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Drag Queen Story Times picketed by protestors who claim that it grooms children and promotes paedophilia

I think some people are too proud too admit that we have a lot to learn from younger people.

People who say that are often suffering from the wishful thinking that the young will grow up to echo their own preferences and prejudices. It’s just self-flattery.

I’m old enough to have seen this stuff the first time it came round.

What they’ll actually be is people, complicated and difficult people like people have always been, and set against each other by class and a bunch of other nonsense.

What they’re reflecting right at this time is what they’ve been fed. If there is hope to be found, we’ll see it in 20 years or so when what they produce is actually coming from them.

Right now we’re just squabbling over ideas from the last millennium while everything catches fire around us, so let’s hope they do better, eh? We haven’t exactly given them the best legacy.

They may see us as dinosaurs for reasons that we have never thought of, that will come as a total surprise to us.
 
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I was raised in a climate of extreme gender ideology. There 2 socially acceptable options - married hetrosexuality or religious celibacy. Dressing in very gendered ways was compulsory and rigourly enforced in schools, workplaces and in public, females in frocks and males in trousers.

The schools and libraries only presented hetronormative ideology Don't think I read a book with a lesbian character (or any lgbtq characters) till I was in my 20s in the early 80s and the arrival of Virago and Womens Press books.

Despite this, men dressing up in womens clothes was a mainstay of TV throughout my childhood (two Ronnies, Monty Phython, Danny La Rue etc). Panto was, and still is, an annual tradition of Best Boys and Pantomime Dames with outrageous costumes and rude innuendo. Larry Grayson and Mr Humphries were the only 'queer' characters on TV (Danny La Rue was presented as straight) Someone asked me today who were my rolemodels growing up - there were none.

Somehow despite all this, I still managed to grow up to be queer. Phew!
 
I find the kids today are far more accepting of stuff my generation and yours weren't. Most of my kids have learning needs of some sort, but their needs vary wildly. While they may use the word mong too liberally for Urban's likes, they rarely use it on each other, and never as a direct attack for a learning need.


I think the difference is due, in part, to the parenting.

I taught my children to accept people for who they were. When a transgender moved into our house, the children had no issue with calling our guest Allison instead of Alec.
 
I think realistically the 'gender indoctrination' at schools consists of maybe one SRE lesson per year about it and having a couple of age appropriate books in the class library. Terrifying.
 
I think realistically the 'gender indoctrination' at schools consists of maybe one SRE lesson per year about it and having a couple of age appropriate books in the class library. Terrifying.
As opposed to the constant but silent gender indoctrination we all received at school, which is so rarely mentioned by people who bring up the slightest hint of information about lgbt+ sexualities and genders as massive indoctrination
 
The interesting point was how much Donovan misjudged it. When Liberace sued, being 'accused' of being gay was career suicide.

When Donovan sued, times had changed. It made him look like he was homophobic and it screwed up his career.

(And I've no idea if Donovan is gay or not and don't care either way.)
Not sure how much staying-power he would have had in an alternative universe though. Compare Rick Astley.
 
The interesting point was how much Donovan misjudged it. When Liberace sued, being 'accused' of being gay was career suicide.

When Donovan sued, times had changed. It made him look like he was homophobic and it screwed up his career.

(And I've no idea if Donovan is gay or not and don't care either way.)

Donovan was most likely, in my view, badly advised. He was also an icon for teen girls at a time when even talk of a girlfriend (a non-Kylie one in his case, at least), could hit a record company’s coffers hard.

Remember that George Michael was yet to come out for another six years.

<time passes…>

Robbie Williams then sued on the same grounds 13 years later. He was a good deal older than Donovan was at the time. He had also been merrily making allusions of ambiguity about his sexuality to keep up press interest.

Times really had changed by this point.

So I’m inclined to give Donovan a pass on this one, on balance.
 
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Re. Jason Donovan. It was the time of Outrage and 'outing'. People were putting up 'Queer as Fuck' posters, some of which had his picture on. The Pink Paper reported on this and then got sued. Many people thought that was a bit off! (At least that's my recollection.)

I must have missed the Robbie Williams case though. Maybe nobody cared by then.
 
Re. Jason Donovan. It was the time of Outrage and 'outing'. People were putting up 'Queer as Fuck' posters, some of which had his picture on. The Pink Paper reported on this and then got sued. Many people thought that was a bit off! (At least that's my recollection.)

I must have missed the Robbie Williams case though. Maybe nobody cared by then.

It was The Face magazine that he sued (I mean Donovan, Williams sued The People).

“Outing” was an odd thing, haven’t thought about that in a long time.

<thinking aloud follows..>

The people being outed weren’t people who had nothing to lose from it. They were being outed because they were benefiting from staying in the closet.

Can see how it’s a bit tricky if you are outed on false grounds.

</ thinking aloud>

After winning the case, Donovan waived the damages because he didn’t want to bankrupt the magazine (they weren’t in great shape financially).

I think his right to set the record straight is probably less shaky than the right of activists to destroy the privacy of some and make false allegations of others.

<That's maybe not my final answer.>
 
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It was The Face magazine that he sued (I mean Donovan, Williams sued The People).
Ah yes, The Face. Though I could have sworn he sued the Pink Paper as well. Still, it's 30 years ago - I'm amazed I can remember anything that far back!
 
I think his right to set the record straight is probably less shaky than the right of activists to destroy the privacy of some and make false allegations of others.
Or he could've just shrugged and let it be. 🤷‍♀️
 
Big difference socially and legally between 1959 when Liberace sued the Mirror and 1992 when Donovan sued the Face. As I'm sure you know.

Indeed. Think of the good Liberace could have done by taking one for the team.

Also, when he sued he was actually lying, as well as damaging the gay community.
 
My sympathies are with anyone who is/has been in the closet and wants to stay there. I think it's nobody else's business but their own.

Aside of course from people like politicians who are themselves gay but harass gay people in public for the votes.
 
My sympathies are with anyone who is/has been in the closet and wants to stay there. I think it's nobody else's business but their own.

Aside of course from people like politicians who are themselves gay but harass gay people in public for the votes.

I have a lot of sympathy with that view.

Don't know how old you are, but things were pretty different at the time and I remember quite heated arguments about it.
 
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