Can We Discuss Sex & Gender / Transgender People?

[Loren Pechtel]

Please don't suggest that women need to feed their babies in a bathroom stall. Too often, that's their only option. It's much better for women to have access to a lounge with a comfortable chair and some privacy, whether it is to breastfeed or pump or even for some babies bottle feed. It can be difficult for some women to get their milk to let down in a less than private space and some infants, both bottle fed and breast fed, do not feed well with distractions around them.

That's without considering the health/hygiene issues! Which are very, very significant!

Not to mention that we'd never suggest that men have to eat their lunch on the toilet.

But yes to more family lounges! For feeding/changing of infants!

Seconded. While diaper-changing facilities belong in restrooms nursing facilities should be separate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think the best approach is to make three bathrooms--men/women/any. See what happens. Remove any laws that interfere with permitting this. Nobody is forced to use a bathroom that doesn't match their presentation, no woman is forced to use a bathroom that might contain a penis.

There are no laws that prohibit this.

Indecent exposure laws do in some places.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The "woman" sign will keep out the creeps but it won't keep out the actual threats. You have a false sense of security.

Bullshit. The woman sign makes it clear that any male (who isn't a child) is where he doesn't belong and would immediately put women on notice to have him evicted.

If there are the women there to evict him then there was no danger of a rape in the first place.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

I like the way that kids have been playing with gender at gay-straight alliance meetings. They're coming up with ideas that we never would have considered only a decade ago, and while I do not believe that an adolescent's idea of fun is necessarily a completed template for revolutionizing our society, I think it is a solid start on rethinking millennia-old assumptions about "what must be."

Out of curiosity, since I'm sure we could do a lot better than we do, what ideas do the kids have that you consider a "solid start"?

Tom

ETA~Also, what do you mean by kids?~

Typical age for a gay-straight alliance at 21st Century schools. They are experimenting with a variety of approaches to sexuality and gender expression. This includes the asexual spectrum. I am not sure which of those ideas will eventually stick.

 

[TomC]

I like the way that kids have been playing with gender at gay-straight alliance meetings. They're coming up with ideas that we never would have considered only a decade ago, and while I do not believe that an adolescent's idea of fun is necessarily a completed template for revolutionizing our society, I think it is a solid start on rethinking millennia-old assumptions about "what must be."

Out of curiosity, since I'm sure we could do a lot better than we do, what ideas do the kids have that you consider a "solid start"?

Tom

ETA~Also, what do you mean by kids?~

Typical age for a gay-straight alliance at 21st Century schools. They are experimenting with a variety of approaches to sexuality and gender expression. This includes the asexual spectrum. I am not sure which of those ideas will eventually stick.

Well, I suppose that's as straight an answer as I could expect.
Tom

 

[SigmatheZeta]

I like the way that kids have been playing with gender at gay-straight alliance meetings. They're coming up with ideas that we never would have considered only a decade ago, and while I do not believe that an adolescent's idea of fun is necessarily a completed template for revolutionizing our society, I think it is a solid start on rethinking millennia-old assumptions about "what must be."

Out of curiosity, since I'm sure we could do a lot better than we do, what ideas do the kids have that you consider a "solid start"?

Tom

ETA~Also, what do you mean by kids?~

Typical age for a gay-straight alliance at 21st Century schools. They are experimenting with a variety of approaches to sexuality and gender expression. This includes the asexual spectrum. I am not sure which of those ideas will eventually stick.

Well, I suppose that's as straight an answer as I could expect.
Tom

Were you wanting something more specific? I am not in any of those clubs. I know little about them. What does leak out comes across to me as very healthy. Ask one of them.

 

[Metaphor]

Seems like "queer" makes more sense in this situation, although certainly others take a different view. I mean, Sigma is male, and sexually oriented toward males... which would historically be considered gay. But Sigma is also transgender, and views themself as a woman... and being attracted to males would make her straight. I tend to dislike the term "queer", given it's history as an abusive slur, but this is a case where I don't really think that either gay or straight actually works well.

I despise the term 'queer' and there is no conceivable situation in which I would use it apply to myself. I'm just interested in finding out when people do use it, what they mean. It seems to me to imply a political orientation more than a sexual one.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm sorry this has happened to you. My son was attacked multiple times in the bathroom (at 14 and 15 years old) being told to "prove" he was a guy. He eventually dropped out of school from fear of being attacked. And he went to a LIBERAL school. People suck and fear what they don't understand and it peeves me to no end reading thread after thread from certain people on this board hating or questioning transgendered persons. MY SON HAS A RIGHT TO LIVE HIS LIFE IN PEACE. But I know society is NOT going to make it easy for him.

