TRA Nobility: The Peter Files

Once upon a time, Peter Tatchell was a sort of hero to me.

What surprises me when reading from his website now, is just how weak his arguments are. It's often juvenile and hackneyed, dragging in tenuous associations or justifications beset with glaringly obvious logical faults and moralistic judgment. 

He is a preacher, hectoring from a rotten pulpit. I suppose, I admired him because he values animal welfare alongside his work on gay rights. 

Over time, though, I noticed: Tatchell is a dickhead to feminists.

Please, for balance, check out my blogs on TRAcists & the abuse of FGM survivors

He blames us when men murder their trans identifying partners, for hate crimes and anything else he feels like.

For example, according to Tatchell, "puritanical rightwing feminist(s)" argue porn "is always anti-women" and this "is simplistic, untrue, insensitive, uncaring.." 

One; I've never heard anyone call all porn - which includes gay men's porn - "anti-women", because that's nonsensical. 

But, heterosexual porn? It would appear to be the case. As for "insensitive" and "uncaring"..? 

What the fuck is he on about? Even in the clown world of 'thou shalt respect the gentleman's wank material' it's odd he would expect sensitivity and caring while he has often defended the indefensible.

He goes on with such searing analysis as: "Some defenders of oppressive sex imagery suggest that it might sometimes act as a ’safety valve’. 

"If this is true, and I suspect that it may be true in some cases, then extreme porn could provide a non-harmful outlet and have a positive social value, in that it helps reduce real-life sexual violence and abuse". 

Yeah, that's right Tatchell. If a bloke* has disturbed, violent sexual fantasies, we should definitely cater to that. What harm can come of watching visual depictions of violence and abuse repeatedly, while masturbating?

(*because we both know, it will be a bloke)

Whatever's up with him, I wish to god he would put as much effort into understanding feminism as he does into finding reasons to question the laws and social mores around children and sex.

Which is the subject I'll focus on here.

(It's all part of my haphazard series, TRA Nobility part I, part II, part III, & the special editions of India Willoughby & Jasmine Josephine Sakura Rose)

So I'll ignore the never-ending grandstanding, self congratulatory bullshit, the malevolent smearing of feminists as fascist-adjacent - what I bring to you today is an unrelenting volley of what some call nonce-apologia.

Buckle in. Or, quite seriously, don't, if you might be triggered by discussion of child sexual abuse. Trigger warning, if we do that stuff.

It's grim.

He Who Dares... Cringe

(Dotted throughout this piece are references to Tatchell's indepth response to the various controversies. You can find that here)

In 1997, The Guardian's Ros Coward wrote a review of Dares to Speak, a collection of essays written by paedophiles and their apologists, and edited by Joseph Geraci, editor of the paedophile magazine Paidika. Spotlight on Abuse cover it all.

In it, Coward expresses shock at the Gay Men's Press publishing this attempted vindication of what it calls 'boy love' (revolting euphemism à la NAMBLA, anyone?) as the ancient homophobic trope of "they're after little boys, really" still gained traction.

What were they thinking? Could they speak of little girls like this? The answer to that is no, of course. (And actually, GMP released a statement saying they had always recognised man / boy love as legitimate, and they published loads of similar stuff. So, fuck you, GMP.)

Coward pointed out the book lent credence to the idea boys are born with a proactive, assertive sexuality, often appropriately matched with the attention and interaction of adults, and refusing to take child sexual abuse seriously. She was entirely correct. 

"An article by a leading Dutch campaigner" Coward writes "for “paedophile emancipation” concludes: 

“Paedophilia is not a problem for the paedophile; it is apparently also not a problem for the child. Paedophilia is primarily a problem for the non-paedophile, for society.”

"He helpfully supplies the address for a Dutch paedophile publishing group." 

That man is Gilbert Herdt, a professor of anthropology at San Francisco State University.

The Washington Times reported in 2002 Herdt had said in Paidika (a paedophile journal) that “the category ‘child’ is a rhetorical device for inflaming what is really an irrational set of attitudes” against sex with children."

