Celebrating Pride
Celebrating Pride
Bigots, your hateful opinions are not OK. Free Pride colouring sheets for all.
Last week I created and shared some new printable colouring sheets to celebrate Pride Month on my Instagram account, and the response really caught me off guard. Within 30 seconds of posting, I received the first message letting me know that the person was un-following me. This doesn’t bother me at all, I’m happy for the haters to leave my crafty world, but what followed shocked and saddened me. Next came comments of ‘disgusting’, ‘hideous’, green vomit emojis and that ‘Pride is not for children’. Worst of all, there were comments directly accusing gay and transgender people of being pedophiles.
I want to shout loudly that THESE HATEFUL OPINIONS ARE NOT OK.
I’m not naive, I know this kind of bigotry and conspiracy is out there, but seeing it in response to my colouring sheets really shocked me. How can people harbor and openly share so much hatred for others? As a cisgender straight woman, it would be easy for me to say nothing about the hateful bigotry and ignorance I encountered, as it doesn’t directly affect me. However, I believe if you benefit from a system of oppression but do nothing to try and dismantle that system, you are complicit in that oppression.
Before I delve into this discussion further, I wanted to say, as soon as I realised this was the direction of conversation on my Instagram post, I disabled the comments. Not for my own safety but because I don’t want my platform to be used for spreading further hatred. Knowing how the Instagram algorithm works, I didn’t want the engagement to enable the post to be seen by more people. I also didn’t want to benefit in any way from this kind of negative, violent and hateful engagement on my post.
The colouring sheets I created include slogans like ‘love is love’, ‘love not hate’ and ‘equality for all’ and ‘trans rights are human rights’. When people respond to these ideas with such disgust, are they saying that love, acceptance and equality are hideous and disgusting? Or is the idea that we might talk to children about Pride hideous and disgusting? Or are they referring directly to non-binary people? I’m drawing conclusions but I’m guessing it is a mixture of all of the above.
How have we gotten to a point in our society that it is OK to feel such hatred and lack of acceptance for other human beings? And, to so openly vocalise those feelings on the internet? I noticed that those sharing comments on my post quickly began to chat amongst themselves, reinforcing each other's opinions. I believe this echo chamber of similar viewpoints, is intrinsically fed by social media algorithms, and makes it feel OK to share hateful opinions. These algorithms are designed to keep us engaged as long as possible, in order to sell us more things. To do so, they feed us more and more content that reinforces already held opinions and ideas, leading us deeper and deeper into polarised worlds. These echo chambers then become ‘safe spaces’ for hatred to fester. When everyone around you holds a similar opinion, it feels safe for you to express those ideas openly, resulting in the reinforcing and consolidating of viewpoints.
I also live in an echo chamber of progressive, anti capitalist, accepting and loving folks. So when this hatred came into my world, it gave me a bit of a wake up call.
There were other comments along the lines of ‘Pride is not for children’. Pride is for children. Acceptance and love is for children. Knowledge and understanding is for children, it is for all of us. Sharing the importance of respecting the rights of all people regardless of their sexual orientation, sex charactisitcs or gender identity is important.
All of the negative comments my Pride colouring sheets received were full of hatred, ignorance and lacking acceptance, however the comments inferring that gay and transgender people are pedophiles are really dangerous.
This harmful trope was popularised by the US conservative mainstream and online influencers around 2020. They seek to evoke visceral fears about children’s safety and create moral panic. However, the stigmatisation of a minority using lies to propagate fear and panic among the majority has a long and sordid history. Particular champions of this were the Nazis, who stoked lies and slander about many marginalised communtiies, not just Jews, but BIPOC, disabled, gay and transgender people.
By promoting these lies, you find yourself on the same side as neo-nazis, fascists, and far right hate groups, most of which are led and mostly supported by white men. Historically, their targets have included women, non-whites, physically or intellectually disabled, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. I ask those people who commented on my post, is this a place you want to be?
If you actually cared about children being abused, rather than just blindly following a tribal war cry spun in an echo chamber of social media, you would consider that child sexual abuse is a real, widespread issue in all communities in the United States and globally. About 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 20 boys will experience sexual abuse before they turn 18. In 91% of incidents, the person abusing a child is someone the child’s family knows and trusts. About one-third of child sexual abuse is done by an older or more powerful child to another child.
This should go without saying; LGBTQIA+ people are no more likely to sexually abuse children than straight people. Conversely, LGBTQIA+ people, both youth and adults, experience higher rates of sexual violence than their straight peers. LGBTQIA+ youth are nearly four times as likely to experience child sexual abuse than their straight peers. LGBTQIA+ adults are 2-3x more likely to experience sexual violence than straight adults.
The consequences of misinformation and discriminatory rhetoric is that children do not receive the support they need. When adults operate with inaccurate information about the real risks of grooming and sexual abuse for the children in their lives, they might miss crucial warning signs and moments where they could intervene to keep a child safe.
We owe it to our communities to protect the most vulnerable among us. That includes not just children, but also members of the LGBTQIA+ community, that are preyed upon by the violent and selfish. That’s how we make our world and our society better, by celebrating diversity, being truthful and sharing love for one another.
I’m not very knowledgeable on this subject but i'm here to learn and grow. Please share links to awesome queer writers, charities that support LBGTQIA+ communities, resources and information in the comments so we can all learn together. Also, If I have used any terms in this article incorrectly, please let me know.
SHARE SOME LOVE WITH YOUR COMMUNITY:
Download our Pride colouring in sheets for free below.
RESOURCES & MORE INFO:
Podcasts:
Pod Save the UK episode: What do the Trans and Non-binary community need right now?
Everything from A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
Articles, Websites & Charities supporting LBQTQIA+ communtiy:
Minus18 provide support and information for LBQTQIA+ young people and families in Australia.
Transcend provide support and information for LBQTQIA+ young people and families in Australia.
Trans Safety Network is a research collective exploring and analysing institutional and organised harm against trans people in the UK.
Articles specifically looking at the dangers of the ‘groomer’ conspiracy:
End Sexual Violence article about fighting anti-LGBTQIA+ grooming rhetoric.
An article from RMIT about the spread of the transgender grooming conspiracy to Australia.
ABC News article on false pedophilia claims to attack Democrats.
Thank you 🌈❤️
Thank you ♥️