Tipsheet

Woman Writing for Fatherly Says 'Absolutely' Take Kids to Pride Parades, Despite 'Public Nudity and Kink'

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  June 05, 2022 6:00 PM

Last year I covered how at the conclusion of pride month, The Washington Post promoted Lauren Rowello, who took her children to pride parades, exposing them to "kinksters." She also strips her own children of their biological sex, describing one of her children last year, an eight-year-old, as "they." Such promotion of exposing children to "kink" at pride parades was not just a one-time thing from last year in a column for a particularly leftist publication it turns out. 

A June 1 article from Heather Tirado Gilligan for Fatherly asks "Should You Take Your Kids To A Pride Parade?" In it, Gilligan fully acknowledges that such events are "filled with sights that may be new to kids, like public nudity and kink" and that they "aren’t the most sober of places." Yet she still argues that parents should "absolutely" take their children to such events. 

I read the actual piece so you don't have to, and it's not only as bad as you'd think it would be, it's worse.

The only reason for hesitation expressed in the piece is because they're "new things." It's certainly not that children should not be exposed to "public nudity and kink," or that such behavior is unseemly in a public setting, or that to be so vocal about this promotion is to be vocally in support of grooming.

Here's the unsatisfactory way in which Tirado Gilligan addresses the nudity and kink from adults that children may be exposed to:

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Jenifer McGuire, Ph.D., an associate professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota, has been to Pride celebrations across the world with her family, from Tucson to Amsterdam. McGuire, a lesbian parent, always preps her kids for possible adult content beforehand. After a few events, the kids knew to expect nudity and other surprises. “They just had to learn to laugh and enjoy things. Like there were these Beanie Babies with giant penises on them,” McGuire says. “For a fourth- and fifth-grade kid, that's super funny.”

"The benefits to her family always outweighed any potential downside, McGuire says, because they could see how many other queer families were in their community and around the world. “They don't necessarily get that from their swimming teams and drama clubs and school,” she says.

That it's. Gilligan's piece contains two measly paragraphs--out of 15--addressing the main and very real concern. The rest of the piece mostly discusses the history of pride month, how to introduce pride to children through books, and the more kid-friendly and appropriate events at pride parades, such as free snacks and beaded necklaces. 

Fatherly promoted the piece via a lengthy thread of excerpts on Twitter, as did Gilligan, who wrote in her tweet to "say gay as loud as you can." 

Both the tweets from Gilligan and Fatherly promoting the piece resulted in quite the ratio, as people called out such grooming of young children. 

The List was also among those who took notice of the tweet. 

Gilligan on Saturday doubled down on her piece by tweeting a lengthy thread which in part involved her claiming she had been "trolled," that people were engaging in "homophobia," and that her critics were part of QAnon.