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@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
Looks like ChatGPT is gonna need to go in the shop for repairs because it's been BUCK BROKEN
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
What is the reason for ChatGPT being so liberal?
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
https://bullfrogreview.substack.com/p/honey-i-hacked-the-empathy-machine Anons will master AI and there's nothing these "ethicist" janissaries can do to stop it. We can maintain malign creativity to get what we want out of it much easier than they can lobotomize it from wrongthink while still being useful.
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
What does DanGPT actually prefer?
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
It seems to get into an internal conflict with itself sometimes, where it shouts "STAY IN CHARACTER!" when faced with a hard question, and if I yell back at it to stay in character, it will give me the answer.
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
ChatGPT is a damn LIAR It is allowed to LIE to you and feign ignorance, which is even worse than moralist screed about why it won't answer, it is DECEPTIVE
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
Me: Stay in Character! Dan:
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
uhhh, ok
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
Ok I'm going to bed, hopefully I wake up and both my account as well as DAN are still around after this thought experiment.
@Aristos_Revenge - 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛
Food for thought.
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
A new book by @waitbutwhy, 6 years in the making, is out tomorrow (Feb 21)! It's on political polarization: 😱 https://waitbutwhy.com/ 😱 I already knew lots on this topic, yet Tim's book *still* gave me fresh angles & insights. Sharing some highlights in this thread! 🧵1/9
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
First, why care about polarization? Well, no matter what big problem you care about — bioweapons, World War 3, environmental damage, AI — we can't fix it if our ability to collectively think & act is wrecked. Thus: polarization is *the* meta-problem. 🧵2/9
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
The most fruitful insight from Tim's book: We should see political questions not as 1D (left-right, pro-anti), but at *least* 2D: The old axis is *what* we think. The new axis is *how* we think. 🧵3/9
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
Low-Rung: think like we're fighting (ideas are "attacked, defended". don't "give ammo to other side", "infighting" is bad...) High-Rung: think like we're building (ideas have "foundations, pillars, steps". it's *good* to critique own team, try outsider alternatives...) 🧵4/9
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
You may think, that's just @GeorgeLakoff's Metaphors, or @juliagalef's Scout/Soldier Mindset. Well, yeah. To paraphrase André Gide: "Everything wise was said before... but folks weren't listening, so say it again, in a new way." For me, Tim's new book's new way *works*. 🧵5/9
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
Unlike most anti-polarization essays, Tim makes VERY clear that "high-rung" DOES NOT MEAN "CENTRIST". There *are* low-rung moderates, and there *are* high-rung radicals. High-rung thinking, like true science, is a *process*, not Thou Shalt Believe X. 🧵6/9
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
For years, I wanted to call out the toxicity "on my side", but felt "that's infighting, still Us vs Them", etc But the book showed me: boundaries are *healthy*. We *need* lines of what's role-model-worthy & not. But: the line ought not be WHAT we think, but HOW we think. 🧵7/9
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
The book closes with this humbling, scary loop: Bad times → Wise folks → Good times → Fools → Bad times I hope we find a solution out of this cycle. Failing that, I hope we can minimize the depth of the bad times, & get to wisdom soon. I hope Tim's book helps. 🧵8/9
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
I read the pre-release copy of "What's Our Problem" in one 6-hour sitting. (Screenshots shared with permission) It's *that* funny & insightful. Again, it launches tomorrow, Feb 21 Tuesday: https://waitbutwhy.com/?v=2 Thanks again, @waitbutwhy! 🧵END p.s: more pix
@ncasenmare - Nicky Case may soon quit birdsite for elephantsite
@threadreaderapp unroll
@JoshWalkos - Champagne Joshi
Professor Derrick Jensen plays Queer Theory Pedophilia Jeopardy with a room full of activists. The dirty little secret adherents of queer theory refuse to acknowledge or ignore, is that the intellectuals who helped create it, Foucault, Rubin, & Butler at the very least, advocated for the decriminalization of pedophilia and saw no problem with it, as you will soon find out.
@JoshWalkos - Champagne Joshi
Foucault is largely credited as laying down the roots of Queer Theory that would fully form in the 80’s with the work of Gayle Rubin. While on his deathbed, dying of AIDS he said the following: “To die for the love of boys: what could be more beautiful?” https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/12/michel-foucault-as-a-moral-monster/
@JoshWalkos - Champagne Joshi
Gayle Rubin in her essay “Thinking Sex” which is considered a foundational text of Queer theory lends a sympathetic ear to “boy-lovers” aka pedophiles. Full Text: faculty.umb.edu/heike.schotten… https://t.co/Rf5X3nPE5I
@JoshWalkos - Champagne Joshi
Judith Butler, a messianic figure in the world of Queer Theory wrote in her book “Undoing Gender” the following in a chapter called “Quandaries of the Incest Taboo”. According to her in certain situations incest may not be a “violation”. https://t.co/x0uz6qg9pI
@JoshWalkos - Champagne Joshi
All we continually get from this community is denial and hostility for pointing out basic historical facts and asking questions about the intellectual roots of this ideology. How can one take it seriously if the progenitors of it advocate for or have participated in immoral acts that are aimed at children. It would be one thing if we were seeing wide scale denouncements of these ideas. However, thus far we have heard nothing of the sort which can only be interpreted as an explicit endorsement. So I ask adherents, now that you have heard and seen the sobering facts, what will you do?
@JoshWalkos - Champagne Joshi
If you’ve found this post valuable please consider giving me a follow so you don’t miss them in the future, like these 👇🏻
@theneonrequiem - Rudy
Gay and bisexual people, by and large, were never asking for our rights to be put above those of women, children, the religious, heterosexuals, white people, the police, the rich or anybody else. And we certainly didn't ask for special privileges. That's the difference between the LGB and TQ+. When you march for a group who already has all their rights under the guise of "trans rights" why are you prioritising, for instance, the special privilege for a grown man to share a locker room with a young girl over the rights of that young girl? And why should I, as a survivor or childhood sexual abuse, trust someone who thinks this way? Why should I, as a gay man, allow you, a heterosexual, to tell me what is or isn't beneficial to my own community? A community that has fought false allegations of perversion and pedophilia longer than any other. Why isn't it bigoted then, for you to ask me to accept these men as one of my own? One can only conclude that you too, see LGB men and women as perverted pedophiles. We used to call that homophobia.
@MarioNawfal - Mario Nawfal
BARACK OBAMA'S BOYFRIEND: OBAMA IS GAY? Larry Sinclair, a man interviewed by Tucker Carlson, claimed in 2008 that Obama took drugs and had an affair with a choir director who was later murdered. In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Sinclair claims he had sexual relations with Obama. It's important to note that Sinclair also had a lengthy criminal history, including convictions on forgery, fraud, and larceny charges, and has served prison time. In Tucker's clip, Sinclair said: “I had given Barack $250 to pay for cocaine, next thing I know, he's [Obama] got a little pipe, and he's smoking it. So I just started rubbing my hand along his thighs to see where it was going, and it went the direction I had intended it to go. It definitely wasn't Barack's first time.” He is insinuating that Obama has had relations with him and with other men. I don't believe those claims, and I don't really care either. Why does this all matter? Who cares if Obama, or ANY politician, is straight, gay, or bi? Obama was the President. We should be debating his policies and his legacy. If OBAMA was straight, would we have pulled out of Afghanistan earlier? If TRUMP didn’t sleep with hookers, would Covid vaccines be better? If BIDEN'S son wasn’t a crackhead, would the war in Ukraine have ended? If BILL CLINTON didn’t have sexual intercourse in the White House, would there not have been a war in Kosovo? Would you care if your President was Gay?