The advocates for 'intergenerational sex' often spin the wishes of paedophiles as liberation and respect for a child's autonomy. It's a classic construct intended to confer respectability. 

In response to Coward's review, Tatchell decided that his self assigned role as human rights advocate meant he must write a response.

Rather than agreeing it cemented homophobic associations and was an appalling act of minimization and emboldening, Tatchell thought that GMP's publishing "is courageous", arguing "distinguished psychologists and anthropologists cited in this book deserve to be heard".

That's it, Peter. Nothing like the radicalist making an appeal to authority. He likes to claim today that his praise for bravery was a response to dowdy censors trying to crush free speech. Obviously, if you actually read it, that makes zero sense. Freedom of speech or expression is not mentioned. 

Original letter top left, various justifications everywhere else 

Earlier, Coward had written that the book's attitude to sexual abuse was to dismiss it as “hysteria” or “the abuse industry” and so it's interesting Tatchell writes of said experts as:

"offering a rational, informed perspective on sexual relations between younger and older people" (emphasis mine)

Which is at least not 'boy love'. I suppose we can be thankful he had a thesaurus to hand.

Paedophile activists are dedicated to casting opponents as shrieking reactionaries. It's important to note, and spot the difference between calls for sober discussion and those who seek to minimise the perception of harm.

Herdt it

Through the GRapevine

And this is where we get to the Sambia tribe of Papua New Guinea, who's infamous, brutal initiation ritual for boys is spun into a big old jolly, a sacred learning experience and just, well ... pretty fucking great. 

Brilliantly, his authority is... Gilbert Herdt.

Beginning with the claim "...of societies where consenting inter-generational sex is considered normal, beneficial and enjoyable by old and young alike" he is off into an esoteric, second hand anecdote which had originally been told, even by the paedo-pologist Herdt, as terrifying, violent & forced.

 

It's a call to exoticism, a sleazy attempt to excuse egregious acts by casting concerns as antiquated dowdyness, built upon a eurocentric ideal: "all boys have sex with older warriors as part of their initiation into manhood" he goes on.

"Far from being harmed, Prof Herdt says the boys grow up to be happy, well-adjusted husbands and fathers."

Well. Let me smash that illusion for you. 

Ready? 

Most of this is taken from Malcolm Clark's excellent thread here, so read that and skip this part if you want.

Sambian Rites

The boys, aged between 7 to 10, are entirely unsuspecting when violently kidnapped from their beds and taken from their mothers.

If they escape, they are chased down and beaten. If the mothers protest, they too are beaten.

Kindnapped and bundled into the forest. Note the women standing back, and a gathering of excited, nervous dogs

From my interpretation, the principle seems to be delivering the boy from the breast of their mother via the penis of the warrior. A final umbilical cut, a brutal severance of the maternal era.

Blood spilled is a detoxification of their mothers. Women are considered unclean in what is / was an intensely misogynistic culture. The women are useful for the baby-bearing and rearing, but once old enough to fear social rejection and humiliation, old enough to really value their place among the men, these little boys are made 'warriors'.

The boys are marched into the forest, starved, forced to dance for hours and terrorised over several days. They are buffeted with contradictory information and woken with slaps or shock noises if seen drifting off to sleep. 

It's far more violent and mentally / emotionally traumatic than any military training I've heard of. Worse, their treatment is entirely at odds with what they have seen and experienced from their otherwise well-mannered, patient elders. A forcible transition into a warrior by way of brutalism.

Not only are their septums pierced, they must force bamboo up their noses until a quantity of blood is lost.

A gathering of older men jeer. At other stages, the men thrash them with thorny branches while they are strapped to the backs of adults and forced through a narrow row of saplings.

If they don't do as instructed they are threatened - the crowd will get them, hit them with machetes, castrate them. They will be killed.

After several convoluted rounds of the painful and frightening, they are each given a flute which they must learn to fellate, watched by the men who cheer or boo accordingly, before moving on to their elders. To become men, warriors, they must swallow their elders' semen to grow strong - and the more the better.

These poor, poor little boys. 

The words 'happy, well-adjusted' are absent from Herdt's synopsis and larger work

It was this, Tatchell wrote, which resulted in 'happy and well-adjusted' men, 'it never done them no 'arm' etc.

