Trust me I'm a scientist...

People, please be careful. There are also people tracking children and people and putting bids on them based on their profile pictures on whatsapp, tracking and kidnapping them. Especially young children, so please be cautious, especially parents who have their children as their profile pictures.

DO NOT CLICK LINKS IN TEXTS EVER. GO TO ACTUAL WEBSITES FOR ONES YOU RECOGNIZE AND TYPE IN THE URL. OR A BOOKMARK IF YOU HAVE ONE. DON’T CLICK LINKS IN TEXTS AND SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGES/DMS AND EMAILS. EVEN IF YOU KNOW THE PERSON. TAKE EXTREME CAUTION. 

IF YOU’RE GUTS SAYS EH WOULDN’T DO THAT BUDDY. LISTEN. 

Hey

So, rewind a little more than a year. I’d just started my new job, which is unimportant to the story apart from the basic nature: I get on the phone with people to help them open financial accounts, and I spend maybe 15-30 minutes helping them do so. It’s complex, the computer systems I have to use are finicky, and it’s laden down with a lot of bureaucratic red tape.

My very first day live on the job, I was a nervous wreck. There were so many things I needed to keep track of, and I was having to talk to people over the phone for the first time in years, which meant my voice dysphoria was at an all-time high.

Then I got this client. I don’t actually recall his name and I couldn’t tell it to you even if I did, so let’s call him Bob.

Bob was elderly and had lived a hard life. He was transferring the contents of his pitifully small 401k from Walmart into a more accessible account, and I was helping him set that up. He came on the line cranky and more than a little paranoid. He asked me repeatedly if we were going to tell the government about his money, grumbled at me about the information I had to collect to get the account opened, made a few political statements with which I heartily disagreed. It was not a bad call, but I was definitely on edge.

Then it came time to set up a beneficiary on his account – someone who would inherit the account if he passed away.

And he paused, and then he said, “My daughter.”

I asked for her name and date of birth for the listing, and Bob told me. But then he went on.

“I want to tell you about her,” he said. “She’s very special to me.

“You see, I didn’t always have her. Years ago I had a son. And my wife and I, we loved our son so much. He was our perfect boy. We watched him grow up, he made it into college, he got a job. I never went to college, you know? But he did. I was so proud of that.

“Then, one day, he disappeared. Stopped calling, stopped visiting, stopped everything. Six years, we didn’t know what had happened to him, if he was alive, if he was dead, nothing. It was…”

He paused there, his voice creaking like it was about to break. I could see where this was going, and I was rapt.

“Then we got a letter,” he went on. “From her. She told us everything, explained it all. That she was–” He paused, then said “transgender” as if it were a foreign word that he wasn’t entirely sure how to pronounce. “That he’d – she’d – disappeared like that because she was afraid of what we’d say. What I’d say. Maybe what I’d do. But she missed us and she wanted us to get to know her as she really is.”

He paused there, pretty clearly waiting for my reaction. I said something – I barely remember what – about how scary it must have been for her, and how hard for Bob and his wife not to hear from their child for so long.

“It was,” he agreed. “But you gotta know this. I love my daughter.” He said it with his whole being, with every bit of power and meaning that his thin, aged voice could hold. “I love my daughter, and I’m so proud of her. She’s getting married next month, and I thank God for letting me live long enough to walk her down the aisle, just like every girl deserves. She is the light of my life.”

At the end of a long, intimidating, tiring day, his fierce love for his trans daughter took my breath away. I’m always going to remember Bob – remember how he wasn’t perfect, wasn’t progressive, didn’t really know the etiquette or the language, but how deep and intense his love for his daughter was. How he told this to me, a stranger, as though daring me to say even the slightest rude word about her.

There is love in this world. Sometimes, it comes from the people you would least expect. It might not look quite like you think it will. But it is out there.

I was a teenager once. I get it. Everyone lies about their age online. Maybe not to other people, but I’m sure every minor has clicked a ‘yeah, sure, I’m 18+” button at some point in their lives. I’m not here to shame you for that.

What I am here to say is it is vital that teenagers understand the difference between engaging in sexual content independently (ie, entering a fake birthday to access 18+ content), and lying about your age to engage in sexual activities with others online (joining discord servers/using nsfw channels intended for adults only/lying about your age to talk to nsfw content creators/commissioning nsfw art/etc).

Lying about your age to a website so you can look at porn is one thing. It’s an entirely independent experience, where the only consent that really matters is yours. Nobody has any power over you in this situation, and there’s about no chance of legal consequences.

However, lying about your age to other human beings is extremely different. If you’re engaging in nsfw roleplay with a friend about the same age as you, talking about sex with other teenagers, sharing nsfw fics among friends, that’s one thing. But do not lie about your age to engage in sexual activities/discussions. Not only is something that could have actual legal ramifications, and very serious ones depending on what’ going on, but it’s a violation of the other people’s consent. The moment other real people are involved, you need to be respectful of their boundaries & what is and isn’t appropriate for you to be engaging with. If they say no minors, I don’t care if you’re 17.5, you stay out until you are 18 years old.

Examples of situations where it is never okay to lie or mislead anyone about your age online include:

Joining/accessing nsfw channels or servers on discord.

Yes, I know it’s very easy to just click that little red button on discord that lets you access the channel you’re so curious about. It looks just like the one you see on adult websites that you click without thinking.

Don’t do it.

If channels are 18+ then you stay out of them. There are other real life human beings involved who did not give consent to have a minor in an adult orientated space.

Engaging with nsfw creators/content directly

ie, commissioning nsfw artwork, following or talking to nsfw creators who’ve asked for no interactions from minors/flagged their accounts as 18+ only, subscribing to nsfw creators on patron, nsfw roleplay, etc.

Joining/engaging with adult only communities, like Fetlife or cam sites.

Engaging in romantic and/or sexual online relationships

Any time you are talking with one or more other real human beings, particularly any adults, in a sexual context.

I know that adult websites have basically trained teenagers to just say they’re 18 and move on, but it is vital that teenagers understand that it is never okay to lie about your age when directly engaging in any kind of sexual activity. Knowing people’s age is a vital part of consent, and if an adult is found to have been engaging in sexual activity with a minor, they could face life long legal consequences. Not only that, but a basic facet of consent is clear, honest communication. If you are lying to a partner, then you do not have consent. Lying about your age is a huge violation of consent.

That’s not to say you can never mention sex around adults online. There are times and places where you may be asking for advice, or even just making jokes about sex or whatever. That’s all well and good, so long as everyone is on the same page. It’s on adults to make sure that we are behaving appropriately around minors online, and make sure that we’re setting boundaries in those relationships. But it’s on minors to communicate that they are minors, and respect those boundaries that are set.

So, tl;dr,

look how much fun they’re both having! yes!

and also this couple, who are both wheelchair users