Another author of pro trans YA books turns out to be a creep

Queer theory promotes less rigid views about sexuality and sexual identity but has sneakily also promoted the concept of children as sexual beings.

Peter Tatchell is an example although he is still going into schools to talk to children about their sexuality in spite of him promoting child rape 🤷‍♀️

From what I’ve read about PIE I think the answer is sadly yes.

I wonder. Do a portion of people from this pro sexual liberation and pro trans gender crowd view sex with children (aka rape..) and child abuse material as negotiable too. Given that they keep pushing and pushing for what's acceptable.. maybe banning such content is seen as oppressive in some eyes.

Not that I have an issue with the gay and bisexual and lesbians (my son is gay or bi. Not sure which..). Its just the whole LGbtq community mostly the T as i dont see this from other parts of their community and their theory that I'm skeptical of .

If you create a sacred caste, predators will jump on the opportunity.

The other thing to bear in mind is that any criticism of the book (even legitimate) leaves you wide open to accusations of transphobia and a social media pile on, which could destroy someone’s career.

The “sacred caste” of TIMs is well-known but there’s also one where adults who seem to support gender-confused children are free from the usual scrutiny. I know that’s not news to anyone here, but I agree that editors should have been more scrupulous.

It’s ripe for grooming, isn’t it? Older mentally unwell man takes a confused 14 year old boy to live with him.

FWIW I think Silvey’s CSA material was of younger children, mainly because he was caught by the police in the action of engaging with another CSA distributer online. Whereas the perverts who prey on older children seem to be caught by police pretending to be an older child on line. I read something saying Silvey had also supplied material - he has a toddler child and twin babies at home, although obviously it’s not known if his own children were abused. His poor wife.

Jesus. More and more of these fucking creeps are turning up.

Vic takes Sam home with him

What editor in the world greenlights a YA novel where a 14yo goes to the home of a suicidal adult man he just meets??? Wtf kind of message is this sending to young children?? Another poster wrote something about how we as a society began ignoring red flags they literally don't get any redder than this! Any editor who greenlights content like this for children should absolutely be called out!

Who could possibly have predicted this?

He has three young daughters. I don't know what to say.

After I discarded it I hunted online for other reviewers who didnt like it. Almost all critics and readers seemed to adore it, gushing over the bravery of the (eventually) trans protagonist, citing the novel’s unflinching coverage of the most vulnerable population etc.

The only review that hated it as much as me was by a TiM who said it was full of lazy stereotypes, was massively unrealistic, the old man seemed dodgy and the plot was a mess. He said that, unfortunately, as soon as a book was about trans people no one reviewed it properly.

Just reading that I am thinking, for the millionth time, when did people start deliberately closing their eyes to the red flags? What happened to common sense? Obviously the 1960s and 1970s when I was a child was a time when in real life red flags were ignored all the time because much abuse was being carried out by people like priests, doctors, social workers and teachers who were difficult to challenge, or by parents, and nobody was listening to children or believing them. But one thing I feel definitely wouldn't have happened is publishers looking at manuscript such as you have described and saying 'Brilliant idea, that's just what we need to promote to young teenagers'.

i think he wrote it to justify having more access to troubled children.

Although he was invited to schools regularly to read and promote Runt.

Jasper Jones, by Craig Silvey is a good YA book and is actually on the year 12 (aus final year) curriculum at school. Runt is very popular for primary school kids, a movie was made about it as well. He recently wrote a sequel to Runt which was also well-received.

His only other book, Honeybee which was for a YA audience was creepy. I didn’t finish it which is unusual for me as I am a very fast reader and rarely don’t see a book to its end.

in the book, Sam, a suicidal 14 year old boy from a abusive/neglectful home is on a bridge on th verge of jumping. On the same bridge, he meets Vic, an old man who is also suicidal.

Vic takes Sam home with him, whereupon Sam starts wearing Vic’s dead wife’s old lady clothes. Vic takes Sam to a drag show where a whole heap of sexualised comments are made to Sam by the men in dresses.

That’s when I stopped reading.

As you can imagine, the book was published to great acclaim.

I’ve always thought it a good idea for young people to have (fiction) books that address the sort of challenges they may feel as they come to terms with their sexual feelings (not just feelings relating to being ‘trans’, but to sexuality more generally). But reading this made me wonder if I have been very naive.

Is it perhaps the case that we should be very wary indeed of any author who writes books that focus on these challenges? In that they are spending way too much time thinking about teens and sex? And that doing so may well result in the author developing an unhealthy sexual interest in young people, even if he/she did not previously have that interest?