Sexualizing Our Youth in the Name of LGBT Is NOT Okay

Redstate writer Sarah Rumpf reported earlier this week on the story of 9-year-old Nemis Quinn Mélançon, who was featured in Teen Vogue as his drag queen persona “Queen Lactatia”. 

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I know you’re rubbing your eyes right now and wondering which part of this you’re reading incorrectly. Believe it or not, all of those words go together. Here is 9-year-old Nemis as “Queen Lactatia”

“Lactatia” is apparently a regular fixture on the Montreal drag queen circuit and has recently been featured as the “cover girl” for a gay men’s erotic clothing line. Here are some images from the House of Mann Esty page.

And here’s “Lactatia” modeling a sequined onesie from the same site.

What is this child doing? What is this pose? Is this the body language of a young boy??

This is nothing short of child abuse. It is the sexualization of a young boy. You can dress it up in all the social justice, LGBT, free-to-be-me language that you want. There is no defense for this. The images of this child evoke all kinds of adult connotations, from suggestive poses to “bedroom eyes,” to heavy make-up.

Gay activist Chad Felix Green made it clear he is not on board with such perversion.

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What in holy hell is acceptable about bringing a 9-year-old child to adult clubs and parading him around while he impersonates grown women? Even his “stage name” is designed to elicit thoughts of the female anatomy.

Teen Vogue calls this empowering and “magical”.

Would we be saying this if Nemis were a little girl? Not only are the images of this child shockingly inappropriate, they also belie a disturbing double standard when it comes to LGBT issues. As Rumpf points out, it wasn’t that long ago that we were discussing how distasteful JonBenét Ramsay’s parents were for dressing her up like a grown woman and parading her in front of adults as she performed numbers meant for grown women.

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When a little six-year-old girl named JonBenét Ramsey was found murdered in the basement of her family home in 1996, a significant portion of the media attention and public debate centered around her participation in child beauty pageants.

Were the makeup, costumes, and song-and-dance routines too sexualized to be proper for a child? Did they make her attractive to a pedophile, and is that why she was killed?

Ramsey’s murder remains unsolved, so we may never know the truth, but her parents — even after they were cleared as suspects in her death — were vilified for “making her a target.”

Why was this child in a pink cowboy hat and a full face of makeup controversial, viewed as wearing too much makeup for an innocent child, as trying to look too “sexy”?

But this child, also in a pink cowboy hat and a full face of makeup, is “impressive and magical”?

What kind of a double standard is this? Would we be celebrating this if it were a girl being dressed as a grown woman, making “sexy lips” and wearing a ton of makeup while she modeled…anything? The rules for how we treat our children are not waved just because someone slaps “LGBT” on the cover. This is not appropriate for any child. This is the deliberate presentation of a little child as a grown adult. Kissy faces, hip-thrusting, duck lips…what do all those poses speak to the viewer?

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House of Mann creator Brandon Hilton has been defending his support of “Lactatia” as his cover model, insisting that he does not support child abuse.

What Hilton doesn’t see to understand that it is the very presentation of a young boy as a grown woman caked in make-up that is the child abuse. He condones it simply by asserting that a 9-year-old child who dresses as an adult lady to hit the club circuit is in any way appropriate.

It. Is. Not.

I’d be curious to know Hilton’s (or anyone else supporting this insanity) thoughts on the Toddlers & Tiaras set.

And just to bring this back full circle to #MeToo…

This is nothing but yet another co-opting of feminine power structure by men.

“Queen Lactatia” is empowering? If he were a girl and the daughter of some redneck from Florida who puts her in a bikini and parades her around the pageant circuit all those Lactatia fans would be disgusted and publicly shaming that mother.

It is not okay to allow our children to participate in the sexual fantasies of adults, whether those fantasies be pedophiliac in nature or simply reflect the desire to be desired as a woman rather than a man.

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It is not okay. There’s nothing right about this. There’s nothing good about this. This is child abuse on all fronts and Nemis’ parents are putting him in direct danger by putting him in a very adult world where he is being cheered and ogled for his physical form…at NINE.

Where are all the LGBT families and parents on this? Is there not one voice of reason to be had from our LGBT community on the issue of presenting children as sexualized adults? Does no one worry about how this brands the movement in their fight for “social justice” and equality?

What adults do is for adults and that’s that. You don’t have to be straight to understand that very basic concept and everyone – especially those in the LGBT community fighting to be recognized as the typical American family – should be wary of allowing the LGBT label to protect the perversion of childhood.

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