by Janet Murray, spiked
It’s not ‘homophobic’ to ask whether the public display of fetishes is appropriate for children.
Someone threatened to put a bullet in my head last weekend. My offence? Questioning whether a local Pride event was suitable for children.
At Medway Pride in north Kent, I saw photographs of men in leather fetish gear, a placard reading ‘Trans rights or I bite’, and a young child posing beside an inflatable shark carrying a Progress Pride flag. The shark has become an unofficial mascot of the trans community, while the Progress Pride flag incorporates colours representing trans and nonbinary identities, alongside the traditional rainbow. Most parents I know want their kids to be kids – not introduced to bonkers ideas like there are 100 genders or that some people are ‘born in the wrong body’.
Medway Pride looked relatively tame compared with some. I’ve seen photographs from Pride events of adults wearing puppy-play masks, collars, chains and harnesses. It’s not uncommon to see stalls selling sex toys. Or hear of sex acts being performed in public. Adults are free to do what they like consensually, of course. But surely adult sexual subcultures don’t belong at daytime events marketed as family-friendly.
I posed a reasonable question on X: ‘Do men in fetish gear belong at Medway Pride?’ I tagged in local Labour MP Tris Osborne, who had been raving about the event on his socials. Osborne responded to suggest that if I was making an ‘allegation’, I should contact the police, before wishing me a ‘relaxing weekend’.