A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - The 100-Year-Old Myth of Gays “Coming for Your Children”

00:00:00.000 We have had a lot of diva down moments this year as gay people, from George Santos to the Senate 0.67

00:00:08.700 twinks to the return of the 1980s satanic panic, but this time it's levied against drag queens and 0.87

00:00:15.920 transgender 13-year-olds. But we are starting this year with a real diva up moment. Because last week,

00:00:24.580 crystal a drag queen from the first season of rupaul's drag race uk successfully sued a guy 0.95

00:00:31.480 who baselessly called her a pedophile on twitter she sued him for defamation and she won the queers 0.93

00:00:39.140 are getting litigious we will not take it anymore crystal welcome to a bit fruity diva thank you so 0.84

00:00:48.000 much what an intro also it's been a while since i heard the american pronunciation of pedophile so

00:00:53.880 that's refreshing oh yeah we might have to we one of us is gonna have to meet the other on that one

00:00:59.080 i can say pedophile if you want me to no i you know what potato patata

00:01:04.200 take me back to the beginning how did this all start and who is laurence fox oh god how long 0.67

00:01:15.340 you got uh laurence fox is a former actor turned alt-right troll basically he runs a political

00:01:22.960 party here in the uk which has no members no elected politicians and really no real purpose

00:01:31.040 except to kind of shift the political dial to the right using all of the tactics we all know and

00:01:36.260 love like denying racism exists and demonizing queer people and a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric

00:01:44.040 so he's an assy piece of work this all started because he said he he was criticizing a supermarket

00:01:51.520 on twitter for celebrating black history month okay yeah just 0.78

00:01:57.420 to call a supermarket reverse racist racist against white people this is a big issue with

00:02:07.980 supermarkets these days yeah yeah it's crazy and yeah he basically exactly what you say he

00:02:12.600 called them reverse racist and he said that they were promoting racial segregation

00:02:16.220 why why because they were providing safe spaces for their black employees to gather to talk about

00:02:24.560 issues they've experienced because of their race in relation to work so i called him a racist in

00:02:30.480 return he called me a pedophile and it was it was crazy it was shocking it was surprising it was

00:02:35.600 unexpected it was the first time i think i've ever had that word used against me unfortunately

00:02:40.460 not the last he had a really large following at the time it's since doubled but it was something

00:02:46.180 like 200 300 000 people on twitter so i got a huge pile on as a result so i quickly got in touch

00:02:54.860 with a lawyer we asked for an apology and a retraction and he refused and said in fact if 0.90

00:03:03.220 you sue me i'm gonna sue you for calling me a racist hasn't hasn't this guy done blackface yes

00:03:09.660 he put his children into blackface oh yeah some people shouldn't reproduce but yeah so we ended up 0.90

00:03:16.520 in this kind of uh standoff situation where you know we were both suing each other all of a sudden 0.92

00:03:21.760 and i was being sued for calling him a racist and i was suing him for calling me a pedophile

00:03:26.000 it took three years to get to court and uh just last week we had a judgment saying that he defamed

00:03:33.460 me and i did not defame him well congratulations diva thank you so much thank you he's gonna

00:03:39.580 have to cover my legal costs which is gonna be in the million pound range so that's already the

00:03:46.080 most an incredibly insane amount of money and he also hasn't stopped what he's doing he just last

00:03:51.820 week he tweeted tweeted saying i was insinuating that i was a danger to children so there's a very

00:03:57.720 good chance that his damages are going to be aggravated because he's not you know he has a

00:04:02.140 lot of balls for someone who doesn't really have the money to to be able to behave the way he's

00:04:09.080 behaving the thing though that i'm wondering is like people like us you know queer people 0.98

00:04:15.560 who are kind of public online i guess but also queer people who aren't even really public online

00:04:20.620 but like i know i've been called a groomer and a pedophile and all this a million times and i bet 0.50

00:04:27.020 at this point you have too why did you decide to sue like did you think that you would win yes i

00:04:34.340 did think that i would win work the uk thankfully has some pretty robust defamation laws the

00:04:42.140 principle of it was what was really important to me which was clearing my name you know making

00:04:46.740 sure that there was no question in anyone's mind that i was denying it robustly and my life my

00:04:53.600 career my everything that i do is based on the public perception of me so my reputation is really

00:05:00.020 important and then beyond that I knew it was symbolically really important because it's a

00:05:06.180 word that has been used against queer people since time immemorial and has recently become more

00:05:11.700 recently become something that's used against anyone who's gender non-conforming and specifically

00:05:16.600 the trans community so it felt like it was really important to take a stand especially where I had

00:05:21.620 you know the means to do so and a good case to do so and remind people that that language is 1.00

00:05:27.520 completely unacceptable and that we're not going to take it anymore we're not going to fucking take

00:05:32.160 it anymore no i mean i i think this this trial sets a really hopeful precedent after a really 0.88

00:05:39.180 you know not hopeful couple of years where basically anyone lives of tiktok can get on 0.55

00:05:44.980 the fucking internet accuse any queer person of whatever they want uh leading to you know 0.85

00:05:51.480 bomb threats threats on our lives and we're just supposed to sit here and take it and be like well 1.00

00:05:56.020 being called a pedophile is integral to the gay experience i guess like no the fuck it's not 0.99

00:06:02.240 and it hasn't stopped you know winning this case has not put that genie back in the bottle like 0.99

00:06:07.560 the abuse continues and probably now is just part of something i have to accept is going to continue

00:06:13.820 so like i did an interview on sky news last week and you know the comments under that were just

00:06:17.860 just as bad as they've ever been so but yeah i've also been targeted by libs of tiktok they 0.94

00:06:22.180 accused me of using a dildo on stage in front of children and simulating masturbation which is 0.97

00:06:28.040 not what I was doing and not what happened and there was no dildo and like but you know they're 0.97

00:06:33.880 happy to spread those lies and and reinforce this idea that we're all trying to get the children

00:06:38.640 well why let the truth get in the way of a viral tweet you know why why why let the truth get in

00:06:45.160 the way of some good old rage baiting you are a professional working drag queen do you do drag

00:06:51.940 story times you know or other family or kids you know events where kids are present yeah i have

00:06:59.120 done and having done it now a few times it is an incredibly rewarding experience like you just sit

00:07:06.700 with some children and read them stories about how they're good just the way that they are and

00:07:10.980 they should love themselves and there isn't even necessarily anything inherently queer in

00:07:15.620 the books that you read it's just like accept each other for who you are how dare you yeah i know i

00:07:21.760 know and it but it resonates with kids and they they love it and it's like great for the parents

00:07:27.160 and you know it can be a really really positive experience fundamentally i don't see why taking

00:07:32.620 your kids to a drag show is any different to taking them to see a musical or you know a clown

00:07:37.860 at the circus it's just all the same sort of thing and yes there might be double entendres

00:07:42.180 and innuendo but that's the same with like a disney movie there's jokes for the adults and

00:07:46.920 there's jokes for the kids and and that's okay the same with it's the same with spongebob i mean

00:07:52.680 yeah family friendly and like kid friendly drag events have become this like culture war battle

00:07:59.680 ground and it's it's led them you know as well as anyone to being severely misunderstood as some

00:08:06.960 like satanic pedophile ritual or something what do you want people to know about drag queens and

00:08:16.140 kids we're all trying to trans your children stop they're not gonna understand the sarcasm 0.96

00:08:24.580 you're gonna get me in trouble we're trying to provide entertainment the message is very simple 0.99

00:08:32.000 it's be yourself that if that is somehow objectionable in the year 2024 then you know

00:08:38.080 i don't really know what to say to that we're not going to be able to influence the gender or

00:08:42.140 sexuality of your kids but maybe we will make them a little bit less nasty to to other kids who 0.98

00:08:47.800 are growing up queer it's very benign and mostly you know what it's quite boring 0.90

00:08:53.580 stop sending your stop sending your kids to drag shows not because they're inappropriate but because 1.00

00:09:00.340 they're fucking boring well i mean like it's a children's storybook like what's the worst that's 0.99

00:09:08.120 gonna happen it resembles all of these right-wing anti-queer moral panics i mean i think about like 0.99

00:09:15.120 the dylan mulvaney bud light scandal and like target selling like tucking underwear for adults

00:09:22.920 and all of these things that like at their core

00:09:26.580 are just not very exciting.

