Nathaniel Knight (partner of Aimee Challenor); worrying twitter admissions

Oh, already there @LangCleg

I should probably have guessed - staying ahead of this curve is nigh on impossible

Sorry but communication is more than "typing"
By articulate I meant "is clearly able to construct an argument, and use language to manipulate and obsfucate."
As I said I have a close relative with autism. Hes not " on the spectrum" or "possible asd" he is very obviously autistic.
He is nowhere near articulate,, but faces challenges in many areas of communiation. I would say he has some vulnerabilities BUT he bloody knows right from wrong. In fact in my experience autistic people are very clear on rules of behaviour. My relative would be apalled to have his autism held up as an excuse for something so calculated and revolting as what that nonce said.

I hold anyone allowing people to ignore it as equally complicit.

Yes. Libdems could prove to be even more blind to this than the Green Party.

Why do all these pervs have the same piggy little eyes and fucking creepy face?

I will not engage in any sexual interaction without consent from a person with a mature mind and understanding of sex.

Interesting phrase.

We can't draw attention to the abject failures in safeguarding and child protection that are happening before our very eyes. On a parenting website

Well lib dems did ignore 80+pages confirming a lack of understanding of safe guarding.

I hold anyone allowing people to ignore it as equally complicit.

@formermediocremale this entirely.

My experience with a paedophile involved his barrister getting a psychologist to tell the jury that he can't have done all the horrible things he did because he's autistic and can't lie.

Yup. No other words on that one!

Fuck NO. Hes not fucking "vulnerable". Hes very articulate!

Just wanted to point out that being very articulate doesn't preclude an autistic person being vulnerable.
It's assumptions like that which make it difficult for verbal autistic adults to get any support.
To be clear, I'm just pointing out the erroneous assumptions about autism on this thread, I'm not arguing that NK is vulnerable.

Regarding this guy being autistic, he seems to be able to carry on a transatlantic relationship with Aimee Challenor so pretty able. You have to be very vulnerable indeed to not be liable for criminal charges. I've recently been diagnosed with ASD and dyspraxia.

So you've recently been diagnosed with ASD and already you're deciding another autistic person is "pretty able" on the basis that he can carry out a relationship online. Wow, way to spread myths about autism. Being able to communicate online hardly makes a person "pretty able", it means they can type. It's certainly no indicator of their ability to function in every day life. When ignorance like that comes from a person diagnosed with ASD what chance is there of the NT part of the population knowing any better?

Just waiting for the "Concern is Transphobic" and "Safeguarding is for Transphobes" memes , T shirts, placards at pride etc

Oh, already there.

twitter.com/KeithFarnish/status/1144155129098244096

Well, yes, obviously rumours are facts.They don't have to show you anything at all. You're basically mad because trans people want to enjoy themselves. "Safeguarding" is just another TERF dogwhistle.

twitter.com/KeithFarnish/status/1144153606725259264

Safeguarding. The new TERF dogwhistle.

I saw this earlier on twitter and reported the thread, haven't heard anything back from them obvs.

autism and transgenderism are not 'get out of jail free' cards when it comes to child safe-guarding.

This

TRAs consider safeguarding transphobic. I should point out that plenty of responsible trans people - Miranda Yardley, for example - see efforts to undermine safeguarding as anathema.

Absolutely Prawn. The problem here, though, is institutional capture - somehow, the most extreme voices are the ones who've got their foot in the door - training the police and NHS, amending the Bench Guidelines for judges, the BBC, Guardian, Independent, getting into schools.

Any other political movement, politicians and institutions would be seeking out the moderate voices like Miranda and Debbie Hayton (I know some people on here have problems with the latter, but Hayton is one of the more moderate voices). What's really weird is that in this instance they're listening to the voices of people like Action on Trans Health.

It's a bit like saying "well, I can get my information on Christianity from the Methodists, or the C of E, but you know what, I'm going to let the agenda be set by the Westboro Baptists..."

I still don't know how this con trick has been pulled off.

Yup, looks like we really can't say it. Even on a parenting website.

We can't draw attention to the abject failures in safeguarding and child protection that are happening before our very eyes. On a parenting website.

In plain sight.