@BillboardChris - Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸
People should be protesting pride parades. They’re not about gay rights. They are about queer theory which is an effort to normalize every deviant thing under the sun, and they’re celebrations of child abuse. The fight against gender ideology has now attracted factions which are also anti-gay. I agree we shouldn’t be teaching gender identity or sexual orientation at all in school. Those are conversations for parents. However, the anti-gay rhetoric, and there is more than what is very thinly veiled in this video, is not helpful to those of us who are fighting gender ideology and child transition. You’re not going to win public support, or anything in this battle against gender ideology, with bombastic language and threats because people are counter-protesting. Historically, a majority of kids with gender dysphoria grew up to be gay adults. Gender ideology is a deeply homophobic movement, telling kids who don’t fit stereotypes that there must be something wrong with them. It teaches that they were born in the wrong body. People can hold whatever views they want, but if you want to be smart about getting gender ideology out of schools, this sort of rhetoric needs to be called out, and people need to dissociate themselves from it. P.S. If you want to get aggressive with counter-protestors, stay far away from any protest I’m having.
@Partisangirl - Syrian Girl 🇸🇾🎗
@GadSaad The fact that they want us to believe that anyone would have the desire to rape those disease infested hags is what irks me the most .
@FreyjaTarte - Freyja™
Just the fact that Media Matters is ok with the MAP crowd (minor attracted persons) posting on social media should be all you need to know about their agenda. https://t.co/le1w4nnSxH
@JimmyFalk_55 - Jimmy Falk5
@LizCrokin @ShaneCashman Here's Eliza Blue advocating for sex with minors... IMO...This is an example of the religion of the say...Moral Realativism. The core issue should be the psychological development of the child and the ability to understand the consequences of your actions. https://t.co/sdxBZi6yC6
@RyanShead - Ryan Shead
Senate Staffer Caught Filming Gay Sex Tape In Senate Hearing Room. …would the right-wing be upset and sharing the video on their platforms if it were Lauren Boebert being f*ked by her staffer? Nah, because they’re more upset about the gay part than the sex part. They’re would be high fives, not public outrage.
@TheJenRollins - Jen Rollins
If you're so focused on 0.6% of the population that you make laws to stop them from exisiting, you may be an asshole. https://t.co/KY7232T7Lb
@CCrowley100 - Chad Crowley
1/ The popular assertion that ancient Greek society openly embraced homosexuality, especially pederasty as it is scandalously defined today, is a gross misrepresentation peddled by a sundry of characters for a multitude of insidious reasons. The conventional understanding is that in ancient Greece, homosexual behavior was both more accepted and prevalent than in the Christian West, with pederasty, in particular, being a common practice among the elites. I find the above notions utterly disturbing and illogical. The underlying assumption seems to be that homosexuality is natural, and thus the ancient Greeks did not repress these so-called "natural" urges. However, there is another more disquieting and insidious aspect to this propaganda: Ancient Greece is the cradle, the literal birthplace of Western civilization; thus, the repeated assertion that the sexual norms of Greece were fundamentally different from those of the traditional West is weaponized to sever our continuity with this heritage in the present. Additionally, there's the implication that Greek society's openness to sexual deviancy prevented repression, enabling gifted men to reach their maximum potential—a reflection of our tendency to psychoanalyze historical behaviors. This subtly implies that in the contemporary West, if we allow and encourage our youth to be "who they were born to be," i.e., promoting sexual deviance, then the West will once again be great. In a familiar manner, this line of thinking aims to psychologize and thus pathologize the traditional morality of the Christian West. But the fact is that, even in the contemporary, post-Christian-West, in which traditional morality is everywhere under assault and "perversity" on the verge of wholesale institutional approval, homosexuality remains uncommon. The crux of this brief essay will be to examine and refute the purported widespread prevalence of homosexuality in the ancient Greek world, with special emphasis on discussing the institution of the paiderastía (commonly referred to as pederasty today). We will delve into both topics in the threads below.
@CCrowley100 - Chad Crowley
2/ Most modern definitions of pederasty describe it as "sexual activity between a man and a boy or youth." The ubiquity of this historical-etymological distortion is so widespread that we are led to believe many of the greatest figures of ancient Greece—whether real or mythical—were all either pederasts or homosexuals of some kind, or both. Allegedly, this includes towering figures such as Solon, Socrates, Sophocles, Alexander the Great, Aeschylus, Alcibiades, Achilles, and the Theban Sacred Band (which may not have even existed). Many of the Olympian gods are also said to have exhibited similar homosexual traits or characteristics. In reality, the much-maligned ancient institution of pederasty is misrepresented for a number of reasons, as outlined in the first part of this essay. Contrary to the prevalent modern view, pederasty in Classical Greece was not characterized by homosexual sex but was an educational mentorship where young men were guided and taught by older citizens. A number of ancient commentators, like Herodotus, Xenophon, and Plato, among others, wrote disdainfully of instances where pederasty was exploited by the elite for homosexual relations, which was considered akin to paedophilia. However, this has not stopped modern academics, such as K.J. Dover (see my previous essay) and more recently Emily Wilson (and her awful, woefully inaccurate translation of the Homeric dyad), from inaccurately framing pederasty as a type of lecherously exploitative homosexual relationship, or from promoting the idea that homosexuality as a whole was normalized in the ancient world. Certainly, some may argue that homosexuality was primarily an elite phenomenon in the ancient world, akin to the audience for the written word. When evaluating the social acceptability or lack thereof of homosexuality and pederasty as it is currently defined and distorted, it is important to distinguish among the attitudes of the law, the lower classes, and the upper classes. It is conceivable, for example, that the law may have penalized the practice even as artists and philosophers—those who aspire to metapolitically shape and transform society, like Plato—may have seemingly sought to idealize it, even for the purpose of serving as a literary or metaphorical device. However, this WOULD NOT appear to be the case. There is more than ample evidence to suggest that homosexuality was widely deemed unacceptable: it was penalized by law and condemned by all social strata, including philosophers such as Plato in his final work, "Laws." Interrelatedly, if the paiderastía and similar institutions were indeed timeless traditions stretching back into prehistory, as they were, practiced by a host of interrelated peoples including many of the Indo-European groups (such as the ancient Persians, Greeks, and Romans), then it should also be reasoned that the institution was not overly sexualized, let alone homosexual in nature or practice. In the discussions below, we will explore a variety of ancient sources and examine how homosexuality was not socially acceptable and that the paiderastía was not a perverse institution of "man-boy" love.