00:09:29.620 These aren't actual scandals

00:09:31.540 until someone on the right

00:09:34.200 who oftentimes has a lot of money

00:09:36.260 to potentially make by turning it into a scandal.

00:09:39.420 We don't care about these things

00:09:40.680 until these people on Fox News tell us that we should.

00:09:45.440 We're all just like trying to live our lives

00:09:47.880 and for the most part,

00:09:49.340 our lives are pretty uninteresting.

00:09:51.340 and every now and then someone figures out a new way to manufacture some outrage at our expense

00:09:57.920 mostly the gay agenda is like get paid and you know get some good sleep 0.58

00:10:03.580 that's my gay agenda that's as much as any of us can hope for crystal congratulations my

00:10:12.320 sincerest congratulations on your win and really what feels like a community win you know we're 0.94

00:10:17.840 not gonna fucking take it i hope it does do something to change the dial a little bit and

00:10:22.300 it's been really special how much it has seemed to mean to people so it's very gratifying thank 0.94

00:10:28.100 you for being here crystal thank you so as crystal mentioned this narrative of lgbtq people

00:10:36.640 being groomers and or inherent dangers to children is an age old one and um i wanted today to

00:10:47.500 explore that because what we're experiencing right now with this groomer panic nonsense is

00:10:54.380 it's just that it's nonsense but it's nonsense that has bubbled up to the surface so many times

00:11:01.840 over the last many decades in american culture and uh joining us to help go on that journey of

00:11:11.680 time is Chelsea Weber-Smith from the podcast American Hysteria is here today. Thank you so

00:11:18.980 much for having me, Matt. I'm just thrilled to be here. How would you describe yourself?

00:11:24.560 I, more and more, I feel like I want to be considered a folklorist, which I think is kind

00:11:31.000 of fun because even though the things we're talking about, especially the moral panic, 0.88

00:11:37.740 You know, it's kind of what we would call what's happening with the fear of the, you know, child stealing queer person is still kind of a mechanism of folklore that's been told for centuries about different kinds of outgroups. 0.76

00:11:54.880 So I've just been, you know, I study urban legends a lot and what they have to do with society and even conspiracy theories as well. 0.92

00:12:02.580 But they all kind of fall under this blanket of like the stories that we tell that say something more about the culture that we live in and kind of what it means to be human in general.

00:12:14.000 If you're watching the video of this episode, by the way, and you notice that my coffee cup just jump-cutted into a wine glass, we're now recording. It's Friday evening. And I love that this is the way that I'm spending my Friday evening.

00:12:30.540 I love that I get to make this show that I love.

00:12:33.800 But, you know, the one thing I will say where you need to meet me in the middle here is that if I'm going to be spending my Friday evening talking about people who want Chelsea and I dead, then I can have a glass of wine while we do it.

00:12:48.000 I think that you are more than allowed to have that glass of wine and more.

00:12:52.400 Oh, yeah.

00:12:52.700 You might see the between jump cuts.

00:12:54.560 You might see the levels of the glass.

00:12:55.800 It's just going to fill again.

00:12:56.620 you need one of those reality you need one of those reality tv show goblets where it hides the

00:13:03.800 level of the alcohol so they can cut it together however they want without

00:13:07.800 saying that it's out of order that's what you need so in the timeline of the scary monster 0.98

00:13:17.640 drag queen queer person gay teacher who can't be around your kid like where does this story begin 0.99

00:13:23.600 This story, here's where I like to begin. It's not the earliest point, but I think it's a very like kind of light humorous entrance into a very frightening topic. And that is with the character named Tinky Winky. Do you remember who Tinky Winky was in the late 90s? 0.95

00:13:45.920 Tinky Winky was I'm gonna say the purple Teletubby. Right. I know that Tinky Winky like there was some

00:13:54.400 sort of fear that like Tinky Winky was gay and was turning the kids gay. Yes that that's the that's

00:14:01.880 the basics and might I add you know I as as many children like I was a viewer of Teletubbies and

00:14:07.920 I am gay so I can't categorically say that they were wrong. Yeah and I'm gay too but not in the

00:14:14.840 way that they were thinking it would happen, I guess. The Tinky Winky little mini moral panic

00:14:21.960 was brought to us by Jerry Falwell Sr., who was the president of Liberty University and a very,

00:14:30.640 very famous televangelist. What happened was we had Tinky Winky, he was purple, strike one,

00:14:38.540 he had a upside down triangle on his head strike two for gay imagery and then he also carried 0.99

00:14:46.640 a patent red leather purse strike three right so um it's like it's a crime to serve cunt 0.98

00:14:55.660 exactly and it was in the late 90s it was what's funny about this is like jerry falwell 0.74

00:15:02.520 first kind of brings this up in his magazine at Liberty University. And he said, he is purple,

00:15:11.320 the gay pride color, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle, the gay pride symbol. Then he

00:15:16.220 goes on to the Today Show with Katie Couric. And he says, to have little boys running around with

00:15:21.600 purses and acting effeminate and leaving the idea that the masculine male, the feminine female is

00:15:27.340 out and gay is okay is something christians do not agree with right kind of typical stuff that 0.70

00:15:33.980 we hear today even about cartoon characters or you know whatever is infiltrating the minds of 0.64

00:15:41.400 children and doing this thing like called turning them queer it's very like mini mouse in the pants

00:15:46.380 suit candace owens meltdown yeah or the m&ms right or the m&m we literally do this every two weeks

00:15:53.020 until we all die what's interesting i think about this is that it was not jerry falwell's

00:16:00.440 like idea that tinky winky was this queer icon it was actually a gay gossip columnist named

00:16:08.680 michael musto who was talking about it in entertainment weekly and he had these messages 0.63

00:16:15.200 that tinky winky you know and it was all very tongue-in-cheek right so it was very much like

00:16:20.440 not satire but just like camp essentially right and he said that tinky winky was offering this

00:16:26.480 great message like not only that it's okay to be gay but the importance of being well accessorized 0.97

00:16:33.040 and then the advocate picks up on this and calls tinky winky a big fabulous fag um and says that 0.97

00:16:40.460 you know it helps it helps kids to know that it's okay to take an interest in the accoutrements of 0.62

00:16:45.720 the opposite gender right so jerry falwell sees this and i think this is really key throughout

00:16:52.680 the history of the moral panics that we have is like straight people like hyper straight people

00:16:58.980 not getting the gay joke right so it's like he took this joke really really seriously and used 0.82

00:17:05.980 it as proof that there was this like concerted effort among gay people to like cultivate this 0.91

00:17:14.340 character in order to like hypnotize children into wanting you know patent leather purses 0.72

00:17:20.300 and you know i think back to like my brother who loved teletubbies he's younger than me and he

00:17:26.220 did carry a purse uh based on tinky winky's bag and it wasn't like and and he's not gay i mean

00:17:34.640 he just like for like a few weeks he was like oh that like that character has a bag and he carried

00:17:40.000 bag and then that was kind of all that came of that um but it was of course like such a funny

00:17:47.920 moment and even as a kid i remember how funny it was you know i was probably like 11 when this

00:17:52.480 happened and it i found it just like hysterical that that this was actually something that people

00:17:57.940 were afraid of and now here we are in the year of our lord 2024 and we're doing the exact same

00:18:06.880 thing like over and over and over again because it's profitable for like right-wing media channels

00:18:11.120 and i mean burt and ernie were two characters that caused a little moral panic in the 90s

00:18:17.700 the dumbledore being gay the whole time you know spongebob even was considered like the secret

00:18:24.500 homosexual agent at one point so it's like this has been around and permeating our culture

00:18:32.200 you know, since the 90s, but of course, way before that. So what was kind of happening 0.89

00:18:38.500 at the same time that this kind of ridiculous panic is happening, you know, kind of like we

00:18:44.700 see today, there were scarier forces and more serious troubles kind of happening under the

00:18:52.520 surface. In the early 90s, for example, the first kind of real solid mention of what we now call

00:19:01.520 the gay agenda was came out it was this video produced by um this ministry in california that

00:19:09.640 was like and we'll see this again and again where this propaganda that's put out is like pretty

00:19:16.100 pornographic so it was like put out and spread among all of their different life spring ministries