But as Clark points out, anthropologists aren't measuring "happiness," and adjustment is heavily subjective. 

"In fact, Herdt argues Sambia culture is a brutal response to continual inter-tribal violence. It's also deeply misogynistic. Any public affection between men and women is taboo" writes Clark. 

Thankfully, around the time of Tatchell's ludicrous and worrying comments, the Sambia stopped these abusive rituals, making this indigenous, hunter-gatherer Melanesian tribe

significantly more advanced than the first world, terminally woke human rights activist himself. 

But, this was just the beginning for Tatchell. In his response to Coward:

"The positive nature of some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to non-Western cultures."

Read that again:

"Not confined to non-Western cultures."

You Wouldn't Know Them. They Go To Another School

Like the famed raconteur he is, Peter effortlessly moves on with this nugget of unsayable truth: "Several of my friends — gay and straight, male and female — had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy." 

All of them? All of your friends enjoyed it when adult sexuality was visited upon them in childhood?

How remarkable!

It occurs to me that auto-paedophilia is a common paraphilia among paedophiles. I hope these don't make up any of his anecdotes. Because, it appears Tatchell knows more than a few paedophiles.

He ends the letter:

"While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful." 

Did you see that?

"... it may be impossible to condone paedophilia". 

That does not mean "it is impossible to condone paedophilia". It just doesn't.

DiscrEdited!

For the last two, almost three decades, Tatchell has sworn blind his letter was edited in a way which cast him in a worse light. He was, he claims, very upset about this and contacted the Guardian to complain. He doesn't have his original letter, so can't say precisely where it was edited,  but was apparently assured by the paper it was an innocent mistake which they apologised for. Graciously, he accepted and asked for no correction or clarification. 

Ros Coward remembers differently

Are you sure your friends aren't just liars, fetishists and deeply damaged, Tatchell? If you're not, please try again. 

Sleazy as P.I.E.

In the wake of Free Love and the visceral backlash against conservative attitudes around sex, the 1970's saw many babes lost with the bathwater. Women on the pill, pressured into being fucked by various men as if it was emancipatory; earlier, sensible ethics of keeping sex away from children renounced without thought or insight, leading to damaging experiences not necessarily driven by predatory desire. It was a sea change that saw unprecedented transformation and not all was positive. 

Age of Consent 

In France, haughty academics in polo-necks and smoking Gitanes debated the elitism of child protection, and openly advocated for removing the age of consent. American sexologists subjected children to heinous experiments and in Germany, boys in care were placed with known pederasts.

In Britain, the child molester's front was PIE;

The Paedophile Information Exchange.

Formed in 1974, PIE made truly frightening progress, but didn't advocate for removing the age of consent entirely. "No, we're not monsters!" they [probably] said. "Just reduce it. Reduce it to four years old."

Tatchell has often advocated for the lowering of the age of consent - not just from the unequal 21 for gay men, 16 for straights, but to below 16. 

Out!Rage still want the age of consent at 14 - across the board though, for girls and boys, because that makes the difference, doesn't it? This is at least honest, I initially hoped.

Although, it probably isn't. 

It's likely just a start...

 

In one of Out!Rage's press releases, Tatchell is quoted: "Young people have a right to accept or reject sex, according to what they feel is appropriate for them".

2006 in The Guardian: despite many positive changes, Tatchell complains "children's rights remain[s] ambiguous - particularly in the realm of sexual rights. 

[Legally, anyone] "under 16 is incapable of consenting to ... unable to understand the implications of having sex."

And this includes "any sexual relationship ... even if freely entered into by both partners"

Thus "the unspoken message is that they have no sexual rights - which is also the mind-set of the abusive adult."

"Aren't we sending mixed messages to our children?"

I worry, Pete, that despite all these years, you still don't understand the capacity to consent.

Not only that, but "the age of criminal responsibility is 10. [Therefore a ten year old] can "be held responsible... But it is not until the age of 16 that the law acknowledges young people's ability to give sexual consent. 