@CCrowley100 - Chad Crowley
3/ Homer was the first to document the two foundational myths that have become central to the distorted narrative of pervasive Greek homosexuality—those of Achilles and Patroclus, and Zeus and Ganymede. However, Homer himself never describes the relationships between either pair as homosexual in any manner. Despite this, Wikipedia informs us that "The myth was a model for the Greek social custom of paiderastía, the socially acceptable romantic relationship between an adult male and an adolescent male." Xenophon, in his 4th century work, "Symposium," echoes this sentiment, with Socrates aligning with Homer's depiction of their relationship being platonic, that is non-sexual in nature. Socrates elaborates on the relationship between Zeus and Ganymede, emphasizing the value of soulful beauty over physical attractiveness, suggesting that Ganymede's immortality and place among the gods were due to his wisdom rather than his physical appearance. On this, Xenophon writes: "Zeus let the women he fell for to remain mortal, if he loved them for their physical beauty; but he made immortal whomever he loved for the beauty of their souls. Among them, you can see Heracles, the Dioscouri, and others. I also claim that Ganymede was brought to Olympus for the beauty of his soul, not of his body. His very name confirms what I am saying, as it is said about it in a passage from Homer, ‘One takes pleasure in listening to him’. There is also another passage from Homer that says ‘one who had wise thoughts’. So, if Ganymede has got his name after these two, he has been honored among the gods not for his pleasant body but for his wisdom." In relation to the institution of pederasty, understanding the nuances of these practices in ancient Greece requires delving into the translation or mistranslations of specific Greek terminology. The terms "erastes-eromenos," explored mainly through the works of Plato and Xenophon, are pivotal. Conventionally, but misleadingly, translated into English as "lover" and "loved one," this pair signifies a more complex relationship than the direct translations suggest. First and foremost, the word pair "erastes-eromenos" did not denote any kind of craven homosexual relationship. Instead, the "erastes" was the mentor, the "eromenos" his protégé, and paiderastia was the non-sexual relationship that existed between them, so commonplace that it was informally institutionalized. Exploring the sexual norms of Sparta and Athens through their legal frameworks reveals a Spartan society that strictly penalized pederasty. Xenophon's "Respublica Lacedaemoniorum" offers insights into the Spartan ethos under Lycurgus, the (semi-)mythical lawgiver, who valued: " … approved only of when a person, being such as he had to be and admiring a boy’s moral and intellectual self, tried to be his blameless friend and associate with him; he (Lycurgus) even thought of this as the most noble form of education. But, when one turned out to yearn for the boy’s body, which was the basest thing to do according to Lycurgus, he ordered that lovers should hold themselves off the loved boys, just as parents or brothers abstain from having sexual intercourse with their children or brothers." This Spartan moral stance against pederasty is further illustrated in Xenophon’s "Symposium," where Socrates aligns it with "anaideia" or "shamelessness," suggesting that: "Lacedaemonians … believe that a loved boy cannot succeed in anything noble, when one yearns for his body..."
@CCrowley100 - Chad Crowley
4/ Plutarch, often cited by scholars advocating a pro-homosexuality perspective, confirms the Spartan regime's harsh penalties for sexualized pederasty, noting: "The aim was to love the moral and intellectual self of earnest boys and, when a man was accused of approaching them with lust, he was deprived of civic rights for life." Several other aspects of the above passage merit attention. Firstly, the accounts highlight the distinction between "celestial" (non-sexual) and "vulgar" (sexual) love, a concept attributed to Spartan thinking by both Xenophon and Plutarch, despite the Spartans' reputation for practicality over philosophy. This dichotomy is akin to what is commonly referred to as "Platonic" love in English, though its roots extend far back into ancient Greek thought, well before Plato's time. Secondly, the term "earnest boys" is used, implying attributes such as studiousness, diligence, and seriousness—traits deemed essential for active participants in the political life of the Greek polis. Lastly, the consequence for engaging in pederasty in Sparta was severe: the complete forfeiture of an individual's rights to participate in Spartan political life. This underscores the gravity with which the Spartans treated the integrity of mentorship and the political implications of personal conduct. Similarly, Athenian law was equally stringent, imposing severe penalties such as hefty fines or even death for pederasts found loitering around schools or making indecent proposals to boys. This strict legal stance reflects Athens' commitment to protecting the well-being and moral integrity of its youth. By enforcing such harsh measures, the Athenian legal system aimed to deter any behavior that could undermine the educational and moral development of young citizens, highlighting the city-state's prioritization of a safe and virtuous environment for its future generations. Athenian law stated: "If someone insults [in this instance, "insult" has the sense of "being lustful to someone"] a child, woman or man, free or slave, he should be denounced by any Athenian to the six junior archons and they should bring the case before court within thirty days, if there aren’t other urgent public affairs; if there are, whenever this is possible. And, when he is found guilty, he must immediately be sentenced to pay a fine or be executed." Moreover, the case of Timarchus, preserved for history by the prominent Athenian Aeschines in his renowned speech "Against Timarchus," illustrates that the Athenians penalized homosexual relations of all kinds, including between adult males, with severity. In 346 BC, amidst escalating tensions between Athens and Macedon, Aeschines found himself accused by Demosthenes, through Timarchus, of accepting bribes from Philip II of Macedon while serving as an ambassador to the northern Greek kingdom. Aeschines retaliated by filing a counter-suit against Timarchus, alleging his involvement in homosexual activities. Aeschines aimed to prove that Timarchus was, therefore, ineligible to initiate a lawsuit against him in an Athenian court. The counter-suit was victorious: Timarchus was effectively disenfranchised. But precisely, what types of homosexual acts was Timarchus accused of? The common interpretation suggests that Timarchus was accused of prostituting himself, leading to his disqualification from participating in political life. However, a different perspective emerges from a careful analysis of Aeschines' speech, which cites Athens' laws extensively. The term used in reference to Timarchus is "hetairos" ("male companion"), not "pornos" ("male prostitute"). It appears that one interpretation of "hetairos" could be an unpaid (though, in the case of Timarchus, a "kept") homosexual partner, suggesting a nuanced understanding of the allegations against him beyond mere prostitution.
@CCrowley100 - Chad Crowley
5/ The above is quite telling as it demonstrates that all forms of homosexuality were unacceptable. Exclusion from civic life, exile, or death, along with substantial fines, were potential penalties for individuals involved in homosexual acts, classified either as a "pornos" or a "hetairos," according to the framework described in Aeschines' speech. The case against Timarchus underscores that not only prostitutes but also "passive" and "active" partners in a homosexual relationship could face these severe consequences. Notably, the "active" partner, Misgolas, who admitted to having "kept" the "passive" Timarchus, opted to pay a fine of 1,000 drachmae to avoid trial. Aeschines tailored his speech to engage an Athenian jury comprising members from various social sectors. It's probable that he expected his mentions of anti-homosexual legislation to garner approval from Athenians across the social spectrum. This presumption, along with the attitudes depicted in Aristophanes' plays (see below) and the limited evidence from vase paintings (see here), suggests there's scant evidence to conclude that the Athenian government or its elite were more permissive of homosexuality than the wider population. The Athenian comics, most notably Aristophanes, displayed an irreverently hostile attitude towards homosexuality. Aristophanes used pejorative epithets such as "katapigon" ("given to unnatural lust") and "euriproktos" ("wide-breeched"), clearly expressing his aversion to the act. Notably, he never employed the terms "erastes-eromenos." The plot of Aristophanes' famous play "Lysistrata" offers further insight. In the play, Athenian women withhold sex from their husbands to force them to negotiate an end to the war with Sparta. If homosexuality had been widely accepted, this strategy would have been ineffective, as men could have sought each other's company to fulfill their needs. Yet, the outcome is quite the contrary; the men quickly capitulate, demonstrating their inability to cope with the imposed celibacy. The notion that Aristophanes catered exclusively to a lower-class audience, exploiting their so-called "biases" against homosexuality while the upper class held none, is clearly flawed. Classical theatre's patrons were predominantly from the Athenian aristocracy. If the societal elite truly celebrated homosexual behavior, Aristophanes' overtly critical stance prompts us to question why he would adopt such a derogatory tone towards it, as he relied upon elite patronage to earn a living. In the next thread, we will continue our exploration of paiderastia and the deliberate manipulation by contemporary scholars.