00:19:22.720 and it like showed the truth about the gay lifestyle in like really explicit terms like

00:19:29.800 it taught people who watch these videos like what's fisting what are golden showers what's

00:19:36.540 rimming you know and like then it taught them all these like really damaging false statistics about

00:19:42.920 gay men especially and like lest it just stay in like the creepy basements that these videos are

00:19:49.660 shown in it actually got all the way to like the highest government offices including to the supreme 0.93

00:19:57.160 court where like one justice claimed that the courts were signing on to the homosexual agenda

00:20:03.100 after he watched these videos so like that's a a big deal so was was the original claim that this

00:20:10.540 church released with like the gay agenda is a real thing like was it like oh they're spreading

00:20:15.820 like there's a concrete list of things that they're out to like achieve or like convert 0.84

00:20:21.220 children or something? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it, you know, it depends on kind of the

00:20:26.820 piece of media, but that's kind of the the refrain is that there is some secret concerted effort to

00:20:35.940 control the media. You know, I mean, we hear these conspiracies, they're not unfamiliar to,

00:20:41.400 you know, control public education and to, you know, basically slowly change culture 0.79

00:20:49.320 in order for homosexuality to be not only accepted but considered like supreme in some way um which

00:20:58.980 like i don't know there is an agenda but it's a lot less like it's not this thing where we're like

00:21:06.580 and then we'll get into media and then we'll control the teletubbies and then we'll use 0.94

00:21:10.060 tinky winky to like blast out these gay rays across the nation and like hypnotize you know 0.99

00:21:15.940 So it just takes this like really normal desire for progress and turns it into something far more sinister and well organized as if there is like this secret club. 1.00

00:21:30.440 Yeah, I mean, I think about like there is an agenda that I know that most queer adults have, which is it's more of just this idea that we want the kids of tomorrow to have it better than we had it. 0.90

00:21:45.940 And so part of that is visibility. Part of that is existing in media. But it's so that the people who are going to be like us one way or another have this transition into finding themselves in a way that isn't as painful as the one that we experienced.

00:22:03.220 I'm not trying to turn your kids gay. I'm just saying your kids might already be gay. And if that's the case, then I want them to not hate themselves. 0.93

00:22:09.860 If I thought it was possible to turn all the kids gay, I might. But see, that's the exact kind of joke that these people would take out of context. And then they'd be like, they are trying to turn the kids gay. And you know what? You know what, Candace Owens? Yes, I am.

00:22:24.680 at the same time that jerry falwell is like causing america to chuckle at gay tinky winky 1.00

00:22:32.160 he's also saying stuff like this is a quote these perverted homosexuals absolutely hate everything 0.99

00:22:38.780 that you and i and most decent god-fearing citizens stand for make no mistake these deviants 0.99

00:22:45.360 seek no less than total control and influence in society politics our schools and in our exercise 0.99

00:22:52.700 of free speech and religious freedom if we do not act now homosexuals will own america 0.57

00:22:59.940 and this is in the 90s i mean this is we hear like these exact statements today i feel like

00:23:08.100 yeah and now and now they do it about trans people who are even more marginalized and it's

00:23:12.980 like yes we are at serious we are at serious risk of maybe in 50 years one trans person

00:23:19.980 owning a fortune 500 company like they're replacing us yeah exactly exactly and i mean

00:23:26.760 even then in the 90s like they there were all these big panics and this big controversy and

00:23:33.500 anger and outrage over the curriculums that were being created in like especially new york city

00:23:40.660 like they started to create these multicultural curriculums which just that term you know made

00:23:46.620 everybody furious and that was really about you know fostering understanding between students

00:23:53.220 who come from different kinds of cultures and like the only thing in this like multicultural

00:24:00.720 curriculum that that caused this freak out was advice to educators and parents that they teach

00:24:08.660 their students simply that gay people exist and deserve respect okay and this was called like

00:24:14.100 dangerously misleading lesbian homosexual propaganda and one person the chancellor of 0.82

00:24:20.840 the school district said it was as big a lie as any concocted by hitler or stalin this is in the 0.95

00:24:28.300 90s yeah and it's the same thing today i mean this is literally the don't say it is it's these

00:24:34.440 things they're cyclical they're templates that people can use when they want to outrage voters

00:24:42.520 into doing what they want is my my personal belief is like you can find these topics that

00:24:48.800 like mobilize people who otherwise you know perhaps wouldn't be mobilized with this story

00:24:57.100 about like saving the children right so a lot of people don't know this but like before world war

00:25:04.300 ii we had this moment during the great depression called the pansy craze where drag performers

00:25:10.960 called female impersonators at that time um were like some of the biggest stars in the country like

00:25:17.200 openly gay people had little like campy songs that they would sing at nightclubs and on like

00:25:24.440 nighttime talk shows and they were like some of if not the most beloved and highest paid

00:25:30.600 entertainers for like this three-year period in the early 1930s it was kind of one of those like

00:25:36.840 don't ask don't tell but everybody knew but everyone spoke in innuendo so it was this kind

00:25:42.820 of like people started to realize that there was this whole world and language that they weren't

00:25:48.260 privy to that you know was full of this entertaining spirit as well as like this you know the ways that

00:25:58.320 that queer people would be signaling to each other like that was kind of brought for the first time

00:26:03.020 into american consciousness and like kind of what prompted this i think it's it's kind of amazing

00:26:10.140 because in the 1920s we have everybody's coming back from world war one there's like a bunch of

00:26:17.680 there's like a wartime economy so now there's all this money and it's the first time we have

00:26:22.560 this class of people called teenagers who aren't having to work at factories right and they have

00:26:27.700 disposable income. They're going like, especially, you know, white young people are going to black 0.97

00:26:33.920 jazz clubs. You know, this is all, this stuff's all really complicated, but it is for the first

00:26:38.400 time. There's like mixing amongst groups of people that had never really been allowed in society to

00:26:45.840 interact. And then from there, prohibition comes in and forces everybody into these certain spaces

00:26:53.360 where they could just get drunk and party.

00:26:55.660 And so that meant that all kinds of people were like,

00:26:58.060 well, we're just going to have to go to these clubs

00:27:00.640 with people that are different from us

00:27:02.300 that like maybe we have these preconceived notions about

00:27:05.060 and just party together.

00:27:07.440 And it did really create a different vibe for the country.

00:27:13.440 And it was a vibe that was like focused on like fun

00:27:17.000 and merriment and camp, really.

00:27:19.800 I mean, it was just a very campy time. 0.94

00:27:21.660 And, you know, unfortunately it didn't last long because the great depression came and with that, you know, came a big crisis of masculinity as often comes when we have economic crises in the country and they became, you know, queer people became scapegoats. 0.62

00:27:42.100 There were a lot of laws that came in that were called like sexual psychopath laws at that time, which were a lot of like, you know, the kinds of horrible crimes that that actually, you know, says to us when we hear it. 0.71

00:27:55.680 But then queer people were just sort of like grouped in with sexual psychopaths, even though the tabloids that were starting to publish these like very sensational, lurid stories like we hear today of these types of crimes like weren't usually queer people like hardly ever.

00:28:12.200 but because of the the deviance quote unquote that was you know shown through the differences 0.55

00:28:19.580 of queer people they kind of got grouped in and then we kind of start to see that that notion 0.61

00:28:25.860 creep in of the like dangerous predator so is that kind of the earliest american example of like

00:28:33.420 the stereotype of the of the groomer it's hard because in every society in every culture

00:28:40.280 you will find examples of the undesirable group like whatever the group is that is the enemy of

00:28:48.440 those in power you will find that they are either sacrificing children they're eating children

00:28:54.500 they're you know drinking the blood of children you know there's all these like high dramatic

00:29:00.840 things because that is the most effective form of propaganda i think we all we all experience this

00:29:08.460 and see it in all different forms is like, if the children are in danger, that is the

00:29:14.340 best mobilization tool that, you know, bad actors have to get kind of whatever legislation passed

00:29:22.480 that they want. And I think this goes back to things like Jewish blood libel, where, you know, 0.67

00:29:28.340 Jewish people were said to have been eating Christian children. Later, it was Christian 0.88

00:29:33.220 children who were you know said to be eaten by pagans you know so it's like this is a story that

00:29:39.300 is like traced through folklore since i mean we have like recorded history so it is and it's pretty

00:29:47.340 simple in that way it's just like we are the most protective of children not only because you know

00:29:54.640 they're innocents we mean because we love them so much but because they represent the future

00:29:59.000 And they represent how the future will be shaped. And so a lot of times panicking about kids is like a genuine thing, but it's also about like kind of how we view the future and our fears about where society is going and whether society is going to look the way we want it to.

