I actually don't support banning AI-generated child porn.

Why? Because I am a pedophile. I am a groomer. I AM pornography.

I have no sexual interest in children whatsoever. But it does not matter, I am a pedophile. In real life, I work as an educator. I've worked with children my entire career, and I would sooner jump off a bridge before hurting one. But it does not matter, I am a groomer. I have never in my life taken my clothes off in front of a camera, but I am not just pornographic, I am pornography.

I don't consume pornography. I do not take images with my clothes off. But I am pornography. My body is pornographic. My face is pornographic. My voice is pornographic. My very spirit and soul are pornography.

I am a pedophile. I am a groomer. I am pornography. At least according to the people who run the US Federal government.

In reality, I am none of these things. But it does not matter. I am trans, so I am these things simply by default. According to a decent portion of the population my very existence is inappropriate to discuss around children.

The US has very strong first amendment protections. The only reason queer media is legal in most of the US is because historically the Supreme Court has ruled that broad first amendment protections can only be violated under certain very specific and tightly-defined circumstances. Texas would love to declare any queer website or magazine to be illegal pornography, but existing jurisprudence prevents this.

Child pornography, like all pornography, by default would be protected by the first amendment. Yes, it's abominable and disgusting, but a substantial amount of people consider my existence to be abominable and disgusting. Media discussing or featuring trans people and LGBT folks in general can only exist because something being abominable and disgusting is not enough legal justification to override the first amendment. You cannot ban speech simply because you find it immoral or disgusting.

The Supreme Court has allowed banning child porn, but only under an extremely limited exception to the first amendment. And that exception is that the images involved are generated from real harm done to real children. Using this standard has been a great boon to the US. We've been able to ban child porn while also keeping the government's hands tied against banning the media of unpopular minority groups.

Under current jurisprudence, laws declaring media involving trans people to be illegal pornography are unconstitutional. The government can't point to real harm done to real children as a result of trans people simply being in a piece of media, so they can't ban it.

But the moment you relax that standard, the flood gates open. If you can ban porn that never actually resulted in any harm to a real human child, at that point you're banning porn simply because you find it gross and immoral. And if you can do that, you can ban the media of all sorts of communities people find immoral.

I loathe the idea of someone operating a legal child porn generator. But I also cannot ignore the fact that according to the very people running the US Federal government, any image or video of me is pornographic by default. I'm a trans person that's medically transitioned. I've permanently altered my body in substantial ways. According to Project 2025, any media depicting a person presenting in a way contrary to their sex assigned at birth is pornographic. And it is literally not possible for me to be in an image without appearing in a way very different from my birth sex. To conservatives, my very existence is pornographic.

So forgive me for being extremely skeptical of any effort to relax the very legal standards that have protected millions of people from persecution. Remember, every effort to restrict rights is always sold as an effort to "protect the children." But just like how now the word "terrorist" has completely lost all meaning, once you grant anything called "child pornography" broad first amendment exemptions, suddenly everything will start to be classified as child porn. Yes, abandoning our current standard of real demonstrable harm would allow us to put some more actual pedophiles in jail. But untying the government's hands and giving it broad new authority to police speech will harm millions of innocent people.