...but whether we like it or not (and obviously, we don't), progress generally occurs in bits and pieces, not in leaps and bounds. Even certain changes that seemed to have occurred in dramatic or sudden fashion (e.g., Stonewall) were the result of incremental steps occurring that finally acted as a catalyst for something big to ensue. As the trenchant political observation goes, "revolution is actually the culmination of evolution."

The LGBTQ community achieving what you mentioned was a long, hard road. It took well over a century, and during that time they were portrayed in media (when they were mentioned at all) in much the same way we are now. Liberals of the time certainly didn't support them, and in fact it took liberals a long time before they began accepting the various minority groups they outright coddle today. They added one after the other to their Acceptance List as more unbiased information on the group in question became available to them and as it eventually became politically "safe" enough to add them to that list as a result.

We need to acknowledge these little bits of obvious progress, which are steps (not leaps) and hints that bigger changes are to come:

1. With the advent of social media & video-sharing platforms, we see many girls, many of them clearly pre-teen, increasingly expressing themselves sexually in subtle but obvious ways to avoid having their accounts suspended for "violating" the standards of YouTube, etc. These take the form of the now popular self-made & uploaded "morning routine" videos, or "shower routine" videos (the latter often lumped in with the former), where the girls in question frequently appear in revealing clothing and in often barely self-censored showering scenes. You also see them frequently sharing videos where they visited the water park with their friends or spend time in the pool clad only in swimsuits, or the gymnastics videos where they are almost always clad in form-fitting and/or revealing leotards to perform moves that are titillating to the eye in subtle but obvious ways that are not mere projecting on the part of the viewers.

Yes, the antis will argue that the girls are just "innocently" sharing a part of their lives that mean a lot to them, and are naively unaware that any "puerile" adults are actually watching their videos (let alone any of their male or lesbian/bi female peers) to admire their great beauty in addition to their talent as gymnasts/contortionists. But as Dante might say: O rly?! You will note the majority of the times you see them showing themselves having fun at amusement parks outside the water parks is when the parents are obviously present and largely conducting the filming themselves. You never see parents involved with the morning routine or shower videos. You rarely see parents involved with the leotard try-on haul videos unless they are promoting the girls as models. Sometimes parents are involved with the pool videos, but more often they are not. If girls want to express aspects of their sexual beauty in this day and age on social media, they are well aware they need to do it in a covert manner, and they find a way. And these types of videos are increasing by the thousands, far too many for video-sharing media like YouTube, Daily Motion, or Instagram to effectively stop.

Girls fully understand they are physically beautiful, and that conducting activities which show off that beauty as well as some of their other talents related to the physical form will be admired by many people of all ages. They know they look sexy and attractive in leotards, swimsuits, and other types of attire. They know they are going to be admired by many in that fashion, and they do not find it inherently revolting. And most importantly, they are well aware that they cannot be open or blatant about the expression like their adult counterparts can, and thus have to find ways of incorporating it into the context of seemingly innocuous, non-sexual activities. Contrary to popular belief, not only are pre-teen girls not inherently asexual, but they are not stupid and incapable of working the new technological avenues available to them in ways that get past the constant controlling scrutiny of adults. The fact that all of these videos routinely have thousands of views likewise runs counter to the contention that it's only peers interested in gymnastics or the intricacies of a morning routine along with a small handful of perverted adults who are watching them. And also contrary to common belief, the girl owners of these channels know this too.

2. The same video-sharing platforms are likewise increasingly playing host to videos of girls (yes, and boys, but we will focus on girls for our purposes) who display their competency and potential on a variety of topics and endeavors, as well as allowing them to have an actual voice in society on a wide variety of topics. These include the often awesomely informative make-up tutorials, discussions of fashion and pop culture, recording of skits and acting scenarios, expressing their political opinions--and with increasingly younger channel owners, thus making pre-teen girls as young as six years old displaying considerably greater degrees of sophistication than their counterparts in the 20th century ever could. They are gradually creating their own subculture, and refusing to be limited to only the synthetic youth culture created for them by "concerned" adults. They are proving how far their potential for greatness happens to be, and how empty the claims of adults who insist they must be kept away from having a major voice in society actually are. In short, their potential to function as competent members of a society that respects them on their individual merits is becoming much too evident to ignore, and increasingly difficult to suppress via the "flag" buttons.

3. Note the increasing amount of truly open-minded research papers and studies conducted on us by fair-minded researchers over the past decade like Richard Green, Andrew Extein, Carin Freimond, Alyson Walker & Vanessa Padfil, Marshall Burns, and Mikkel Rast Pederson. And even papers from researchers like Sara Jehnke, which do seem to assume that the inherent immorality of sexual contact between kids and adults is a given rather than being neutral on the issue, but nevertheless take a strong acknowledgement in favor of recent research indicating pedophilia (and, by proxy, hebephilia) is a legitimate sexual orientation, MAPs are certainly not inherently sociopathic, are not inherently incapable of living law-abiding lives, and that social control and stigmatization are not warranted.

