Peter Tatchell excusing sex with kids

[Happypie]

Peter Tatchell runs the Peter Tatchell Foundation that is currently seeking charitable status. He is also regularly consulted on LGBT issues.

I include a picture of a letter he wrote to the Guardian in the 90s about sex with children. It is deeply disgusting. A man who has these views about sex with kids should not be allowed to run anything.

Peter Thatchell is a nobody whose only 'claim to fame' is to try and purport controversy (all the while skulking back and trying to re-write what he wrote i.e 16-17 year olds rather than 9 year olds- 13 year olds.

A MASSIVE difference.

I'm appalled that you made the statement you did initially - I'm absolutey more appalled that you obviously realise how inappropriate your 9-13 age difference was and your lilly livered post stating 16-17 year olds was your stance is abhorrent. While you stand on your ill informed pedestal take one minute to think about the CHILDREN abused daily by animals who could ever reason that a 9 year old child could EVER reason or have a relationship

I am not sure that ‘most sex with under 18s is freely chosen with children of similar ages’ as Tatchell says in his post. Many young women (teenagers) at the time he wrote the letter and since were or are pressured or feel pressured into sex by boyfriends who want to brag to their peers or who have watched a lot of porn. The myth of freely consenting young people in the majority of encounters also helps fuel the idea that young women (and boys) should be having sex. If there is a valid point about teenagers’ sexual exploration in safe and mutually consensual relationships, I am not sure Tatchell is making it, because one has to recognise that is not the reality for many young people. (I understand Tatchell may be writing about young men, in which case I think the point still stands but women are sexually objectified by society and by men so there is that added element - also I am not sure when the age of consent changed from 18 to 16 for homosexual sex, a point which was/is about equality, and not ‘Intergenerational sex’)

Secondly, the argument that teenagers enjoy consensual sex with other teenagers is murky when it is tied up with a statement about pre-pubescent sexual experience (also known as child rape). Debates about age of consent are about the age at which society and the law seeks to protect children against sexual experience and encounters. It does not matter whether the friends of Tatchell’s said (very) under age sex gave them great joy, the point is that society and the law states that under age sex is harmful and is exploitative because of the difference in understanding and maturity. People experience and subsequently process things in many different ways, laws and social norms are based on what is known to be the majority experience and expectations and to provide protection and safety (why, for example, we have gun laws in place).

There is still, in my experience, an academic view that sanitises child exploitation and sexual abuse in different ways - and does so under the guise of ‘research’. But the problem is this - when the police or legal professionals are involved with cases involving case histories or images, they have psychological support and people working with them in a set of agreed boundaries. Academics working on their own can generally look at what they like, publish what they like (subject to peer review) and argue that it is bona fide research and someone has to do it.

But the point is that by doing it, and ignoring the voluminous evidence of trauma and abuse in the context of children’s sexual encounters and the gateway this provides to paedophiles, they become complicit. Because you cannot discuss underage sexual experience without all these caveats, you have to recognise that writing about underage sexual experience requires great care and whatever you write comes through an adult framing and will be read as such; and you cannot merge consensual teenage experience with pre-pubescent cross-generational encounters (which is sexual abuse).

Any academic (or campaigner) who goes down this route without being aware of the risks and relationship to paedophilia lacks boundaries and becomes complicit in the sexual abuse of children.

Lee has a serious problem

Well yes, that bit is right.

In any universe, what kind of man in his 30s wants to be having sex with a 14 year old boy? I am just agog at what Tatchell has been saying. Fuck.

Urgh, and the other thing that is pissing me off is people saying 'this is just women attacking a gay man, gay does not equal paedophile'.

No, just no. No one is above criticism just because they are gay (or trans for that matter). It's nothing to do with him being gay and everything to do with it looking very much like he was excusing sex with kids.

