolm Clark of the LGB Alliance, and the LGBA itself, are homophobic coz Clark is on record saying he doesn't think there should be "LGBT clubs" for children in schools. Clarks said earlier this year that in his view kids in school are still figuring out their sexuality and they should be left alone to figure out their sexuality at their own pace outside of school rather than feel pressure at school to rush into picking a team, as it were.

Also, Clark pointed out that getting kids to form clubs or cliques around sexual orientation ends up sexualizing them in the eyes of adults (including teachers, administrators, coaches) and that gives an opening which can and will be exploited by sexual predators, straight or gay (or bi or just pedos, for whom the sex of the child is secondary to the child's age).

According to the poster who started the thread, this proves Clark is a horrible homophobe and LGBA is horrible and homophobic too. But other posters here disagreed and said that being sensitive to the fact that different children develop at different paces and being wary about sexualizing children especially at school is not homophobic - nor is being a supporter of child safeguarding. The poster who started the thread didn't like this, so she or he told everyone else to STFU and ended up deleting the thread. But before going, he or she called me a homophobe and a moron, and some other choice words.

BTW, I see merit to Clark's POV. A lot of kids are sure of their orientation early on, but a lot of others aren't. This seems especially the case for some who are bi or gay, particularly lesbians. Some women don't figure out that they're lesbians until well after the age most of us graduate from HS. Also, in any school there will be students who have been, or currently are being, sexually abused at home - and for them school needs to be a place where they aren't sexualized. Schools have to weigh and balance the often very different needs of all students, rather than cater to just certain groups.

Also, I'm not sure "LGBT" clubs and groups in schools really achieve their supposed aim of countering bullying. Seems that today in many schools the kids who call themselves "LGBTQ+" are the new cool kids - and they have no compunction about mocking, bullying and excluding those they consider "transphobes" or "vanilla."

Plus, just as I think it's a bad idea to get people to base their sense of self and choose who they are friends with solely or mostly on their "gender identities," I'm not so sure it'e good for schools to set up or sponsor social groups that encourage children to split off into separate "tribes" based on sexual orientation at school. It seems to feed into the idea now very much in vogue that one's sexual orientation and sexuality is by far our most important and most defining characteristic and should be constantly announced and brought attention to - as if no one anymore has a right to privacy and is allowed keeping their cards to their vests, so to speak.

In the old days, people usually became friends with people we met at school, work, in the nabe, at the gym, doing sports, hobbies, politics and other activities first, and only later on down the line as they/we got to know each other better did we reveal our sexual orientation and tastes to one another. The only time another person's sexuality, whatever it might be, was something we thought much (or at all) about upon first meeting a new person in our lives was if he or she was someone we were personally interested in dating/bedding. Even so, individuals used to be allowed to be vague and cagey about their sexual orientation, keeping that info to themselves if that's what happened to make them most most comfortable.

Encouraging children in school to split off into tribes or social cliques based on having a certain "gender identity" and being "LGBTQ+" seems to run counter to all of today's diversity rhetoric too. Yeah, kids and teens have always divided up based on the kind of toys/games, music/bands, sports/teams, recreational drugs and drink and other interests they're into - but amongst such groups there was always diversity of all kinds, including sexual orientation. Being a greaser, mod, punk, goth, emo, Smiths or Roxy Music fan, or member of the chess club, AV club, mathletes, debating or basketball team didn't mean you had to have a certain kind of sexuality - or a particular religion, race, ethnicity, class, kind of diet or politics, either.

[–]our_team_is_winning 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

<There is a whiff of neo-Stalinism to all this.>

A whiff? I can smell it from here, clear across the Atlantic.

I've read Jennifer Bilek's articles on the handful of billionaires funding this, but there has to be more. How did a lobby that promotes something clearly insane (!) become so all-powerful?

[–]hfxB0oyA 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This sort of splintering will become more and more commonplace over the next year as Trump is no longer around to use as an agreed upon scapegoat.