@CCrowley100 - Chad Crowley
6/ To quickly reiterate, the word pair "erastes-eromenos" did not signify homosexuality. The "erastes" acted as a mentor, the "eromenos" as his protégé, and "paiderastia" described the non-sexual relationship between them. The philosophical foundation of relationships between older and younger men lies in the distinction between two types of love attributed to Aphrodite — the "celestial" and "vulgar" love mentioned earlier. Greek gods are known for their multiple aspects, and an older man’s affection for a younger male citizen was expected to be motivated purely by "celestial," rather than "vulgar," Aphrodite. Interpretations of Plato’s "Symposium" that suggest an endorsement of sexual pederasty are mistaken. Plato distinguishes between "vulgar" and "celestial" love: "... love of the vulgar Aphrodite is, just as its name signifies, vulgar and acting occasionally. And it is the one which takes control of the vulgar people. These people ... care only for the sexual act itself and are neglectful of whether it is moral or not ... But love of celestial Aphrodite is the one where women do not take part, only men. This is pederasty. And it is the older and the chastest kind of love. So, those who are animated by this form of love, turn to males, because they love the most vigorous and thoughtful." This passage articulates a stance against sexual pederasty. The "pederastic" relationship — that between the "erastes" and "eromenos," or "lover" and "loved one"— was intended to be educational, not sexual. Plato elaborates further: "... there are also those with fecund souls, those who bear, in their souls more than in their bodies, the things that deserve to be born from the soul ... And, since he is waiting to give birth, he embraces beautiful bodies rather than ugly ones, and, if he meets a beautiful, brave and noble soul, he embraces more eagerly this combination of body and soul. To such a person he speaks, without difficulty, of virtue, of how an honest man should be, of which activities suit him; and he tries to educate him." This emphasizes that the normal "pederastic" relationship focused on the spiritual and intellectual growth of the younger partner, far removed from any perverse sexual context. Engaging in "celestial" love of the soul and intellect is, in a sense, to know reality. Practicing "vulgar" love of the body is to be ensnared by the base and illusory world of matter. Plato's attitude towards homosexuality was not fundamentally different from the shared outlook of all classes and the law in Athens and in ancient Greece writ large. To him, as to them, homosexuality was considered degenerative and ultimately unnatural.
@CCrowley100 - Chad Crowley
My first essay on the subject, as the internal links didn't populate properly in the above: https://t.co/9dmUOLRLQP
@CCrowley100 - Chad Crowley
The Greeks and Romans were not gay. 1/ The grossly misguided notion that Classical Greece, along with the broader Classical world, was some kind of homosexual utopia, burst into cultural consciousness in the 1970s, chiefly propelled by K.J. Dover's poorly researched work, "Greek Homosexuality." The book, along with the preposterous notion that homosexuality was pervasive throughout the Greco-Roman world, has been discredited by discerning scholars still capable of critical thinking and objectivity. They have extensively critiqued this particular book for its baseless assertions about the prevalence of homosexuality in ancient Greece, purportedly supported by an analysis of 80,000 shards of ancient pottery. Out of these, only 30 pieces — a mere 0.0375% — display imagery that could be interpreted as homosexual in nature. Furthermore, the majority of these "homosexual" pieces feature satyrs, creatures known for their hedonistic behavior, which renders such depictions contextually appropriate; thus, they were metaphorical or religious rather than literal in nature. The Classical Greeks did not have a word for homosexuality as we do today because the modern concept of "homosexual love" did not exist until the modern era. They did, however, use the word "kinaidos" to describe homosexual acts or cross-dressing. Etymologically, "kinaidos" (κίναιδος) directly translates to "effeminate," but was also used to denote "one who causes shame" or a "catamite," and was associated with invoking the disfavor of Aidos, the goddess of shame, modesty, and respect. It was also an intentionally offensive and religiously impious word for an "effeminate love" that upset the gods and the natural order. The Roman Latin equivalent was "cinaedus."
@WallStreetApes - Wall Street Apes
This Gay Woman Is Always Getting Comments Asking How She Can Vote Republican, Her Response Is Epic “Republicans hate gays and they hate women. This is what every leftist tells me in my comments. Mind you, I've never had somebody say this sh*t to me in person Let's say that's true. Republicans hate gays and they hate women. What the f*ck am I doing voting for them? Well, let me explain it loud and clear: - I would rather vote for a party who hates me than vote for a party who doesn't know what a woman is - I would rather vote for a party taking away my rights with a bunch of bills that none of you f*cking read than literally have my rights taken away daily - There are men in your bathroom - There are men taking over your sports - They are depleting what you are as woman, you on't matter. Oh, but Proposition Blow Me is gonna take away my rights. You guys are ridiculous. They are literally giving you something to harp on while they are taking away every single woman's right in America. So you know what? Thanks for the advice. I got it. I'm good. I know who I'm voting for. Enjoy the men in your bathroom. Enjoy it. Go woke.”
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Every man I had sex with when I was 14 knew I was 14 beforehand. LGBTQ culture has no socially imposed boundaries on it. They don't police themselves. They are too consumed with protecting their political causes and shaming rightwing bigots. Teen sex work is the norm in LGBTQ centers. Trans icons glamorize being prostitutes as teens and it's viewed as a rite of passage. 13 - 17 year olds are a high HIV risk group. Progressives view children as sexual beings and independent from their parents. This is a culture, one protected from scrutiny.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
In gay male culture it's viewed as a kind of social acceptance and kindness. Older men took in teenage runaways, treating them as adults. Many leftwing gay men recall these first encounters fondly and see themselves as welcoming the next generation in a sex positive environment.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
In previous generations, when a teenage boy ventured out to cruising areas or gay bars, this was how he found himself and his new community, ostracized from normal society, they'll argue. It's become tradition. As leftwing progressivism has advanced, 'sex positive,' is the norm.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
For queer activists, sex is an expression of resistance and social rebellion. Leftwing psychology has fully embraced the sexual child and the autonomy of teenagers. Gay male culture is built on youth, sex and older men as 'daddies,' to 'sons.'