"The implication is that a decision to have sex is more complex and grave than a decision to kill or rob."

I'll go out on a limb here - I really dont think that's the inference kids make, and definitely, I'd say a child having 'sex' is at least as serious as robbery. 

Tatchell goes on, that to prevent sexual abuse we must elevate "the right to control their own bodies. 

"This means the right to say yes to sex they want" - he says in 

"Calls for a British Megan's law miss the point" which may or may not be an offensive obfuscation that patronises the hell out of the bereaved parents of little Sarah Payne. The girl snatched, abused and murdered by a roaming paedophile. 

Peter on the left here

Now, Peter. No one believes that children are entirely asexual until their 16th birthday. 

An emergent sexuality is a delicate process that is entirely, purely within the confines of the self. Any interaction with an elder will cause harm. And this harm is enough to cause life-changing detriment. It kills, with addiction, suicide, depressive recklessness. Adults owe children safety, privacy and dignity and without exception must keep their sexual proclivities out of sight. 

Curiously, even though he advocates for a reduced age of consent, Tatchell still contends that arbitrary age restrictions are problematic, leaving unanswered the questions regarding what he actually will settle for. 

 

From Tatchell's website 

That banner, '16 is just a start', was a seriously bad choice. Worse again is writing that while some aren't ready beyond the age of consent, "a few are ready for sex at 12“. So, what is the point in lowering it to 14? It's still gonna be arbitrary? 

And, which kid is ready at TWELVE? 

Peter, you're sick of the accusations you're defending paedophilia, we're sick of you ... appearing to defend paedophilia. 

Here's my advice: 

Whenever a child is prosecuted and put on the sex offender registry for consensual sex with a peer, scream from the rooftops. There must be a culture of silence here, as I wasn't aware of it being an issue.

It's almost like discretion used by police and CPS protects teens from prosecution for consensual sex. Mad idea, I know. The soaring rates of prosecution and conviction for rape, the draconian punishment meted out to those viewing child abuse imagery make it difficult to believe. 

🙄

Announcing that "If happy, well-adjusted adults say that having sex when they were children was not unwanted, abusive or harmful – and gave them great joy – what right do you or I have to dispute their opinion? To deny them their opinion is Orwellian" is less than compelling to me.

It's the same words again, isn't it? Happy, well-adjusted. Survivor denial and the far-fetched anecdotes of fantasists don't convince me of much at all. 

Lily Maynard does excellent coverage on this.

More Tatchell analysis, via Lily Maynard 

Tatchell has what appears to be a very patchy memory, often needing years and copious evidence to remember things he has said or done.

And, if you don't bring receipts, I wouldn't expect to jog his memory. I wouldn't expect anything but more, increasingly snippy, denial.

Boy, oh B.O.Y.

For instance, Tatchell denied knowing that Warren Middleton, AKA John Parratt, was ever involved with PIE. 

In fact, Middleton / Parratt was the former Vice Chair of PIE, and had known Tatchell for over a decade, having campaigned together as part of the Gay Liberation Front. 

So, with that alleged ignorance, he apparently had no reason not to add a chapter in the book Middleton was collating:

"Betrayal of Youth: Radical Perspectives on Childhood Sexuality, Intergenerational Sex, and the Social Oppression of Children and Young People" 

Ian Pace at Wordpress writes brilliantly here on Betrayal of Youth (BOY 🤢).

Tatchell contributed alongside luminaries such as: 

Tom O'Carroll, the Duracell bunny of nonce audacity and an absolutely worthless cretin who, god willing, will soon be dead.

There was also Father Michael Ingram, a paedophile priest with dozens of victims and who took his own life rather than face justice once convicted. 

Eric Presland, who, according to one blog: “related his first paedophile experience with an Asian boy of thirteen, and boasted of assaulting a little boy of six" and, per Diana's Substack (link below): “rejoiced in the appearance of PIE’s banner at the Gay Pride march”

Diana’s Substack

Another collection of paedophile apologia contributed to by Eric Presland 

Clive Coliman, who Diana points out is bafflingly introduced with “unmarried has, in the past, had a close association with several families where problems with incest had arisen. He was therefore able, in a number of cases, to observe these problems at first hand, thereby gaining a valuable insight into the phenomenon.” 