00:30:18.580 And whether I think most especially the people who we want to be in power and have all of the power, you know, will or will not continue to command that kind of control.

00:30:30.620 It's just a potent metaphor beyond like the obvious, I think, too.

00:30:35.980 Yeah. And I think about how if your goal is to make a group of people seem subhuman, then I think the fastest way to do that is to accuse them of being dangerous to children, being inherently dangerous to children, because then that gives you and you and yours the permission to completely dehumanize them and to punish them in the worst way possible.

00:30:58.940 I mean, that's why I think about now you have these pastors, American pastors and megachurches giving sermons about how we need to, you know, eliminate the homosexuals. 0.99

00:31:10.880 We need to eliminate transgenderism. 0.97

00:31:13.080 And they're using genocidal language because that's what framing people as perverts gives you permission to do. 0.99

00:31:23.000 It's a tool of outrage, you know, to like outrage your people enough that they want to take some kind of action while also casting you into this role of a villain so that you can then not only do whatever you want, but feel justified because you have also created them as someone who is going to attack you.

00:31:48.300 So the language is always like one of victimhood. So like we are all, you know, people think that they are victims of this gay agenda. And so when you become a victim, you can tell yourself that you have the right to respond to your victimhood with, you know, whatever you believe to be an equal, if not greater defense, which often is actually an offense. 0.78

00:32:16.000 because they're the threat is is not really there i think about what you just said in the

00:32:20.760 context of people like jk rowling like you can be the most unabashed bigot and if you can find a way

00:32:29.160 to frame that bigotry through the lens of victimhood then you can basically get away

00:32:33.660 with literally murder i mean i know jk rowling i mean i don't know i don't know that jk rowling

00:32:42.000 has uh has has killed anyone and i know that she is very up to date on her libel laws so i'm not

00:32:48.940 going to accuse her of anything here but i mean you know she's always on twitter saying you know

00:32:54.460 the trans activists which usually she's referring to like i don't know some like 16 year old british

00:33:01.080 trans girl who like is being denied health care and whose parents are on the brink of disowning

00:33:05.580 her and she's like i'm a victim of these trans twitter activists and she's typing this from her

00:33:11.520 like 11th living room in her sixth castle right but you know it's like she can be the most

00:33:18.400 grotesque and obvious bigot but as long as she can be like no they're attacking me you know it's 0.67

00:33:24.040 and she turns herself into like this hopeless victim which i guess a lot of bigots do that i

00:33:29.840 mean anita bryant did that so i wanted to take a moment to thank the sponsor of today's episode

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00:34:56.960 to try out Blueland, just go to blueland.com slash fruity for 15% off your first order. Again,

00:35:03.920 that is blueland.com slash fruity. So what's interesting is like after the handsy craze ends,

00:35:12.160 and we have kind of this backlash to the idea of the dangerous homosexual, we also have like 0.84

00:35:20.520 this campiness come into the military when world war ii soldiers as like a way to entertain 0.57

00:35:30.300 themselves and eventually america because they traveled in shows and made this into a movie

00:35:35.260 we're like doing drag all the time i think about that a lot but that's you think about that a lot

00:35:43.360 that's like my people talk about the roman empires my roman empire is like how all of these united

00:35:49.580 states and i think actually they did this in a bunch of countries i know canadian soldiers in

00:35:54.180 world war ii did it too like they would dress up in drag for each other to like to ease tensions

00:35:58.880 because everyone's so stressed all the time because it's war and they're like you know okay 0.82

00:36:01.960 well it's not gay to do drag with your homies you know because drag is fun like drag is fun and 0.68

00:36:08.520 whether you're a straight guy a gay guy whether you're not a guy at all like performing gender

00:36:14.020 and performing hyper femininity and the wigs and the clothes and general like transformation into

00:36:18.820 someone who you aren't. It's fun to do. If you're watching the YouTube version, I'll throw some

00:36:23.880 photos up from that era. It's fascinating. It's like they're in drag and there's a tank behind

00:36:30.140 them. It's like the most sinister episode of RuPaul's Drag Race you've ever seen.

00:36:34.440 So that was kind of like all well and fine. And it was considered totally patriotic until,

00:36:39.900 of course, the war ended. And then it was like, well, now there's ladies around. So you can't 0.99

00:36:44.660 do that anymore. And around the same time, psychologist Alfred Kinsey famously published

00:36:52.160 the results of this big research project that he had done about human sexuality and especially

00:36:58.760 like homosexual, bisexual behavior. And these were like some really big statistics that were

00:37:07.240 pretty shocking for kind of the Western world, right? So it was like he said that his estimates

00:37:13.660 where one in 10 people were homosexual gay men did not have to appear effeminate and gay women

00:37:19.820 did not have to appear masculine and that actually most often you couldn't tell that someone was

00:37:27.340 queer right and that was like like that was a big deal for people especially considering that we have

00:37:37.220 this kind of concurrent panic happening at the end of world war ii about communists ever heard

00:37:45.060 of them and um the idea that like communists were secret agents that were within the united states

00:37:54.460 trying to exert control over the you know the young people of the country you know this is

00:38:02.900 happening during a cold war and a time in which communists quote unquote people that were

00:38:11.560 considered communists were being fired from their jobs were being kicked out of government work

00:38:16.160 were um being blacklisted from films you know this this was the red scare and part of the red scare

00:38:23.780 the lavender scare as it's called was about gay people what's so interesting about is it wasn't

00:38:30.000 that it was them being gay. It was the fear that communists, upon finding out that these people

00:38:38.220 are gay, could blackmail them into pushing a communist agenda, right? So you get this 0.91

00:38:46.180 fear of these invisible agents that are influencing young minds, and they kind of

00:38:52.900 meld together at this point. And hundreds of people are fired from their jobs, gay people, 0.51

00:38:59.160 queer people are fired from their jobs are you know kicked out of public schools you know that

00:39:03.820 it really there was a focus on education at that point and making sure that like you know there

00:39:09.820 weren't gay teachers and that all those people were outed fired often like publicly printed in 0.69

00:39:16.400 the newspaper like ruining people's lives at the same time like we kind of get this like tinky 0.63

00:39:24.320 winky thing going on again um where suddenly there's like around the 50s there's also this

00:39:31.200 big panic about like comic books and the influences that or the influence that comic

00:39:36.400 books have on the minds of the young the 50s were very like back to family right like it was very

00:39:41.900 much traditional family values suburbia like that people had like a lot more time to kind of like

00:39:48.600 obsess over their kids and their future. And one person who obsessed over the kids and their

00:39:55.080 future was a psychologist named Frederick Wortham. And he published a book called Seduction of the

00:40:01.880 Innocent. And it was about the dangers of comic books. There was a lot about like queer stuff in

00:40:07.400 there. Like, for example, he outed Batman and Robin. I mean, outed, you know, he believed that

00:40:13.740 he outed batman and robin and like you know he would bring like his little uh examples of their

00:40:20.500 gay relationship and and print them in this book he thought wonder woman was a militant feminist

00:40:27.260 lesbian and that she just had scores of female concubines is something that he wrote good for

00:40:33.680 her i know i know where's the problem the whole thing was that like he thought that seeing these

00:40:43.320 examples would actually like create homosexual desire in kids, which again is one of those

00:40:49.800 situations where it's like, babe, that's about you. Like you're the one seeing all of these 0.60

00:40:55.280 things and inventing all of these things and creating this desire like that you think exists.