Just waiting for the "Concern is Transphobic" and "Safeguarding is for Transphobes" memes , T shirts, placards at pride etc

What, like privacy being transphobic? Everyone remember the article that had someone state that these floor to ceiling petitions in gender neutral bathrooms were transphobic cos if theres no gap under the doors it means we dont trust them blah blah blah

How much further are they gonna go ffs. It couldn't be more obvious and yet its ignored every time

TRAs consider safeguarding transphobic. I should point out that plenty of responsible trans people - Miranda Yardley, for example - see efforts to undermine safeguarding as anathema.

Tirisfal - I think that's a very accurate assessment of fandom. I too wrote a lot of fanfic (still dabble occasionally). What follows is a bit of a digression, so by all means skip as a tl:dr. But I think it's useful to get a bit of an idea of how fandom works, so you can place the inevitable "this guy's just writing fanfic - it's fantasy, leave him alone, free expression, yada yada" defences which will inevitably spring up as this shit gets a wider audience.

The TL:DR version is - yes fandom tackles some nasty stuff some of the time (sometimes because the person writing it genuinely is a perve, sometimes because they are a victim of abuse trying to use writing to process that abuse, and sometimes because someone is trying to write about the shit that goes on in the world without endorsing it), and there isn't enough critical thinking around it, and too much of an "acceptance without exception" vibe, which means it's difficult to do feminist critiques of what goes on and to protect vulnerable youngsters who are drawn into the fandom scene.

I do think there's been a bit of a shift in attitudes with more of an emphasis on "your kink is not my kink and that's okay" (nope, some kinks are not, and never will be okay, as far as I'm concerned) and also more of a tone-policing aspect to it all. You can't say "actually this is downright nasty, for x,y,z reasons" any more in the comments - you'll get a pile on for "kink shaming" and "policing fandom" (often with a side order of "be nice - these writers are traumatised people writing as catharsis, so you musn't question the fact that they're writing incest/rape/underage shite, because... niceness, inclusion, etc.")

Not only does it mean you can't say "what you're writing is to the detriment of the readers", you can't actually criticise writing style either (gone are the days when you could say "actually this is a shit piece of writing, back to the drawing board, install a spelling/grammar checker on your laptop for fucksake, and get a beta reader.") But at the same time there's a whole load of virtue signalling - you will generate an absolute pile-on if one of your protagonists has anything less than totally PC views (even if it would be historically innacurate for them to have PC views, or you're trying to explore how good people sometimes do/believe bad stuff). Only superheroes and pantomime villains are tolerated. This spills over into mainstream culture too - witness the huge twitter outrage, not to mention outrage among broadsheet newspaper reviewers, who really should know better than to climb into the ball pit with the toddlers, over "fat-shaming" Thor in the latest Avengers film.

Just waiting for the "Concern is Transphobic" and "Safeguarding is for Transphobes" memes , T shirts, placards at pride etc ...

@BeyondDangerousTshirts and some little boys too.

To call LD's for urgent safeguarding concerns

If your query is urgent, you can also call us on 020 7022 09888_ between 0930 and 1730, Monday to Friday. You can also contact us by emailing [email protected]

I have reported anonymously.

Well it adds a new perspective to the whole "little girls want to marry their Daddy" idea, doesn't it...

I mean, if you look at most convicted paedophiles, most of them could be considered ‘vulnerable’ in some way. It’s sad, but immaterial.

Also, yet another link between online fandom/fanfic subculture and TRAs. I think there’s a lot to see there, for those willing to look.

I used to write fanfic in the early 00s, as did many mainly socially-anxious, introverted, fiction-loving teens whose present day equivalent now are all over Tumblr being non-binary. Back then it was identification with characters rather than as literal biological realities.

Fandom used to be a bit safer/saner with a strong emphasis on ‘don’t mix your IRL name with your fandom handle’ and ‘if you’re going to write questionably consensual, underage or illegal content, be circumspect about where you share it’. That seems to have gone out of the window in the name of ‘acceptance without exception’. We all knew what we were doing was a bit odd, and while there was a tide of dreck, wingfic, mpreg etc, there were older, thoughtful writers tackling difficult stuff through fic without glorifying or condoning it. Warnings culture was a big deal.

While exposure is in the public interest in some cases, like this one, I do feel bad for younger fandommers who will have been writing in this environment, ie everything you can imagine is fine and it’s fine to spill it all over the Internet easily linkable to your real identity. They’ve basically rendered themselves unemployable and potentially had a knock-on effect on friends and family.