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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   30739 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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Gender Queer

I had to look up what that was. And then read the Wikipedia article on it.

My opinion?

Eh, if you want twelve year olds to read about strap-ons and oral sex and older guy touching the dick of much younger guy, while I have no objection to Greek red figure pottery, the kids today can do what we did and look for anything about sex on our parents' bookshelves or elsewhere. Heck, they have the Internet today! They don't need to get it in school, are we meant to spoon-feed them everything?

And let's face it, while defending books from being banned might elicit passionate responses from school librarians, when it's "I stand up for the right of schools to ensure every twelve year old can find out about paederasty from the sexual fantasies, with illustrations, as recorded in her memoir by a non-binary woman", that can sound in the general ballpark of "groomer".

i think that “kids should learn about sex from the internet and whatever weird porn their parents have laying around the house” also sounds in the general ballpark of groomer for me

I think if you read the book, you might change your mind about what it is about. Note that a review committee in Fairfax County, VA composed of parents, teachers, and community members, recommended keeping the book and explicitly found that "The book neither depicts nor describes pedophilia." Similarly, committees in Rockwood MO, West Chester, PA, Billings. MT, and Yorktown, NY recommended keeping the book, and of course that is just a sampling -- google "keep gender queer" for recent examples.

That is not to say that IMHO the book should or should not be on school library shelves; I am sure that local parents, teachers, etc, know better than I what is best for local students, and many districts have decided to remove the book. But to infer that the book is an attempt at grooming is a very dubious inference.

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