Drag queens pose in bond age gear for calendar in aid of Mermaids

Talk about missing the point

The case boards are a good way of doing things – you can’t say the system is wrong when it goes wrong once. It is almost the exception that proves the rule – you’ve just got to look at what went wrong and make sure it doesn’t happen again. No system is perfect. It’s human nature that people will sometimes get it wrong.”

It’s human nature that people will get it wrong which is why you design the system so that the bad outcome CANT HAPPEN.

Bad system: men can go in women’s prison, humans pick which men are goodies or baddies (hint: men going to prison are generally not goodies..)

Good system: men, under no circumstances ever go in women’s prison - problem solved!

The problem isn’t that the board got it wrong, the problem ksvthe system allows the choice to be made in the first place.

My faith in public bodies and structures to keep people safe is failing by the day. How can they be so stupid?

Crossposted, Oink!

Yes, I do think that Stonewall has a lot to answer for. Previously they spoke for LGB, held sensible campaigns and were very well respected.

Now, who knows what they stand for? Acceptance without exception. They have unintentionally (I think) allied themselves with all kinds of fringe behaviour that - crucially - has nothing to do with LGB sexual orientation.

this 'acceptance without exception' promoted by Stonewall is part of the problem
Absolutely. Stonewall are doing gay men and lesbians no favours whatsoever.
The most successful way to ensure gay rights is for the public to be able to relate to gay and lesbian people. I got where I am through years of patiently explaining things to straight people and proving myself. You can argue I shouldn't have to, but then why should the public bother accepting or understanding any minority? There has to be mutual good will.
I wouldn't drag my straight boss to a lesbian sex club, would I? That would make me seem "other", and strange, and he wouldn't be able to relate to that.
Gay people get shit for being outrageous and also shit for being heteronormative. There was a large contingent of homosexuals who didn't want gay marriage, myself included. (Civil partnership was/is a better option in my opinion but I don't want to derail - just making the point).
I might not be as cool as the queer lot, or as edgy, or push as many boundaries, but I'd quite like to just be able to live my life thanks.
Some of these boundary pushers are very dodgy people, some are just naïve, thinking the rights and freedoms gay and lesbian people have achieved in a few short decades are completely unassailable.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but I think Stonewall are dismantling what we had built as a community by pandering to some questionable groups. And Ruth Hunt doesn't give a monkey's about lesbians. I think she must suffer from some internalised lesbophobia.

Stephen Wood/David Thompson/Karen White, paedophile and serial rapist convicted in 2018, worked as a drag performer apparently.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/11/karen-white-how-manipulative-and-controlling-offender-attacked-again-transgender-prison

There really is no good reason to expose kids to drag.
Agreed

FlyingOink
I understand your concerns and I don't believe that all gay men are part of a "paedo vanguard". But this 'acceptance without exception' promoted by Stonewall is part of the problem. And we now have countless examples of the predators using this as cover for their respectability - as British Airways discovered:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6143783/British-Airways-hires-convicted-paedophile-drag-queen-Gay-Pride-celebrations.html

FlyingOink, agreed, but yes, and some of us have been talking for some time about the impact that this kind of behaviour will have on certain sections of society that have nothing to do with the core aims of it.

It’s about boundary erosion Bowl is so right.

Coercive control is about eroding a woman's boundaries. A paedophile erodes a child's boundaries. Abusive men don't respect boundaries. Bullies erode boundaries. Men wearing bondage gear, looking at porn and wearing grotesque "womanface" being placed in front of a primary child erodes that child's boundaries of personal safety.

On reflection it might well do Oink. There really is no good reason to expose kids to drag.

It’s about boundary erosion.
I think this is a distinct possibility, but I think another possibility is that Green, who clearly doesn't understand what is appropriate and what isn't (see the documentary for evidence) is trolling.
The only reason I suggest this is because the demographic of actual drag queens is normally all gay men. Drag queens are often heavily involved in the bar and club scene - you don't put in all that effort on makeup and costume for nobody to see it - and many are cabaret acts. So we're talking about busy guys, out in drinking establishments on school nights.
I'm not 100% convinced they form part of a paedo vanguard. If they do, I guess it's unwittingly.
Basically I'm suggesting that a bunch of drag queens are more likely to be ill-informed barflies than anything else. It might sound dismissive, it's just my experience from interacting with these type of guys in real life.
Green is rubbing her inappropriate sense of humour in the public's face because she feels she is untouchable.
I don't disagree that the end result is the same, and that boundaries are being blurred, and perhaps there is some influence from queer theorists with questionable views on consent.
What's the point of my post? I just don't want to see concern surrounding something that is clearly inappropriate manifest itself as common or garden homophobia.

And if a family is homophobic, storytelling men in drag are unlikely to combat that.
Isn't it more like to reinforce that homophobia? And discourage participation?

It's not really about getting children to accept LGBT in all its forms...

Damn right it isn't. It’s about boundary erosion.

My DC the same, Beer.

And if a family is homophobic, storytelling men in drag are unlikely to combat that.

