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Milo Yiannopoulos was on Real Time on Friday night, where he justified his history of harassing trans women by claiming he's protecting women and girls from sexual predators. Here's Yiannopoulos doing his stepin-felch-it routine during the Overtime segment:

MAHER: [Reading a question submitted by a viewer.] "Why did you single out a transgender student for ridicule during a recent speech you made on her campus?" Did you do that?

YIANNOPOULOS: Well, yes. First of all, wasn't a student. He had already left the university. And I make no apologies for protecting women and children from men who are confused about their sexuality identity... I misgendered this person.

MAHER: I'm confused about who this is, because pronouns are so important. If you call Caitlin Jenner a "he" you're a bad person — 

YIANNOPOULOS: No, I did it on purpose. I misgendered this person.

MAHER: So this is a man, born a man, who wants — 

YIANNOPOULOS: Who thinks he might be a girl.

MAHER: And you have a problem with that?

YIANNOPOULOS: No, I don't have a problem with it. But I think that women and girls should be protected from having men who are confused about their sexual identities in their bathrooms.

MAHER: That's not unreasonable.

I'm sorry, Bill, but that's not reasonable—it's the textbook definition of unreason. It's a lie and a dangerous one, as I unpacked in this post:

Right-wing assholes keep hammering away about the threat posed by trans people using public toilets. In reality, trans men and women are at higher risk of violent attack, hate crimes, and murder than any other group; trans women of color are at highest risk. (Three trans women of color have been murdered already this year.) And while it's true that cis and trans women are sometimes attacked in public toilets, these attacks are perpetrated by cis men, not trans women. (Want to make the world safer for women? Make it illegal for men to use public toilets.) And this whole revolting idea that a significant percentage of trans women are "male sexual predators [interested in] prowling ladies' restrooms" amounts to an anti-trans blood libel. This belief—that some or all trans women are actually male rapists trying to worm their way into "safe" spaces where they can attack "actual" women (because a male rapist can't walk into a women's toilet dressed as a man?)—results in violent attacks on trans women like this one. Fomenting this belief leads to more attacks on trans women.

The same arguments being used against trans people today were used against gay men decades ago. We were a danger to men and boys. We lurked in bathrooms. We had to be kept out of public spaces—parks, locker rooms, toilets—to protect children. It was bullshit when it was used to attack gay men, and it’s bullshit now that it’s being used to attack trans women. Any gay man making this argument needs to have his cocksucking mouth slapped off his ass-eating face.

To be clear: this argument—this lie—doesn’t protect women. It gets women killed. And I suspect Yiannopoulos knows and doesn’t care because he's too busy cashing in on his outrageous anti-gay gay conservative schtick. (Milo opposes gay marriage, argues that being gay is a choice, and says he would choose to be straight if he could.) There’s nothing the rightwing loves more than a black person willing to say black people are the real racists or a queer person willing to say queer people are the real threat. If you're queer or a person of color and you're telegenic and articulate and willing to sell the rancid cum rag that passes for your soul, you'll never have to do an honest day's work again in your life. (An actual conservative details how this scam works, why it works, and what it buys the GOP in this tweet storm.)

Anyway, the day after Yiannopoulos claimed to be a brave defender of children on national television...

Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos spoke tolerantly of pedophilia in video clips shared ahead of his speaking engagement at next week's Conservative Political Action Conference. The right-wing provocateur recalled his own sexual abuse as a teen and did not appear to outright condemn similar relationships between children and men on a 2016 episode of "The Drunken Peasants" podcast. He flippantly said young boys "discover who they are" through such relationships, later implying that those relationships can be sexual in nature, and can "give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable rock where they can't speak to their parents.” A host with the popular podcast fired back at Yiannopoulos and said, "Sounds like Catholic priest molestation to me."

"I'm grateful for Father Michael," Yiannopoulos replied. "I wouldn't give nearly such good head if it wasn't for him."

Yiannopoulos released a statement angrily insisting he didn't defend pedophilia and condemning pedophilia for the record. (“I do not support pedophilia. Period. It is a vile and disgusting crime, perhaps the very worst.”) Technically-speaking, Yiannopoulos is correct. He wasn't defending and fondly recalling adult men having sex with pre-pubescent children. That's pedophilia. He was defending and fondly recalling adult men having sex with 13- and 14-year-old boys. That's hebephilia. (In the extended video clip, Yiannopoulos endorses age-of-consent laws, saying 16 "is about right.")

The videos are here and here. Judge for yourself.

UPDATE: Good catch...


Yiannopoulos did argue that words can't hurt people, and that people are too sensitive, and that he only trolls to help people grow thicker skins. But, yeah, stop saying Milo said what he said. You're hurting his feelings. And a Tapper thread worth embedding...







UPDATE 2: Just to complicate things, but... I had sex with a woman when I was 15 years old. She helped me figure out what I wasn't. I had sex with a man when I was 16 years old. He helped me figure out who I was. I was and remain grateful for both experiences—and I've written about both experiences, which they may or may not be grateful for. Yes, I was under the age of consent both times but I didn't feel violated. Neither was an authority figure—neither was a teacher, a coach, or (God forbid) a priest—and both were within 7 years of my age at the time. I was still reeling from my Catholic upbringing/hangup-instillation and I would've been severely damaged if the guy had been a priest—and I was sixteen years old, almost seventeen.