Brandon Hilton, owner of an online clothing store specializing in erotic clothing, recently announced that nine-year-old drag queen Lactatia was his company’s newest “cover girl.” He tweeted, “I think this new generation of drag kids is brilliant and inspiring! @Desmond_Amazing and Lactatia are the future! @TheHouseofMann is just making sure they look SICKENING! People will talk no matter what, might as well give them something FIERCE to look at!”

Hilton received an immediate and overwhelming backlash as people reacted angrily to the appearance of him sexualizing a child. He responded, “woke up to countless tweets telling me to ‘kill yourself’ and calling me a ‘pedo’ after we announced 9 year old drag superstar Lactatia as our new HOUSE OF MANN covergirl… if you can’t handle a kid in a sequin onesie, maybe the future isn’t for you.”

Hilton messaged me on Twitter after I challenged him to explain why he would encourage the sexualization of a child as an LGBT activist. Although his tweets seem to celebrate children engaging in these adult activities, he seemed profoundly disturbed by the accusations. He believed the outrage came from ignorance and hatred by “right-wing propaganda.” While I think he did not intend to sexualize the child or promote pedophilia, I also think he cannot understand how his actions did just that.

Why Kids Are So Important to the LGBT Left

The images of the young boy are undeniably adult in nature, from the make-up to the posing, to the facial expressions. The boy is emulating an adult woman being sexually provocative. He has seen this behavior and body language in his drag queen mentors.

Drag is an inherently adult form of entertainment, meant to exaggerate female sexuality using humor and vulgarity. The sexuality within the artform cannot be separated out and therefore many oppose minors, and certainly children, participating in it.

Since LGBT people first celebrated the boy, he has been a symbol of a movement crossing a line. While those on the Right are quick to assert pedophilia as a motivation behind this movement, it is more rooted in sexual and gender theory that relies on children for validation.

Children expressing sexuality or gender identity that deviates from the norm are viewed as proof that this deviancy is inborn. And society is more likely to accommodate inborn traits than freely made adult choices. While LGBT Americans have full rights and are arguably widely celebrated in every sector, the LGBT Left has fixated on encouraging sexual expression in ever younger children. They genuinely believe they are helping these children by allowing them to “be themselves” in an environment free from judgment or repression.

The LGBT Left also believes denying one’s “true self,” which is often revealed in childhood, leads to homelessness, drug abuse, and suicide. They believe they are saving these children from a life of bullying, fear, and crippling anxiety. So any child who emulates LGBT culture is widely celebrated and promoted. A nine-year-old boy dressing and behaving as an adult drag queen is seen as beautiful and progressive.

An Identity Defined by Sexuality Struggles to Express Itself Differently

In June 2017, The Advocate, a major LGBT advocacy website and magazine, celebrated Lactacia. The boy has become a celebrity in the LGBT world. Hilton believed he was promoting and celebrating a young boy he considers inspiring to his identity group.

The LGBT world often struggles to separate its sexually explicit culture from its advocacy for equality and rights. In many ways they are incapable of understanding why the outside world would be appalled by explicitly sexual public displays. For them it must be out of malice, hatred, or ignorance rather than reasonable aversion.

Gay pride parades have long been extreme public displays of every form of sexual deviancy imaginable. Gay liberals see no distinction between their sexual selves and their everyday selves. They celebrate the merger of the two as identity and culture.

The consequence here is that Hilton and the LGBT world will never be able to fully appreciate the damage being done to a generation of children pushed to grow up faster. The LGBT Left’s intense focus on labeling then exploiting LGBT children holds incredible risk and threatens their futures. Early sexual activity and expression can be devastating to young people, especially LGBT youth. High rates of drug abuse, sexual abuse, and risky sexual behavior are common. HIV rates are extremely high for gay and bisexual young men aged 13 to 24. Nearly 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBT, with higher risks of drug use and sex work.

While the LGBT world may not be intentionally trying to harm children or put them at risk, it is time leaders of the movement fully recognize the dangers of using young children to validate their sexual politics. To help further this discussion, we must be careful not to abuse the term “pedophile.” Overuse will diminish the impact of our message and make it more difficult to fight the legitimate scourge of child sexual abuse rampant around the world.

What we must do is call out the dangers of sexualizing children too early, making them vulnerable to people who do wish to exploit and abuse them. LGBT advocacy groups have a responsibility to recognize that every form of sexuality and gender identity can be freely enjoyed by adults in private, but should never involve children regardless of the context or motivation. While they intend to celebrate the uniqueness of the child, they in effect steal the child’s innocence and impose an adult identity onto him, all to validate their own insecurities. We cannot stay quiet and allow more children to lose their childhood to the dreams of progressives who only imagine the future while failing to grasp the trauma they impose in the present.