There are plenty of LGB parents doing the spadework of parenting. When young kids come across them, LGB is usually filed under, 'oh, so that's a thing too' before moving on. Men in drag not required

My son is 7 and knows that two men or two women can get married and some people have two mums or two dads. He was totally 'meh' about it, accepting it without any questions, it's just something we have always just mentioned in passing along the way. And no drag queens were involved.

Beer I feel its because the message that children need to specifically be exposed to men in drag in order to learn to be accepting and nice of all men in women’s clothing is akin to saying children need to protect adults’ feelings. Children should be raised to have good manners, they do not need to learn to feel protective towards adults.

It's a "get em young" approach.

Yet people actually argue that grotesque characterisations of women with over sexualised dress, names and behaviours must be imposed on little children - and we're bigots and unkind if we don't agree.

YY.

Why is it ever a given that men in drag are well placed to teach kids about tolerance?

Why can't kids just decide for themselves much later - as adults - whether this particular aspect of male sexual culture is for them?

There are plenty of LGB parents doing the spadework of parenting. When young kids come across them, LGB is usually filed under, 'oh, so that's a thing too' before moving on. Men in drag not required.

YY totally agree that every UK school who has a mermaids speaker in or who links to Mermaids on their website should also display a copy of this calendar in reception.

Why not link to the calendar sales site from the school’s website and school Twitter account when they are fundraising?
Have a charity dress up day where the kids wear ‘inspired by’ costumes and take copies of this calendar home to sell like they do with those raffle ticket books.."?

And of course drag is never about women dressing as men. There are no drag kings going into schools to talk to tiny kids (who would far rather Fireman Sam came and talked to them). It's ALL about men dressing up as women

It's incredible how speedily the boundaries of what is acceptable for young children have been eroded and the ability of parents to protect their children undermined by some very sinister people.
How many of us have had to remove our children from seeing Father Christmas when they screamed the place down? How many have had to reassure our children that the scary clown is just a man in disguise and they won't get close? Good parents do that.
Yet people actually argue that grotesque characterisations of women with over sexualised dress, names and behaviours must be imposed on little children - and we're bigots and unkind if we don't agree. The weaponising of children by the perverted porn advocates is repellant and people centring the needs of children don't facilitate this.

Bowlofbabelfish the thing is, Sarah and her two mummies, who are just two normal bog standard cunty women, with normal jobs, who dress in normal clothes and happen to be lesbian, but don't identify as 'queer' or 'femme' or whatever other label needs to be slapped on these people, is not the sorts of families they are talking about is it? Too boring really.

It's not really about getting children to accept LGBT in all its forms...

Beer I feel its because the message that children need to specifically be exposed to men in drag in order to learn to be accepting and nice of all men in women’s clothing is akin to saying children need to protect adults’ feelings. Children should be raised to have good manners, they do not need to learn to feel protective towards adults. In dysfunctional families, children often take on an emotional burden that should not be theirs, this looks similar to me. It really raises my hackles.

Gosh, this is so true. I have seen it both personally and professionally when adults put emotional burden upon children and the effect that has. Children shouldn't really need to care about the feelings of adults beyond 'good manners' as you say, should they?

Of course men should be able to wear 'women's' clothes, but that is not what drag is, is it? Drag is a parody, an exaggerated portrait of a woman.

I'm another one who doesn't understand why kids can't be taught that some families have two mums or two dads without that information being given out by drag queens?

Absolutely! It’s counterproductive to give that message out by drag queens because it says ‘same sex families are unusual/weird/different.’

‘Sally has two mummies’ then showing those mummies doing normal, routine things as part of family life (Sarah’s mummies take her to the dentist/to the beach/to her friend’s birthday party’ is how same sex relationships should be shown at that age - ie families may look different but they’re just the same as you. No further explanation is needed.

Age/situationaly appropriate truth, always.

Not a six foot four drag queen in clothing they’d (hopefully) never see in real life. That doesn’t teach them that Sarah’s mummies are just like her mum and dad, it teaches them that they should allow men to do whatever they like. Mind blowing that this is allowed/encouraged in schools.

It's actually illegal to use the disclosure statement they've used on that calendar as it's a commercial participation arrangement - the photographer (as a business) is using the charity donation to encourage sales of their calendar/their business so the disclosure statement has to be transparent under the Charities act. it should say something like 50p from the sale of each calendar will be donated so the buyer knows exactly how much the charity is getting, not some vague %of the profit. So what everyone says above wrt this being a shockingly inappropriate thing to be associated with, plus it's technically illegal.

Mermaids are members of the fundraising regulatory scheme and they commit to fundraising good practice - which this isn't. Anyone who feels strongly about fundraising transparency can complain to the regulators and mermaids have to publish the number of complaints they received about fundraising each year. www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/complaints/make-complaint

I feel its because the message that children need to specifically be exposed to men in drag in order to learn to be accepting and nice of all men in women’s clothing

When women are desperately pointing out that their six year old has no hope in hell of challenging men who identify as women in their toilets/changing rooms/guide packs this looks a lot like grooming.