Nobody should be physically attacked, but your child is female and tried to use a sex-segregated space reserved for males.

Why did you find it necessary to add a "but" there?

It is as if you are in some way trying to excuse that behavior.

If I were trying to excuse it, I'd have said the behaviour was justified. I don't know what Playball40 means by 'attacked' - I assumed physical but perhaps not.

The events illustrate two things to me: people generally perceive the sex of others correctly, and that people treat male bathrooms as sex-segregated.

None of that tells me why you felt it necessary to add ", but" after "Nobody should be physically attacked". One usually only does so to point out some mitigating circumstance, and I don't think that your "but" should be considered a mitigating circumstance to being physically attacked.

If my sentence structure offends you, I don't know what to say.

It isn't the sentence structure that is offensive, but rather the meaning that it conveys.

Suggesting a reason for the behaviour is not excusing it.

 

[TomC]

I despise the term 'queer' and there is no conceivable situation in which I would use it apply to myself. I'm just interested in finding out when people do use it, what they mean. It seems to me to imply a political orientation more than a sexual one.

I like, prefer even, the term queer. Mainly because it's so vague, but also because it's "reclaiming" a perjorative from the olden days. Kinda like black people reclaiming the term nigger.

What I especially like about queer is that it doesn't mean anything so precise as to exclude anyone. I'm queer. Sigmathezeta is queer. Rupaul is queer. You're queer. We may have nothing else in common, but we're all queer.

Frankly, I include whitebread straight people willing to stand up for basic civil equality(even when it isn't popular or safe) as queer. Although, I usually add "honorary" so as not to give people the wrong idea. For example, @Toni and @ZiprHead and @Emily Lake are honorary queers, as opposed to @Jarhyn or @Lumpenproletariat.

Another way I'm queer is that while I'm very homosexual I'm very socially conservative. Gay males as prudish as I am aren't the norm. We're queer, even as queers go.
To paraphrase a buddy from church, "Dang! You move to the fringes of society. Then to the fringes of the fringes." (He is a straight boy who also lives in semi-rural southern Indiana.)

Tom

 

[Metaphor]

I despise the term 'queer' and there is no conceivable situation in which I would use it apply to myself. I'm just interested in finding out when people do use it, what they mean. It seems to me to imply a political orientation more than a sexual one.

I like, prefer even, the term queer. Mainly because it's so vague, but also because it's "reclaiming" a perjorative from the olden days. Kinda like black people reclaiming the term nigger.

The vagueness is part of the reason that I object to it.

If a man tells me he is gay, I know what I'm getting. If a man tells me he is queer....that means what, exactly?

What I especially like about queer is that it doesn't mean anything so precise as to exclude anyone.

That's what's wrong with it!

I'm queer. Sigmathezeta is queer. Rupaul is queer. You're queer. We may have nothing else in common, but we're all queer.

Douglas Murray (UK commentator) has said he is gay, not 'queer'.

Frankly, I include whitebread straight people willing to stand up for basic civil equality(even when it isn't popular or safe) as queer.

That's the worst aspect of the word 'queer'. I see a lot of left and hard-left articles with authors describing themselves as 'queer Muslimas' or 'queer women of colour' - as if 'queer' burnished their credentials. But it seems to me that the vast majority are just straight women who have never had a non-heterosexual thought in their life, look and present feminine, and have never had gender dysphoria or anything like it. They're just straight women.

Words have flexibility but when the LGBTQ alphabet soup includes straight people, I'm out. I'm just gay.

Although, I usually add "honorary" so as not to give people the wrong idea. For example, @Toni and @ZiprHead and @Emily Lake are honorary queers, as opposed to @Jarhyn or @Lumpenproletariat.

Another way I'm queer is that while I'm very homosexual I'm very socially conservative. Gay males as prudish as I am aren't the norm. We're queer, even as queers go.

You're a gay man. Your politics don't make you another sexual orientation (except to the hard left, who said Pete Buttigieg was married to a man but wasn't gay, and black people who vote non-Democrat aren't black).

