He has long been a child abuse apologist, and supports efforts by men who wish to have sex with pre-pubescent children. Why is he considered a national treasure?
PIE members were echoing the intellectual campaign in France to reduce the age of consent, as a stepping stone to abolishing it entirely, limiting the offence to cases where violence was used. It is only very recently that France has introduced tougher laws on this, following revelations of abuse by public figures.
While this issue was linked to gay liberation in the UK because the ages of consent were unequal at the time, the French cases concerned heterosexual abusers. Therefore progressives including Liberty members were able to use gay rights for consenting adults as a cover for PIE's agenda. The Thatcher government misunderstood this, and targeted homosexuality in Section 28, when it should have targeted pederasty.
This issue is related to the lack of intervention on grooming gangs, because a cohort of social workers and teachers were taught in the 80's and 90's that limitations on childhood sexual agency were illegitimate and the result of a 'moral panic'.
I don't want to be intentionally reductive and say "It's because he's a man.". But I will. Especially when the answer is always increasingly "Because he's a man". Therefore it's not reductive really now is it?
I hadn’t heard of this guy before I moved to the UK. Then I saw him on different outlets.
I understand freedom of speech is important. But when a grown man thinks and talks about how a pre-adolescent boy can consent to having intercourse with a man, that’s past beyond the line!
How has he been seen as the second coming of whomever, is beyond me. I know he did loads of things for gay rights, but just because he did that doesn’t take away the other point.
It's time to add Pedophiles to the long list of letters in the alphabet soup. Methinks that might be what it takes for lesbians and gay men to finally wake up and stop letting TQs ride on our coattails.
I mean, that's kind of already happened under the 'Queer' umbrella, except they don't call themselves paedophiles. They're now Minor Attracted Persons (MAPS). It is of the main reasons why so many lesbians and gay men reject the term Queer, aside from it being a slur which we don't want to reclaim.
We need to state their name explicitly as it's own item in the acronym. How about we write the new name this way:
lgbTQIA2SP+
Use a lowercase lgb so that when people ask, we can tell them we do that because lesbians, gays and bisexuals have been deserted by the groups we built to fight for same sex marriage. Then we make it clear P=Pedophile. Good LGB folk will finally stop supporting the groups that work against our rights.
Hmmm...I like the idea, but it would, for me, require a re-engagement with the Alphabet Soup, from which I disengaged some years ago. You can't build a community with such profound and intractable views. I own my own intractability here...and will never agree that a man can be a woman etc. If I'm pushed to state an allegiance, it would be with women (as a feminist of the 2nd wave variety) and as a lesbian (of the same sex attracted variety) with a group like LGB Alliance. Gender identity has seen the return of homophobia and the most misogynist period of my long life. As lesbians and gay men, we supported transsexuals in our mixed spaces, because they knew they were men and were not out to dominate women.
Having said all that, the tide is turning here on Terf Island. Stonewall is on the brink of collapse and institutions and government departments are back peddling like fury. It's very interfering to observe the cringing back sliding of the great and the good, who seem to think we'll forget 🤣🤣🤣
I must confess I used to see Peter Tatchell as a gay rights hero. This was before I heard about his nonce agenda of course. And his capitulation to the trans ideology. Now I despise him. I have no idea how he gets away with it either; it's rarely mentioned in the Guardian for example.
Same, I used to think he was a good guy because he dines out on all the activism he's done, but his work seems largely performative and doing publicity stunts while normal lesbians and gay men (mostly lesbians, it has to be said) who only fancied adults of the same sex did the heavy lifting in the background while he was more of a liability.