00:41:02.780 And it's really like, I think it's a good example of just that, the creepiness that is part of this,

00:41:09.180 this whole panic that we see repeated again and again it's uh it grosses me out quite a bit yeah

00:41:15.840 i mean i'm always very wary about the like homophobes are just secretly gay and they're

00:41:22.560 always projecting because like i don't know i just think that's like an exhausting narrative that

00:41:27.180 always at the end of the day blames queer people for our own oppression it's like all all bigotry

00:41:33.700 that queer people face as a result of our own self-hatred and like I think that's an exhausting

00:41:38.720 and untrue narrative I agree however there are definitely certain instances of people who are so

00:41:46.460 fixated on seeing queerness and literally everything that it does make you ask like babe

00:41:52.300 you know it it's okay and you know what I think of too is like it doesn't have to be one or the

00:42:03.040 other it doesn't have to be like a closeted gay it could be like oh i had a gay feeling once about

00:42:09.280 my friend in high school and that is so scary to me that i have to like run in the opposite direction

00:42:16.860 and like you know make it my life's vendetta to basically cancel out that thought that i had

00:42:24.720 because and which is sad that's a sad thing too you know that that we have this much baggage around

00:42:31.420 feeling that somebody has. But I do think that to me, that makes a little bit more sense than

00:42:36.040 the kind of all or nothing of like, oh, that's a closeted gay person. Because yeah, it does. It 0.59

00:42:40.920 does throw the blame right back on us. And that's just not how things really are. In the 50s,

00:42:47.220 we're obviously looking for evidence of this kind of queer agenda. We're looking for it in comic 0.99

00:42:52.900 books. We're looking for it in the government. People are doing that thing where they dig into

00:42:56.760 the past like we're doing now and someone at some point who was part of an anti-gay group

00:43:04.040 dug up this pamphlet or some kind of like relic from this group of queer artists from the 1930s

00:43:12.660 like and and we'll all recall that the 1930s it's like a a moment of kind of relative acceptance

00:43:19.300 So what these anti-groups find and then kind of promote to the world is this secret gay society called the Homintern. What this actually was, was a joke name that was inspired by the Comintern, which was an actual organization that wanted to spread communism in the West, right?

00:43:43.680 But what it really was, was just this like, super cute gathering of artists and writers who identified as queer who wanted a community. Like, oh my god, what a terrifying thing. 0.91

00:43:57.480 But because the name was reminiscent of this famous communist, like pro-communist group, it mixed in again and it became about this, what they called international homosexual conspiracy that was really modeled after the panic that was happening around communism. 0.66

00:44:19.440 so again another example of straight people taking what is really a tongue-in-cheek joke

00:44:27.080 and then using that as like evidence of some kind of sinister organized agenda so does this like go

00:44:35.520 like viral but whatever viral meant in the 1950s like i would say it goes like anti-gay viral i

00:44:41.440 don't know like if terminally online turfs were around back then like this went viral amongst

00:44:46.080 those amongst their crowd yes so just like three years after this big lavender scare we have 0.97

00:44:53.400 president eisenhower signing an executive order that bars any like known homosexuals from working

00:45:01.460 for the federal government 5 000 gay people are fired from federal employment including the

00:45:06.580 military scores of public school teachers lose their jobs publicly outed and you know it it does

00:45:14.180 this thing where it forces everyone way back into the closet yet again. When I look at the arc of

00:45:21.620 gay history, and one could argue all facets of history, it's just this very clear push and pull 0.99

00:45:29.500 and push and pull and ebb and flow. And we get progress and then there's pushback. And we get 0.91

00:45:35.600 visibility and then there's pushback. Is it safe to say that we're in the period of pushback right

00:45:42.700 now. Oh, I think so. I mean, if you think of like, where we were at, kind of during the Obama

00:45:49.340 administration, it was kind of a golden time. I mean, gay marriage was legalized. I mean, 0.98

00:45:54.780 there's always issues, there's always pain, there's always like, people who are working

00:45:59.100 against your very existence. But you know, it was, it was a time of like, relative levity,

00:46:06.080 you know, and I, it's like, gay marriage wasn't legal until I was like, well into my 20s,

00:46:10.320 So it was like, it did feel like a just like, okay, like we got there, right? Not that gay marriage is the end of the line. But you know, it was like, okay, we, we are moving past this. But then the same sort of narratives and theories and spins were used against trans people and are still being used against trans people.

00:46:33.740 So I think it's very safe to say that we are in the heart of a very frightening backlash that has far more power than it ever did before because of the internet.

00:46:44.620 Okay, so back to our timeline. So we have the 50s, we have thousands of people getting fired for homosexuality or perceived homosexuality. Then we move into the 60s. And eventually by the end of the 60s, there's Stonewall literally breaking down the doors of progress and gay people are coming out into the streets and we're finding each other and we're pushing back against homophobia.

00:47:10.740 we're not just like fairies that hide in the shadows we're people who are going to fight back

00:47:15.740 for our rights and then that brings you into the 70s which is the whole gay liberation movement

00:47:20.620 it's when pride becomes an annual event lgbt isn't a thing at this point but it's really like

00:47:26.080 the gay and lesbian liberation movement beautiful things happening again you look at it now and it's

00:47:31.800 they were really only beautiful and they were really only progress for certain parts of the

00:47:36.100 community. But then by the mid to late 70s, we have the orange juice lady. You want to tell us

00:47:43.340 about the orange juice lady? We do. In 1977, we have kind of the woman who is not the first,

00:47:52.900 but is the major activist, as she liked to be called, you know, who utilized the Save the

00:48:01.860 children narrative. So much so that she started an organization called Save the Children. What was

00:48:08.780 going on in the 1970s was, as you mentioned, Stonewall happened. Then we have this coming 0.64

00:48:16.280 together, kind of, you know, that's an oversimplification, but coming together of the

00:48:21.620 queer community, which we often forget also included kind of the earliest out folks that we

00:48:29.260 would call trans today, who then refer to themselves as street queens, people like Marsha

00:48:34.740 P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. And there is this sort of like, it's very imperfect. And there is

00:48:41.500 a lot of like fucked up parts of it. But it was the first time there was kind of a concerted effort

00:48:47.260 of these like very, very different types of people who fall under the queer umbrella, attempting to

00:48:53.560 move together in some way. But the people who really had their voices heard were middle and

00:49:01.640 upper class white gay men. What was happening with their activism was really like localized

00:49:08.540 to Dade County in Florida, where they had been working with like the local government to create

00:49:14.580 an ordinance that would end housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. And

00:49:19.740 And that also included schools and churches, two key words, schools and churches, that outraged quite a lot of conservative Christian activists all across the country.

00:49:34.940 And one particular person was Anita Bryant.

00:49:38.320 She was an orange juice saleswoman.

00:49:40.920 She sang songs about Florida orange juice on commercials.

00:49:44.820 I highly recommend you look them up.

00:49:46.500 They're very odd.

00:49:47.280 Yeah, they're amazing.

00:49:48.080 She was like a pageant queen. 1.00

00:49:49.740 She had like a semi-successful career as a singer. 0.95

00:49:53.000 She was beautiful and white. 1.00

00:49:54.640 And my other Roman empire is Anita Bryant, which is an awful Roman empire.

00:49:59.080 But whenever I explain Anita Bryant to people and like what she did, like you think about

00:50:04.900 brand ambassadors today and it's like, okay, someone is the brand ambassador for like Tropicana

00:50:09.320 or for Simply Orange or whatever.

00:50:11.900 Like she was the brand ambassador for Orange Juice, the product.

00:50:17.420 she was she was the the spokeswoman for the florida citrus commission which is basically

00:50:23.520 just like the government commission of florida that is responsible for exporting oranges and

00:50:29.520 orange juice and so she just had to make sure people were drinking orange juice she she was

00:50:34.960 big orange she was big orange you're absolutely right she was big orange which leads to these

00:50:42.560 It's insane commercials.

