I'm a bit sick of the insinuations about Tatchell, TBH. If there are actual allegations rather than inferences, let's hear them.
The allegations and his explanations have been easily available for years. They are nothing new.
First is the letter he had printed in 1997 in The Guardian saying sex between adults and children isn't always harmful. Tatchell says the letter was edited.
Second is the chapter he wrote that ended up in a book called Betrayal of Youth (BOY) put together by a member of PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange). Tatchell's chapter was no 9. Followed by one about making paedophilia acceptable. Tatchell says he doesn't recall who commissioned his piece and he didn't realise it was going to be in book full of very obvious pro paedophile propaganda.
He then reviewed the same book rather positively. Tatchell says he didn't actually write that review. Someone else did and his name ended up on it.
Then there’s the fullsome obituary he wrote for Ian Dunn, a founder of PIE, for his gay rights work. Tatchell says he didn't know he was a paedophile when he wrote it. (I can actually believe that one).
There are a couple of videos where he repeats that he knows men who had 'consenting' sex with adults as children and they didn't find it harmful. At least one is still on You Tube. Tatchell says these are excerpts from longer videos.
Then there’s stuff like this, from his own web site, suggesting that children should be free to have sexual relationships with adults. (Not my underlining). The idea that most people recognise that a 12 year old can't consent to sex with an adult doesn't really seem an issue for Peter.
The context I would add is that back at the time PIE were most active in the 70's there was a big push for gay equality. The PIE organisation, and others, jumped on this as a way of furthering their own agenda - which was to lower or abolish the age of consent. This was all done by propaganda saying that children should have control over their bodies, it's wrong to deny them agency over their sexuality etc. By infiltrating the gay rights movement they actually got quite a bit of political support from those on the liberal left. Once the penny dropped they were booted out of the gay rights movement.
I think this is the angle Peter Tatchell also comes from. If you can push these ideas as being about children having sexual desires from a young age, and that they have a right to agency over their own bodies, you can make the idea of sex between adults and children more palatable.
This is where his interest in the transgender issue comes from, I believe. If you can make it acceptable that an 11 year old can have agency over their own body and consent to puberty blockers, and a 14 year old can consent to having their breasts removed, why is the age of consent for sex 16?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...rated-the-left-harriet-harman-patricia-hewitt
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/27/peter-tatchell-children-have-sexual-desires-early-age/
Quite a bit more on the Web if you search a bit. Tatchell has his own Web site where he explains his side.