I was recently part of a zoom call with a "radical feminist" group, which I found depressing, as too many of these women espoused the belief that a 13 year old should have complete autonomy over her body, and if that means deciding to have sex with an older teen, that's her choice. As a mother, long past my sons' teen years, I find this "hands off" position leaves young teens utterly vulnerable to adults and older teens coercion. Adults like Tatchell "help" these girls or boys, in his case, lose their virginity. Apparently, unless you are a religious Christian, virginity is a terrible state of being for a 13-14 year old. No matter what Peter Tatchell says about the abiding love and assistance with sexual experience that adults can supposedly offer to teens, sex between adults and minors is statutory rape. It leaves both girls and boys in a state of confusion at a stage of development when their bodily changes and awareness of the outside world's exploitation of children is just arriving. Also, girls can get pregnant. Childhood must be respected. Parents must be a presence in their teen offsprings' lives, and the fact that drugs and alcohol are often involved in the sexual activities sketchy adults introduce to children must be acknowledged. My high school history teacher was arrested for getting 14 year old boys drunk and sexually assaulting them after inviting them to his home "for extra credit projects." Parents must protect their sons and daughters from these predators. Tatchell is part of this picture; no story about his experiences of homophobia during his Australian childhood excuse his nefarious, mealy-mouth theories of what teens need as they come of age.
I totally agree. My younger son had a narrow escape from a pedophile teacher in primary school who was eventually busted for taking boys back to his house for extra 'homework' where he touched them (9yrs) inappropriately. I had my suspicions about this teacher and when I found out my son had been assigned to his class I got him switched to a class with a female teacher.
We have to be pro-active. This idea that children need autonomy is fine in theory, but safeguarding has been thrown out the window, so observe and react is the only choice. Not to mention abusive pornography!
There's been quite a few "queer theorists" who have got away with it. Derrick Jensen has a great video, "Queer Theory Jeopardy", where he lists off loads of them, like Michel Foucault, Pat Califia, Gayle Rubin, Judith Butler and many more. Pretty much everyone involved in "queer" politics.
a joke - a man who blithely dismissed women and our agency ; to suit his influential mates and cool young people he identifies - these once great influencers are soooo ignorant and are elite ; I think surrogacy is enslavement of women and know sex is real whilst gender is a subjective category based on stereotyping - gay and bi rights and individualism is fine but born men and their subjective desires do not and can not supercede born girls and womens rights
Hi Julie, I've just reread your letter to Peter Tatchell. My question is: is he against the age of consent for heterosexual experience? Should it be lower does he think? Or non existent even? Or is it different for same-sex relationships, and if so why?
I suggest that this critique of Mr Tatchell sees far too much speculation about motives. You do some, and you are victimized by others doing the same thing.
And does Peter Tatchell in 2025 still have the same beliefs in this matter as Peter Tatchell of 1997?
I would think that the older person/teenager divide usually will give the older person disproportionate power in most cases. That presumably is why we need an age of consent? Do you agree, or am I missing something?
How about inviting everyone to avoid speculations about motives and try and stick with what change if anything is being proposed and mix in as much evidence and argument as possible from various schools of psychology who are likely to have studied these things?
And in quite a few matters, eg Mr Mugabe, Peter Tatchell did take good some good and brave steps, from which I believe he still suffers. Maybe these have something to do with why he is admired? How about a bit of all-roundness in this matter too?
Reprinting old articles of yours may have some pitfalls, don't you think?
See Tatchell's recent video interview in which he said he wouldn't condemn this activity with minors because it happened to Derek Jarman as a child, and Jarman didn't have a problem with it.
That is of course lamentable grounds to decide the matter. Quite simply one young person feeling ok about this tells nothing how a thousand million other young men might feel about it. Peter should be pressurized to discuss that objection on its merits. Ian M
Tatchell was recently on Andrew Gold's YouTube channel, Heretics. He's appeared often recently on panels moderated by Piers Morgan, but he's pretty careful there not to talk about adults having sex with minors.
In the last few years. It was posted on his own channel to clarify his position on the issue. A younger man fed him questions which appeared to have been scripted. I looked for this video but couldn't find it, so it may have been deleted by him.
So if he's deleted it, it may mark a change of mind. Or he might note that sexual exploitation is increasingly challenged, though as people on this site have been observing, there's still a long long way to go.
PIE members were echoing the intellectual campaign in France to reduce the age of consent, as a stepping stone to abolishing it entirely, limiting the offence to cases where violence was used. It is only very recently that France has introduced tougher laws on this, following revelations of abuse by public figures.
