Law’s sharp, unembellished delivery ensures that the often horrifying realities hit hard: the history of violence against queer Australians, the anguish many queer children must face every day, the pitiless rhetoric of those who dismiss them. Built on in-depth interviews with proponents of both sides of the argument, Moral Panic 101 is often positioned as a conversation between Law, his sources, and the reader. To read the essay is to sit alongside its author, discovering how the particular and particularly cruel alienation of queer youth is ignored for the sake of political capital.

Ultimately, the essay is about belief and how easily it is given. It shows how we come to trust in wild, baseless stories, and how radically those stories can change when we look past the news cycle and pay attention to the details. Law begins the piece with the assumption that ‘everyone invested in the discussion wants the same thing: to keep kids safe’. The discussion fails when unsafe children cannot be heard above it.