Richard Green, a sexologist who worked alongside the malevolent John Money, and who Tatchell wrote an obituary for, did some good work regarding the pathologising of homosexuality, followed by copious genderwoo and, you guessed it, asking a lot of 'genuine questions' on whether paedophilia was a disorder or sexuality.

He also made 'art' of children for the PIE magazine, MagPIE. So, a lovely bloke...

Diana, or SapphoLives, gives a great oversight into all of the above, including Tatchell himself.

His chapter in BOY is, what I imagine he praises the lord for daily, a relatively milquetoast (in context) muddying of waters around the age of consent which comes across as adolescent in prose and unceasingly superior. 

Tatchell on age of consent

Middleton / Parratt had pushed for the 'liberation of children' to be sexually available to filthy old men like himself, therefore it can't be so shocking that he was later convicted of having indecent images of children - he was one of a group who were the first convicted for drawings of children being raped.

(Yes, those dedicated 'boy lovers', concerned with the bodily autonomy and human rights of children, were getting off on fantasy images of their rape).

Middleton / Parratt was an active part of the paedophile ring, which numbered several other former  PIE members who met weekly to exchange images. 

Glowing with congenial warmth: Warren Middleton AKA John Parratt

"The images were described at the Old Bailey as "vile and disgusting" and "amongst the worst seen by police". 

Defying the dirty mac stereotype of nonces, John Morrison 

Middleton / Parratt lived with his partner, John Morrison,  and in their home three discs containing more than 5,000 obscene images were found. Morrison was given additional time for refusing to allow access to further files with an estimated tens of thousands more.

Of course, Tatchell vehemently denied having any knowledge of the book's aim, as well as Middleton / Parratt's paedophile advocacy.

Middleton's activism was hardly hush-hush 

Still, you would hope that even without the fucking incendiary association of PIE, the first instinct to a request to write on sexual rights and age of consent would be to question the philosophy behind the larger work. But the ever-trusting Tatchell did not. When he found out later he was livid, but decided not to draw attention to the whole thing. Who would he complain to, anyway?

Rave Review

Unfortunately, Tatchell also wrote a positive review for The Communist Party of Great Britain a full year after the book's publication. 

‘Radical Thoughts on Consent' claims that BOY “speaks coolly, clearly and radically about a subject which has far too long been shrouded in emotional hysteria and adult chauvinism." 

He invokes the old canard of Victorian prudishness, and claims that social stigma is what really harms victims, with court cases having a more damaging impact than the 'sex'. He speaks of 'puritanism', 'emotional hysteria' and his own scare quoted 'moral protection'. There are a few red flags here; the prose and points made are familiar. 

So, normally, I'd have to ask: Peter, what did you think these titles meant?

Well, for poor, frequently betrayed Tatchell, he had been screwed over again!

According to Tatchell, he didnt have time to write the review himself.

He was very busy, hence a friend wrote it, and that friend didn't notice or object to titles such as 'Child Pornography & Erotica', 'Child Prostitution' or 'Ends & Means: How To Make Paedophilia Acceptable?' 

In fact, the overarching theme of the book (which includes some genuinely disturbing rhetoric and descriptions) passed the reviewer by.

Get new friends, Peter.

Somehow, perhaps by an inexplicable, statistically outrageous anomaly, an alarming number of your friends are either nonce-nonchalant, defenders of paedophiles, paedophiles or auto-paedophiles.

Julie Bindel remembers differently

 

Like a Dog with a Bone

He has said contributing to BOY was 'a terrible mistake' but nonetheless, the taboo surrounding 'intergenerational sex' is an issue he cannot drop. Here he is with a familiar tale -this time regarding Derek Jarman. 

Dead and unable to respond, according to Tatchell Jarman had told him of the enjoyable sex he had with an adult, when he was nine. 

And here again, Tatchell hosts The Guardian- lower age of consent?

Tragic, Likely Dishonest, & Haunting - Lee

As a human rights activist, Tatchell is duty bound to advocate for Lee, who wants people to quit calling his boyfriend a paedophile, which is just crazy bigotry, right? 