00:51:12.560 she made so much money doing it she was like she's happy spoiler she's broke now she's still 0.97

00:51:20.440 alive she's broke but she made so much money like she like moved her family into this like

00:51:27.280 20 room spanish style mansion i know a lot about this like a lot about this woman that's not really

00:51:32.560 relevant but i guess that's great though because i feel like you know way more than me so i'm

00:51:37.560 excited to get a little well let this be the one thing that i know more than you about

00:51:41.140 happily. Interestingly, considering the story of the gay agenda, Anita Bryant actually took 1.00

00:51:54.140 secret conspiratorial meetings with other powerful Christian elites like her husband and like Jerry

00:52:01.660 Falwell of Tinky Winky fame. And they actually had these meetings to come up with a media strategy

00:52:09.460 to sway the American public toward, oh, I don't know, their agenda. So we have this real thing

00:52:18.640 happening that you could consider a conspiratorial action to make queer people look like we're in

00:52:26.720 conspiracy with each other to get the children. So they were basing kind of their strategy on 0.96

00:52:32.800 the fact that there was this poll taken in Dade County around the time when these debates were

00:52:38.560 happening about trying to repeal this ordinance that had passed about, you know, protecting the

00:52:45.000 employment and housing rights of gay people. So this poll happens. Basically, what they find out

00:52:50.940 is that Dade County women just kind of had like a gay friend, maybe, and they just kind of found

00:52:57.620 it all to be relatively harmless, right? So they were like, okay, we need to figure out a way to

00:53:03.440 get these housewives freaked out enough to vote the way that we want. So they came up with the

00:53:10.940 Save Our Children strategy. Anita Bryant said publicly, some of the stories I could tell you

00:53:17.340 of child recruitment and child abuse by homosexuals would turn your stomach. So we start to see like a 1.00

00:53:23.080 really like vile change in rhetoric. They start doing things like taking out full page newspaper

00:53:30.280 ads in like the Miami Herald. And they would show all these headlines that were announcing

00:53:35.400 that teachers were having sex with their students and that children were in prostitution rings and 0.99

00:53:39.760 that homosexuals were infiltrating youth organizations and saying that there was no 1.00

00:53:46.760 human right that gay people had to corrupt our children. So it became very much focused 0.97

00:53:52.400 on the narratives that we hear today. And they saw it start to work. And so they just continued

00:53:58.740 to use that strategy and really just double down on things like the fact that since since gay people 0.97

00:54:04.960 couldn't have their own children they had to recruit children into the homosexual lifestyle 0.96

00:54:11.220 or we just dry up if we didn't recruit as if like you know it just it makes no sense they don't 0.89

00:54:17.660 think that you can be born gay and so the only way that you can become gay is if you're recruited

00:54:22.280 by you know Mr. Smith in social studies what's so interesting to me is homophobes and transphobes

00:54:31.580 and bigots today they know that like if you were to play a video of Benita Bryant they know that

00:54:38.140 you can't today say exactly word for word what she said because these things are out of date 0.93

00:54:45.440 they're out of style they're uncool you can't say you know the homosexuals are you know posing a 0.92

00:54:52.220 threat to the children because you would sound out of touch they still think that of course and 0.99

00:54:57.900 so what you hear today is like there's just certain substitutions of certain words over time like

00:55:03.900 you know it's not homosexual anymore it's gender ideology or it's woke or it's

00:55:11.300 dei diversity equity inclusion but the moral panic is exactly the same it's a template that can be

00:55:19.140 used whenever anything. And my opinion is that what it all really comes down to is the power

00:55:27.680 dynamics of gender and the fear that the gender that you are quote unquote born into will no

00:55:34.440 longer guarantee you the kind of power that it once did. These types of movements shake up the

00:55:42.800 power structures that exist. And that, you know, means that they must be eliminated if we are to

00:55:50.660 continue to, you know, keep the hierarchies in place that we have. And so it makes sense that

00:55:58.720 whenever anything threatens that power structure, we find a way to kind of neutralize that threat

00:56:07.280 using inflammatory language that frightens someone who may not otherwise understand the nuances of

00:56:16.320 what's behind those arguments. And that's why it's like, I tend to have empathy for people

00:56:22.460 who get sucked into fear through those who make money off of our outrage, like the people who

00:56:30.760 are talking heads who are politicians who actually have some kind of financial material gain

00:56:38.480 from outrage and by creating headlines that grab and and like attack like humanity's most basic

00:56:48.840 fears and their most basic like internal pain and their most basic anxieties i have empathy because

00:56:56.440 it's like, it takes a lot to like fight against our instincts of like, well, yeah, I do want to

00:57:02.780 like protect children. Like that's not a bad impulse to have, but then it's the way that

00:57:08.940 powerful people, whether out of some genuine belief that this is, you know, a bad thing or

00:57:16.300 out of, I think just as often, if not more often a financial opportunity to either financial

00:57:23.560 opportunity or a power opportunity. Like if we're talking about a politician who's like,

00:57:28.240 ooh, here's a hot button issue that, you know, like, for example, crime, like that's forever

00:57:34.060 going to be something that you can use. Like, here's the scary criminal that I'm going to be

00:57:39.720 tough on and make sure they all go to jail so that you're safe. And it's like that same kind

00:57:44.760 of rhetoric. These things are used by people against people who otherwise might not actually

00:57:53.960 have this fear and anxiety might be channeled into other types of threats that are more real

00:57:59.900 to kids. For example, the fact that most child abuse happens from your close family or close

00:58:06.900 community. We're not going to talk about that because that's hard and that's something that

00:58:14.520 makes people feel really uncomfortable and even more scared, probably, because that's a really

00:58:20.140 hard thing to address. So instead, we're going to throw that threat onto this group of people

00:58:26.100 so that not only can I get rid of what I consider to be an undesirable group of people who probably 0.83

00:58:30.940 won't fucking vote for me, so I don't care about them, and at the same time get these points of 0.87

00:58:36.080 like, oh, you're keeping kids safe. I think that that's what leads me to have more empathy for 0.98

00:58:41.640 people who I think are being manipulated by rhetoric. And I try as much as possible to keep

00:58:49.360 not punching across the aisle, but punching toward those people that I know are actively

00:58:54.100 benefiting from telling these stories. And that doesn't mean that it's excusable or okay, but

00:59:01.140 I think that they, for me, are the people that we need to figure out how to stop more so than 0.99

00:59:10.540 than the people that are that maybe would just benefit from knowing a queer person and that 0.99

00:59:15.180 would be enough for them to like snap out of whatever is going on in what I do for work beyond 0.80

00:59:20.680 just the gay agenda it's like again and again it's just like watching people fall prey to

00:59:26.980 sensational stories of fear and being it you know and that's kind of all you need to mobilize a 1.00

00:59:33.820 career is like to feed on the fear of a population those are the people that i find the most repulsive 0.99

00:59:41.660 in our world yeah fuck you ben shapiro benny benny boy benny little benny so 0.99

00:59:50.540 my favorite thing to do in my free time is like infantilize ben shapiro 1.00

00:59:57.180 oh little penny boy he doesn't really need it 0.81

01:00:00.860 okay so anita bryant is telling everyone that homosexuals are recruiting and that the stories 0.96

01:00:10.340 that she could tell you of homosexuals recruiting children would turn your stomach well at the same 0.89

01:00:15.680 time she's doing this thing that is so annoying where she is saying that the anti-gay movement 0.96

01:00:23.260 is actually the real movement of love and that she always hate the sin, not the sinner. And,

01:00:29.820 you know, she would just be like, no, I love homosexuals, but I also think that maybe they 0.98

01:00:34.760 should have a felony status. Like she thought, you know, so it's like, maybe they should go to

01:00:40.920 prison for 10 to 30 years, but I also really love them. I just know what's best. Which is crazy. I

01:00:48.120 mean she's kind of like she kind of mothered she's kind of like home of she's she's a homophobic 0.96

01:00:53.980 mother you know the people that we queers refer to as like oh my god she's so mother like homophobes

01:00:59.140 are definitely at home being like oh my god Anita Bryant is so mother and I don't know if you found 0.98

01:01:03.100 this but once in a while she was funny she said like some funny shit and it was like she had like 1.00

01:01:09.360 charisma like when she got famously pied by the gay activist you know she was like I don't know 0.98

01:01:15.000 what event she was at but she was a speaker at some event and someone came up and pied her in 0.65

01:01:18.860 the face and uh she said i believe at least this wasn't a fruit pie was that what it was yeah well 0.97

01:01:24.860 at least because it was like a whipped cream pie that that the gay guy threw in her face and she 0.78

01:01:29.720 goes well at least it wasn't a fruit pie and i remember seeing that for the first time and i was 0.70

01:01:33.100 like oh i was like oh like you would do great on like smash game or something you're quick i feel

01:01:40.340 like if you just like twisted something a little bit she could have had a lot of gay friends and 0.64

01:01:45.040 had a really good time because she was like she was quick she was witty she you know was an orange 0.78

01:01:51.120 juice salesman which feel or not salesman she was like an orange juice superstar which feels um 0.97

01:01:57.180 yeah there's there's there's a gay people to have in their life there's a definite camp quality to 1.00

