Are pedophiles identifying as “age fluid”? Fact Check

A post on social media purports to describe the rise in people identifying as “age fluid” as a cover to legitimise pedophilia.

In the context of the post, age fluid is used to describe individuals who claim not to have a fixed age.

MOSTLY FALSE

An example of the post as it appears on social media can be seen below.

While we are arguing over the efficacy of masks, a vile group of people are trying to make pedophilia a sexual orientation and believe it is 100% ok to be age fluid.
I just discovered age fluidity last night. Being age fluid means that a full grown man could “identify” as an 8 year old boy…OR an 8 year old girl if he is also feeling gender fluid on any particular day. So, if a 50 year old man “identifies” as an 8 year old girl, and is attracted to an 8 year old boy, then these sickos feel it is natural and should be legal for him to act on those feelings.
Ever heard of NAMBLA? The North American Man Boy Love Association is a real pedophilia organization that wants pedophilia to be normalized. They think the age of consent should be lowered to FOUR YEARS OLD.
Where do we draw the line on all of the “identity” stuff??
Our children are under attack. Where do you think all of the missing children are going? They aren’t being taken in by good, loving people. They are being sold and traded in a very sick, evil community. And when they’re done with them, they’re killing them and disposing of them like trash.
This is one thing I strongly feel that everyone needs to get “WOKE” on.
I’ve never said “if you don’t feel the same as me then unfriend me.” In fact, I enjoy posts with respectful dialogue between people with opposing views. It’s often enlightening and sometimes I learn something new. But, if you think pedophilia and age fluidity should be normalized, then unfriend me and lmk your beliefs so I can keep my family far away from you

What’s true? The organisation NAMBLA is real, and was founded in the 1970s. The organisation has frequently stated their aim of removing age of consent laws in the United States, and their members have campaigned to have convicted pedophiles released from prison providing their sexual contact with children didn’t involve violence or “coercion”. There have been a small number of cases over the years where defendants in sexual assault cases have claimed to be children themselves trapped in adult bodies.

What’s false? There is no significant “agefluid” movement whereby proponents campaign to have a “fluid” age associated with them. While there have been a small number of debates over the term spanning a handful of years, there has been very little in the way of people fighting to have this label applied to them, nor is there any evidence of any coordinated attempt at legitimising the label.

There is also little connection between agefluid and pedophillia. Proponents of pedophillia – including those that have previously associated with NAMBLA – typically campaign to have consent laws abolished as opposed to promoting any type of “age fluidity”. Most frequently, the term “age fluid” is used online to attack or tarnish LGBTQ+ communities by associating gender fluidity with age fluidity, often misleadingly equating the two. However there is no indication that the LGBTQ+ community in general supports any type of “age fluidity” movement.

Additionally, despite the suggestion that this has been happening since people have been “arguing over the efficacy of masks”, NAMBLA and their attempts to abolish age of consent laws is a decades old saga, and there has been no new “movement” that has risen since the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The above message is the latest in a collection of warnings, messages and memes about the term “agefluid”. Typically, such online messages attempt to promote two narratives. One, that the term is the latest attempt by pedophiles to decriminalise sexual contact with children by claiming they are identifying as a child. And two, that this is an inevitable broadening of gender fluidity, a term used to define individuals who do not wish to be permanently identified as either male or female.

The term “agefluid” first gathered a small amount of meaningful popularity back in 2017 when the term first appeared on a number of Internet forums to describe individuals who claimed to have no fixed age, and could change their age from day to day, typically to make themselves younger.

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While there have been a handful of isolated cases of individuals trying to shun their ages (such as Emile Ratelband, who unsuccessfully petitioned a Dutch court to allow him to change his age) there doesn’t appear to be any significant campaign to promote “age fluidity”, either in the form of lobbying, legal challenges (with the exception of Ratelband) or organised protests (which one would typically find concerning gender fluidity and non-binary genders.)

There is less evidence still that individuals are identifying as “age fluid” to try and normalise pedophilia. Even in the case of Emile Ratelband mentioned above, he attempted to alter his age from 69 to 49, and there was no indication of motives related to sex or romance, much less with someone underage. While there are a number of pedophilia advocacy groups, such as NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association) that do advocate sexual contact with minors, this is done primarily through the promotion of abolishing laws pertaining to the age of sexual consent. There have been a small number of cases where defendants have attempted to defend their actions by claiming they have issues concerning normal human development, even in some cases claiming they are children themselves “trapped in an adult body“, but in these cases there is no evidence that such defendants were part of a larger campaign to lure society into accepting an age fluidity label.

When such terms suddenly appear on the Internet without any ostensible offline substance, this could be an indication of an organised prank or case of “Internet trolling”, which are frequently started on bulletin board websites such as 4Chan. In fact 4Chan may well be a prime suspect given that in 2017, it was that website that “trolled” the Internet with a (suspiciously similar) made-up label, clovergender, to describe “children trapped in an adults body”.

From the popular KnowYourMeme –

“Clovergender” is a fake gender identity term for pedophiles who supposedly identify as children. The term was coined by members of 4chan as part of an internet hoax campaign to discredit sexual minorities and LGBTQ activists.

The message above wraps up with question “Where do you think all of the missing children are going” before then going on to suggest the answer is connected to the “age fluid” label. Needless to say, this suggestion is of course a gross over simplification of an extremely serious and complex problem,

Ultimately, there appears to be little discernable support for the “age fluid” label, across all demographics, including from LGBTQ communities, and no tangible indication that there is any serious attempt by any individual, group or entity to promote the “age fluid” label, much less use it as some type of cover to legitimatise pedophilia. On the face of it, it just appears to be an empty made-for-hashtag label designed to conjure up anger and objection from those that may already be opposed to labels such as gender fluidity.