Well - Lee is 14, and his boyfriend is in his mid twenties. 

"I am sitting in the kitchen of a friend’s house talking with Lee" begins Peter, leaving me immediately concerned. Which friend? How did your friend become acquainted with Lee, Peter?

"...his sophisticated gay image makes him look older" he is "bright, articulate, sure of himself, and mature beyond his years."

This is all very relevant and enlightening, I'm sure. Precocious maturity is never a red flag.

"It’s hard to imagine anyone getting away with taking advantage of him" says Tatchell. 

Of course! He's a sexually experienced, street-smart, canny young lad. If anything, he's probably taking advantage of the tragic old queens who hold a torch for him!

 

I think that's our take out; children who've been sexually abused can't fake a devil-may-care indifference, or treat sex with a callous detachment. They crumble and shake, like true victims. Like girls. 

Lee obviously just loves it.

This boy has, allegedly, been having sex with other boys since he was EIGHT, so you know he's fine and completely balanced, with a good understanding of his best interests. 

When he describes his first sexual experience in a swimming pool changing room with another little boy, John, Peter asks how he knew what oral sex was, what to do? From TV, comes the reply.

I wish, naively I'm sure, I could look after this boy.
To tell him - Lee, this is not normal, and you shouldn't be doing this, for your sake. 

But my doubts of his existence persist.

Tatchell possibly feels we should be reassured that Lee, who was John's boyfriend for two years, didn't miss out on full sex experimentation, though. Because, that's the big fear, yeah?

Worry no more! John's twin sister was also up for a bit of grossly inappropriate sexual contact, and they all had a great time. Well, once John got over the jealousy. What a 'happy, well-adjusted' bunch of kids!

It was a relationship. Love.

Lee's also had sex with 'a black kid' of his age - in bushes. Sometimes they'd pretend to be looking for a can used as a football, in this curiously rustic tale. It's all very wholesome. Jolly hockey sticks and hedge-based handjobs. 

'Looked After Children'

Lee was 11 when he began seeing a 14 year old, but it wasn't to be, as Lee was put into care (he's not vulnerable, honest). Still, he soon met another 14 year old, Andrew. 

They began having anal sex. After a while, both were selling sex to adult men.

Prostituted, 'looked after' children. 

At eleven.

After about 18 months, Lee was sick of it. "I was only doing it for the money to buy drugs – mostly speed, acid and cannabis. I also had a few bad experiences with punters. Once Andrew and I were tied up and raped.” He was eleven, twelve, maybe thirteen...

Tatchell reels off some things that could land a poor, innocent, consenting adult partner of Lee's in jail for a decade; "kissing, touching, sucking or wanking."

A true human rights advocate. 

I take it all back - this awareness of consequences is really very mature

Lee, the drug-using teen, prolifically sexual at an extremely young age and living in care, is his own man. "Difficult to imagine him being taken advantage of" etc.

Peter rails against the oppressive laws that see underage kids copping heavy criminal charges for having sex with each other. 

This is clearly his main concern, as a human rights activist. 

Sex offender registries are packed with sad, non-nonce children, who only had sex with their loving partner. 

He doesn't tend to call this sexual rights, or mention age of consent as much as he does 'human rights', because that sounds better.
But sexual rights are a big deal to Peter.

Lee talks about having sex with a man who he freely admits is a paedophile. He was horribly bullied in the care home, and it was preferable to stay with a nice minor attracted person in his home. 

The lesson - be a nonce if you must, but don't be pushy. Good etiquette is vital in healthy sexual exchanges.

Many of Lee's points echo Tatchell's, which is inexplicable and defies any explanation I can conjure. Maybe he is right about everything, if even a kid is saying it?

Tatchell suggests he is compelled to fight for what Lee says he wants. Why not? It's not like Lee is either a very traumatised child or the fantasy character of an aged sex case, is it? How dare you demean his personal sovereignty with chatter of social services, the police!

Who Dunn It

“I am not one of those homosexuals who get cross or nervous when the subject of love between men and boys is raised.” Ian Campbell Dunn.

