Gender is not specified in the trope description. So lesbian characters being accused/turning out to be paedos is a perfectly valid example.
I'll also point out that the trope is not under the Always Male index. So no, it's not gender-specific.
Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Jan 3rd 2024 at 3:38:23 AM
The description doesn't lock it down to just men, and there are a handful of examples / wicks that talk about women. In fact the description implicitly says it's not just about men since it says "especially men", implying that others fall under the scope as well, just less commonly. And my personal opinion is that Tropes Are Flexible enough to cover more than one gender.
I guess another way to put it is, if examples about women didn't count, where would they go? They're certainly examples of something, and a hypothetical "All Lesbians are Pedophiles" trope would most likely get called out as redundant with this one.
It is worth noting that the original YKTTW
was much more explicitly male-specific, which remained the case at launch
. I'm not sure there's any compelling reason for the trope to be that way; if you wanted to be absolutely certain you'd probably need some sort of advanced sociological study about whether there are/were gendered differences in the perception of gay people being pedophiles that would be beyond the scope of the wiki and might not be worth the effort. (Notably, while the change from "homosexual men" to "homosexuals (especially men)" could be considered to have been made unilaterally, it was part of a series of serial tweaks to the description fairly early in its history by multiple tropers
, including Fast Eddie, which could be considered giving an implicit blessing to the change.)
Edited by MorganWick on Jan 4th 2024 at 1:00:42 AM
My two cents: the harmful stereotype in this case is about gay men; there's no corresponding prejudice about lesbians (unless I'm wrong, in which case, please enlighten me). Historically, it has been much more common to simply treat lesbians as invisible rather than to vilify them.
Adding "oh, and lesbians too" when there simply isn't a common belief about lesbians being child molesters would be shoehorning.
So it's a question of whether the trope is flexible enough to allow lesbians in examples. I can see on the page that it's almost all gay men in the example list, which makes sense if you know of the stereotype. But like, if a work goes, "Okay, gay women exist. And they're child molesters!!", does that fit the spirit even if it's not 1:1?
Maybe? The issue is that this is based on a specific stereotype, one that just doesn't apply to lesbians. It's not impossible for a work to make these claims anyway, but the spirit seems to be the stereotype about gay men.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
So what should we do about this?
Make tweak the description to make it about gay males? Then put it under Always Male while noting the female examples as Gender Inverted Examples?
That's only assuming the trope isn't flexible enough to apply to lesbians.
I mean, I'm not that bothered if lesbian examples exist. I just don't think it makes sense if we're looking at the stereotype.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallIs it the idea of the trope to include women? We are talking about bigotry; by definition, it is not automatically equal by gender. That and expanding a trope past the underlying stereotype often means that we end up with coincidence examples.
In this case, a work having a child abuser that happens to be of the same gender might evoke associations to the trope if the abuser is male because of the stereotype. Whereas a lesbian child abuser would not b/c the stereotype isn't applicable there, thus making an example a mere coincidence.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanMoved it out of the "gay men" folder on Homophobia Index and placed it under "Applies to all LGBT people"
Btw, this trope is often applied to trans people as well and I have seen that notion pop up a few times, but we may have to TRS if we wanna tweek the description for that.

Question that came up in the locked pages thread: Is All Gays Are Pedophiles a trope solely about male homosexuals or does it allow lesbians as well? My understanding was that the stereotype is primarily, or exclusively, about males; women in general tend to be ignored in conversations about child abuse.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman