An enormous amount of gatekeepers don’t interact with local queer groups and communities at all. The younger ones don’t have access, and the older ones got black listed a long time ago for being vile.

That lack of access, for the younger ones, is why they are so easily targeted by older radfem types, and is why the age of gatekeepers is so skewed towards young people, btw. They have no way to experience actual queer communities, so they get sucked into this awful, dangerous parody of it.

That was a rhetorical question but this is a damn good answer

I keep seeing my comment on my own dashboard and I just want to say to all the people in the notes who are insisting that I’m making this up that I’ve been out and active in queer politics for 15 years now, in various locations throughout the US as well as in international locations my extended family live in, and trust me when I say, nope. This is legit.

The way adult gatekeepers act gets them thrown out for being vicious more often than not, and leaves them with two options: make their own closed groups where they can interact with like minded bigots away from the main queer spaces in an area, or go online.

Most of them these days pick “go online,” and that’s how they end up finding young queer kids who, for any number of reasons, have not been given access to queer spaces in person, and work on indoctrinating them.

I have seen it happen in person, and I have seen so many people who narrowly escaped that indoctrination, usually when the gatekeeping groups that tried to absorb them revealed themselves to be bigoted in other ways (racism is a common one) that made people realize they needed to leave.

It’s a real thing. Sorry. I’m glad so many of y'all apparently “haven’t seen it” but it’s very much Out There.