01:02:02.120 Anita Bryant she just channeled it all in the wrong direction I know that she she wins in Miami 1.00

01:02:08.540 Dade County. She's successful in her anti-gay propaganda that they end up overturning the 1.00

01:02:15.720 anti-discrimination ordinance that would protect gay people and housing and schools and churches

01:02:20.060 and all those things. And then I know that she takes the Save Our Children campaign on tour

01:02:25.260 around the country where she basically, that's kind of like the last time she's very successful

01:02:30.240 with it. Anita Bryant, one of the many ways in which she's significant is that she unites so

01:02:36.740 much of the gay movement against her it was like she became this very enticing target like the the

01:02:44.160 gay bars around the country started serving anita bryant cocktails which instead of screwdrivers so

01:02:52.100 basically they would boycott orange juice the gay bars would boycott orange juice and so it would 0.54

01:02:56.360 be instead of a screwdriver which is vodka and oj they would do the anita bryant cocktail which was 0.60

01:03:02.440 vodka and apple juice. There were pins that were like Anita Bryant's sex oranges that people would

01:03:08.100 wear to all the gay marches. People were really into shitting all over Anita Bryant. She was very 0.99

01:03:14.380 the JK Rowling of the time. Yeah. I also always will covet. I don't know if they're out there,

01:03:21.100 but there were also shirts that said squeeze a fruit for Anita and all the proceeds went to

01:03:26.820 gay rights groups, which is very cute. Again, nobody knows how to fight discrimination with

01:03:33.200 comedy like queer people. Yeah, Anita Bryant has success, obviously, in Dade County. She has 1.00

01:03:39.420 success across the country where other places change their laws. And then in 1978, her success

01:03:47.920 leads to the Briggs Initiative in California, which was something that would have made any

01:03:54.440 pro-gay statements by a public school employee cause for total dismissal. You would get fired

01:04:02.220 if you said any nice thing about gay people. But this kind of backfired because shockingly, 0.98

01:04:09.300 well, among people who it would be more obvious that they would be against this, like Jimmy Carter

01:04:13.460 was like completely opposed this. So did former president Gerald Ford, but so did governor Ronald

01:04:20.520 Reagan at the time. And so ultimately, it suffered a big defeat because Ronald Reagan was not always

01:04:29.140 the conservative he would become. That's a whole other topic for another time. But at this point,

01:04:34.500 in this moment, Ronald Reagan actually helped shut this down. And I have a feeling it had a

01:04:42.300 little more to do with free speech than anything else. Then, I mean, to your point, like this

01:04:47.700 jk rowling kind of vibe she started to lose things because of what she had because she had made this

01:04:56.780 choice to become the face of the anti-gay movement so she lost this gig hosting a craft show for

01:05:05.120 singer sewing machines because that was her other big thing was sewing machines she was orange juice 0.69

01:05:09.720 she was sewing jeans and what a what a what a resume what a woman

01:05:15.860 and so she got yeah she lost that and she considered this proof that instead of it being

01:05:25.680 anything to do with the fact that she had like i don't know launched herself into like a very

01:05:29.600 hot button topic and decided to be like something that a company would consider maybe a liability

01:05:35.920 she said that instead she was blacklisted by a homosexual conspiracy in the media right 0.80

01:05:42.240 which is something we hear we know yes yeah we know this you know as a homosexual and a jew

01:05:48.340 i've controlled the media in many avenues for a very long time i wish you had a little bit more 0.74

01:05:58.260 fun. But yes, similar, similar conspiracies, different, or same template, really, you know,

01:06:06.100 it's the it's the same template. And so I think it's important to like, take from the 70s,

01:06:11.020 even though, you know, Anita's campaign ultimately fell, we go into the 80s, that's another really

01:06:16.460 complicated time. But she really helped create this image of, again, the homosexual, which is

01:06:24.280 what we're talking about, as like rich, powerful, militant, well-organized, and sexually deviant, 0.99

01:06:32.480 as well as the unhappy, like that was a big thing, is like all homosexuals are miserable, 1.00

01:06:38.500 the unhappy, like immoral recruiter of children, the person who would molest those children 0.99

01:06:45.600 and who had this vested interest in controlling the American media, the American political

01:06:57.100 landscape, basically this secret society that had all of these immoral, unforgivable aims that

01:07:06.120 ultimately would affect everyone in the nation when they collapsed the entire system of everything

01:07:14.520 that, you know, American families held dear. Which is literally QAnon. You just described 0.98

01:07:19.460 QAnon. And it makes me wonder like how much of QAnon the way that we know it today would

01:07:25.620 be what it is without Anita Bryant and without Save the Children. I mean, she's kind of the

01:07:31.740 blueprint. I mean, she's literally bigotry mother. She is. She's so mother for that.

01:07:38.600 anita's out anita fades basically into irrelevance where she remains and that leads us into well the

01:07:50.240 80s and 90s which as far as gay issues were concerned was obviously focused around hiv aids

01:07:55.900 which frankly like you know that became the issue and the central core of that issue had

01:08:02.800 little to do with the relationship between gay adults and children. However, there was,

01:08:09.680 as I spoke about, well, as Peter Staley told me about in the episode I did with him about the

01:08:15.020 HIV AIDS epidemic, there was a lot of paranoia around AIDS and kids and schools. You know,

01:08:22.280 the public discourse around HIV AIDS during the 80s and 90s, which was riddled with the most

01:08:28.580 grotesque homophobia i think yeah that we've ever experienced certainly didn't lend itself to um

01:08:36.280 to fighting the image of of gays as predators that that was that's kind of evidently it's another

01:08:42.400 episode that we did and then we get to the 2000s we get to we get to the 2000s we do and i think

01:08:50.100 that i would like to show some love to our lesbian community right now with um a little bit of bill 0.96

01:08:57.780 o'reilly's shit that he started saying in 2007 um for anyone who doesn't know bill o'reilly was a 0.99

01:09:05.600 conservative radio and tv host for a long time now disgraced for like sexual allegations of course 0.99

01:09:15.140 he put out a show that was called violent lesbian gangs a growing problem and i didn't know about 0.67

01:09:23.800 oh yeah this is good this is good so he said that a national underground network of pink 0.91

01:09:33.540 pistol packing lesbians is terrorizing america that's everything he said all across the country 1.00

01:09:40.840 he said that these lesbians were raping young girls and attacking heterosexual males at random 0.99

01:09:49.680 And then forcibly indoctrinating children as young as 10 into the lesbian lifestyle, which is like, I've never heard of anything like this. It was just like out of the ether. It seemed like, you know, his show came up with this. 0.97

01:10:04.240 he said that in tennessee authorities say that a gang called gto or gays taking over were like

01:10:13.440 inundating the city there was another one called dto which was dykes taking over that were also 0.93

01:10:20.400 just apparently you know running around the city packing these pink pistols and you know assaulting 0.99

01:10:27.720 man that because it was a gang a gang run by women that the pistols have to be

01:10:33.280 i know like they're really spending that extra dollar to to really brand yeah

01:10:41.020 and chief among them ellen it's like it's like ai generated lesbian gang information

01:10:49.600 i mean he said that there were like well over 150 of these crews you know and he just said

01:10:59.420 each one of them is attempting to recruit more young girls into their gang this was in 2007

01:11:07.220 this is right as like obama is really poised to become the president which of course comes with

01:11:14.580 the assumption that gay rights will be on the table that like gay marriage is a possibility

01:11:21.340 and that these things you know so it makes sense that around this time that kind of propaganda

01:11:27.060 ticks up again um right it's it's this theme of yeah we start gaining a little momentum we start

01:11:33.700 gaining some rights you start getting some visibility and they're like nope we have to

01:11:37.080 remind everyone that they're perverts so we can't grant them these rights and we must push back and

01:11:41.640 we must push them back into the shadows and it didn't work this time which was nice we did go 1.00

01:11:47.420 into this kind of like relatively decent time for queer people up until you know kind of the 0.98

01:11:54.700 end of the obama administration and the massive pushback that we still kind of find ourselves in

01:11:59.720 today because obviously gay marriage was legalized and then we also i mean we have

01:12:05.240 And during the 2010s, we have this real proliferation of trans visibility, which is new.