To paraphrase a buddy from church, "Dang! You move to the fringes of society. Then to the fringes of the fringes." (He is a straight boy who also lives in semi-rural southern Indiana.)

It seems to me that the majority of the people who use queer would in fact say you do not qualify for 'queerness' because you are too 'mainstream'.

 

[Toni]

Please don't suggest that women need to feed their babies in a bathroom stall. Too often, that's their only option. It's much better for women to have access to a lounge with a comfortable chair and some privacy, whether it is to breastfeed or pump or even for some babies bottle feed. It can be difficult for some women to get their milk to let down in a less than private space and some infants, both bottle fed and breast fed, do not feed well with distractions around them.

That's without considering the health/hygiene issues! Which are very, very significant!

Not to mention that we'd never suggest that men have to eat their lunch on the toilet.

But yes to more family lounges! For feeding/changing of infants!

Seconded. While diaper-changing facilities belong in restrooms nursing facilities should be separate.

Nursing facilities could also use diaper changing stations.

 

[Toni]

I despise the term 'queer' and there is no conceivable situation in which I would use it apply to myself. I'm just interested in finding out when people do use it, what they mean. It seems to me to imply a political orientation more than a sexual one.

I like, prefer even, the term queer. Mainly because it's so vague, but also because it's "reclaiming" a perjorative from the olden days. Kinda like black people reclaiming the term nigger.

What I especially like about queer is that it doesn't mean anything so precise as to exclude anyone. I'm queer. Sigmathezeta is queer. Rupaul is queer. You're queer. We may have nothing else in common, but we're all queer.

Frankly, I include whitebread straight people willing to stand up for basic civil equality(even when it isn't popular or safe) as queer. Although, I usually add "honorary" so as not to give people the wrong idea. For example, @Toni and @ZiprHead and @Emily Lake are honorary queers, as opposed to @Jarhyn or @Lumpenproletariat.

Another way I'm queer is that while I'm very homosexual I'm very socially conservative. Gay males as prudish as I am aren't the norm. We're queer, even as queers go.
To paraphrase a buddy from church, "Dang! You move to the fringes of society. Then to the fringes of the fringes." (He is a straight boy who also lives in semi-rural southern Indiana.)

Tom

Thank you for considering me an ally. I believe that Jarhryn would also be considered queer, although I don't know if that's a term he applies towards himself. You and he may have strong differences of opinions but you have perhaps more in common than you think. And my apologies if I've misunderstood anyone.

 

[TomC]

I believe that Jarhryn would also be considered queer, although I don't know if that's a term he applies towards himself.

I didn't say @Jarhyn isn't queer.
I said he isn't an "honorary" queer. I explained the difference.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

The "woman" sign will keep out the creeps but it won't keep out the actual threats. You have a false sense of security.

It sounded to me like the real problem was the idea that physically unaltered male prisoners ought to be housed with female prisoners, and to me, that is something that I do not have the 25 years' experience in prison administration that I would really need in order to feel confident about addressing. Prisons are very dangerous environments, and I don't even want people that have committed actual crimes to be there if the administration does not take safety seriously. I think that, in a world with predominately mentally well-adjusted and largely law-abiding, mostly educated adults, I would consider the idea of gender desegregation as a distinct possibility in the not-too-distant future, but many people in prisons are from economically and culturally devastated backgrounds. I am sympathetic with the fact that they come from difficult backgrounds, but the management of those kinds of people is not something I would take lightly.

I am sympathetic with a person in an American prison that is transgender, and I take that person's health seriously. That is why I think that a person with that kind of healthcare-related issue ought to be closely supervised by everybody on their healthcare team, including wardens, healthcare workers, therapists, endocrinologists, prison administrators, and everybody that that person interacts with. Like it or not, being a transgender person in an all-male prison is a very complicated healthcare-related situation. I would want latitude given to experienced prison administrators and healthcare workers to figure out the best possible solution to that kind of scenario. I think it is insanity to settle those kinds of questions based on political polls.

I believe that there is a stronger argument for experimenting with total gender desegregation in contexts like, for example, one building at an Ivy League university, where they could be pretty sure of setting healthy precedents for the rest of society to follow. That is something that actually makes sense to try. I believe that the most enlightened and culturally invested individuals in the entire country actually would be able to take leadership on establishing a new set of norms. Even then, I'd poll the students on it.

