I don’t like that either. There are receipts for Trump, so that can stick, but using “pedophile” as a broad pejorative against people I disagree with politically (no matter how severely) requires me to separate that word from what it actually means (people who are sexually attracted to children), and as someone who actually gives a shit about harm reduction and justice for victims of sexual abuse, I’m not willing to stoop to the level of obfuscating the language we use to talk about those things.
This is no different than the right wing adopting “groomer” to mean “anyone who I think intrinsically harms children” (usually queer people working in education or childcare), actively destroying the very valuable vocabulary we have for describing the criminal social manipulation sexually abusive adults can use on children to get them to do what they are told.
Just because “pedo” is the nastiest thing you can call someone doesn’t make it acceptable to cry wolf about such a profoundly serious thing, no matter how much you hate the person you’re insulting.
Stop using queer as a bad word. The word you are looking for to describe Trump and the other magas is “pedophile”.
I don’t like that either. There are receipts for Trump, so that can stick, but using “pedophile” as a broad pejorative against people I disagree with politically (no matter how severely) requires me to separate that word from what it actually means (people who are sexually attracted to children), and as someone who actually gives a shit about harm reduction and justice for victims of sexual abuse, I’m not willing to stoop to the level of obfuscating the language we use to talk about those things.
This is no different than the right wing adopting “groomer” to mean “anyone who I think intrinsically harms children” (usually queer people working in education or childcare), actively destroying the very valuable vocabulary we have for describing the criminal social manipulation sexually abusive adults can use on children to get them to do what they are told.
Just because “pedo” is the nastiest thing you can call someone doesn’t make it acceptable to cry wolf about such a profoundly serious thing, no matter how much you hate the person you’re insulting.