During Pride month, there were a few Yammer (now known as Viva Engage) posts about LGBT issues. One guy made a blog post about how gay people were denied the opportunity of blood transfusions until recently. It was informative but I did think it was a weird thing to post at work – given the word-count of the word “sex” reached double figures and contained the phrase “anal sex” along with other sexual references.
If you take that out of the context of “pride”, wouldn’t discussing or writing about sex at work result in you being on a call with a member of HR?
I discussed it with a few of my colleagues. One guy said he thought he “had crossed the line with his phrasing and could have easily worded it in a less explicit way”. Another colleague stated that “although I support Pride, I don’t feel I should be reading about it at work“. That is actually a good point. Although there can be important social issues in the world, if it has nothing to do with work, then why are we reading or talking about it when we should be working? I’m sure there was even some policy we had to agree to – that said you couldn’t discuss religion and politics because if someone had different beliefs to you, then they may feel excluded.
It made me think that – because LGBT is the current hot-topic, then it trumps all existing work policies, and you aren’t allowed to say anything against it. This is even more contentious when this particular topic could be against someone’s religious beliefs (we do employ a significant number of Muslims, and a certain number of colleagues could have opposing views regardless of religion).
To conclude Pride month, a member of HR posted the following:
“Lots of events take place throughout June every year to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and all the progress that has been made across legislation, attitudes and behaviours.
HR staff member
Personally, one reason I find these events so wonderful is because they bring together people of all ages and I see so many families attending together with children – what better way to encourage change than to teach children about positive attitudes and behaviours and set a great example for them.”
I laughed out loud when I read that. I really wanted to respond, but thought I’d end up being unfairly sacked. So I wrote this blog instead.
Maybe the average person hasn’t heard about all the controversies this year, but recently, I’ve spent a lot of time on Twitter and been watching a lot of Daily Wire content. I suppose the more stuff you view on Twitter, the more it recommends the content, and so if you have any hint of an opinion, then it becomes stronger with “confirmation bias”. I’ve generally been interested in conspiracy theories and hot debates, so Twitter has pushed a lot of this content to my feed.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not against LGBT in general, but am opposed to it being directed at kids (which a lot of people from the likes against Daily Wire are making content about), and Twitter seemed to like showing me everything that Gays Against Groomers were Tweeting, and that’s their purpose.
So let’s go through some examples of what I am referring to here. If I remember correctly, the first controversy was a “family-friendly” Pride event where gay people in fetish gear were being whipped on top of an open-car. The next was a photograph of a curious girl about 6 years old who had approached 2 guys who were wearing that dog-themed leather bondage gear. A point here is – this content should only be known about if you go out of your way on an 18-rated website. Instead, people are in a public event where they knew that kids would be at, dressing up and even simulating these acts.
I actually only came across that particular fetish due to a colleague mentioning that a former male colleague had an OnlyFans with his boyfriend, and it was the company’s discovery of this fact that had forced him to leave the business. Given that the colleague that was telling me this had a reputation for exaggerating and lying, I asked him to prove it, and he linked me to his pages. He was telling the truth 😱😳
If my employer really is fine with this gay fetish aspect, then why was our former colleague sacked? Probably some hypocrisy there.
So I only learned about this fetish attire by going out of my way of the dark side of the internet, and here we have the likes of members of our HR department stating “I find these events so wonderful is because they bring together people of all ages and I see so many families attending together with children – what better way to encourage change than to teach children“. I find this sentiment being echoed among many that are presumably scared to be labelled a bigot for speaking out about it.
Some YouTubers stated that when they made content using such Pride footage, they were labelled as “adult content”. How can a “Family-friendly” event be adult content? Oh because it is adult content!
It’s considered a faux-pas to criticise Pride, but yet, if this same thing happened outside the context of Pride, people would call these people a “nonce”/”sex offender” and demand they be locked up for public indecency. This is what the group Gays Against Groomers stands for. They are against grooming kids. They are against exposing children to 18-rated content. Yet, they posted videos of their van parked at a Pride event and people were coming up to it and spitting on it. That’s right, people are openly fine with grooming kids these days. We used to want to protect kids at all costs, and we seem to have lost that over the last few years in pursuit of wokeness.
There was even the controversy with the Twitch Streamer NickMercs who Tweeted “They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue” (it was in the context of a vote to celebrate Pride at a school), then Activision removed his character “skin” from the game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II | Warzone”. This then resulted in a minor boycott/review bomb, and people mocked Activision with the phrase “Call of Groomers“. How far has society fallen if stating “leave little children alone” is considered a controversial statement?
To go back to the first thing the HR staff member said “Lots of events take place throughout June every year to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and all the progress that has been made across legislation, attitudes and behaviours.“. Progress made? So in addition to the examples of Pride becoming fetishized, you also had the transwoman that exposed their breasts at the White House, Puberty blockers banned in the UK , the boycott of Bud Light in the US due to the promotion with Dylan Mulvaney, the boycott of Target due to stocking chest binders which tanked their share price, the banning of Drag Queen events, men identifying as women to avoid Men’s prison, and more people speaking out against Transwomen in sports. So the Trans community has taken hits in their PR in this Pride month.
There was also the incident with Billboard Chris, where he was speaking to someone about how it is wrong to give puberty blockers to children, when a transwoman began screaming obscenities repeatedly in his face. Chris did his best to ignore her, until he got punched in the face. Despite having several police as witnesses, and having the event caught on camera, the police refused to prosecute the assault, and blamed Chris for being antagonistic. Pride Month ain’t it – Commit all the crimes you like.
So I’d say the LGBT movement had gained more and more support over time, but this year, it took a massive step back. I wouldn’t be surprised if further controversies were more widely publicised in future.
I think issues should be raised and discussed with logic, and not dealt with whilst being blinded by wokeness and hypocrisy. People need to take a step back, clear their minds and really decide what they actually believe in.
Assault is wrong. Grooming kids is wrong. Sex shouldn’t be discussed at work. I hope we can agree with that.
Stranger Coding Tings 