Cultural norms have substantially more control over people's behavior than laws, so when we are talking about cultural revolutions, I think we ought to be very serious about what kinds of individuals we want lighting the way. It sounds rosy and progressive and enlightened to say that "gender is so yesteryear," but there is a difference, to me, whether we initiate that kind of thinking among our cultural elites or among people that are likely to ruin it.

I mean I half-jokingly and half-seriously call myself a communist, though I don't really adhere to the philosophy. I just kind of like to trigger complete idiots that don't have the abstract thought of a mentally handicapped hobbit. However, I think that the reason why communism went so badly, in Russia, was that Russia was really a terrible country in which to experiment with a major cultural revolution. Russia is culturally dysfunctional, and when you just put dysfunctional people into a new house, they wreck it just like they wrecked the last one. Russia really set terrible precedents for the development of that philosophy. Communism didn't ruin Russia, but Russia ruined communism.

In the Nordic states, on the other hand, they did not just take the Communist Manifesto and make that into their holy law, but they quickly evolved the core ideas contained within it into a substantially more revolutionary system that really works substantially better than either traditional capitalism or a more orthodox interpretation of communism. Finland is one of the easiest countries in the world to start a new business, yet you can work as part of a trade union if you really want to. However, the Finnish already had reasonably strong cultural leadership. They were like that kid that if you threw them an iPhone, they would disassemble it and put it back together in twenty minutes, and they would casually tell you they jailbroke it for you. The Finnish, following similar suit, took the Communist Manifesto, dissected it, and appropriated what parts they actually wanted to use. It was a new idea, and they knew better than to take the first version of it to be a holy gospel. Furthermore, they have a long history of being educated blasphemers. They are going to be the first people in the world to turn sunlight and air almost directly into food. Wait, that's already happened:

Home - Solar Foods

solarfoods.fi

Granted, that's a marketing gimmick for being effectively a fucking algae-farmer, but let's not split hairs: that is fucking brilliant.

And please, let's not get derailed talking about either communism or algae-farming.

The point is that I am more excited than anybody about the idea of gender desegregation, but I would be just as alarmed as @Emily Lake if people came out, with sledgehammers in hand, and started knocking down walls between men's and women's sections of segregated multi-stall bathrooms in random places, not taking into account the cultural conditions of the places where they were doing it. Even though I think it's a worthy cultural revolution, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

In order to really change society, at a deep level, it is imperative that we be responsible about what norms and precedents we set for the next generation. Whatever mess we make today, it's going to be the mess that our generation's grandchildren are going to have to live in, not ourselves. What we already have is a mess. I do not want to pass on that mess to yet another generation. However, there is always the risk that you are going to make an even bigger mess by cleaning up the old mess incompetently.

I do not think that we ought to stay with the current system of gender segregation. I think that that system is partly to blame for the dysfunctional sexual ethics that also make some of us reluctant to change it. Sorry, @Emily Lake, but I don't think the right answer is to keep on throwing good money after bad like an investor that is trying to break even on a bad investment while walking away from more lucrative opportunities. I think that our current system is partly to blame for the dysfunctional sexual ethics that have created our current dilemmas and trilemmas, and we are dealing with a serious trifecta (I just had to do that alliteration) of being afraid to change the current system, not really having a clear idea of how to even start changing the current system, and having too many people determined to push for change without looking where the fuck they are going.

I also think that purity ethics, among the female sex, are just as much to blame as macho-ethics, among the male sex, for our current dilemmas, regarding gender relations. Think of it in terms of economics: Adam Smith--who is almost as much of a historical hero to me as Peter Kropotkin--presented us with the Diamonds v. Water Paradox.

“The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.” (The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter IV)

So, @Emily Lake, I think that the continued proliferation of purity ethics, among the female sex, is just contributing to this dynamic. They are enforcing a false scarcity at the same time that reactionary men are promoting fornication and adultery as a necessity for self-validation, and I see this as a serious problem.

Well, Finland is the most gender-equal country in the entire world, yet they have had co-ed saunas and bathhouses for generations. It's normal, there, for men and women to sit next to each other bare-assed in a dark wooden box full of steam, and to them, it's not a sexual thing. They are also the only country in the world that has figured out how to establish near gender-equality in the field of engineering, though. They figured out that the unequal representation of men and women in the field of engineering went back to the standards of education in the mathematics being designed to accommodate for the unique neurobiological advantages of boys, and they changed the way they taught the subject to also accommodate for the unique neurobiological advantages of girls. They have almost equal representation of the genders, in the field of engineering, in the same country that has some of the world's most casually libertarian sexual mores.