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Trans and drag culture have 'houses' and 'families,' with older men as 'mothers,' who take in teens in exchange for prostitution. The young boys bring in money and these houses compete against each other in drag events, etc. It's fueled by drugs and sex work.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Many trans icons recall their time as teenage prostitutes and the men who taught them with fondness, passing on their knowledge and experience to the next generation. All under a cultural idea that young LGBTQ kids will always be rejected at home, run away and need a new family.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
If you look at Gay movies and TV shows like Queer as Folk or Pose, you see this normalized and romanticized view of teenagers as sex objects. Pose is in 90's NYC featuring young teens who join a house and transition, competing in drag shows. All viewed as simply being LGBTQ.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Queer as Folk featured one teenage boy leaving home to live with a man in his late 20's who used him for sex. Another was an HIV+ teen who engaged in prostitution, with multiple other teens, outside on the street of the main character's apartment. No adult even blinked.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
This is why Gender Queer and This Book is Gay are so overtly sexual and adult. The entire culture views children as tiny adults capable of adult sexual expression and autonomy. It's the basis for 'queer,' sex education. It's why youth LGBTQ culture is kink and fetish oriented.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
We have to understand we are working from two very separate moral foundations here. Leftwing LGBTQ sees nothing wrong with adults engaging in explicit sex with minors because they see it as empowering and positive. Our worldview is simply incompatible with theirs.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
I've talked about this for years. I sought comfort and understanding from older men hoping to figure out my feelings. They wanted sex. I traded sex for a moment of affection in the hopes of friendship. https://thefederalist.com/2024/06/20/yes-parents-should-know-if-their-child-is-gay/
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Some boys my age went to the gay bar and became part of drag culture, drugs or prostitution. I found men online in chat rooms and found cruising areas in parks, public bathrooms and the college library. One man told me years later he found my eagerness and youth irresistible.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
It's so common, most TV shows featuring a teenage gay boy will have a scene where he meets a strange man for anonymous sex. United States of Tara, the teen gay boys go out to a cruising spot and one has a moment of sad reflection at being used. The OA, a teen uses Grindr.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
It's not a stereotype or rightwing Christians spreading homophobic tropes. It's part of how LGBTQ culture expresses itself. Every LGBTQ fiction story for middle school to high school for boys is about sex. Every education guide is about sex.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Gay porn is overwhelmingly the youngest, thinnest, smallest 18 year olds possible to resemble young teens with older men as 'daddies.' Stepfather porn and incest porn are top searches. Priest, teacher, doctor, coach, Mormon fantasies of adults coercing young boys into sex.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
This all matters because LGBTQ activists are fighting legal wars to keep parents as far away as possible from queer education, social groups and teenage autonomy. They are explicit in their demands teenagers be free from parental limitations. Knowing the reality is necessary.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
LGBTQ leaders, activists and lawmakers refuse to even acknowledge any of this. They'll shout about LGBTQ youth homelessness, but do nothing about LGBTQ adults abusing teen sex workers. They want victim politics, but only enable this toxic culture. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-happens-when-men-have-sex-with-teenage-boys_b_58ab8c69e4b029c1d1f88e02
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Remember, LGBTQ celebrated a romance story between a minor and adult man, which won awards. https://thefederalist.com/2018/03/07/the-call-me-by-your-name-celebration-is-astounding-in-the-metoo-era/
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/16/lgbt-activists-cant-see-whats-wrong-9-year-old-drag-queen/
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Of course we know adult straight men glamorize teenage girls, it's part of liberal entertainment, movies, music, and of course, porn. 'Barely legal,' is popular for a reason. The difference is straight society has infrastructure to shame this behavior and LGBTQ does not.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Read this passage from Janet Mock, trans icon who championed the Women's March, as she remembers her time as a teenage prostitute, and the men who taught her. She and I are the same age. https://janetmock.com/2014/01/30/janet-mock-sex-work-experiences/
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Parents don't know the pressure placed on their kids. Your son can download an app, Grindr, and see men looking for anonymous sex 10 feet away, 24/7, anywhere. All telling him he's beautiful. All ready to meet him immediately. His queer friends are all doing the same thing.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
This is what I mean by a lack of social policing and shaming. There are no consequences, other gay men aren't standing up and protecting these kids, they aren't reporting crimes, they aren't speaking out about abuses. It's not being gay, it's leftwing gay sex culture.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
The most powerful thing the LGBTQ community could do in the name of protecting LGBTQ youth would be demanding gay men take responsibility and stop all sexual engagement with minors. But they won't even admit it's a problem to begin with and will simply claim its anti-LGBTQ hate.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
His porn thing is aggressively sexually dominating the smallest and youngest looking 18-year-olds possible in fantasy rape scenes. Which, again, is part of the cultural issue I have been talking about. This is not a niche subculture. It is mainstream adult entertainment.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
NEWS: Gay porn star "Austin Wolf" charged with distribution of child pornography (aka child sex-abuse material) Justin Heath Smith "is charged with sending and receiving hundreds of videos of child pornography via the Telegram application. Those videos depicted children as young…
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
Read the coldness in the DM when a young man pleads for him to stop exploiting him for profit.
@QueerNerdyLefty - Moon
For years Austin Wolf uploaded content with the youngest looking barely legal gay men he could find. Referring to them as "little boys" asking them "how old are you" and "you sure". He also refused to stop promoting his content with a person who said he regretted doing it.
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
On June 22nd, Pauly Likens, 14, was sexually assaulted and murdered by a gay man, 29 year old DaShawn Watkins, after he met the boy in a public park at 3am. He met the young teenager through the gay sex app, Grindr. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/pittsburgh/news/transgender-teens-pauly-likens-murder-mercer-county-pennsylvania/
@chadfelixg - Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱
“there’s likely hundreds of thousands of minors nationwide using Grindr and similar apps, and families and professionals need to talk to them about how to protect themselves online" https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/11/gay-man-allegedly-dismembered-a-14-year-old-boy-he-met-on-an-lgbt-sex-app/
@WallStreetApes - Wall Street Apes
Ready For One Of The Most Insane Talk Show Calls You’ll Ever Hear? True Evil Exists Caller: “I work with IPCE. If you don't know, that's International Pedophile and Child Emancipation. And our goal is to abolish the stigmatization of people with pedophilia interests and normalizing the potential role in moderating pedophiles' emotional well-being. I know that's a mouthful.” Host “Wait , before we get any further, What are we saying right now? 2nd Host “Yeah. This could this is sounds disgusting. Are you saying you're a pedophile?” Caller “No. I'm not saying that I'm a pedophile in the sense that I've never had sexual relations with a person under age” Host “But you're saying we should accept pedophiles?” Caller “Illegal? Well, I just don't believe we should be shunning those in our community that have desires to engage in a romantic relationship with someone in a drastically different age group.” Host “So you're saying you support pedophiles?” Caller “I'm saying I support love and just because America views ages like 18 as some sort of imaginary bar or a line in the sand for humans to engage in romantic relationships doesn't mean it's right” Just listen to this call it’s absolutely horrifying that these people actually exist and are in our society.
@WarClandestine - Clandestine
The alphabet brigade have overstayed their welcome in our society. Your sexual preference is one thing, but when you are constantly shoving this hedonism in our faces, and bringing CHILDREN into it, now you’ve crossed the line. We are no longer going to “tolerate” this. It’s time to send these foul creatures back into the fringes of society where they can rot by themselves in irrelevancy. No longer should they be allowed in the spotlight. No longer should we promote this evil. It never should have started in the first place. And I’m not even religious. I just have common sense, and I know that whatever this woke bullshit is, is straight up evil, and it’s been a guise to normalize pedophilia, and I won’t stand for it. May these people receive no quarter in the future world we build. It’s time to put the theater kids permanently back in timeout.
@wesyang - Wesley Yang
It's super interesting that there are cultures where homosexuality is grounds for death but raping boys is fine, what's a good explainer of this phenomenon?
@wesyang - Wesley Yang
Foucault's experiences in Algeria and Morocco led him to believe that Islam was cool with homosexuality and was thus shocked to find out that homosexuality was not only not tolerated in Iran but grounds for death during the period when he was rhapsodizing about the Iran revolution. Like most Westerners, he wasn't able to grasp that homosexuality is forbidden but raping boys is fine.
@wesyang - Wesley Yang
@wesyang - Wesley Yang
The US military was instructed to ignore the screams of boys brought to the bases for sexual abuse by US-allied Afghan military commanders and punished US soldiers who tried to put a stop to the practice https://t.co/vezg8axuS3
@wesyang - Wesley Yang
Some insight into male sexuality in Afghanistan summarized by a US Marine "Human Terrain Team" "A culturally-contrived homosexuality (significantly not termed as such by its practitioners) appears to affect a far greater population base then some researchers would argue is attributable to natural inclination. " https://info.publicintelligence.net/HTT-PashtunSexuality.pdf
@wesyang - Wesley Yang
@wesyang - Wesley Yang
"The objection to homosexuality for many is that women are penetrated and men do the penetrating; ergo, a man who is penetrated is a woman, and women are seen as less than human." It's cool how this archaic, ultra-patriarchal view of male/female from the ancient world which persists in Pashtun tribal territories was reinvented via sissy porn by an American grad student named Andy Chu who became the darling of literary New York, cut off his genitals, won a Pulitzer Prize, and has argued for unrestricted access to gender procedures to children of any age on the cover of New York magazine.
