Lecter A.A. Wierstamann

This is a restored post from my WordPress. Originally posted on August 3, 2022. I still agree with everything I said here.

Several months ago I tried to define map rights, and I came up with the following four:

1. The right to good faith assumption, privacy, and safety, equal to those granted to peer attracted people in similar circumstances.
2. The right to information and education on map topics, available freely and to everyone.
3. The right to gather and give each other support uninterrupted.
4. The right to be prioritized in all discussions of minor attraction.

I want to describe what each of these means in practice.

The right to good faith assumption, privacy, and safety, equal to those granted to peer attracted people in similar circumstances.

This means that maps deserve to be treated equally. If you see a map doing something, you should not act worse towards them that you would act towards someone who is not a map and who is doing the exact same thing. You should not suspect a map of wanting to abuse children under the same circumstances where you would not suspect a non-map. You should not limit or regulate private life of a map more than you would regulate a non-map in the same situation.

The right to information and education on map topics, available freely and to everyone.

Information about maps and mapness should not be censored and branded as inherently 18+, inherently connected to child sexual abuse. Moreover, it should be featured in basic education about orientations, including education, aimed at children.

The right to gather and give each other support uninterrupted.

Map support groups should not be automatically suspected to be revolving around sex/sexual abuse. They should not require non-map supervision to function. They should not be shut down without any actual proof of harm, coming from them.

The right to be prioritized in all discussions of minor attraction.

Any discussion of minor attraction as a whole and its subgroups (such as pedophilia) should take place with input from maps. “Nothing about us without us”, the basic principle of any marginalized group. This means non-maps do not get to speak over maps when the topic is maps and mapness, even if they consider themselves “victims of pedophilia”.

All together, these four rights are not the end goal of the map movement (that would be elimination of any attraction-based prejudice), but important things to fight for right now, things that would make being a map much safer and put maps in charge of themselves. Some can only be achieved by long, meticulous working against teleiosupremacy and undermining the dominant narrative from the bottom. Some can also be achieved by collaboration with select representatives of the majority, such as supportive researchers, willing to platform map voices.