I’m about to rant about people who profile, and people who allow their fears to harden into prejudice, because that often deprives the targeted group of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s morally repugnant. People who do that should be ashamed. And the fear at the core of it all is usually not based on anything that has been personally experienced by the people doing the profiling. They’ve just decided for whatever reason that this particular group is dangerous and therefore deserves to be deprived of basic human rights. Quite often these people have never even met someone from their target group. It’s much easier to demonize someone if you’ve never broken bread with them.
But before I can let loose with the rant, I have to make a confession. I am not immune. I try not to profile people, but one group that has given me the willies for decades is department store Santas. I never felt comfortable sitting on anyone’s lap, even as a small child. Do not touch my nether regions with any part of your body, thankyouverymuch. It felt like an invasion of my space like no other. And sometime in my teens, it occurred to me that if I were a sex offender (something I had experience with, unfortunately) I’d want to put myself in a place where kids would come running to me. It would be a logical step for them to take, if that type of predation could be described as logical. I know I shouldn’t think like that, it’s not fair, and no better than targeting any group. But once I had the thought I couldn’t unthink it, even though I know there must be a good many people who take that Santa gig for honorable reasons.
Maybe I just forfeited my right to this rant. I don’t know. But it has bubbled up from my bottomless pit of angst today, and I need to express it in this safe space, Dear Reader, or I fear I might word-vomit all over the next person I encounter who expresses such ignorance (and frankly, the subsequent dry-cleaning bill would add to my angst). So buckle up, because here we go.
I understand rational fears. For example, it’s not irrational to fear a rattlesnake that’s coiled up in your closet, or a fire under the hood of your car, or an incoming missile with your name on it. But fears based on no evidence, with no rational motivations behind them, and/or no personal negative experiences to draw upon? I don’t get it. It’s fairly certain, for example, that your petunias are not going to plot against you. It’s a safe bet that you won’t spontaneously combust.
I’m just saying, do preventive things such as wearing your seatbelts and not running with scissors, but don’t, I don’t know, beat up every postman you see because you’ve been told that they’ll break into your home and steal all your stamps. I mean, don’t you think they have better ways of getting their stamps? Are postmen really the group who would benefit the most from postage stamp theft? Have you ever heard of a postman doing such a thing? Have you ever experienced this yourself? No? Then calm down and question the whole thing.
I say all this because this is the thought process I use when doling out my anxiety. And yet I see people getting worked up about the things below based on nothing but hearsay. It blows my mind. Please help me to understand.
Why the hell are so many people willing to believe that LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender people, are bound to be child sexual predators? Why? They’re no more motivated toward such depravity than any other human being. So if you think they’re more likely to commit such crimes, what do you think their motivation is? Recruitment? Jesus, talk about massive amounts of delayed gratification. It would be decades before that caper bore fruit, and as a general rule, abuse doesn’t win hearts and minds, so it’s going to backfire.
Honestly, I have never known anyone who was able to produce an actual story of sexual abuse perpetrated by a trans person. They have enough societal issues to contend with without bringing that kind of hellfire raining down upon themselves. And I have definitely never known anyone who had first, or even secondhand knowledge of such a story.
So, if you’re not drawing your conclusions based on personal experience, And there’s no logical motivation, then it must have something to do with your own personal discomfort. For some reason it’s important to you to imagine what someone’s sexual predispositions are behind closed doors. (That right there is a little weird. It’s none of your business.) And this imagined thing, which has nothing to do with you at all, makes you uncomfortable, so therefore you assume that they’d also do something else that would make you feel uncomfortable, such as child sexual abuse? Is it possible that you might be missing a few links in your chain of evidence, here?
Let’s look at the statistics. Fortunately, there’s a website for that. https://whoismakingnews.com. A friend of mine drew this to my attention via one of her Facebook posts, and she said that this very enlightening information could be shared as long as she remained anonymous and the website link was provided. Everything in this highlighted section comes from her post. I found it fascinating but not at all surprising.
Sex crimes against children are disproportionately committed by conservative politicians and the religiously affiliated. In a period of just 15 months from 2023 to 2024, the researcher collected 10,885 cases. Every case is documented by public reporting or records, and the dataset is still growing.
Risk of the perpetrator being a drag queen or TG person in general: virtually zero.
Risk of the predator being clergy, religious non-clergy, politicians, and police is notably high. (Family/friends and teachers are known high risk perpetrator categories because of constant access to children.)
Worst states for sex crimes against children: red and religious.
Best states: blue.
My observations:
Power over societal levers and/or power over people seem to be strongly correlated to sex crimes against children. Drag queens and TG people notably lack such power.
