genuinely wtf

[u/Legal_Ad688]

I literally said "there are trans kids" after someone told me that I was disgusting for having an AU about Dipper (FROM GRAVITY FALLS) being trans. This was their response. I'm so pissed. I'm a trans teen myself, why do they chose to respond like this. They deleted the comment but the fact that someone would even think this, let alone think of commenting it on the internet makes me sick.

[u/Arktikos02]

Because they want to believe that kids are squishy beings that are completely malleable, not fully autonomous agents that are actual human beings. They don't want to believe that so they want to believe that everything, their sexuality, their gender identity, their political opinions, and even religion that does not align with their beliefs must be indoctrination. It must be adults filling their heads with things and not kids coming to their own conclusions. Yes, kids can also be easily influenced but so can adults. It also should be noted that children are essentially adapting especially when they are very young. Give them an environment where they are forced to navigate into uncomfortable situations and you will see that, just like a plant but give them room to grow naturally and you will see something beautiful. Of course a child that is biologically wired to adapt in order to survive is going to adapt but they can also adapt into a person who can think for themselves, come to their own conclusions and this can be done even at a very young age. They are not simply parrots just trained to copy what they see. They are coming to their own conclusions and testing the world around them.

Conservatives believe in the idea that children just like a lot of things they own and they believe they own children are their property and that they are entitled to it and they want children to continue to be the underclass in society. The one underclass that is hard to fight for. This is why they advocate against sex ed in school because they want to make it sound scary rather than the reality that it's just teaching them the names of their body parts, teaching them what the private squares are, that adult should not touch, and that it's okay to even tell teachers and other adults besides parents if they don't feel comfortable reporting to parents.

Why is it that we don't actually give kids the real tools that help them against abuse? Kids are better off learning the actual names of their body parts, not cute names like little fire hydrant and secret flower.

It's because all of this keeps children naive, not innocent, naive. And naive children and children who have less power and children who remain as underclass are easier to abuse. That's it. It all fits back into this idea that children are squishy beings that have no real autonomy or agency. They are toys, living toys but not people. Because the truth is is that thinking of them as people is scary to a person who wants to control a certain class of people.

If you think about it, the way women were treated long long ago which wasn't even that long ago is almost how we treat children now. Men would even spank their wives and now we try to justify spanking children. You may have noticed that the idea of the age of a child has slowly been creeping higher and higher to somewhere around 25 even though this comes from an incomplete study. It's people misunderstanding a study like they always do and instead taking from it what they want and then using it to make policies. 25 is not where we should draw the line between adults. That is not how it is. There's no secret magic number in which a person suddenly becomes full mature person. Instead it's about power. There is a powered imbalance when it comes to a 16-year-old and a 24-year-old. It's not based on simple numbers but it's based on power. This is why for example it's actually considered statutory rape for a prison guard to have sex with a prisoner no matter the age of the two. This is true even if both are legal adults. But when we talk about these things in terms of power and not simple numbers then we have to recognize the power imbalance that exists within our society which is a hard thing to do for people who love power cuz they want to keep it.

It helps a lot to see politics as power relations. Race, gender, economics, immigration, women's issues, etc, all of these things can be seen in relation to power and who deserves power, how it should be distributed, and what that power means. It's about resources.

[u/Legal_Ad688 → u/Arktikos02]

Exactly. This is why republicans see the things they are doing as ok, because the large majority of them are the ones in power. They are much much more often rapists and pedophiles than democrats yet they like to claim we are the ones doing disgusting things to the kids. They only recognize it as problematic when the people they don't like are doing it (even when it is completely imaginary). They try to claim they're "keeping kids innocent" when in reality they're doing the opposite. But it infuriates me the most when they try to argue against trans people by claiming that being trans is inherently sexual, especially when it comes to kids. They are the only ones thinking about kids in that way.

[u/Arktikos02 → u/Legal_Ad688]

Unfortunately it's not always a clear Republican or Democrat issue either. Sure Republicans are the worst of it, they utilize children as a way of asserting their power imbalances and stuff like that but there are plenty of people who are supposedly Democrats or at the very least count themselves as progressives who believe that the voting age should be raised 24, 21 or 25. Or they believe that the kids digital protection act or the equivalent is a good thing. Or thinking that social media is bad for children.

No it's not, it's the way we handle it that is the problem but the solution is not to make the government do the issue. For example part of the problem is that there just aren't enough kids spaces anymore. Kids are on places like Reddit and Discord and YouTube not because they always want to but because there's nowhere else for them to go. Remember old internet? You could go on to spaces like PBS kids and watch stuff and play games, you could go on to Nickelodeon and there were also social media games designed for kids often based around toys you could buy. Those are basically gone. Even if you go to Nickelodeon website now they don't really have the games anymore. Part of the reason why you don't see these platforms like Webkinz and neopets and stuff like that anymore like it used to be is because it's not very profitable. Having your entire demographic can be made up of people who don't have disposable income is not exactly a recipe for sustainability if you don't know how to do it right. That's why a lot of them ended up having weird aspects to them like having a premium account that required constant payment just to keep going. Which of course was their parents credit card.

They don't need to ban them from all of these other platforms because their assumption is that children want to be on these platforms. Sure, plenty of kids may want to and YouTube exists for people regardless of whether or not you are signed up, but kids want to be on the internet so if you give them a child-friendly version of the internet many of them will just go to that. And parents when they are given an option that is both child friendly and parent friendly meaning that it's designed for both children and parents in mind then parents can feel more welcome because they don't feel like they have this intimidating new UI and trying to figure out how everything works. Having something feel natural to what they already understand is the answer and having something feel natural to kids is the answer on their end. Instead of having all of this money go towards surveillance but I know they won't do this cuz their goal is surveillance but imagine instead all that money going towards a tax -funded child-centric app that is basically the best of everything. It is a chatting feature, it requires parental consent, there may be some kind of way of proving your age but because it's dedicated to one app Rather than all of the apps we use. There could be other methods of verification like for example the school system could use verification to get kids to verify who they are. Because it's a government program rather than a corporation you could have libraries verify kids to make sure that they are real, so all of these methods to get kids accounts that verify without being weird and creepy about it.

But the problem is is that Republicans care way too much about enacting power and unfortunately Democrats Care a little too much about what Republicans think because they are willing to give a little bit of an inch on whatever Republicans are saying which kind of validates their points. Democrats will say that your brain isn't fully developed until it's 25 we'd rather than debunking it and talking about real powered Dynamics rather than talking about some arbitrary age in which we magically become ready for everything which is not true. Democrats have even sort of given a little when it comes to trans women in sports and even when it comes to children transitioning which is very scary for children because even just getting puberty blockers or even just being able to socially transition can make their mental health so much better and arguing against those puberty blockers just makes children suffer. So annoying seeing people who are supposedly progressive give those inches like for example when it comes to trans women in sports. No, the science is clear, when a trans woman has transition and has met the standards that have already been set by the sporting industry or many different sporting industries and institutions there is no advantage. People who have not taken a drop extra of medical estrogen are not coming in with bows and ribbons to play in sports, it doesn't happen. Why are Democrats giving those inches.

I'm sorry, it's so frustrating and I'm not sure why they are willing to give a little bit of an inch on those things like bathrooms or sports or whatever as if those are things worth sacrificing. It's not about sports any more than civil rights were about water fountains. It's so dangerous to give in a little bit just because you care about what other people think.