It's going to be a while before researchers can openly advocate for the alternative, and we need to accept that right now; but the number willing to take a neutral stance on the issue is a major step forward that we should not ignore. We have also entered the era where a well-known MAP like Tom O'Carroll is respected enough to have a peer-reviewed research paper published in an important psychological journal. (I am too busy right now to provide links to all of these, but they are not hard to find via Google and Tom's own blog, and I plan on making another post that includes such links.)

Note that some of these researchers are members of the LGBTQ community, thus disproving the contention among some of the more alt-right members of the pro-choice camp that the gay/trans community are eternally pre-disposed to being hostile to us for their own political expediency and hence deserve a combination of our condemnation and envy. Some of them have a strong sense of genuine social justice (not the faux version of "social justice" practiced by the ironically-named SJWs), and are capable of both individually and collectively getting past the socio-political pressures that caused them to abandon the radical aspects of their early days as a movement and throw us under the bus by the time the 1980s came around. Let us also keep in mind that the late Harry Hay, in many ways the father of the LGBTQ movement during a point in time when it took actual courage to be openly gay in the U.S., never turned against the MAP community and strongly protested the centrist/assimilationist politics the LGBTQ community adopted once the Great Backlash of the 1980s occurred.

4. The major rebirth of the youth liberation movement is fighting for the rights of younger people to be treated as fully realized human beings and both legally and socially judged on their individual merits on an entirely different front than our own. As you might imagine, the youth lib movement has both moderates and radicals among them, largely in almost equal number, with the former being incongruously in favor of retaining age of consent laws and a few other emotionally volatile restrictions on youth rights. However, the radicals, which contain the bulk of members who are actual youths along with many adults, are strongly opposed to the age of consent laws--some of them out of simple principle, others due to the fact that they are mesophiles and believe they have the inherent right to form romantic relationships with adults every bit as much as they should have the right to vote, choose their own form of education, enjoy full freedom of speech, the right to work, etc. Among the recent steps forward for the youth lib movement of today is the recent trend of many U.S. municipalities to lower the voting age to 16 and more youths running serious campaigns for public office. The success in lowering the voting age to 16 in more municipalities opens the door to eventually lowering the voting age to 16 on a national level, which in turn sets precedent for eventually lowering it to 14, which in turn sets the precedent towards abolishing the voting age altogether, etc., et al.

5. The claims by the antis that mesophilia doesn't exist (or that mesophiles are so minuscule in number that they're not even worth acknowledging by the adults who write social policy), or that expressions of it in youths are indicative of emotional instability (sound familiar?) is roundly contradicted not only by the recent studies of Marshall Burns and his emerging resource for the youth voice on this side of the issue, but even Blanchard acknowledged the existence of this attraction base; and by an important published peer-reviewed study by Dr. Michael Seto in 2016 that officially coined the term "mesophile" for this attraction base. Attempts by the antis and anti-legalization "wing" of the MAP/King community to ignore this research or to downplay its importance and implications is not going to make the mesophiles go away any more than society at large has succeeded in making MAPs go away or be legislated out of existence. It's another thorn in their side that constitutes a major monkey wrench thrown into their cherished narrative by reality.

6. The strong biases against us in all aspects of media and popular fiction in any given medium are definitely and unfortunately true. However, the tide has now at least turned to the point where it's possible for a small indie press like Caitlin Press to publish Chelsea Rooney's very important novel Pedal, which may be the first ever novel to feature a realistic portrayal of a law-abiding pedophile as one of the book's two central protagonists, and not as a villain in any way. The book also provides a forcefully sincere (albeit not quite perfect) attempt by the author to explore the concept in a fair and balanced way that questions the prevailing assumptions. And it has stayed on the market, garnering a 4.5 out of 5 rating on Goodreads at this writing. Pedal did not become a national sensation, but it's a very important pioneering effort that may yet be recognized for that in the future, especially considering the modern realities of digital publishing & distribution enable it to remain in print for perpetuity.

Please keep all of the above in mind, my friend, whenever frustration and, worse, despair begin gnawing at you. Your anger and frustration are very understandable, and we all feel it at times. But do not let it convince you that absolutely no progress is occurring. I also fully understand that the fact progress typically takes such time in comparison to the short human lifespan to reach complete fruition can lead to extreme frustration on our parts, but do not let that fool you into thinking that incremental progress is not happening at all. Our opponents take great delight in using the time that progress takes to claim that none is occurring at all and that our efforts and hopes are utterly futile, but a closer and objective look at what is now unfolding in society proves they are wrong. And contrary to their claims, the current wave of naysayers they represent are not going to be the first in the history of human civilization to actually cheat that history of its tendency towards fundamental change over time. All they can do is ride the wave of time it takes for progress to occur for as long as they possibly can. Let us make the choice of not riding it with them, but instead to continue riding our own separate wave that history has shown is destined to ultimately outlast theirs.