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| Tim James hates drag shows unless he's in one. |
The situation with Libs of TikTok accusing LGBTQ people and teachers of being pedophiles takes me back. There was an article which pointed out how Anita Bryant in the 1970s was probably the first person to harness the lie into political power.
But she certainly wasn't the first to exploit the lie. In 1961, there was an educational film shown to students called Boys Beware:
Shot in 1961 BOYS BEWARE was shot in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California and produced with the cooperation of the city's police department and the Inglewood Unified School District, is narrated by a police detective who is on his way to a school meeting to discuss the issue of sexual predators that attempt to lure young adolescent males. It not only shows basic misunderstandings about homosexuality but also attempts to prejudice the community against homosexuals who are portrayed as predatory at best, and basically as anti-social and evil.
It's a rather ridiculous film and can be seen as comedically ludicrous now. That is until you realize how the ideas it presents have been constantly recasted and believed by so many.
What a lovely day. First a far-right Twitter address which posted deceptive videos accusing LGBTQ people and our allies of being pedophiles got exposed.
Now this courtesy of Reuters by way of LGBTQNation:
A screenshot of a post on a Reddit channel is circulating online with comments purportedly from the parent of a transgender child who is forcibly giving their child hormones. However, the entire post is fabricated, and the channel has been shuttered by Reddit on the grounds it was aimed at promoting hatred of transgender people and spreading “hateful stereotypes.”The fabricated screenshot shows a post on the subreddit “r/transparenttranskid”, allegedly from a transgender parent. The parent says they forcefully administered the female hormone estradiol to their child, who was purportedly transitioning, as their child did not want to take the drugs.. . . However, there is no evidence that the post is an authentic account of events, and the “r/transparenttranskid” subreddit has since been removed. A conversation in an online forum on Aug. 6, 2021, revealed that users were planning to contribute false stories to the “r/transparenttranskid” subreddit here .On the same forum, a user called “Funkyduffy” responded to a call to “snap up” the subreddit and fill it with fabricated stories by linking to the post about the forced administration of estradiol and pairing it with a GIF that reads: “I’m doing my part” here .An archive of the subreddit shows the original poster of the alleged forced estradiol story was also called “Funkyduffy” (archive.ph/BojLr). The “r/transparenttranskid” subreddit was removed by Reddit for “generally violating the Reddit Rules”, a moderator on the platform said on Aug. 25, 2021 (here).“They were engaged in promoting hatred of transgender people, as well as targeted harassment,” they added.
. . .the stories still spread outside of Reddit to rightwingers who were all too willing to believe them. “This is fucking child abuse and I’ll die on this Hill,” wrote libertarian author Justin O’Donnell on Twitter, posting a picture of Funkyduffy’s fake story. He got almost 46,000 likes for it. Ian Miles Cheong – who has a history of posting misinformation about trans people online and even riling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) up – shared the story with the words “Good parenting.”