This poor boy never stood a chance from where I'm sitting. If he was taken into care at 11 because of 'problems at home' you can bet that these problems had been going on for years. They may or may not have been problems of sexual abuse but he was obviously neglected/in danger. No surprise then that he was eager to please and took solace in the 'least' harmful environment he could - preferring to stay with an adult male who he had sex with and who didn't beat the shit out of him to a children's home.

I wonder if that kid is still alive 20 years on and if so what kind of life he's leading and what he has to say about it now.

Another disgraceful show from PT.

PT's argument was also used by social workers and the police to justify doing nothing about the sexual exploitation of vulnerable teenage girls in Rotherham and other places. It was seen as a 'lifestyle choice'. What is the difference?

Yes my overwhelming thought about Lee was this is not a child who has any idea about what constitutes a healthy relationship. How awful, and and awful that he was used as an example of why lowering the age of consent is a good idea. Fuck Peter Tatchell and his mates.

I too wonder what Lee is doing now.

Lee was a very clear victim of CSE

Tatchell claims he isn't a paedophile apologist and has worked with sex abuse survivors???? Get him the fuck away from any children he's patting on the back like Lee saying this is anything but GROOMING to!!!

Peter, you failed Lee. At least have the decency to own up

And if Lee was in care, that may unfortunately go some way to explaining why he was “having sex” with other children at such a young age. How that can be seen as emotionally healthy and fully consensual in such an environment I do not know. I have a close older male relative who grew up in a children’s home and his tales from that time are heartbreaking.

I wouldn't be letting Peter Tatchell anywhere near sexual abuse victims if this is his approach. The interview with Lee is shocking. A boy who started having sex at 8 and was having sex with grown men at age 12 is the reason we should decriminalise sex with under-16s?? Really?
Many victims of sexual abuse do not have great boundaries. For Peter Tatchell just to say (paraphrasing) 'it's hard to imagine anyone getting away with taking advantage of this boy' is just awful, and reminds me of that case where a young girl was raped by a grown man, and the judge made comments to the affect of 'she was very streetwise and she seemed to know what she was doing'. About a child.

Peter Tatchell is a Patron of FFlag
www.fflag.org.uk/patrons/

Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays

Now this has been running, to my knowledge over 30years, at least.
This is who you might contact for a bit of support, when your child tells you that: he/she thinks that they are gay. You love them so much and want to do your best to support them so you get in touch with other people who are Family and friends.

I'm not criticising Fflag, just pointing out one of their patrons.

Just to add, I'm sure most of those of us who've worked with kids will have gone on one of those safeguarding courses where they teach you how to recognise if children are being abused or neglected and what you need to do. Fairly sure one of the signs of sexual abuse was kids behaving in a sexual way. I seem to recall the procedure for me was to report that to my line manager. I can't imagine it would ever have been to help enable the abuse which is what PT seem to be implying should happen in that interview.

That interview with Lee is heartbreaking and horrifying.

I had lots of friends who, at 13/14/15, had older 'boyfriends' - men in their mid 20s to 30s. The men would flatter them, buy them gifts, and it was seen as something prestigious to have an adult boyfriend.

If you'd asked those girls at that age, or even in their early 20s, theyd say that they knew what they were doing. I think part of it was victim blaming themselves, and trying to deny the reality of what happened to them.

But all the ones I still speak to are horrified now - they realise they were groomed. One 'starred' in amateur porn (translation: child sex abuse films) in her early teens - she used the boiling a frog analogy. Her boyfriend kept on pushing her boundaries, making her think that it was normal. She thought she was being sexy, rebellious and grown up.

Some of them got their lives back together, but many ended up with forced abortions, drink/drugs problems, fucking up their education, and repeating the cycle of abusive relationships.

An adult having sex with (translation: raping) a child is abhorrent. Yes, children have sexual feelings, but it doesn't mean that adults should be free to act on them, ffs. I always had so much respect for Peter Tatchell, now he makes my skin crawl, and I'm shocked that all of this stuff was publicly available, but was just shrugged off.