Those (especially in positions of power) who focus on drag queens and TG people are confessing their own guilt in committing, perpetuating, or misdirecting protective resources away from the real problems.
Takeaways:
Over 10,000 sex crimes against children in a recent year.
1 drag queen. 5 TG people.
Over 1000 times more religious, conservative politicians, and police than drag queens.
Similarly, what is this terror around your average public bathroom? I have never in my life heard of anyone coming to any harm in a public bathroom unless they were there alone, late at night, and the bathroom was in a very sketchy location, like a drug-infested subway station or a crime-riddled truck stop. Not that anyone deserves to be victimized anywhere, but it’s important to be situationally aware and take as many precautions as you possibly can. Unfortunately, in those situations, all the legislation in the world is not going to help you, because desperate drug addicts and criminal predators don’t care, and don’t fit the demographic you’re choosing to freak out about.
This thorough study indicates that legislating the access to bathrooms does not increase the safety of the public at all, and, in fact, decreases the safety of transgender people. And by the way, you’re in your stall, they’re in their stall. What are you doing, looking at their genitals to see if they pass muster in your opinion? Who’s the pervert in that scenario? Shame on you. For God’s sake, everyone has a right to basic dignity. Did Jesus humiliate people like that?
Think about it. Who would be most motivated to want you to fear or hate someone else? (And isn’t it interesting how the target group is always really easy to identify? That’s for your convenience.) Might those motivated people be the very people that you should really be afraid of and/or angry at? Hmmm…
I’ve seen more sh*t go down in parking lots and parking garages than in bathrooms, and the statistics back me up on that, too. As a matter of fact, these statistics, if anything, leave me feeling even more paranoid about those locations. But when’s the last time you saw someone try to legislate what goes on in a parking lot? Huh. I wonder why that is? Maybe because it isn’t really about safety.
And this whole thing about illegal immigrants pouring over our borders and raping and murdering people? Poppycock. First of all, if that was their thing, they could stay in their own countries and do it with fewer legal ramifications and much less chance of consequences. Second, if it just so happens they’re “also” here for a better, safer, and more financially prosperous life, the last thing on earth they want to do is draw attention to themselves in such heinous ways.
The internet is overflowing with statistics that indicate that immigrants commit a whole lot less crime than the US born population, and in fact, when they do commit a crime, it tends to be an immigration-related one, not a violent one. This report actually cites information provided by US Government agencies. I’m sure such data will be suppressed soon, but even without the numbers, use common sense. Sexual predators prey on the vulnerable. They don’t need to come all the way to America to find vulnerable people. Not only that, but our security systems tend to be better. Nobody makes a point of coming to America just so they can commit their extra special violent crime.
Trump claims these immigrants are raping and murdering, but with the exception of 2 or 3 news stories, what other specific stories have you read about violent immigrant crimes? Name names. What personal experiences have you had with violent immigrant crimes? And for heaven’s sake, why would they eat dogs when they can go down any street and pick up a McDonald’s hamburger? Come on. McDonald’s, or piss off the neighborhood? Um… I’m thinking Big Mac.
Honestly, none of this is about protecting women and children. If that were the case, Congress would be making childcare and healthcare and education more accessible to them. They’d be providing funding to process the backlog of rape kits. They’d be fully staffing support networks for victims of abuse.
All this is about coming up with scapegoats. It’s about whipping up fear to make us believe that the bad guys are over there. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain who are scooping up all the power, privilege, and money. Epstein files? What Epstein files? Look over there! They’re eating the dogs!
It’s about dividing and conquering. If we fight amongst ourselves, we won’t have the time or energy to fight them. Why do we continue to fall for it?
As for my Santaphobia, I do take comfort from the fact that I would never urge my congressman to prevent department store Santas from getting married or using a public toilet or adopting children if they are properly vetted (as every adopter should be). I would never physically harm a Santa or humiliate them. I feel they have the right to dress the way they want to (even if I think it would look odd in mid-July, and be uncomfortably hot). I wouldn’t have a problem with Santa moving into my neighborhood. We could exchange ho, ho, ho’s on the sidewalk and such like. I wouldn’t hesitate to help them coax their cat out of a tree. But would I go out of my way to socialize with Santa? Probably not. (But that can be said of 99% of the planet, and that goes double for close neighbors.) Would I allow my 8-year-old niece to play in Santa’s back yard, without me being present? Hard no, regardless of Santa’s bona fides. Change jobs and we’ll talk.
God, that sounds horrible. But I’m working on it. At least I’m working on it.
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