While this issue was linked to gay liberation in the UK because the ages of consent were unequal at the time, the French cases concerned heterosexual abusers. Therefore progressives including Liberty members were able to use gay rights for consenting adults as a cover for PIE's agenda. The Thatcher government misunderstood this, and targeted homosexuality in Section 28, when it should have targeted pederasty.
This issue is related to the lack of intervention on grooming gangs, because a cohort of social workers and teachers were taught in the 80's and 90's that limitations on childhood sexual agency were illegitimate and the result of a 'moral panic'.
I don't want to be intentionally reductive and say "It's because he's a man.". But I will. Especially when the answer is always increasingly "Because he's a man". Therefore it's not reductive really now is it?
I hadn’t heard of this guy before I moved to the UK. Then I saw him on different outlets.
I understand freedom of speech is important. But when a grown man thinks and talks about how a pre-adolescent boy can consent to having intercourse with a man, that’s past beyond the line!
How has he been seen as the second coming of whomever, is beyond me. I know he did loads of things for gay rights, but just because he did that doesn’t take away the other point.
It's time to add Pedophiles to the long list of letters in the alphabet soup. Methinks that might be what it takes for lesbians and gay men to finally wake up and stop letting TQs ride on our coattails.
I mean, that's kind of already happened under the 'Queer' umbrella, except they don't call themselves paedophiles. They're now Minor Attracted Persons (MAPS). It is of the main reasons why so many lesbians and gay men reject the term Queer, aside from it being a slur which we don't want to reclaim.
We need to state their name explicitly as it's own item in the acronym. How about we write the new name this way:
lgbTQIA2SP+
Use a lowercase lgb so that when people ask, we can tell them we do that because lesbians, gays and bisexuals have been deserted by the groups we built to fight for same sex marriage. Then we make it clear P=Pedophile. Good LGB folk will finally stop supporting the groups that work against our rights.
Brilliant? (US meaning)
Hmmm...I like the idea, but it would, for me, require a re-engagement with the Alphabet Soup, from which I disengaged some years ago. You can't build a community with such profound and intractable views. I own my own intractability here...and will never agree that a man can be a woman etc. If I'm pushed to state an allegiance, it would be with women (as a feminist of the 2nd wave variety) and as a lesbian (of the same sex attracted variety) with a group like LGB Alliance. Gender identity has seen the return of homophobia and the most misogynist period of my long life. As lesbians and gay men, we supported transsexuals in our mixed spaces, because they knew they were men and were not out to dominate women.
Having said all that, the tide is turning here on Terf Island. Stonewall is on the brink of collapse and institutions and government departments are back peddling like fury. It's very interfering to observe the cringing back sliding of the great and the good, who seem to think we'll forget 🤣🤣🤣
For me there aren't any letters after LGB
Now THAT is a good idea, Sally J.
Tatchell obviously knows where the wardrobes are in which some very influential skeletons are to be found.
I must confess I used to see Peter Tatchell as a gay rights hero. This was before I heard about his nonce agenda of course. And his capitulation to the trans ideology. Now I despise him. I have no idea how he gets away with it either; it's rarely mentioned in the Guardian for example.
Same, I used to think he was a good guy because he dines out on all the activism he's done, but his work seems largely performative and doing publicity stunts while normal lesbians and gay men (mostly lesbians, it has to be said) who only fancied adults of the same sex did the heavy lifting in the background while he was more of a liability.