The idea that the problems, in gender relations, are somehow insoluble is a lie. It's one of the biggest lies in history.

I think that the place to start, with doing murder on that lie, is to do murder on our dysfunctional sexual ethics. We need to murder the part of macho-ethics where 11 year old boys are literally physically shoved at girls and commanded to be lewd, which is the shit that I went through and which I know is almost as disturbing to many straight boys. Murder it. The kinds of purity ethics where girls talk shit about each other for being perceived as sexually licentious also needs to die. Murder it with poison and fire. Kill it, kill it, kill it dead.

"Murder is forever," said the crow to his kinfolk. Crows of a murder mob predators together.

We are crows of the same murder, even though we were born different sexes. What led to you being sexually harassed or perhaps even raped, during your youth, led to me being put under intense pressure to become a part of that broken system, and when I didn't, I was beaten. Men of violence hefted me up around their shoulders and slammed my entire body down on hard asphalt in a wrestling maneuver that was designed for gym mats and is not even legal in respectable sport. If my muscles were not naturally more relaxed than most, then that maneuver could have snapped my spine and rendered me permanently paralyzed. I was living in a culture where the only way I wouldn't be called out as gay was if I proved my credentials as a straight man by harassing people like you, and when I wouldn't play in that role, I was made to fear for my life.

You have an ally in me, even though we might not always agree on solutions (which I hope we can amend, someday), and I believe that it is overdue for us to get serious about rethinking our sexual and gender ethics right through to the core. I would also agree with you that the right way is not to just unleash a bunch of maniacs to go and break down walls with sledgehammers. The cultural reforms are going to have to go deeper than just tearing down a few walls. The cancer is too deeply rooted to assume that we are going to get it into remission by just tearing down a few walls.

@Loren Pechtel is concerned about the false-positives that can occur due to men being called out for rape. Well, chemotherapy kills healthy cells as well as cancer. Tough titmouse, dude. If you don't like the chemotherapy, then get serious about fighting the cancer. Are you a fan of Adam Smith? If you are, then so am I! Adam Smith himself described the Diamonds vs. Water Paradox. We need deep reforms in the sexual ethics of both genders. The current system is creating an unhealthy dynamic that needs to be murdered. All of us need to be in on it. Just because we can't really stay on chemotherapy forever doesn't mean that the cancer isn't real.

I am saying, as a transgender woman, that we have to seriously rethink everything. Knocking down a few walls is not enough. Once I'm done transitioning, operation and all, I'm going to have to live with the actual reality of being a woman. I don't think that all of my problems are going to be fixed at once by knocking down a few walls, and I think that just blindly knocking down walls is not the right way to fight a serious cancer.

I think the main thing I generally take issue with is that my experience mirrors yours, Sigmathe. I spent a lot of years in that, and I wasn't as strong as you; I played along long enough to get away from the contexts it was important in... At least until BCT, when it all started up again.

And yes, it's a reality of living in this life that "boys" are shoved at girls and commanded to go forth and be lude.

Your perspective is interesting in that I understood previously some of the things of purity culture that needed to die with fire, but I didn't know exactly what.

Personally, I see a lot of work, a LOT of work getting our prison system to the state where it is one where people do not, cannot, will not want to rape each other. I see it being accomplished elsewhere, and so it is a place that can be walked to. It may take waking up a high mountain of work. It may take first steps of reorganizing sex education and heavily improving it, to stress the unhealthiness of "machismo", and the unhealthiness of "purity".

In this moment we may need to realize that coed prisons, with private spaces and respect for the people there, may be the most appropriate places to house the majority of trans criminals and of a majority of nonviolent criminals in general, and we need to start asking ourselves how to treat violent criminals in a way to afford them dignity and kindness as well.

I think it's perfectly valid to take an approach to reform criminal justice, something we should have and can have and did do elsewhere in the world as a species yesterday. I propose that is the way forward, the path to solving, today, the issues Emily has with trans people in prisons: to fix prisons for everyone. This is not a sledgehammer, this is a construction, and constructions are more difficult.