I just want to say one thing. The thing that needs to be said every. single. time. a pedophile apologist tries to paint adults raping children as 'love'

Pedophiles don't love children. Pedophiles hate children. They hurt them. They enjoy hurting them.

We see you.

Please join me in writing to the trustees of Fflag

www.fflag.org.uk/who-are-we/trustees/

to ask about their decision to have Peter Tachell as a patron of the organisation that offers support to young people in the light of his letter about paedophilia and his attempts to lower the age of consent. I would like to know who their safeguarding officer is and I would like to know what they are doing to safeguard young people from a man who wrote a glowing obituary for the co-founder of pie.

BTW thanks for notareallawer for the heads up about FFLag

@ALittleBitofVitriol

The reality is more complicated than that, they don't necessarily hate their victims.

There's no doubt that my abusive F had a form of love for DSis and me. But he had a very low view of women, I suspect because of the way his grandmother, who brought him up, blamed his mother for breaking up his father's first marriage, it was never his father's fault.

When he married my DM, he certainly loved her, but he was emotionally abusive, and was also constantly suspicious of her. When she wanted to go on a work weekend away, he wouldn't let her because he apparently knew what people got up to on weekends like that. He once told me straight out that she had been unfaithful to him.

He actually believed that a woman's adultery was worse than a man's adultery.

He treated DSis and me, and friends of ours too, in the same way. I remember him taking me swimming at the age of 6. He shouted at me for not covering myself up properly with my towel, accusing me of giving men the wrong idea. He also criticised my DSis because her skirt was riding up in her knickers, he said it gave 'the wrong impression', after an assault had happened. (She was only 6 at that time.)

Dear Sir/Madam
Please could you inform me about the Safeguarding checks that have been done by your organisation (that is dedicated to helping young people), in regards to Peter Tachell?

Peter Tachell has:

1. Written a letter to the Guardian that stated that 9-13 year olds can get "great joy" from sex with adults. He also used racist cultural relativism to justify the rape of young boys by men.
2. He has regularly campaigned to lower the age of consent.
3. He contributed to a book by Paedophiles called BOY or Betrayal of Youth.
4. He wrote a glowing obituary for the co-founder of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

These are inexcusable, safeguarding red flags, that this man should not be in a position of power or high status where he will have contact with young people. Your endorsement of him as a "safe person" (Patron) puts him in that position of power. We have seen the damage done by men who were deemed above reproach before. Please respond to this email which I will also be sending to the charities commission.

Sorry meant to say this is my letter if anyone wants to use it for inspiration to fflag

I will write to them, definitely. Thank you for highlighting this, @Happypie

Peter Tatchell is a great supporter of Educate and Celebrate.
Children in Need seem to like them.

www.educateandcelebrate.org/petertatchell/

And they do a lot in schools and have worked with Goldsmiths College.

www.educateandcelebrate.org/about-us/

And here he is again supporting Proud2be
Based in Devon.
Proud2be is a Charity helping young LGBTQ.
It was formed following two young twin brothers making a video about being gay.

Sixty six year old Peter really gets about helping and supporting young people doesn't he? I'd be star struck as a young gay man.

www.proud2be.co.uk/exciting-news-peter-tatchell-becomes-proud2be-patron/

He certainly has his finger in a few pies.

Peter Tatchell loves nothing more than making big gestures and being full of himself. I obviously agreed with his views on Robert Mugabe, but I think the citizen's arrest was no more than an empty gesture to draw attention to himself.

I never liked the man. However, until now, I respected him for having the honesty of his convictions, for example his support of the principle that civil partnerships should be available to heterosexual couples.

So I have been shocked and saddened by this thread, I had absolutely no idea about this.

I'm shocked to the marrow. I really had no idea that Peter Tatchell promoted paedophilia but there's no other way to look at it. That interview is breathtaking. Nauseating.

Disgraceful. Truly disgraceful.