Mermaids' latest scandal and words you can't say on Twitter
Reduxx reports on the latest news from the troubled children’s charity Mermaids, where public scrutiny forced the resignation of a secret trustee:
At the organization’s 2011 symposium, Breslow read from a paper in which he compared molesting a child to masturbating on a shoe.
But Breslow’s disturbing history with pro-pedophile sentiment does not stop there.
In 2016, Breslow submitted his PhD thesis, in which he argued some kids are “queer.” This led to a later paper he published in 2020 titled “Flirting with the Islamic State: Queer Childhood with a Touch of Contemporary Sexual Politics.”
The article describes itself as “unpacking the sexual touch of the radicalized discourses of so-called grooming, it opens up new ways of understanding the relationship between childhood sexuality, sexual abuse, and contemporary sexual politics.”
Most recently, last year Breslow published a book titled “Ambivalent Childhoods: Speculative Futures and the Psychic Life of the Child.”
Breslow described the book as exploring “the queer life of children’s desires.” One chapter, titled “Desiring the Child,” opens with a description of a 12-year-old child dancing and mimicking sex acts to a crowd of adults.
“As his movements transition from those that mimic break-dancers to those that mimic sex acts, repeating the easily citational gesticulations of pelvic thrusts … I find myself caught up in exhilarating waves of memory, identification, and desire … a desire for him himself,” Breslow writes.
During an online launch of the book, Breslow stated: “What do we do when queerness is aligned with projects that are less easy to sit with that are less sort of respectable? … Is it really that children or young people having sex is the problem? Or is it [the problem] the conditions under which that sex happens?”
One thing that’s made terribly clear here: Education empowers children. Indoctrination undermines.
Sex education worth its name says here’s the body you have, here’s what your body does, here’s how to take care of your body, here’s how to treat yourself and others with respect, here’s how to make informed choices when you’re ready.
Queer theory says you have whatever kind of body you say you have and everybody you meet has whatever kind of body they say they have. You don’t know what kind of body anybody has until they tell you.
Sex education says: listen to yourself. Trust your gut. If something feels wrong, it’s OK to say no and leave a situation that makes you uncomfortable.
Queer theory says: unlearn your prejudices. Challenge your internalized _____phobia. Work through the discomfort. People are who they say they are. They’re the experts on their identities and their bodies, not you.
Queer theory says that's not a penis if 'xie' says it's not a penis. Queer theory says that what you think happened never happened, if the person who did it says it didn't.
Queer theory dissolves meaning. That means that indoctrination into queer theory dissolves whatever solid ground a child might otherwise stand on: to ask questions, express needs, voice discomfort, and say no.
You don't need a vivid imagination to see why this ideology would attract abusers to act as evangelists for such beliefs. That's before we get to puberty blockers and why anyone would want to create a crop of legal 'adults' with prepubescent cognitive and physical development.
If adults want to live in a looking-glass world where nothing means what it says or is as it appears, no one can stop them. But there's a word for indoctrinating children into such a worldview and you can’t say it on Twitter.
I read articles like yours and the one on Reduxx and I have to check in with myself to make sure I'm not caught up in some impossible conspiracy theory. I mean, this stuff is out in the open. Breslow is saying this stuff in public as are others, pushing the idea that children can consent to sex with an adult and that it is not only not harmful, but totally fine and healthy even. How in the world did we get here? If any of us tried to tell our liberal compatriots of the "some children are born in the wrong body" faction that what they're supporting is strongly tied to this, that dismantling objective reality and the ability to identify inherently "right" things and "wrong" things leads to horrific harm perpetrated on children, we'd be accused of being QAnon members. If ever there was a slippery slope, this is it, but we can't even have that discussion. And with the AAP pushing to hunt down those voicing opposition ("disinformation") to the medicalization of minors, they'd prefer that we not be allowed ANY public discussion. Evidence-free "affirmative care", the rights of women and girls, fairness in sports, misogyny and the appropriation of womanhood, homophobia, regressive stereotyping, the sexualization of children, limiting freedom of speech/censorship/threats to livelihood/safety, MSM disinformation and propaganda, denial of evolutionary biology, denial of medical reality ("assigned sex at birth" nonsense), indoctrination of children in schools… I'm just overwhelmed by the sheer number of fronts there are to battle with this trans ideology hydra.
Jesus, Eliza, the work you do is so incredibly important. Every time I read something you've written on this nightmare, it cuts straight to the heart of the thing.
Part of the nightmare here is that we can all see so clearly what is happening and what the consequences are -- and still, politicians and other powerful people blink at us blankly and then call us bigots for even suggesting that the movement pushing this insanity is endangering children (and women).
"You're the same horrible people who said gay people are pedophiles!" chant the people who are actually, OPENLY advocating the normalization of sexual relationships with children.
"You're the same horrible people who said gay people are rapists!" accuse the people who are actually, OPENLY obliterating barriers to dangerous, predatory men in women's intimate spaces.
"You're the same horrible people who want trans people to stop existing and be excluded from sports," scream the people who are actually, OPENLY erasing women -- from the language that described them, and from the positions, awards, and opportunities that had been reserved for them -- and actually, OPENLY destroying women's and girl's access to a level playing field.
And actually, OPENLY, advocating for the medicalization and sterilization of children -- some with undiagnosed or untreated mental health issues; some who would grow up to be gay if left alone; and some who simply mistake the human desire to be admired or to belong as a rationale for joining a religion they do not yet have the maturity, the critical thinking skills, or the executive judgement to truly understand.
Candidly, I am afraid. I spent so much of my public school years reading about nightmarish movements that seemed to come out of nowhere, sweep through a land, and invoke destructive madness with chilling human costs. I wondered at the people who got swept up, and even more about the people who hadn't been true believers, but didn't stand against the horror. I couldn't imagine how such insanity could grip entire nations. Now, I feel as if I am seeing it happen right in front of me.
Often, I feel as if I am screaming into a void. Many days, I have no words. I am, continuously, grateful to you for finding, and sharing, yours. Thank you.