Drag Shows

[Emily Lake]

You mean the genitals, why do you say biology when you only mean the genitals. You handwave neurology like it doesn't exist.

Nah buddy, you're making a whole pile of assumptions here. 1) You're assuming that severe gender dysphoria is neurological rather then psychological and 2) you're assuming that ALL people who claim to be transgender have severe gender dysphoria and 3) you're assuming that severe gender dysphoria ought to be held as more important than the physical aspects of objectively observable sex.

Basically, you're assuming that the person who believes themself to be Napoleon Bonaparte should be accepted by all of society as actually BEING Napoleon Bonaparte, in every possible way... because the brain is a biological element of the human body.

It's an inane argument.

I believe it was Jarhyn that cited several neurological studies that said sexual dimorphism was neurological in nature, not psychological.

But you're making an unsupported leap in your argument. You're assuming that gender dysphoria is somehow directly driven by sexual dimorphism.

Self-perception is neurological. How we map ourselves into the world, our sense of where we are in relation to other objects external to our bodies, or image of what we think other people perceive of us in relation to that space... that is neurological. But it does NOT follow from this that anorexia is neurological rather than psychological.

Hell, we can take this a step further. How we perceive the world via our aural apparatus, and how we interpret those sounds, is neurological. We hear with our brains, our ears are the tools our brains use to receive sound. Hearing is neurological. This does NOT support the argument that the guy hearing god talk to him is experiencing a legitimate neurological phenomenon, rather than a psychological delusion.

 

[Emily Lake]

I think the bigger issue for me is how Drag Shows even became an "issue" when the bell was rung, the mouths of the right-wingers started drooling. Drag Shows six months ago... crickets... then the right-wing machine starts targetting them. It was incredible how quickly mobilized "conservatives" are by their handlers. And the best part is they think they have more liberty... all the while being jostled about on their strings like puppets.

Achooallly.... You only NOTICED when the right-wingers started jumping on this.

On what?

It's something that left-leaning feminist women have been complaining about for a few years.

Who, where? I mean other 5hsn Left Leaning Female Liberal Magazine.

Unfortunately, lots of men just can't be bothered to listen to women.

Ah yes, there is the passive aggressive Emily Lake. Make a passive attack on peorson she is responding to, but enough wiggle room to disingenuous deny the insult when called on it.

Then allow me to be actively aggressive: Most men are far more misogynistic than they want to admit, and many men - including several of you on this thread - do not actually give a flying fuck if some policy causes harm to women on the whole.

 

[Emily Lake]

I find drag icky. But not a problem for kids. Even exposure to rather bawdy drag isn't a big deal.

I DO find it a problem for kids, in exactly the same fashion that I find minstrel shows a problem for kids. It teaches kids that the subject being parodied (even if unintentionally) doesn't deserve or merit respect, and that it's acceptable and desirable to make a mockery of an entire group of people.

 

[Emily Lake]

That said, what is supposed to be the goal of having young kids watch a drag show?

That's a complex question.

What kids? What show? What circumstances?

Speaking for myself,
I grew up in an astonishingly homogeneous world. It was a loving, secure home. I wish all kids had such a nurturing environment to grow up in. But diversity wasn't a thing, except for the feminism in the 70s. That was unusual.

I never met gay person or a black person or someone from a seriously different culture until I was in my 20s. The world I lived in was overwhelmingly white, Christian, upper middle class, heterosexual, gender normative, everything.

It was solid, but wasn't ideal. I wish that, as a child, I'd been exposed to more diversity. Realized that humans aren't all like "decent folk", as defined by my family. Gotten used to the fact that not everyone important resembles my parents.

It's important that children be exposed to human diversity. Drag is just one little corner.
Tom

It's important that children be exposed to human diversity. Minstrel shows are just one little corner.

 

[Emily Lake]

Overly sexualized content is a huge problem when targeted towards children.

Is it? Children exposed to adult sexual issues tend to either find them boring, funny, or yucky. (Sexual assault of a minor is obviously something completely different, I'm talking here about children observing normal adult sexual behaviour either incidentally, or as part of a movie or TV show). Children find adult responses to their exposure to sex traumatic, but the exposure itself seems to be simply uninteresting, unless it's associated with adults freaking out about the child's exposure.

Children exposed to violence, particularly the kinds of consequence-free violence portrayed on TV, tend to find it exciting, interesting, and to want to reenact the violence in their games, or even in reality.

Of the two, violence is clearly a real problem; Sex is apparently only a problem in societies that desperately want it to be a problem.

It really kind of depends on what one believes is "normal", doesn't it?

As an example, I submit Pride Parades of recent years. Homosexuality is rare, but in and of itself a healthy expression of normal human sexuality. In my view, however, dressing up in a leather dog costume with a dildo up your naked ass and parading down the street on all four while wearing a leash... does not fall into the category of "normal adult sexual behavior". Because fetishes involving pretending to be a canine while getting reamed by your partner isn't gay. It's just deviant sexual behavior. Not necessarily harmful, if all parties consent, but still deviant, and still... most importantly... not representative of homosexuality.

 

[Oleg]

It's important that children be exposed to human diversity. Minstrel shows are just one little corner.