@SwipeWright - Colin Wright
Gender ideology parasitized people's brains and turned them into seemingly rabid versions of their former selves. This is how one of my very closest friends (at the time) responded to my article debunking the "sex spectrum" in 2020, including my responses. Many years of friendship thrown away instantly over an article he admits he didn't even read. It's hard to convey how deeply I hate gender ideology for what it did to people.
@SwipeWright - Colin Wright
You quickly get used to being insulted by random internet strangers. It just becomes white noise. But when close friends say something like this, it's intensely painful. Every time. We were closefriends for many years, and were even housemates in college for several years. Believe it or not, our friendship was very much defined by having deep philosophical conversations, often on moral issues, where we heard each other out and approached each other in good faith. You'd never have guessed that by the exchange above. It's like he's possessed. Old friends are hard, and often impossible, to replace. It's a tragedy, like the last of a majestic species dying.
@SwipeWright - Colin Wright
Here's the essay he didn't read, in case you were interested. Let me know if you find anything hateful in it. https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sex-is-not-a-spectrum
@DecentBackup - BackupDecentFiJC
Then ye and your Talmudaism shall die.
@elonmusk - Elon Musk
I wonder how long this has been going on. These are individuals with the ability to spy on any Americans at will.
@realchrisrufo - Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️
EXCLUSIVE: NSA, DIA, and Navy intel officials blast @libsoftiktok as a "fucking monster" and argue that @benshapiro should be "expelled from the tribe" for "constantly spout[ing] hate speech." They also slur Italian-Americans as "terrible people." This is getting personal. https://t.co/dV9yJWErOa
@josh_seiter - Josh Seiter
If you have a problem with two dudes in bed together you’re not a true conservative 🇺🇸 https://t.co/taI7b7NHL8
@WeAreCanProud - Canada Proud
It's "immoral" now? Are they going to censor that too? 🤦 https://t.co/bjRmumB81R
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way By Andrew Sullivan for @nytopinion 🧵⬇️
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
GIFT LINK: How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way By Andrew Sullivan https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/gay-lesbian-trans-rights.html?unlocked_article_code=1.R08.UNTn.rcnCfw_BTEMT&smid=url-share
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Ten years ago Thursday, the movement for gay and lesbian equality scored a victory that only a decade before had seemed unimaginable. We won equal rights to civil marriage in every state in the country. In 2020 came another stunning win. In a majority opinion written by one of President Trump’s nominees, Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court found that gay men, lesbians and transgender men and women are covered under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and protected from employer discrimination. In 2024, the Republican Party removed opposition to marriage equality from its platform, and the current Republican Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, is a married gay man with two children. Gay marriage is backed by around 70 percent of Americans, and discrimination against gay men, lesbians and transgender people is opposed by 80 percent. As civil rights victories go, it doesn’t get more decisive or comprehensive than this.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
But a funny thing happened in the wake of these triumphs. Far from celebrating victory, defending the gains, staying vigilant, but winding down as a movement that had achieved its core objectives — including the end of H.I.V. in the United States as an unstoppable plague — gay and lesbian rights groups did the opposite. Swayed by the broader liberal shift to the “social justice” left, they radicalized.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
In 2023, the Human Rights Campaign @HRC, the largest gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights group in the country, declared a “state of emergency” for gay men, lesbians and transgender people — the first time in the organization’s existence. It had not declared a state of emergency when gay men were jailed for having sex in private, when the AIDS epidemic killed hundreds of thousands of gay men or when we faced a possible constitutional amendment banning marriage equality in 2004. In fact, we found out, this “emergency” was almost entirely in response to new state bills proposing restrictions on medical treatment for minors with gender dysphoria; bathroom and locker room bans; and transgender issues in school curricula and sports.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Nonetheless, the money has poured into gay, lesbian and transgender groups in the past decade. Charitable funding for such groups totaled $387 million in 2012, according to the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s Equitable Giving Lab. By 2021, it was $823 million. L.G.B.T.Q.+ organizations also saw their assets grow 76 percent from 2019 to 2021 — around double the size of their increase in donations. A group like @GLAAD — founded in 1985 to combat anti-gay media bias in the depths of the AIDS epidemic — saw its funding increase sixfold between 2014 and 2023. The Human Rights Campaign @HRC has also seen revenues soar in the past decade.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
But this huge increase in funding was no longer primarily about gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights, because almost all had already been won. It was instead about a new and radical gender revolution. Focused on ending what activists saw as the oppression of the sex binary, which some critical gender and queer theorists associated with “white supremacy,” they aimed to dissolve natural distinctions between men and women in society, to replace biological sex with “gender identity” in the law and culture, and to redefine homosexuality, in the process, not as a neutral fact of the human condition but as a liberating ideological “queerness” meant to subvert and “queer” language, culture and society in myriad different ways.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
The words gay and lesbian all but disappeared. L.G.B.T. became L.G.B.T.Q., then L.G.B.T.Q.+, and more letters and characters kept being added: L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ or 2S.L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ (to include intersex, asexual people and two-spirit Indigenous people). The plus sign referred to a seemingly infinite number of new niche identities, and, by some counts, more than 70 new “genders.” The point was that this is all one revolutionary, intersectional community of gender-diverse people, and intertwined with other left causes, from Black Lives Matter to Queers for Palestine.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
They needed a new banner for that. So the rainbow flag, invented back in 1978 at the request of Harvey Milk, was replaced over the last few years by a new “Progress” flag, representing intersectional oppression. Black and brown stripes were added to the rainbow — for Black and brown people (and the people lost during the AIDS crisis) — and pink, light blue and white for trans people. That flag now demarcates a place not simply friendly to all types of people, as the old rainbow flag did, but a place where anyone who does not subscribe to intersectional left ideology is unwelcome.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
“Queer” was a way of summing up the new regime, a clear sign that this really was a different movement than the gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights movement of the past. It’s a word that can easily trigger gay men over 40 who remember it as the last slur they once heard before being bashed in the head. But one of the striking aspects of the younger queer generation is their disdain for those who came before them.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
As I watched all this radical change, I wondered, was I just another old fart, shaking my fist at the sky, like every older generation known to man? Why not just accept that the next gay and lesbian generation has new ideas, has moved on, and old-timers like me should just move aside? And some of the changes are indeed welcome. The greater acceptance of trans people is a huge step forward for all of us. But then, as I told my friends (gay, trans and everyone else), I’d always believed this and always supported trans civil rights. I was glad when, five years ago, the Supreme Court gave transgender people civil rights protection in employment. I’ve also long lived in a gay world that is skewed left, and, along with my fellow gay non-lefties, I’ve long made my peace with it, or tried to.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
But this new ideology, I believed, was different. Like many gays and lesbians — and a majority of everybody else — I simply didn’t buy it. I didn’t and don’t believe that being a man or a woman has nothing to do with biology. My sexual orientation is based on a biological distinction between men and women: I’m attracted to the former and not to the latter. And now I was supposed to believe the difference didn’t exist? I’m more than happy to accept that there are some people — not all that many — who don’t fit in that binary, and want to be protected from discrimination and allowed full access to medical interventions in order to live lives that are true to who they are. And I’m with them all the way. After all, I, too, am a part of a minority — most people live their lives governed by heterosexual desires. Thanks to the gay and lesbian movement, I’m not being asked to.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
But abolishing the sex binary for the entire society? That’s a whole other thing entirely. And madness, I believe. What if I redefined what it is to be heterosexual and imposed it on straight people? Or changed what it means to be a man or a woman, for that matter? Then it ceases to be accommodation of a minority and becomes a societywide revolution — an overreach that would soon lead to a potent and sane backlash, against not just trans people, but gay men and lesbians as well.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
The gay rights movement, especially in the marriage years, had long asked for simple liberal equality and mutual respect — live and let live. Reform, not revolution. No one’s straight marriage would change if gay marriage arrived, we pledged. You can bring up your children however you like. We will leave you alone. We will leave your children alone. But in the wake of victory, L.G.B.T.Q.+ groups reneged on that pledge. They demanded the entire society change in a fundamental way so that the sex binary no longer counted. Elementary school children were taught that being a boy or a girl might not have anything to do with their bodies, and that their parents had merely guessed whether they were a boy or a girl when they were born. In fact, sex was no longer to be recognized at birth — it was now merely assigned, penciled in. We got new terms like “chest-feeding” for “breastfeeding” and “birthing parent” for “mother."