01:12:12.420 I think a lot about the significance of the cover of Time magazine with Laverne Cox, which

01:12:19.360 was called the transgender tipping point.

01:12:21.380 And I remember I was like a freshman in high school and that came out and it was my parents

01:12:24.720 subscribed to Time and we had that issue of the magazine with Laverne Cox on the cover

01:12:28.960 and these big letters that just said the transgender tipping point.

01:12:31.620 We had that on our on our kitchen table.

01:12:33.540 And I just remember being like, wow, this is huge. Like this is big. And Laverne Cox was playing her character on Orange is the New Black and kind of the advent of like mainstream discourse around non-binary identities.

01:12:46.920 And then in the later 2010s, it's like people are really starting to talk about pronouns, especially young people on social media are talking about pronouns and they them pronouns.

01:12:55.160 And this distribution of information about gender and about LGBTQ identities, more kids now than ever are identifying as queer. 0.56

01:13:05.560 Of course, it's possible that there are just accidentally, genetically, miraculously more queer people in the upcoming generation that there have been in previous ever.

01:13:16.920 You know, I obviously don't believe that.

01:13:18.620 I'm of the belief that when young queer kids, when they see themselves represented and 0.60

01:13:24.060 especially represented in a light where they're not, you know, miserable or a pedophile or 0.61

01:13:30.940 dead, then, you know, you're more inclined to come out.

01:13:36.960 And that's just what's happening.

01:13:38.900 come 2021 ish we start getting this real uptick and you know this this groomer rhetoric right like

01:13:47.580 you know we have like the don't say gay bills with ron de santis and they start spreading all around

01:13:51.540 the country and you have people like marjorie taylor green you know pushing the groomer rhetoric

01:13:56.920 really far and and like you said earlier chelsea i mean it's like this wave of pushback to visibility

01:14:02.640 that we're experiencing right now you could argue is so much worse and so much more dangerous than

01:14:08.700 any of the previous ones because the megaphones into which it's spoken into are so much louder

01:14:15.680 with social media at the same time though loud are we you know and we're as out and as in the

01:14:23.940 streets as we've ever been you know on the other side of things which gives me a lot of hope 0.87

01:14:27.840 this wave of pushback that we're experiencing and this recycled garbage around pedophilia and 0.99

01:14:35.380 we're grooming the children and gender ideology and schools like whatever the fuck this will 0.99

01:14:41.300 go away like this won't last and then it'll come back if history can tell us anything it'll come 0.94

01:14:49.940 back and so um keep fighting i guess the last thing i'll say is that you know you kind of brought

01:14:59.020 me on to talk about the gay agenda conspiracy and you know we've talked about lots of things but

01:15:04.400 I think that it's important to really ask the question, who has an agenda that they are conspiring

01:15:13.420 to have implemented, right? Because obviously, we've seen some conspiracies, meaning just the

01:15:23.020 involvement of multiple people who working together in secret to do something out in the

01:15:29.440 world that has an actual material change. And this is exactly kind of what happened from the very

01:15:38.780 beginning of American colonization. So this is a topic that I think is really simplified a lot of

01:15:47.280 times. But I think that it's true that once Puritans and pilgrims got over here from Europe,

01:15:55.060 one we talk about people coming over here for religious freedom sure but it was the freedom to 0.87

01:16:01.580 be more oppressive than they were able to be in england because they felt like england was too 0.56

01:16:08.580 gay so they were like well we've got to go somewhere else this place is too gay one of the

01:16:13.220 things that they felt and so once they got over here and started to meet you know different

01:16:18.720 tribal communities, they started to see a very different picture of sexuality and gender.

01:16:27.120 It's frequently talked about that certain tribes had like a third gender. Some tribes had more

01:16:32.980 than that. Every tribe is very different. And that's really important. There's no sweeping

01:16:37.980 generalization that you can make about the many, many, many tribes on the land that would be called

01:16:43.460 America eventually. But what was true is that there was not the strict, intense, gender specific

01:16:51.320 roles that were unbreakable. There were queer marriages, you know, what we could call queer

01:16:57.460 marriages, there was a just a complete sense of openness around things that for white people from

01:17:05.900 europe were very very closed right and so they got over here and almost right away there was 0.97

01:17:13.940 a concerted effort to like stamp out these qualities in the indigenous communities that

01:17:20.340 they came into contact with like you can find it in writing like for example uh one like puritan

01:17:28.220 in his journal wrote about the crow tribe he wrote quote men who dressed as women and

01:17:35.500 specialized in women's work were accepted and sometimes honored. A woman who led men in battle

01:17:40.940 had four wives and was a respected chief. So they're starting to note these changes.

01:17:45.620 And they also saw that kids who showed early signs of gender atypical behavior were actually

01:17:55.780 encouraged in some tribes to dress and perform the duties of the gender that they felt more

01:18:04.160 aligned to the Puritans, they found this extremely threatening. Here's a quote from a 1775 diary

01:18:11.060 from a Puritan who was writing about a tribe that he had encountered in what's now California. It

01:18:16.880 says, the sins of sodomy prevails more among them than in any other nation. There will be much to do

01:18:23.700 when the holy faith and the Christian religion are established among them. So you see these

01:18:29.700 examples of rhetoric already saying like we will stamp this out we will end this behavior

01:18:37.860 by any means necessary which of course they did because you know many of the murders the like

01:18:46.080 genocidal acts were also directed at indigenous people who they found committing acts of sodomy 0.92

01:18:54.480 or who they found to be cross-dressing or, you know, they were harmed in these really big ways.

01:19:01.480 They were exiled. They were beaten and killed. And I think that looking at that as the earliest

01:19:08.480 example of a concerted effort to stop a kind of behavior with violence, like that is at the root

01:19:16.540 of, you know, the colonized American culture that has continued. Like these are not new things. In

01:19:22.740 fact they are at the very beginnings of like what would become our society eventually and so i think

01:19:29.960 that we have hopefully seen that throughout this episode the agenda the concerted effort to have

01:19:37.460 a certain type of america is much more implemented by i don't even want to say straight people because

01:19:43.220 i have lots of straight friends but you know i mean like the the people who will find a greater 0.91

01:19:52.400 amount of power as long as queer people stay oppressed and stay lower on the totem pole 0.97

01:19:59.560 and stay as these convenient villains for us to use to bolster the powers that be and 0.98

01:20:09.020 to continue to like to keep America in the way that those with the most power want it

01:20:15.720 to be. Chelsea Weber-Smith, thank you so, so much for being here today and taking all of us on

01:20:25.460 this journey of history that I only knew bits and pieces of, but that you have really filled

01:20:31.120 the gaps. And I don't know, it just feels like we are going to be having a new version of the

01:20:40.820 gay tinky-winky panic several times a year until we're all dead and we just have to weather the 1.00

01:20:46.740 storm. And I guess do it with our patented gay humor as much as we can, which will then of course 0.99

01:20:53.500 be misunderstood intentionally and then used against us. So yeah, it ain't easy being gay.

01:21:02.520 Chelsea, where can people find you, support your work, hear more of your very soothing voice?

01:21:10.260 Oh, that's nice. I'll take that. If you like podcasts, which I feel that you might, you might like my podcast, American Hysteria. We cover things like the gay agenda. We also cover all kinds of urban legends. We cover like very serious topics, very light topics. We try to do it with like humor and heart and just continue to try to use history to illuminate the present.

01:21:36.780 and yeah thank you so much for having me Matt like this was a really special episode to do

01:21:42.780 with you who I respect so much so yeah just thank you so much for having me on oh my gosh you have

01:21:47.740 no reason to respect me I respect I'm just I'm just a twink online if you the listener want a

01:21:55.040 little more a bit fruity and or want to support the show we are we I always have a tendency to do

01:22:03.160 like just like we are on patreon we are not anywhere i am on patreon doing some doing some

01:22:09.480 extra work over there uh by the time this episode goes up i think there will be a new bonus episode

01:22:15.820 about zionist influencers and a sort of media critique about the role of influencers and

01:22:22.600 propaganda in you know current events today if you're interested in that or have five extra

01:22:29.120 dollars that you don't know what to do with feel free the link will be in the episode description

01:22:34.820 i love you thank you for joining me today go watch some teletubbies and until next time stay booty

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - February 13, 2024

The 100-Year-Old Myth of Gays “Coming for Your Children”

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