MyLondon Raises Concerns about LBN “Queer” Event for Children.
Council Tax has gone up by 20%. The bin-men are on strike, again. And Newham launches into a campaign aimed at gay/queer youngsters that is reminiscent of Labour’s 1970’s Looney Left councils.
In an article from mid-September 2022, MyLondon published the above photograph of a leaflet aimed at children from age nine, inviting them to “hang out with other queer young people”, some of whom were as ‘young’ as 25.
This was not a one-off, the article continues, “Newham Council has also advertised an event called "Queer the Table" where it is again encouraging children as young as nine to "meet up with other young people" aged up to 25 years old.”
They print the council’s response to concerns about the breadth of the age range. Normally, youth work would encompass young people up to the age of 18 and you would not normally expect 9 year olds to be mixing with 18 year olds, let alone 25 year olds. The general exception is for young people with a learning disability, where youth services would be extended up until the age of 25.
The rationale for increasing the age from 18 to 25 for gay/queer young people is not obvious.
A spokesperson from LBN is quoted; “We are committed to building a genuinely inclusive borough and are allies in defence of LGBTQIA+ rights. We take a firm stance against prejudice, intolerance and hate and work hard to provide safe spaces for young people to amplify their views and explore and celebrate their identities.”
But that pretentious bit of virtue signalling rather misses the point, a point seen by any rational adult. How safe is a place where 9-year-olds are expected to mix with 25-year-olds in discussions about their sexuality?
We were informed that youth workers would be present and that groups would be age-appropriate. Let us hope that this was true. However, there are many who have concerns, not only because of the ill-advised publicity and planning of the events, but because of the wider concerns of currents in the Left about normalising sexual activity between adults and children.
Once upon a time paedophilia was treated as a societal taboo, for good reason. The power relationship between adults and children is substantial and adults can be coercive.
Secondly, children do not have the capacity to agree to some things, they lack full agency. As time goes on, they adopt increasing personal responsibility and the law, at least in the UK recognises different degrees of responsibility as a child matures. The ages are, of necessity, arbitrary and subject to change, as in the age of consent. But they fulfil a role in the protection of children from harm by others and from the consequences of their own actions.
Adults seeking sex with children was, and should still be, seen as predatory and an issue that should unite adults, whether parents or not, regardless of their voting intentions.
Unhappily, that seems no longer to be the case.
There is a clear attempt to de-stigmatise paedophilia; to recategorize it as simply another, an alternative sexual attraction. Readers who are old enough to remember the NCCL (now Liberty) will recall that they found themselves somewhat embarrassed in the late 1970s for their links with the Paedophile Information Exchange, (PIE) and the support they offered to the latter’s attempt to decriminalise sexual activity between adults and children.
There are three stages to this de-stigmatising process. The first is to attempt to define and compartmentalise the taboo out of existence, or at least to minimise its impact. The term paedophilia thus is restricted to sex with under-11s. For children in early pubescence, the term becomes hebephile, and for those in their mid-teens it becomes ephebophile. Paedophilia might be depraved, but hebephilia and ephebophilia are not so bad.
The second stage is to redefine. In what looks shockingly like the PIE position of yesteryear, sex between adults and minors is erased of any negative connotations; because we now live in an inclusive and non-judgemental society, and paedophiles become redefined as MAPs. That is, as Minor Attracted Persons.
“Minor-attracted persons (MAPs) are individuals whose sexual and romantic orientations often draw them to underage people.” The Urban Dictionary.
“The term "MAP" has a number of functions. As well as being more inclusive than terms such as pederast or pedophile, it addresses the stigma and conflatory misuse of pedophilia.” NewgonWiki.
Indeed, at least in the USA, there are university departments which promote this. And this leads to the final stage, to normalise paedophilia as just another sexual attraction or identity.
We don’t know what was going through the minds of the organisers of this programme. It beggars belief that they were unaware of these trends; but still they went ahead when in the mind of any rational observer, there should have been safeguarding bells ringing all over the town hall!
Newham Council are quoted in the MyLondon article, “Keeping children and young people safe from harm is of paramount importance to the Council. We take a robust approach to safeguarding whenever we are planning and running events. There are strong processes in place to ensure that all events meet these high safeguarding standards.”
They have the right words, but the concern is that they are just that. Words.
Is it in any way conceivable, that 25-year-old men would be invited to share in a forum with 9-year-old girls to discuss issues around their sexuality? We suspect, (and hope) not. So why way it acceptable for “queer” children and young people?
Just who was it that thought that it was a good idea to hold a single event in which the oldest participant could be nearly three times the age of the youngest? Why is he/she/they/it still in post? Why is their manager still there? Will any of our councillors bother to find out? Do any of them care?
Will Newham commit to ensuring that nothing similar happens like this again?