Comment Re:Children shouldn't be on social media (Score 1) 45
What "age-appropriate" resources are we talking about that are supposedly needed? Porn?
Since people tend to get a bit more squeamish when the subject is LGBTQ+ youth, the standard for what constitutes truly pornographic material should be the same as what would be applied for heterosexual youth. If we let heterosexual youth read about love stories between a man and a woman, well, let's try to avoid those pesky double standards of somehow seeing a similar story where the love interests happen to be same sex as being "corrupting", "filthy", or otherwise less appropriate.
My point is, the term gets abused. If we're talking things like PornHub and Xhamster and various wank-u-bate cam sites, yeah, that's obviously porn and clearly inappropriate for anyone under 18. If you don't like a story about two boys kissing, that's not pornographic just because it offends someone's Republican brand of family values.
Something to reassure young people of non-traditional sexual orientations that what they're feeling is not unusual? That is needed, but that it looks to me that now this has been achieved, and then some.
That's strongly YMMV. In fact, in many places we're actually backsliding. Here in Florida, they basically banned LGBTQ+ discussion for all grades (the law left the age appropriateness exception so ambiguous that no school wants to touch it).
And of course there's the straightforward grooming.
The concept that gays have some agenda to groom kids is a bogeyman created by the right-wing. If anything, most sexualizing of minors is done by heterosexuals, and the ones who actually do unspeakable things with kids, again - also mostly heterosexuals.
Personally, I'm in a loving, committed relationship with another middle-aged man. The only interest I have in LGBTQ+ youth is seeing that they get to experience growing up as equals to their heterosexual peers, because I've always believed that progress is made by planting trees you'll never sit in the shade of.
It's naive to think that "age appropriate" resources will make anything different - see for example the reported number of paedophiles using Roadblox. Any 'community' will always end up full of adults pursuing their own goals, of various degrees of unsavouriness and criminality.
If the companies don't solve their pedophile problems, then you hold the companies liable for their contributory role and punish them harshly. As for who should enforce this, that's entirely why we have a legal system. They'd just have to, dare I say it, do their jobs.
The poster below me also makes an excellent point. The whole LGBTQWhateverElse++ mixes up simple homosexuality, various fetishes and straight up mental illness. Those are not the same things and should not be treated as such.
That's also another right-wing talking point intended to divide the LGBTQ+ community amongst itself, making it easier to "conquer". Basically, "Hey, you minorities should turn on each other, that'd make my job of oppressing you a lot easier!" Anybody who's actually picked up a history book can spot it from a mile away.