I was recently part of a zoom call with a "radical feminist" group, which I found depressing, as too many of these women espoused the belief that a 13 year old should have complete autonomy over her body, and if that means deciding to have sex with an older teen, that's her choice. As a mother, long past my sons' teen years, I find this "hands off" position leaves young teens utterly vulnerable to adults and older teens coercion. Adults like Tatchell "help" these girls or boys, in his case, lose their virginity. Apparently, unless you are a religious Christian, virginity is a terrible state of being for a 13-14 year old. No matter what Peter Tatchell says about the abiding love and assistance with sexual experience that adults can supposedly offer to teens, sex between adults and minors is statutory rape. It leaves both girls and boys in a state of confusion at a stage of development when their bodily changes and awareness of the outside world's exploitation of children is just arriving. Also, girls can get pregnant. Childhood must be respected. Parents must be a presence in their teen offsprings' lives, and the fact that drugs and alcohol are often involved in the sexual activities sketchy adults introduce to children must be acknowledged. My high school history teacher was arrested for getting 14 year old boys drunk and sexually assaulting them after inviting them to his home "for extra credit projects." Parents must protect their sons and daughters from these predators. Tatchell is part of this picture; no story about his experiences of homophobia during his Australian childhood excuse his nefarious, mealy-mouth theories of what teens need as they come of age.
I totally agree. My younger son had a narrow escape from a pedophile teacher in primary school who was eventually busted for taking boys back to his house for extra 'homework' where he touched them (9yrs) inappropriately. I had my suspicions about this teacher and when I found out my son had been assigned to his class I got him switched to a class with a female teacher.
We have to be pro-active. This idea that children need autonomy is fine in theory, but safeguarding has been thrown out the window, so observe and react is the only choice. Not to mention abusive pornography!
There's been quite a few "queer theorists" who have got away with it. Derrick Jensen has a great video, "Queer Theory Jeopardy", where he lists off loads of them, like Michel Foucault, Pat Califia, Gayle Rubin, Judith Butler and many more. Pretty much everyone involved in "queer" politics.
a joke - a man who blithely dismissed women and our agency ; to suit his influential mates and cool young people he identifies - these once great influencers are soooo ignorant and are elite ; I think surrogacy is enslavement of women and know sex is real whilst gender is a subjective category based on stereotyping - gay and bi rights and individualism is fine but born men and their subjective desires do not and can not supercede born girls and womens rights
I came away from Hating Peter Tatchell not only hating Peter Tatchell but Hating Hating Peter Tatchell
If Elton John and David Furnish approve of Peter Tatchell, what does that say about their purchase of three or four kids?
Hi Julie, I've just reread your letter to Peter Tatchell. My question is: is he against the age of consent for heterosexual experience? Should it be lower does he think? Or non existent even? Or is it different for same-sex relationships, and if so why?
Hi Julie,
I suggest that this critique of Mr Tatchell sees far too much speculation about motives. You do some, and you are victimized by others doing the same thing.
And does Peter Tatchell in 2025 still have the same beliefs in this matter as Peter Tatchell of 1997?
I would think that the older person/teenager divide usually will give the older person disproportionate power in most cases. That presumably is why we need an age of consent? Do you agree, or am I missing something?
How about inviting everyone to avoid speculations about motives and try and stick with what change if anything is being proposed and mix in as much evidence and argument as possible from various schools of psychology who are likely to have studied these things?
And in quite a few matters, eg Mr Mugabe, Peter Tatchell did take good some good and brave steps, from which I believe he still suffers. Maybe these have something to do with why he is admired? How about a bit of all-roundness in this matter too?
Reprinting old articles of yours may have some pitfalls, don't you think?
Ian Mordant
See Tatchell's recent video interview in which he said he wouldn't condemn this activity with minors because it happened to Derek Jarman as a child, and Jarman didn't have a problem with it.
That is of course lamentable grounds to decide the matter. Quite simply one young person feeling ok about this tells nothing how a thousand million other young men might feel about it. Peter should be pressurized to discuss that objection on its merits. Ian M
How recent was this Tatchell video please? Ian Mordant
Tatchell was recently on Andrew Gold's YouTube channel, Heretics. He's appeared often recently on panels moderated by Piers Morgan, but he's pretty careful there not to talk about adults having sex with minors.
In the last few years. It was posted on his own channel to clarify his position on the issue. A younger man fed him questions which appeared to have been scripted. I looked for this video but couldn't find it, so it may have been deleted by him.
So if he's deleted it, it may mark a change of mind. Or he might note that sexual exploitation is increasingly challenged, though as people on this site have been observing, there's still a long long way to go.
Ian M