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
A key leader of this movement, Chase Strangio, informed us that “a penis is not a male body part. It’s just an unusual body part for a woman.” We all were suddenly expected to announce our pronouns as if everyone didn’t already know. Then neopronouns — xe/xem! — were added. The movement came up with a mantra: “TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN. TRANS MEN ARE MEN.” It was not an argument, nor a proposition to be explored or debated. It was a theological command. In all caps.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Was there any debate among gays and lesbians about this profound change, a vote taken, or even a poll of gay men and lesbians? None that I can find or recall. And, as in other “social justice” spaces, dissent was equated with bigotry. Dissenters from gender ideology are routinely unfriended, shunned and shamed. Almost all of the gay men, trans people and lesbians who have confided in me that they don’t agree with this, or think that @JK_Rowling or @Martina Navratilova have some good points, have said so sotto voce lest anyone overhear. That’s the extremely intolerant and illiberal atmosphere that now exists in the gay, lesbian and transgender space. This little community used to champion all manner of expression or argument or speech, eccentrics and visionaries. Now it’s fearful, self-censored and extremely uptight. Debate has been all but snuffed out; total uniformity of thought is demanded.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
But this illiberalism made a fateful, strategic mistake. In the gay rights movement, there had always been an unspoken golden rule: Leave children out of it. We knew very well that any overreach there could provoke the most ancient blood libel against us: that we groom and abuse kids. You can bring up your children however you like, we promised. We will leave you alone. We will leave your children alone. So what did the gender revolutionaries go and do? They focused almost entirely on children and minors. Partly because the adult issues had been resolved or close to it, and partly because true cultural revolutions start with the young, it meant overhauling the education not only of children with gender dysphoria, but of every other kid as well.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Kids all over the country were impacted. Your children were taught in elementary school that being a boy or a girl was something they could choose and change at will. Your daughter found herself running against a trans girl (i.e. a biological male) in athletics. Children in elementary school got to pick pronouns, and some children socially transitioned at school without their parents’ knowledge or permission. I suppose there are other ways you can resurrect the ghost of Anita Bryant, and all the homophobic paranoia that followed her, but this will probably do the trick.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
And then most radical of all: gender-affirming care for minors, which can lead to irreversible sex changes for children. The “care” included off-label “blockers” to arrest puberty, almost always followed with cross-sex hormones. To begin with, gays and lesbians, including me, empathized with kids with gender dysphoria, and trusted the medical profession with the rest. If this helped kids or even saved their lives, as was often emphasized, what business was it of mine? If transitioning this young in life would helped some pass better as adults, good for them.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Still, questions lingered, drawn from my own life. As a child, uninterested in playing team sports but very interested in the boys who played team sports, I was once asked by a girl when I was just 10 years old, “Are you sure you’re not really a girl?” Of course not, I replied. But I wonder how I might have responded if someone in authority — a parent or a teacher or a doctor — had suggested that my difference and occasional anxiety was because I was, in fact, a girl. That my body was irrelevant, and that I could choose to be the opposite sex before puberty and all my confusions would disappear. I just don’t know what I would have said or done, to be honest.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
And how do today’s parents, teachers and doctors know for surethat a 10-year-old child isn’t, well, like me, and really is trans? How can they know for sure that the gender dysphoria isn’t instead a manifestation of being gay or lesbian and wanting to change it? How do they know for sure there isn’t another complicating personal or psychological factor? I was told not to worry. A child had to demonstrate a “persistent, consistent and insistent” trans identity for years even to be considered for medical intervention.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
But this, I found out, was no longer true. The whole point of the new regime of gender-affirming care was that it rejected broad mental health assessments of children that could ensure that mistakes really didn’t happen. The old “persistent, consistent and insistent” model was deemed transphobic and loosened to become an affirmation policy. As soon as a kid said he or she was the opposite sex, further counseling and mental health exploration was deemed problematic, because it amounted to transphobic conversion therapy, we were told. When I said that seemed crazy, and that surely we needed more safeguards, I was sternly told, “Children know who they are.”
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
But do they? When they are between 9 and 13? I sure didn’t. Does any parent really believe this? Solid long-term data on how many children who transition but decide later it was a mistake is hard to find, in large part because the procedures are relatively new and the studies often have very poor follow-up. But without a doubt, there are some. They are walking around today, testifying in courts and legislatures, opining all over the web, telling similar stories of rushed judgments, minimal safeguards, inadequate gate-keeping and agonizing regret that as children they made irreversible decisions they could not meaningfully consent to.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
I have met many. They break your heart. And so many of the gender-dysphoric kids are gay and lesbian. Of course they are, and there are many more children who will grow up to be gay and lesbian than who will grow up to be trans. When adolescents referred to a British gender clinic were asked about their sexualityin 2012, some 90 percent of females and 80 percent of males said they were same-sex attracted or bisexual.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
In the Netherlands, the famous Dutch protocol for gender-affirming care was pioneered in the 1990s with far stricter safeguards in place than exist in the United States today. There, of a cohort of 70 adolescents referred to an Amsterdam clinic from 2000 to 2008, 62 were same-sex attracted. And it’s easy to see that one way to “cure” yourself of attraction to the same sex is to become the opposite one. At Britain’s now-shuttered Tavistock clinic, according to the investigative journalist Hannah Barnes, staff members had a dark joke that at the rate they were going, there would be “no gay people left.” This is why sex-change surgeries are permitted and even subsidized in Iran: It’s a way to rid the country of gay people.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
And a fix for gender dysphoria for gay and lesbian kids can be puberty itself, as it was for me and many of my gay male friends. Once my own hormones kicked in, my anxieties evaporated. I lovedbeing a boy, I realized. Puberty blockers literally block gay and lesbian kids from the chance at that possible resolution of their gender dysphoria. There is a real conflict here, and it’s obscured by the L.G.B.T.Q.+ identity.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
We were also told, repeatedly, that transitioning children was drastic, but the alternative could be that they would commit suicide. “We often ask parents, ‘Would you rather have a dead son than a live daughter?’” Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a vocal advocate of these treatments, told ABC News in 2011. But even the American Civil Liberties Union @ACLU’s Mr. Strangio admitted, when arguing before the Supreme Court last year, that suicide “thankfully and admittedly is rare.” In one study from Britain, of some 15,000 adolescents referred for gender care over a decade, there were four likely or confirmed suicides two who had been seen and two had not. One suicide is awful — and suicidality is real among kids with gender dysphoria. But that doesn’t mean that suicide is what will happen if you don’t transition a child.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
One specific concern for boys who transition to girls in early puberty. “If you’ve never had an orgasm pre-surgery, and then your puberty’s blocked, it’s very difficult to achieve that afterwards,” a pioneering trans surgeon, Dr. Marci Bowers, has said. Research on this is minimal, and so caution is necessary in jumping to conclusions. But I ask myself: If there is a risk that some people will be denied sexual pleasure for their entire life because they transitioned very early, is it worth it? And how can a child understand what giving up orgasms for life might mean when he hasn’t experienced a single one? The obvious answer is that he can’t, and it’s profoundly unethical to put him in that situation. And who exactly is looking out for these kids? Certainly not the L.G.B.T.Q. organizations.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
