Quotes from a self-identified MAP were added.The following statement was read in the House of Assembly today by the Honourable Pam Parsons, Minister Responsible for the Office of Women and Gender Equality: Correction: The headline of this article has been changed to reflect the fact that some online There is no evidence that the flag created in June 2018 to represent MAPs is part of a wider campaign to normalize pedophilia or include it under the LGBT umbrella, as several associations told AFP. Jennifer Boyce, spokesperson for Egale Canada, another national nonprofit working to promote human rights and inclusion for the LGBTQ community, also told AFP: “No, we were not previously aware of this flag.” “I don’t think Pflag Canada has heard of this,” Omid Razavi, media coordinator for Pflag Canada, a national nonprofit dedicated to helping families understand their relatives’ sexual orientation, told AFP of the MAP flag. “I received death threats from trolls last year as a result of this flag being attached to my CSA (child sexual abuse) prevention project when I had no idea what it even was,” she told AFP. “The flag has nothing to do with normalizing pedophiles or an attempt to make pedophilia a part of the LGBTQ movement,” Candice Christiansen, founder of The Global Prevention Project, told AFP.Ĭhristiansen, who has received criticism for her work in the past because it was interpreted as an attempt at normalizing pedophilia, said she was targeted because of the flag. So it is hard to tell what’s really happening!” Russell Dick told AFP, “We think there may be some anti-MAPs posing as MAPs and doing various things to create and maintain a very negative picture and understanding of MAPs. Screenshot of a Twitter account on July 11, 2019ĭetermining the difference between real MAPs who embrace or refuse the flag and trolls posing as MAPs is complicated by the anonymity provided by pseudonyms and aliases used online. “The NOMAP community doesn’t really have a pride flag, so in honor of pride month I designed a NOMAP pride flag,” the self-proclaimed flag designer wrote, before going in detail over the meaning of each colour. One user of the online platform for visual content presented the flag on a thread dedicated to acceptance of MAPs, “Support NOMAPS” (for non-offending minor attracted persons). The earliest online instance of the flag appears to be this Tumblr page, archived by US fact-checking website Snopes, which called the initiative a troll experiment. These include nepiophiles (attracted to babies and toddlers), pedophiles (attracted to prepubescent children), hebephiles (attracted to pubescent children and early adolescents), and ephebophiles (attracted to late adolescents).ĭue to past criticism, The Global Prevention Project states in bold font on its website a disclaimer on the use of the term MAP: “To reiterate, this is not a term we invented, NOR is it a term used to rebrand pedophiles OR link them to the LGBTQ community.” The concept of Minor-Attracted Persons (MAPs), which is perceived by some as part of the attempt to normalize pedophilia, is an umbrella term used by organizations such as B4U-ACT or The Global Prevention Project, an organization that addresses “risky sexual thoughts, fantasies, and non-contact problematic sexual behavior in adult men and women,” in order to prevent child sexual abuse, as well as some researchers, to define a variety of people attracted to minors. Russell Dick, co-founder of B4U-ACT, a non-profit organization that promotes resources for self-identified individuals who are sexually attracted to children, told AFP that his organization hasn’t seen “any MAPs trying to become part of the LGBT movement but have seen some MAPs denying it in apparent response to such accusations.” However, no evidence suggests a concerted effort to push for the inclusion of MAPs in the LGBT community with the use of the flag. Together, these articles and forum posts were shared more than 20,000 times on Facebook, according to social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle.
In 2018, news websites such as The Daily Caller and LifeSite News claimed that pedophiles were attempting to be included in the LGBTQ community, while on the online forum 4chan, a user looking for “images that prove LGBT community is advocating for pedophilia,” was given the flag as a reference. This sort of warning post began to flourish on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in June 2018, and resurfaced in 2019 during Pride Month.