Look at those eyes - the antithesis of a dirty old man!

Thankfully now long dead, grisly scumbag Ian Dunne was another beneficiary of a Tatchell obituary:

"a pioneer for lesbian and gay human rights, remaining a central figure in the battle for homosexual equality - in Scotland and internationally - for 30 years."

Doh! Why would you do that for such a revolting, shameless cretin who spent so much of his life actively aggravating for the right to sexually assault little boys? Isn't that the antithesis of what you, a human rights advocate, have lived this hard, impoverished lifestyle for?

Ian Campbell Dunn was cofounder of PIE and allowed his flat to be care-of address for Minor Problems, a paedophile periodical set up after MagPIE's collapse (all involved were jailed for corrupting morals), and for other paedophiles across Europe.

Big news regarding men known to him is liable to escape Tatchell's attention if printed in a tacky tabloid or in a foreign country, like Scotland 

 

At his funeral, one young man claimed that he had been raped by Dunn when he was 15, telling mourners: “I just came to make sure he was dead". 

It looks as though Tatchell was also in attendance, but he cannot recall such a thing occurring. 

 

Like Warren Middleton AKA John Parrott, Dunn was entirely unapologetic about his paedophilia and a vociferous campaigner for their 'rights' but strangely, Tatchell never knew any of this! He truly is the unluckiest man!

It seems close to ludicrous that anyone known to Dunn would be ignorant of his political beliefs, activism or personal predilections. 

In turn, Dunn denied knowing Peter Bremner, AKA David Peter Bremner AKA Roger Nash, former chair of PIE. 

Bremner / Nash created another paedo-periodical, Minor Problems, which Dunn just so happened to sell in his book shop.

So Dunn not knowing him seems odd in such a small world.

Letter from Dunn following tabloid investigators

It all does, doesn't it? For a clique of gay rights activists (and they were all gay rights activists) on the political left, during a time of audacious paedophile advocacy, surely gossip was rife? Surely? 

Are the gay men I know, appalled and incandescent at the mention of paedophilia, who were disproportionately targeted as confused youth, are they an aberration?

Then the AIDs crisis, with ongoing fights against inequality like the gay age of consent, and later Section 28, it must have formed close and extensive ties with the community mourning, and collaborating?  

It seems unfathomable such a distance pervaded these men.

Matthew Hopkins gives Tatchell seemingly unlimited space to respond here, which, with Matthew's own writing, is worth a read.
 

On the subject, Tatchell wrote to Hopkins with facetious aggression: "I don’t keep tabs on these people. Do you? Do you know every paedophile in Britain? Of course not. And it is unreasonable for you to be expected to know them all."

To be perfectly honest, Pete, considering your track record, I would maybe look into that. 

Per the PIE anthology, Tatchell said he's asked to contribute to hundreds of books a year and never researches the authors or publishers. This is because "I don’t have an evil, suspicious nature", but considering that many offers must be whittled down, a bit of due diligence surely would be helpful? 

How would you respond to a request to write on the age of consent as problematic in the context the rights of the child? You wouldn't be curious?

Compare and contrast: what Tatchell has said, and what he's said he said

"My chapter did NOT argue for the abolition of the age of consent. I did NOT argue that children can consent to their abuse. It is very unfair for you to make these false allegations against me"

This leaves me with a question; if noted enemy Julie Bindel or another feminist he regards as a terf wrote a chapter or positive review of an author known to have racist, homophobic or otherwise obviously offensive politics, would Tatchell let it go? I sincerely doubt it.

I think it's time for Tatchell to get off the defensive, and his self-built pedestal, and apply the standards he has for others to himself.

The most basic right of a child is to grow and develop without the negative influence of adults. Sexuality requires a delicate process to be uncovered, which isby the individual themselves. 

Even the most ardent supporters of supposed 'man-boy love', filling books and magazines with wistful ballads of respecting the self-determination of youth, they were found, in the end, to be graphically fantasising about the violent sexual assault of those same boys.

 

Paedophiles are singularly deceptive and devious, and they cause unimaginable harm. Get Over It.