I think that if kids wish to participate in sport groups that restrict on the basis of testosterone exposure, and if that person has an innate vector for testosterone, then they should be expected to have suppressed it and provide a doctor's testimony that this is the case.

This also means I support suppression of hormones in puberty, and replacement of them under medical and psychological supervision. Half of everyone is allowed, in general, to an estrogen puberty. I see little harm in allowing the small % of the population born with testosterone vectors and a serious desire to, to switch tracks, since their fertility is their choice and as Tom is fond of pointing out, maybe we can do without.

At some point in Emily's mind "fix the prison system using examples such as we have elsewhere in the world to apply, and expand on them meaningfully to generate meaningful reforms through time in prison" transmuted (hah, she is the real wizard between us with magic like that!) Into "let any prisoner of any bearing and demeanor and size class intermingle willy-nilly". Somewhere there was a rude metamorphic transformation from "expect those who participate in competitive sports groups to suppress testosterone within whatever time frame prior to competition is germane to competitive advantage" to "let people compete no matter what advantages they got from T when".

as Sigmathe says, it means a lot more than a sledgehammer. It means removing the gender OR sex as the proxy for factors of concern.

I also think that when people are attributing an award on conduct rather than performance, gender doesn't enter much into the discussion other than to say "she, a woman, had sporting conduct".

Ultimately, I believe that work is necessary.

In the mean time, I have a few things I know I can do about the problems I see. First, I can decide not to contribute to them by demanding people meet some fixed expectation from me as to their appearance and initial manner. So I'll ask their pronouns and use neutral ones or omit pronouns until they provide me with something. I also trust but verify; Statements are one thing, but if you are a 7 foot 300 pound human built like Arnold who is getting up in my grill, I'm going to treat you as a 7 foot 300 pound human built like Arnold that is getting up in my grill, no matter how sweet and innocent you claim to be. I will use whatever tools I have handy to stop the "getting", and I will leverage them as hard as opposed aggression shows is necessary to stop the will behind it. I don't need to make judgements about penises to see "big aggressive human == threat". Finally, I support and communicate support for fixing the real problems people express with transition so that maybe those ideas find their way where they can do some good.

I am a nearly 6 foot 140 lb human. I have more to fear than a great many women I know in life and less to fear than a great many, and certainly less to fear than my friend whose birthday I am about to go celebrate. He could kick my ass three ways in a fight, but he never would because we would never have cause for such. He was born without the mouse in his purse, as it were.

I feel less fear than many, perhaps less than the majority, on account that I have been trained and disciplined to fight, have experience being attacked, and have found myself acting reflexively and immediately in such situations as of late moreso than I ever did in the army. People have commented more than a time or two that they would have gotten themselves in trouble carrying a staff like mine, and how it would have happened. Usually they say this as second person to third.

I am most certainly queer. Instead of holding to the tropes in society that define "man", I entirely forewent that education and social pressure and have instead focused on "wizard". If that isn't queer as hell, I don't know what is. I will note that care was taken to lump me in with lumpy in Tom's statement and this seemed to exclude from queerness, and the context communicated spite.

Tell me Emily, would you share a prison cell with an assertive but nonviolent person slight of frame with no balls, perhaps guilty of some technological crime, that would do their best to never actually look at your body even if they were forced to share a space with you, excepting odd requests such as "look at this mole"? Would you, throwing up your hands saying "alas what else can we do," throw this smallish nonviolent person with no balls in prison with a bunch of large people with balls and violent histories which include rape, and violent current tense activities that also involve rape?

In BCT I was forced to shower alone. The irony is that among all of the people there, I'm the only one I recognize as not talking about the appearance of anyone's genitals from before I was forced to shower alone, when it came out I wasn't straight (the first time; there's a story there as to why I made it through BCT not-straight at all). The reason for never discussing it was simple: I respected their privacy, and so never looked. There was nothing to discuss because nothing was known: I will not suborn another's form into my sexual fantasy unless they offer their form freely for that purpose.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Seems like "queer" makes more sense in this situation, although certainly others take a different view. I mean, Sigma is male, and sexually oriented toward males... which would historically be considered gay. But Sigma is also transgender, and views themself as a woman... and being attracted to males would make her straight. I tend to dislike the term "queer", given it's history as an abusive slur, but this is a case where I don't really think that either gay or straight actually works well.