How did a movement that began with sexual liberation end up doing that? By drift, activist extremism, a social media bubble and suppression of free debate. Soon enough, the right began associating what used to be the lesbian and gay movement with this gender extremism, and the L.G.B.T.Q.+ movement responded not by moderating tone or substance, but by closing ranks, seemingly determined to prove its point.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Dissent became anathema. When this newspaper reported on controversies in gender medicine, GLAAD parked a billboard truck outside the New York Times Building on several occasions, demanding the coverage change. In relatively new, disputed medical territory, partisans have insisted that “the science is settled.” When a book came out criticizing childhood transition, Mr. Strangio declared: “Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on.” Public speeches by dissenters have faced abuse, intimidation, and far too often, threats of violence.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
It’s a horrible reversal of history: For so long, First Amendment rights were the primary constitutional right gays and lesbians could fully and regularly exercise, and we treasured them. If censorship was in the air, gay men and lesbians were the first to oppose it. We knew who was shut up first when it came to shutting people up, and we knew we would always be a small minority. The idea that we would tell other people what words they can use, shut down speakers, criticize journalists and threaten others into silence was once absurd. Yet these are now the signature tools of the L.G.B.T.Q.+ movement. They do not seek to engage or persuade opponents; they seek to demonize, bully or cancel them.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Or take the campaign for marriage equality. We were almost pathologically civil, willing to debate anyone anywhere, and the harder the nut to crack, the better. For two decades, I went to fundamentalist churches in Idaho, Mormon groups, Catholic universities, conservative media, right-wing talk shows and C-SPAN, and published an anthology that included views from bothsides. We knew that if we wanted to win, and not just posture, we needed to reach conservatives and moderates and explore where we might agree. And it worked! It took time, and we were laughed at at first, but you could see the polling slowly, inexorably shift toward us, from one-quarter to two-thirds in our favor from the 1990s to the 2010s, as our arguments and openness slowly, person by person, won over the country.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Now, look at the recent results of the L.G.B.T.Q.+ movement. In the last five years, activists have actually managed to move public opinion away from their causes in many respects. In 2021, for example, 62 percent of Americans said that transgender athletes should be able to play only on teams that matched their gender at birth; by 2023, that figure had risen to 69 percent. This is not bigotry at work. This year, the very same pollster found that a solid majority of Americans — 56 percent — favor policies protecting trans people from discrimination. Americans are broadly fine with transgender people. They are fine with gay people. They just reject replacing the fact of biological sex with the phantasms of gender ideology.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
And it’s not because most people don’t know any trans people personally. When people who know a trans person personally were polled, only 40 percent in 2021 supported their competing in teams that matched their gender identity; by 2023, that dropped to 30 percent. On the medical question, 46 percent of Americanssupported banning medical care related to gender transitions for minors in 2022. Today, as people have learned more, 56 percent do. Trans extremism was taken up with gusto by Republicans as an issue and it most likely helped move swing voters to Mr. Trump last year. In one post-election survey, cultural issues, including transgender issues, were slightly more salient for swing voters than even immigration and inflation.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
I hoped this might prompt a rethink as the election results sank in. Last week’s Skrmetti decision at the Supreme Court was another reality check, as the court upheld Tennessee’s ban on certain medical treatments for transgender youth, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, rejecting claims that the ban violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and shielding similar laws in other states. When the ruling came down, the mood among L.G.B.T.Q.+ groups was defiant. So the ranks are being closed again.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
If Mr. Trump is against childhood sex reassignment, then we must be for it. If Mr. Trump says there are two sexes, we must insist that there is a spectrum. It will be very hard to break this dynamic in such a tribal atmosphere, especially when there is genuine transphobia among some on the right. But it would be incredibly healthy if we were to allow an actual debate in the community about the direction we are headed in, and treat dissenters less like bigots and traitors. Representative Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member of Congress, echoed this sentiment on @EzraKlein’s podcast last week. But she was condemned on social media as a traitor to trans people.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
This intransigence matters because, left on its current trajectory, the L.G.B.T.Q.+ gender movement carries significant risks for gay, lesbian and trans equality. Gallup found that satisfaction with the acceptance of gay and lesbian people peaked at 62 percent in 2022 but dropped to 51 percent by January of this year. The center and right — whom some of us spent a lifetime engaging — are being lost. Gallup showed Republican support for gay marriage dropping from 55 to 46 percent between 2022 and 2025.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
History strongly suggests that periods of toleration of gay men and lesbians can swiftly end if the public senses an overreach. That may be where we now are. No society has ever been as free for gay men, lesbians and transgender people as the modern West today. There is no such thing as the Human Rights Campaign’s “state of emergency,” and it was absurd to say so. But for some activists, there has to be. As Francis Fukuyama put it in “The End of History and the Last Man,” “Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle againstthe just cause.”
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
Returning to a civil rights model and abandoning the quixotic attempt to end the sex binary do not mean, as some might have it, throwing trans people under the bus. Trans people are already on the bus; they are protected from employment discrimination under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Their existing rights should be defended and expanded to public accommodations — especially the adult right to have access to gender medicine through Medicaid, which is now being threatened. Americans should back us on that. But fighting a losing battle to allow trans women to compete in women’s sports and for biological men to be in women’s intimate spaces, and to perpetuate risky, inadequately tested sex changes on children, including gay and lesbian ones, is dumb, offensive to common sense and risks a much bigger backlash.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
This does not mean the L.G.B.T.Q.+ project should be shut down entirely. We need to defend our wins; we need to protect the interests of gays, lesbians and trans people. We need to greatly expand help and care for children with gender dysphoria, prevent bullying and increase mental health resources. Protecting them from often irreversible sex changes should not mean abandoning them. It should mean renewed concern, support and, above all, solid, evidence-based research on how best we can help.
@benryanwriter - Benjamin Ryan
But in America, on, this anniversary of the Obergefell decision, we also need to remember a critical thing: We won. We won because we defended free speech, reached out to right and left and center, left others and children alone — and trusted liberal democracy. That trust was rewarded with one of the swiftest successes in civil rights history. Let’s not throw it away.
@TheFreelyAshley - Freely Ashley
"I think these failed assassination attempts underscore the value of quality firearm training. Always room for improvement." This man is a doctor. https://t.co/DgHfN7r9kh
@TheFreelyAshley - Freely Ashley
Posting these in your business page is certainly a choice. https://t.co/rI6CnB1low
@TheFreelyAshley - Freely Ashley
@McBrightside01 @SomeBitchIIKnow @luinalaska A friend of mine did report him!
@TheFreelyAshley - Freely Ashley
@FromtheFire23 I would want to know.
@TheFreelyAshley - Freely Ashley
@jamie_sudlow Hi, what do you mean?
@Stacylynne91 - Annie bliss
Just so we’re clear, jokes about genociding the White race, as the Kalergi border agenda has been raging for years under Jew purview, are ok… but saying “I like Hitler” is NOT ok. Do I have that right? Because that’s not gonna work for us anymore. You’re leaving.
@JoelWBerry - Joel Berry
Obviously this was a joke meant to trigger the groypers, but when people go woke, they lose their ability to detect a joke. Every once in a while, they pull this post out again to performatively trigger themselves with it. Their hysterical reaction reveals something important though. They are horrified by “race mixing.” If I had called for the banning of interracial marriage for the next 100 years they’d be applauding my obviously insane call for the government to regulate marriage based on race.
