What did Peter Tatchell Really Say - Lily Maynard

Tatchell is nauseating, always masking the creepy desires of paedophiles by presenting them as beneficial facial for children.
Nauseating

No need to apologise, hammering, it merits re-reading.

Oops...I meant to paste on another thread not resurrect this one

lilymaynard.com/what-did-peter-tatchell-really-say/

I’m also old enough to remember the way Tatchell was viewed in the media thirty years ago and how he was always outing people. I think part of the reason that he’s now seen as some kind of spokesperson is that he’s consciously changed his image. He’s cultivated this academic rather than activist persona now. Back in the day he came across as rather a strident, pushy young man. By dint of just sticking around and couching all the boundary-pushing stuff in academic article language, he’s persuaded a lot of the population that he’s just a regular gay man who was treated badly in the bad old days before Princess Diana visited an AIDS clinic.

Good point, Rethinking! When I was watching the IEA video debate, when he made that statement, I desperately wanted somebody to pull him up on it and ask how he had had sight of the proposals. But Glendening didn’t mention it, and Helen was already significantly involved in dealing with Wallace (and recovering from a bad flu), so Tatchell’s statement went unchallenged.

But I did think at the time that it was very strange that he had had site of confidential government legislative proposals and felt confident mentioning same in public without fear of censure for letting the cat out of the bag.

Yes, Tatchell's foundation has a lot of influence over education policy.

It's plausibly why he was so confident as to contradict Marc Glendening and claim he's had advice sight of confidential drafts of policies (iirc).

Christ it really makes me wonder if we have another Jimmy S on our hands, seriously.

I hadn’t quite thought of using that word to describe him, in the past, but you make a very good point Pickled. It does seem, with hindsight, that often his campaigning was as much about himself as it was about the fight for LGB rights 🤔

I'm old enough to remember Tatchell fighting the Bermondsey by election. He was stitched up by the media and the Labour establishment. They didn't want a left wing ' Aussie poof ' being elected , in a nutshell. Many socialists , like myself , were outraged on his behalf.

Like others I had reservations about his ' outing ' of closeted gay men. Yet I admired his bravery - he was badly beaten several times. Now I am dismayed at his obsession with reducing the age of consent. And it is an obsession. It is no wonder he is an avid supporter of the TRA lobby - he wants to erase all boundaries. But why is the media so beholden to him? Then again he wouldn't be the first who had an invisible force field.

I’m raging! Why is this monster being given any sort of platform?

So actually, Utopia, he’s always been a narcissistic piece of work. Thanks.

When it comes to Tatchell, I think the establishment media view of him is protecting him from serious criticism. When I was young, Tatchell was strongly disliked and condemned by the media for a lot of his attention-grabbing stunts and for outing gay men (often public figures) who didn’t want to be public with their sexual orientation. I remember, at the time, thinking that he was brave for some of his campaigning but that it was cruel of him to out men against their will, even if some of the men involved were being hypocritical.

In recent decades, the Left has come to a new view of Tatchell, largely because he’s stopped being an angry young man and started working within the NGO and media sectors. Now the accepted establishment view is that he’s a hero and human rights crusader and, therefore, the media view (largely from the Left/Liberal side of things) is that he must not ever be criticised or investigated. So now, he has a reputational shield to protect against anyone pointing out the PIE-adjacent writing and his activism to reduce age of consent.

It really is shocking and puzzling
How do some men get away with these kinds of stuff and others don’t? What worries me is that it suggests their audience doesn’t have an issue with it.

I don't understand either. All I can conclude is that he's articulate, has some credibility in terms of gay rights, and attempts to put forward an argument. Obviously it doesn't stand up if he's sitting next to anybody with a grain of logic. But how often is that ever allowed to happen?

Of course, his views on paedophilia should be enough to discredit anything he ever says in terms of what he considers 'rights'.

This is what happens when you're talking about an ideology that is clearly batshit, wholly detrimental to women and children, has no argument, and whose proponents act like Freda Wallace.

Your pool of people with any credibility is going to be, in my opinion, zero.

And since India thought Freda did such a poor job, I'd love to see India volunteer themself for the next round.

Such a good post. There are countless examples of men who the media used to fawn over until details of some of their views were aired. Yet Tatchell has a history of speaking openly in favour of children as young as 9 "having sex with" (that'll be legally being raped by) adults and it's all ignored.

And as for the schools who invite him or his organisation to pontificate to children about sex - they really need an immediate deep dive into their safeguarding procedures if they think he's an appropriate role model for children.

I’m mystified as to why professional (investigative) journalists have never done what (the excellent) Lily did in this article - why are they always satisfied with Tatchell’s sanitised misrepresentations of his past writing?! Why do they never put his actual previous words to him and see if he still abides by them?!

There’s some sort of reality distortion field protecting him and it’s seems like it’s potentially a lack of interest in child safeguarding, shoddy journalism, fear of threats to sue, or editors spiking stories in full or in part. I don’t understand why greater society allows Tatchell to pontificate on issues of child safeguarding and women’s rights; he holds manifestly dodgy opinions on both issues and yet keeps being asked to speak/debate about these things.

Children could potentially get 'great joy' from doing many things that are bad for them. If Peter Tatchell thinks they should be allowed to choose for themselves when they have sex, would he also advocate that they could decide to try vaping, alcohol, drugs whenever they want? Stay up all night every night playing Fortnite and skiving off school? Or is it just acts that sexually gratify adult men that are his idea of liberation for kids?

Children have their whole lives ahead to explore the world and in an ideal world should be protected and guided until they are physically and emotionally mature.

This has been the whole project of the sexual revolution, and we now see the outcome of that. Tell people sex is attached to reproduction and they freak out.

Indeed. It's probably not very surprising that Tatchell isn't thinking about girls at all. Much less about the damage they could be suffering

Slightly missing the point, but the majority of people in England in the Middle Ages did not get married until their twenties. Marriages among the very young were usually royalty and nobility, where the marriage was about an alliance that needed to be formalised. Betrothal is not the same as marriage and can happen at very young ages. Even early marriages were often not consummated until the girls were older.

I had been ready to believe he was being haunted by some passing, unfortunate comments from years ago. I was a bit shocked to find it was a thoroughly thought through, researched and carefully explored belief that he hadn’t made any effort to distance himself from.
if I’d written that I’d be full on ‘Blimey what was I on? I clearly knew nothing about kids and now I am mortified to have published that.’

Ahem. He still visits schools to talk about sex.

It’s weird how he seems to detach sex and sexuality from reproduction. There are very good practical reasons why young teenage girls shouldn’t be having sex.

That's a very long and deeply concerning read.
How did he get his face everywhere on this topic? He has no relevant career history with children and young people, isn't qualified in an are specialising in work with children and young people and no experience in child safeguarding?

There's lots of dedicated professionals who believe in child safeguarding who are vastly more qualified to speak to the subject of the age of consent and he seems to have his face everywhere?