In recent decades, so-called “sex workers’ rights” campaigners working to decriminalise pimping and buying of sex have attached themselves, just like trans rights activists, to the movement for the rights of same sex attracted people. This was a logical – and highly beneficial – move on their part. Being seen as part of a proud, widely-respected social justice campaign undoubtedly helps their efforts to perpetuate the myth that “sex work is work” and “prostitution is liberating”. Their acceptance into what came to be called the “LGBTQ+” movement, however, has been incredibly harmful to the most vulnerable members of society, and especially children.

Recently in California, for example, so called LGBTQ+ activists have successfully mounted opposition to planned increased penalties for adults soliciting sex from prostituted children.

In April this year, Republican Senator Shannon Grove put forward a bill that would have made soliciting a minor for sex, or agreeing to engage in any form of commercial sex with a child, a felony offence, carrying a mandatory jail time and a requirement for sex offender registration for repeat offenders.

“The crime of purchasing a child, of any age, for sex in the state of California should be a prison felony,” said Grove. However, LGBTQ+ activists, opposed the bill citing concerns about “unintended consequences”. They claimed that increased penalties for those who abuse minors caught up in the sex trade will affect the LGBTQ+ community “disproportionately”.

“We are particularly concerned that the harsher penalties proposed in this bill will disproportionately impact marginalised communities, especially members of the LGBTQ+ community, who already suffer from systematic biases within the criminal justice system, particularly when it comes to sexually based offenses,” argued Grove’s opponents while addressing the Public Safety Committee about the changes they want to see in the proposed bill.

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