I remember back when I was a kid I got scolded and punished for describing some kind of vase as "queer" because I'd been reading old books where the word just meant "unusual or strange" and had no clue that that anyone considered it offensive or that it had any homosexual connotations.

It's a very strange world now where I can say something like "Bob is queer" and it's considered non offensive, even though I still don't know anything you could say about what it means other than "Bob is weird" which frankly is apt.

These people are just attention seeking cunts. Or power hungry cunts. Have always existed. Have always been those that follow a kind of chaotic approach to what we'd now call activism. Be them prohibitionists in the past, women's suffragetes, anti-gay or anti-abortion protesters. The issue underlying the cause is irrelevant really, there will be some latching onto it who simply want to feel like they are important and enjoy being "right" when everyone else is wrong so to speak. So when they achieve their goals it's actually a bad thing for them because the normies pack up the camp and go on with their lives while the attention whores now need to find a new social I'll or grevance to justify their socially transgressive behavior.

I've given a lot of thought to the idea of what "progressives" and "reactionaries" are and it's led me to come to the conclusion that one can be progressive in any number of ideological directions. But regardless of the political orientation the same kind of personalities and social dynamics tend to form in such activist circles.

When I was very young I got dragged around to a lot of right wing protests and the like. Was mostly around legalization of gay marriage. There'd always be some counter protesters that looked like your typical angry feminist who'd be going around cussing at everyone, but there would never be more than a couple of them. It always seemed bizzare to me. But I kind of realized they are the equivalent of the guys on college campuses that going around with "you are going to hell" signs. They get off on being an asshole. The "cause" irregardless of what it is their excuse to themselves.

It's counterproductive towards the actual goal of the movement of course. A bunch of right wing anti-gay marchers dragging their kids along with them are doing so because they're trying to make a "think of the children" display, but those kids likely have zero idea of normal gay people. I remember thinking that the concept of gay people was quite odd, but I couldn't really understand why so many people were adamantly opposed to them rather than simply ignoring them and letting them alone. But then when your only real life example of some gay person is a screaming Tumblr type that is going around like a possessed banshee, well a lot of kids are going to come off of that thinking that all the gays are crazy insane types, and many won't have opportunities in the future to meet others that can change that preconception. It's essentially priming the next generation of your opponent to do the exact same thing in the future, but in the activist spheres that does indeed seem the goal rather than achieving anything stable.

Granted you've also got a lot of kids going through their rebellion phase rebelling as "queer" or whatever is in vogue simply because it's disturbing to their parents so these kind of ideological bubbles almost always have fairly chaotic dynamics.

I think the main underlying issue is indeed that some people are simply miserable and need to drag other people into it. Some ancient church lady that will read the riot act at you for saying "that sucks" because how dare you reference a vile "homosexual" act. Or some trans-man going at you for some perceived slight because you mentioned some inconsequential aspect of life that caused them to be disphoric or some shit. Both seem to me to be wholly unpleasant and unhappy people. I really wish they'd be able to just be miserable together without involving me.