child predator = pedophile
hey, I'll bite. I'm taking this ask in good faith, because this isn't a very often discussed topic. people are afraid that a nuanced perspective on this will result in harsh social punishment.
to say this is to say that thoughts = action. this is harmful because it targets people who aren't dangerous to anyone, but more importantly because it excuses sexual abuse that isn't for the purposes of sexual gratification. checking a child's genitals because you suspect they may be trans, as is increasingly becoming legal in many school districts, is not necessarily pedophilia, but it is child sexual assault. TSA or the police strip searching a child or teenager is not necessarily pedophilia, but it is sexual assault. anyone who would do this should be considered a predator, regardless of the presence or lack of any paraphilia. watching a sufficiently capable child undress because you feel they must be supervised can be predatory in many contexts, again, regardless of intent. using one's position of power to put children in a sexually vulnerable position when it is not either medically necessary, or for that child's assistance, is predatory. this is regardless of their motivations, even when their methods are seen as socially acceptable. when we allow pedophilia and child predation to become synonymous, we allow systemic child abuse to slip through the cracks.
additionally, when we allow thoughts in and of themselves to be considered evil, we can project the presence of those bad thoughts onto anyone we don't like. this is rooted in Catholic guilt, because in terms of historic Catholicism, and even contemporary Christianity, guilt is money. this is not a pragmatic view point to have. we already see this with the transmisogynistic and queerphobic practice of pedojacketing. queer people are often seen as sexually deviant by nature, and are often the victims of having pedophilia projected onto them regardless of its presence. the only way to become immune to this propaganda is to realize that thought crime isn't real, and I'm not going to believe anyone to be a predator if they aren't causing harm themselves, or consuming content that was created through sexual abuse and exploitation.