AIBU to question this Weston-super-Mare pride campaign as Family Friendly or Fetish

[Kalalily]

https://wsm-tc.gov.uk/beautifully-proud/

Promoted as family friendly in Weston-super-Mare. Beautifully Proud. A cartoon style picture with bondage gear, mastectomy scars, a character in a low cut dress with another character touching their breasts. This has gone too far now.

🧐 It's a cartoon picture

Maybe I need to give more context to the previous posters. I am the Mum of a young person with rapid onset gender dysphoria. They are also autistic and have been concretised into a trans identity through affirmation, as cautioned by the Cass Report. Hence, I probably do look more closely at these flags/posters than the average person. Try to think of it in the context of a child who previously showed no signs of gender distress who suddenly started identifying as trans and wanting to take hormones/contemplate surgeries, such symbols/posters can normalise these feelings. There is nothing family friendly about this poster. I stand by my original remarks that it has all gone too far and families are being further harmed.

I think it's really interesting how different people look at the same picture and see totally different things.

I look at it and see a drawing of a group of people probably posing for a photo, one of whom is wearing a leather thing another has their arm around the person next to them. They all look quite happy.

I don't see mastectomy scars, touching breasts or bondage gear and I really don't understand how you can go from this drawing to "grown-ups in the same leather bondage gear who also wear rubber dog masks? And of course, they let children 'pet' them?"

I think the difference in what we see says more about us and where our consciousness lies than anything else. I bet a psychologist would have a field day examining our responses.
Edited for spelling

Reform will probably ban Pride, so only 3 or 4 more prides to get through.

Do many people put their hands on your tit when they hug you from behind. And hugging from behind? Is that a thing?

Ah, come on, you're clutching at straws to make it something it isn't. Of course hugging from behind is a thing.

None of that has any bearing upon the false claims you made about the picture.

How many people do you personally know who have both strong moustaches and tits?

What kind of thing do you think is being normalised? Your ability to see mastectomy scars where there aren't any?

To spell it out, I think that the belief that you can change sex is being normalised.
To be clear, I couldn’t care less how adults get their kicks but I do care when their actions influence vulnerable young people who are identifying out of their natal sex, often because of an inability to cope with distress (e.g. from bullying, SA, dissociation). So anything of a fetish nature should not be billed as family friendly and presented as a cartoon. .

So as well as imagining mastectomy scars, you're also imagining there are trans people in that image?

Or, to put it another way, you're making stuff up in your head and then getting cross about it.

This.

Maybe those who have taken the time to reply could also take the time to familiarise themselves with the Cass Report and the concerns share by many on the dangers of normalising the feeling that you are ‘born in the wrong body’. Pride itself was a positive thing. Progress Pride, with the chevron, has a darker side which can harm young people and alienate families. The idea is to be inclusive and family friendly, which is clearly not what that cartoon portrays. Others will see what they want to see and that is fine, but please be mindful that there is a movement here which is harming vulnerable young people and as a society we all have a responsibility towards them.

Gay and trans people have kids, perhaps they would like it to be inclusive to include their children?

I think you are reading way too much into this image. Its a cartoon of some people looking happy. If you feel that strongly, don't attend. It's that simple.

Yours sincerely mum of an autistic trans identifying child too

I miss the fetish scene being an underground un-politicised subculture, like going to Torture Garden circa 2007.

Kindly, I imagine parenting your child is very tough right now as you try and find the right path as a family, but this is post says to me you are putting energy into the wrong place. Honestly that image and website is completely fine...

I'm really starting to hate that style of graphic.

The irony is that the only one who's seeing something they want to see is you. There's no-one in that image that has mastectomy scars. You're flat-out imagining it.

How old is your child, may I ask op?

I think of Pride branding itself as family friendly in the same way I think of pubs branding themselves family friendly: ultimately a marketing gimmick to attract as wide an audience as possible so as to maximise profit, rather than anything deeper

There might be occasions and times when Pride and the pub are suitable for children. But ultimately, Pride and the pub are for adults, adults shouldn’t have to centre children in adult spaces, and it’s up to parents to acknowledge and accept that there will be behaviour and clothing at Pride and the pub that they might not think appropriate for children to see, and take a decision on whether either is suitable to bring their child to.

I’m genuinely not seeing any trans people in that cartoon, and having read your linked web page of events, with the exception of the main Pride March, which mentions “a family area” in the gathering park at the end, I can’t see any indication that families or children are especially encouraged towards the events.

I appreciate your reply. I put some of my energy into this because this is part of the problem and if I can make a small difference then it will be energy well spent. Most people don't realise the dark undercurrent behind the TQI+.. I certainly wouldn’t have a clue had my autistic child, after years of bullying, not decided that they were the opposite sex to their birth sex. Sadly, you just have to say you’re the opposite sex and everybody colludes with it. If you were an anorexic and you said you were fat, no reasonable person would collude with you.
Some families choose to take the affirmative approach and are all in but in the lack of clear evidence we cannot do that due to the irreversible nature of medical intervention (including infertility and loss of sexual function - no small things for somebody who hasn’t even had their first kiss yet).
Society as a whole needs to look carefully at this issue. Then perhaps families life ours can direct all of our energy back to our loved ones.

There is a post on Pride marches trending in AIBU. The images posted on there very much show what I am talking about. Pride marches are no longer about celebrating gay and lesbian people. It has turned into something much more centred around fetish and that seems to coincide with the inclusion of TQI plus

But they're not in the picture the OP is complaining about, so has nothing to do with her post.

@Kalalily fetish has become mainstream and trendy, so it’s not surprising is it? Nothing is risqué any more. Everything is either mainstream or totally illegal, seems to me. There’s not much in between.

Again, there is nothing in that picture that isn't inclusive or family friendly. You have interpreted a woman folded arms as someone touching their breasts, a bare-chested man as a 'woman with mastectomy scars' and complained about someone wearing 'a low-cut dress'.

You obviously have a clear view on trans issues but it's fucking weird to use a harmless little cartoon to grind that axe. If you don't want to go to Pride, don't go, but the fact that you have certain views on gender and sexuality doesn't mean Pride shouldn't exist.