I’ve been incredibly disappointed by just how many of the trans bloggers I followed have completely dropped the ball on the discussions surrounding pedophilia and CSA that have been going around these past days. Plugging their hands in their ears and just repeating “you’ll never make be support pedophiles you degenerates” without bothering to meaningfully engage with the topic. I’m so grateful for bloggers like you and Suggesteogen and Juney and deepseasmetro.
Yesterday, I was asked for clarification on whether I “believe pedophilic thoughts and tendencies should be encouraged. If not, then why the focus on pedophilia?”
My initial response was: Am I saying they should, or am I saying “there should be no demographics that being accused of belonging to automatically marks you for abuse or death”?
To answer the question of “why pedophilia?” - the answer is the way you all responded to it. suggestrogen made me realize this shit in a “oh, I cannot hold the liberatory and abolitionist beliefs I say I do and also claim that there is a group who can be excluded from them” way.
On bsky in particular I used to be rabidly for complete social exclusion of pedophiles because of a group of racist l*li fandomites that were serially harassing me and my friends, and their pedophilia was the easiest way to deal with them, even moreso than them being racist, because anti-pedophilia brought more defensive support from the overwhelmingly white userbase than addressing the racism.
I bring that up specifically because it addresses this exact issue. Yes, they were pedophiles AND fairly horrible people. It was *ridiculously* easy to deal with them and socially drive them off *because* of them being that publicly, people didn’t even need to double check we were telling the truth, although we were, because they didn’t want to risk seeing something pedophilic, and I was someone they trusted.
But the issue here is exactly that - with the modicum of social capital I had, I could’ve done that to anyone, especially marginalized people, with pedophilia accusations and no proof. It is a claim that the accused cannot prove false and that will stick to them stigmatically if done visibly enough. It is functionally luck and audience size that whether someone’s life is destroyed or not.
Right now, with the current discourse heat, I could go make a post about anyone, including the most ardent and vocal opponents right now, claiming that they are a proud pedophile that wants to come out as a representative. I could make multiple posts talking about how proud I am of them to tell me despite their fear and how they had lashed out in fear. If I block them from interacting, they can’t directly deny my claims, and many people would only click into their profile far enough to block them. I could, right now, permanently tether damn near anyone as a pedophile no matter what they do, say, or try to prove. They will get mentioned in the future and someone will go “oh, the lead pedo?”
The fact I could do that is the problem. The fact that all it takes is a little bit of persistence and the right words to destroy your life with no proof is the problem. It gets done with pedophile, abuser, rapist, addict, psycho, any perceived demographic enough people hate and want to exclude. Pedophile is simply the most universally hated demographic, and the most useful weapon.
Truthfully, I’m largely apathetic on the day to day lives of pedophiles so long as they are not causing harm to victims in a way other than “existing”. My concern is mainly with the fact that we view them as a demographic to which anything can be done to, which means that ANYONE can be labeled that and have injustice seen as justice. They are, at base, still human. They deserve the same basic rights, survival, *and liberation* as every other human, unconditionally. If they cause harm, both the circumstances that enabled it and the accountability/justice will be evaluated and dealt with, the victims cared for, supported, and healed. The same as any other act by any other human that violates the basic rights of another human.
As long as ANY demographic exists that enables this weapon’s use, we cannot be liberated, because it necessitates that there be a type of human whose rights can be deprived arbitrarily. To seek complete liberation is even for those you hate, or we are simply recreating the same systems with us higher up in the hierarchy.
“But how will this help liberate anyone else? How will this do anything but hurt the current movement and prove conservatives right? It’s too soon and too dangerous a time to be talking about this.”
It is always too soon. The current fight is always too important to go further. We can always do it after this. Ten years, a hundred, three hundred.
We are likely dying within a century without immediate and significant changes in how we do *everything*. I spent over a decade working change slow and piecemeal and within systems only to watch everything get destroyed within two years. We cannot keep hedging our bets on the next fight to be the one that changes everything because that’s what got us to our current world. We are afraid of change and pushing too hard for the complete right thing because things are getting worse, and I, individually, refuse to compromise whats actually right because it’s “too soon”.
“Why must we care about the harm being done to another to end the harm done to ourselves?”
Because we like to believe we are immune to being the one next harmed if we stop ours and not someone else’s. We’ve freed ourselves, so we can never be harmed again, right?
But it’s not true. As long as we allow another group to endure those harms, we allow a society in which it can become us. Every trans women who’s path crosses with a child is at risk of being accused of being a pedophile, because we are at best a sexual curiosity and at worst a sexual predator, by being trans alone.
We can never sacrifice enough people to be respectable to them, we can only break their swords so they can’t kill us anymore.
I am not a national politician or journalist or anything. I will never be able to be because of the exact weapons I speak about here that have already been levied against me. I am not speaking for the country itself to change its mind, I’m speaking for the people around me who’s stories I am told every day of being victims, of being harmed, of doing harm. I’m speaking in the hopes that even one time, someone puts down the weapon. That even one person no longer has their life destroyed. That we will have communities in which we can actually address harm and problems beyond an immediate and forceful exile, that we can solve and heal and no longer have that weapon of white supremacy in our lives.