I despise the term 'queer' and there is no conceivable situation in which I would use it apply to myself. I'm just interested in finding out when people do use it, what they mean. It seems to me to imply a political orientation more than a sexual one.

Not for me, really. If you accept the scientific basis on which I tell you, "I was born transgender, and my choice is whether I survive or not," then you understand that my situation is a complicated one.

It is not quite as simple as saying that I am a "woman in a man's body." Did you read the articles that far? Did you discover that much? Did you read that far?

It's okay. No one does.

I am a chimera. If the world had had any mercy, I would have been drowned at birth. Well, here I am, the adult version.

Weirdly enough, I am not too terrible of a person! That makes it worse, though, doesn't it? It's harder for you to go through life wishing I were dead if my life just might mean something.

If you ever change your mind, then join the murder.

Murder is forever. Murder is family. Murder is the belief that all of us that just want peace, asking little else, are family, and we have a right to stand up for that. That is the code of murder.

I am a freak. I am a chimera. I live. I breathe. I speak. I am even a zoo. I am murder.

I have every intention of getting away with murder.

 

[TomC]

I will note that care was taken to lump me in with lumpy in Tom's statement and this seemed to exclude from queerness, and the context communicated spite.

I pointed out @Toni 's error and I'll point it out again to you.

I definitely consider you queer. But unlike our straight friends and family, who go out on limbs supporting equality when it isn't a personal issue for them, you're just plain queer. You don't qualify as an "honorary" queer, like many other people do.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

I will note that care was taken to lump me in with lumpy in Tom's statement and this seemed to exclude from queerness, and the context communicated spite.

I pointed out @Toni 's error and I'll point it out again to you.

I definitely consider you queer. But unlike our straight friends and family, who go out on limbs supporting equality when it isn't a personal issue for them, you're just plain queer. You don't qualify as an "honorary" queer, like many other people do.
Tom

You claim it is her error in perception, despite two people coming away with a distinct feeling of exclusion embedded in your form of presentation. I wasn't even the first to bring it up.

The previous paragraph discussed (is queer). Then in the next paragraph we had honorary and then an ambiguous lead of "not", and as to what they were not, well, they were not mentioned in queer. The exclusion from the set combined with the exclusion from the second set implies outside set A and B, unless you wish to argue in bad faith, like some.

 

[Metaphor]

Weirdly enough, I am not too terrible of a person! That makes it worse, though, doesn't it? It's harder for you to go through life wishing I were dead if my life just might mean something.

What on Earth? In what universe do I wish you were dead?

 

[Metaphor]

I will note that care was taken to lump me in with lumpy in Tom's statement and this seemed to exclude from queerness, and the context communicated spite.

I pointed out @Toni 's error and I'll point it out again to you.

I definitely consider you queer. But unlike our straight friends and family, who go out on limbs supporting equality when it isn't a personal issue for them, you're just plain queer. You don't qualify as an "honorary" queer, like many other people do.
Tom

You claim it is her error in perception, despite two people coming away with a distinct feeling of exclusion embedded in your form of presentation. I wasn't even the first to bring it up.

It is an error in yours and Toni's perception.

TomC wrote:
Frankly, I include whitebread straight people willing to stand up for basic civil equality(even when it isn't popular or safe) as queer. Although, I usually add "honorary" so as not to give people the wrong idea. For example, @Toni and @ZiprHead and @Emily Lake are honorary queers, as opposed to @Jarhyn or @Lumpenproletariat.

There's nothing ambiguous about it. Jarhyn and Lumpen are not honorary queers.

 

[TomC]

I will note that care was taken to lump me in with lumpy in Tom's statement and this seemed to exclude from queerness, and the context communicated spite.

I pointed out @Toni 's error and I'll point it out again to you.

I definitely consider you queer. But unlike our straight friends and family, who go out on limbs supporting equality when it isn't a personal issue for them, you're just plain queer. You don't qualify as an "honorary" queer, like many other people do.
Tom

You claim it is her error in perception, despite two people coming away with a distinct feeling of exclusion embedded in your form of presentation. I wasn't even the first to bring it up.

Feel free to reread post #609.

Or don't, if you prefer not to have your outrage interfered with.

You are queer. You are not an "honorary" queer. "Honorary" queers are the whitebread supporters of queer equality without actually being unusual in a sex or gender or orientation way. Lumpy isn't queer or an honorary queer.
Tom