[theprincess]

I think you're right.

On one side, you see adults who believe that sexuality and cross-gender identification are immutable, or at least practically immutable. Their goal is to expose e.g. heterosexual kids to the idea that some of their peers will be different from them so that they aren't shocked and scandalized by it later, then lash out unfairly as a result of prejudice against the unknown.

On the other side, you see adults who equate deviations from acceptable expressions of sexuality and gender - you don't see many conservatives boycotting national brands over young boys at hooters or child beauty pageants featuring little girls - as being inherently obscene. They naturally want to protect children from what they see as obscene and abnormal.

They both believe that they have children's best interests at heart.

That said, based on all available data, it seems like sexuality and gender identification are mostly immutable and that truth will slowly win out in the end. For example, nearly every conservative has met a little boy who acted remarkably girlish since toddlerhood and grew up to be gay unsurprisingly. Seeing that process play out, then claiming that gayness is a social contagion requires cognitive dissonance.

It's a part of the process of social change.... The last huge wave of homophobia that had legal consequences was in the 1970's and was led by a group called "Save the Children" -- it's all just the same dynamics repeating, except today it's more-so around broader gender norms, as opposed to a narrow focus on "men sleep with women". This video does a great job of laying it out through that sort of lens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6qUxa30SFA

[houseinthesky]

> you don't see many conservatives boycotting national brands over young boys at hooters or child beauty pageants featuring little girls

You must have one heck of a filter bubble of what you're seeing in the world if you're not seeing conservatives complain about child beauty pageants. There was a massive conservative backlash to a Netflix documentary about child beauty pageants and the conservative internet meme landscape is full of content against "groomers" and anything that involves sexuality and children.

[ImPostingOnHN]

the meme of "groomers" is just alt-right shorthand for anyone who holds the first viewpoint described by OP -- it's an epithet used against people they dislike, not an accurate criticism to be taken literally

for a good illustration of this, examine the politics of people who organize, attend, and participate in actual underage beauty pageants in the US -- the last US president, for example

it's not surprising, because the point of beauty pageants is to reinforce the conservative stereotype that a woman's job is to stand there and look pretty

you'll also note that, as mentioned above, conservatives don't apply the term to breastaurants when children are present there -- I didn't see a response to that, and it bears repeating

[dragonwriter]

> When you disambiguate things it’s not hard to see the current trend of medicalizing gender as a form of gay conversion therapy

It is very hard to see it that way, gender dysphoria is not, and does not particularly correlate with sexual attraction to the gender of your AGAB; exclusive attraction to the gender opposite gender identity is less common than than both exclusive attraction to the same gender and bisexuality among trans people in America. If it were predominantly “gay conversion therapy”, you'd expect it to be predominantly people who had same gender attraction based on AGAB transitioning so that their target gender would result in that being opposite gender attraction. But the evidence doesn't support that.

It's a fantasy constructed by anti-trans, anti-gay forces to try to turn the successful movement against conversion therapy into an asset for them in dividing their natural opponents, but you have to be pretty ignorant to fall for it.

[chownie]

The LGB alliance are a weird one to mention, they have basically no grassroots members at all -- they popped up out of nowhere a few years ago, the average LGBT person in the UK doesn't know they exist at all.

They perform no advocacy to speak of within the UK except for pursuing attack lines against trans people. They're based at 55 Tufton Street which just so happens to also be where a bunch of very curiously linked conservative think tanks promoting anti-climate change, anti-immigrant populist politics are centered. They're mysteriously mixed closely with American groups like the heritage foundation. Oddly they started getting cited a bunch by openly transphobic BBC journalists, ostensibly for "balance" when discussing the rights of trans people.

I cannot think of a more obvious example for astroturfing than this group. They have literally zero presence in real people's lives the way you'd expect a charity to, they instead pop up wherever anti-trans rhetoric appears online and in papers, providing a denigrating voice to whoever needs it. They provide no services and give no advice -- here's to hoping they lose their charitable status when the Good Law Project's appeal concludes later this year.

[theprincess]

Calling gender affirming care "gay conversion therapy" is a disingenuous tactic deployed by anti-trans activists. One of the most common things that parents who disown their trans kids say is "why can't you just be gay" so pitching it as conversion therapy is very... odd.

You even illustrate this point yourself when you say:

> Very few conservatives in 2023 are riled up by homosexuality.

but also...

> the current trend of medicalizing gender as a form of gay conversion therapy

Kenneth Zucker's whole practice was geared, in fact, toward converting trans kids into gay kids. He says himself in his writing that being homosexual is preferable to being transsexual, since the latter requires medical intervention. The thing is, trans people and gay people have different needs and desires. They aren't the same group. So it's wrong to try to force gay kids to be trans or trans kids to be gay. But these days what you'll find is trans kids being pushed to be gay. A perfect inversion of the image you've painted.

The reason I "conflate" transsexuality (the word has two s's, also nobody uses it anymore, you should just say 'being transgender') with being gay is because the very same arguments and tactics used against gay people in the 80's - it's a mental illness, a social contagion, they're grooming kids, etc... - is being used again against trans people today. There was even a bathroom and women's sports panic in the 80's around lesbians in women's sports "preying" on straight girls.

Trans people had been considered merely a part of the gay community, along with other gender non-conforming people who may today identify as non-binary, until relatively recently. The fight for gay rights benefitted trans people, but we're at a point now where they have their own struggles, like the struggle for medical treatment.

It's a struggle that's been fought since the 70's when Janice Raymond wrote "The Transsexual Empire" and worked with the Reagan administration to make it more difficult for trans people to get medical treatment. Nothing about it is new, except for the alliance between conservative Christians and secular anti-trans activists - an unholy union if I've ever seen one.

[bglazer]

> Very few conservatives in 2023 are riled up by homosexuality.

This is absolutely not the case at the populist grassroots level. There are regular panics and outpourings of hatred for pride events, books mentioning homosexuality are outright banned in schools, gay teachers are targeted for harassment and fired. My state just passed a law banning drag shows, which have been a part of gay culture for decades.

Genuine question: do you live in a culturally conservative area? Do you have evangelical Christians in your social circles?