I am seeing a lot of the same vocabulary and dynamics recycled, with very fragile tenderqueer types starting to sound a helluva lot like the monsters pushing Don't Say Gay bills in the US.
In particular! Last night I caught a snippet of Christian radio on my way to the store. It was so anti-type that it felt surreal. Not a word-for-word quote, but the essence, as I remember it: "STDs in America have been on the rise for a steady seven years now. Don't you think that has something to do with the fact that we're teaching kindergartners about transgenderism? How could it NOT be linked?" Personally, I've run into antis who said that because I write fics about rough, lubeless sex, I must be having the same IRL, and because I'm having the same IRL, I must be riddled with STIs (specifically HIV). At the same time, the fact that this rough, lubeless smut is available on AO3, where any fifth grader could stumble across it, means I'm both miseducating and grooming children...
The grooming arguments made by DeSantis and others (Ohio is following suit) calls back to the Satanic Panic era, where of course many of the targets were either gay or rumored to be ... and we see the same rhetoric, the same logic, in antis.
I think your last paragraph is especially poignant. There's been a worldwide backlash against LGBT+ rights (trans rights in particular), and the current tumblr antis have been brewing in that backlash culture for their most formative years. This, too, might be one of the reasons we've seen such a boom of conservative queer teens/young adults on TikTok.
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In particular! Last night I caught a snippet of Christian radio on my way to the store. It was so anti-type that it felt surreal. Not a word-for-word quote, but the essence, as I remember it: "STDs in America have been on the rise for a steady seven years now. Don't you think that has something to do with the fact that we're teaching kindergartners about transgenderism? How could it NOT be linked?" Personally, I've run into antis who said that because I write fics about rough, lubeless sex, I must be having the same IRL, and because I'm having the same IRL, I must be riddled with STIs (specifically HIV). At the same time, the fact that this rough, lubeless smut is available on AO3, where any fifth grader could stumble across it, means I'm both miseducating and grooming children...
The grooming arguments made by DeSantis and others (Ohio is following suit) calls back to the Satanic Panic era, where of course many of the targets were either gay or rumored to be ... and we see the same rhetoric, the same logic, in antis.
I think your last paragraph is especially poignant. There's been a worldwide backlash against LGBT+ rights (trans rights in particular), and the current tumblr antis have been brewing in that backlash culture for their most formative years. This, too, might be one of the reasons we've seen such a boom of conservative queer teens/young adults on TikTok.