( No Title )
I think one reason for the recent spike in “puriteen” (antiship) discourse is while Queer representation is making waves in kids’ media, there’s still no LGBTQ+ history taught in schools, while anti-trans groups are spreading misinformation. So teens are taking mass marketable LGBTQ+ content to heart
For people growing up before this kid-friendly media, all Queer content was geared towards adults and this media wholly focused on us being true to ourselves despite society treating us like freaks
Many films focused on queer people dodging the dangers of passing, very real safety issues, and social stigmas all while still trying to live their truths and take pride in their “freak-ness” and who they are. We grew up knowing those narratives and understanding them.
Compared to now, while it’s excellent kids are getting LGBTQ+ media, these series don’t discuss prejudice. It simply doesn’t exist or is a non-issue. And a lot of new teen/adult series (save for maybe POSE?) aspects of what the reality has been for queer people deemed “freaks”
When we were younger, we were exposed to adult narratives and content reflecting the beauties and dangers of Queer struggle in the real world because LGBTQ+ kids’ media was banned. Kids have LGBTQ+ media now but no context for that struggle and thus reject versions which aren’t Disney-level of sanitized.
So you get these young people coming into Queer adult spaces like “what is this freak shit?” And it’s like “Honey, we’ve always been here, you just couldn’t see us”
And by extension, kids are growing up with positive depictions of LGBTQ+ people, but they’re learning their “History” from conservative groups that cater to childish narratives of “Yes why of course why should you have to be exposed to these nasty groomers at PRIDE? KIDS are there!”
“Keep it at home! Keep it behind closed doors, no one needs to know about that, CHILDREN are here.” And these kids just take it all in because these conservatives are painting it in a way that demonizes and shuns Queer adults for expressing sexuality publicly as crude villains.
Then you get youth telling Queer adults they’re cringe for behaving “stereo-typically” (often femme men), and calling adult media with sexuality a fetish and bad representation because parts of it make them feel uncomfortable. And now you have conservatism in a fun gay hat
Conservatism in Queer fandom is everywhere: “If you like __ you’re a fetishist.”
“If you have or tolerate kinks you’re an IRL abuser”
“If you behave like __ you’re making the community look bad”
“No real __ likes __ and if they do they’ve been brainwashed or they’re harmful”I think for that reason also, we understood how the power of narrative as a way for us to share the most rejected parts of ourselves in a safe controlled way. Queer media was made by Queer adults who lived that struggle and we very much understood the line between fantasy and reality
So because we understood the reality of struggle we were not concerned about “bad representation” when it came to our own indulgent fiction; we understood it as such. So when people who have grown up with the child-friendly sanitized version see those recesses it’s alarming
They see taboo narratives being expressed by people who understand fiction as a playground to escape reality but because they perceive all depictions as contributing to universal “representation” even when made by and for a niche audience it’s seen as “you want/condone this in real life”
Also I see some people expressing fatalistic hopelessness. Nothing is hopeless we just gotta push back harder against that misinformation. Things only get this bad when we don’t close ranks against this kind of shit and let it deteriorate.
radfems had high control of tumblr queer discourse for YEARS. It’s a core reason for the mess we’re in. All the problems we’re looking at right now (aside from the obvious failure of the education system) are in part a lack of stepping up and widely discrediting misinformation.
but I’m an optimistic person because I’ve seen people change their minds and be positively affected when we do put this work in, plus think of how far we’ve come from just 20 years ago. We can do this, we’ve done it before and we can do it again.
Discussion ¬