So is necrophilia. Why must we pounded with adult sexuality? Let them have their innocence as long as they can.

 

[Emily Lake]

Families lived in single room cabins/homes for hundreds of years. Nudity and sex in the presence of children was common.

Dressing up in one's wife's clothing and prancing around the cabin while having sex was not common.

 

[Emily Lake]

From what I've read, children aren't watching drag shows. Sometimes a drag artist reads to children in a library or some other venue. I think it's probably fun and interesting for children to be exposed to people who are a little different from the mainstream.

Children aren't watching minstrel shows. Sometimes a blackface actor reads to children in a library or some other venue. I think it's probably fun and interesting for children to be exposed to people who are a little different from the mainstream.

Doesn't really hold up so well when it's white people dressing up as exaggerated stereotypes of black people does it? Why is everyone so accepting of male people dressing up as exaggerated stereotypes of female people?

 

[Emily Lake]

I was raised by white conservatives Christians in an all white neighborhood in NJ, just outside of New York City. I never knew a Black person until I met a few Black girls in high school. Back in those days, gay people were in the closet and we never knew about things like trans folks or drag queens etc. Things are a lot different now, and children should be taught to be tolerant and kind to everyone regardless of race, beliefs, or sexual orientation etc.

Exactly this^^^^

I grew up in a "diversity free" world. It was a loving and secure world, I wish all kids had parents and family as solid as mine.

But I had to learn that people aren't all the same on my own. I had to learn to value and respect human diversity on my own as an adult. I was lucky, I'd never been taught hate. However, I wish I'd been exposed to more human diversity than I was at the time. When I was an impressionable youth. It would have been easier, for me, to recognize the humanity of people who weren't straight white heterosexual middle-class Catholics from the suburbs.
Tom

I grew up in an extremely diverse world, with people from all different cultures and ethnic backgrounds. I learned how to count to ten in a dozen different languages in second grade. I grew up with a lesbian aunt and a gay cousin - both of whom were out in the early eighties. I grew up with a grandma who was 1) divorced from her first husband and who 2) married a man ten years younger than her.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think the bigger issue for me is how Drag Shows even became an "issue" when the bell was rung, the mouths of the right-wingers started drooling. Drag Shows six months ago... crickets... then the right-wing machine starts targetting them. It was incredible how quickly mobilized "conservatives" are by their handlers. And the best part is they think they have more liberty... all the while being jostled about on their strings like puppets.

Achooallly.... You only NOTICED when the right-wingers started jumping on this.

On what?

It's something that left-leaning feminist women have been complaining about for a few years.

Who, where? I mean other 5hsn Left Leaning Female Liberal Magazine.

Unfortunately, lots of men just can't be bothered to listen to women.

Ah yes, there is the passive aggressive Emily Lake. Make a passive attack on peorson she is responding to, but enough wiggle room to disingenuous deny the insult when called on it.

Then allow me to be actively aggressive: Most men are far more misogynistic than they want to admit, and many men - including several of you on this thread - do not actually give a flying fuck if some policy causes harm to women on the whole.

Some men might be more misogynistic than they are aware, but if anything men are more likely to be unaware that some positions they hold impact women in a way in which they had not appreciated would occur, mainly because they are men who live most of their lives through a man's experience.

But please, feel free to climb up the mega-pedestal and shout down at everyone all the while providing the least compelling reasons to listen to you.

 

[Emily Lake]

I suppose it just exposes children to their existence and humanizes them as people instead of hyperbolic hypotheticals

It exposes children to the existence of men who perform as hyperbolic exaggerations of women... and humanizedsthose poor mistreated males who make their living by parodying women.

We should all aspire to expose children to the existence of minstrel actors, and humanize them as people.

 

[Emily Lake]

They do respect and value women; they simply prioritize the interests of trans people over the interests of women. That's a religion problem -- they've been taught to make moral judgments by dividing people into groups and ranking a person's interests according to how badly his or her group is oppressed,

German anti-discrimination official under fire for omitting Jews on Holocaust Remembrance

Ferda Ataman, the anti-discrimination commissioner for the German federal government, only acknowledged LGBT+ victims of the holocaust.

www.jpost.com

Under fire might be an exaggeration. As is the exaggeration of her statement in regards to neglecting the horror of the mass slaughter of the Jewish in the Holocust.

link

The German parliament on Friday dedicated its annual Holocaust commemorations for the first time to people killed for their sexual or gender identity, and acknowledged decades of post-war persecution.

Campaigners worked for more than 20 years to establish an official ceremony for LGBTQ victims of the Nazis, saying their experience had long been belittled or forgotten.

Baerbel Bas, president of the Bundestag lower house, said queer survivors of the so-called Third Reich "long had to fight for recognition" of their suffering.

She noted that gay men were murdered, castrated or subjected to horrific "medical" experiments in concentration camps where they formed the "bottom rung of the prisoner hierarchy".

Thousands of lesbians, transgender people and sex workers were branded "degenerates" and also imprisoned at the camps under brutal conditions.

The rest of the world didn't treat homosexuals much better at the time.

 

[Emily Lake]

It's all in fun and hopefully helping children to be open minded regarding those who are a bit different from the mainstream.

Honestly, let's take a step back here. What exactly makes drag performers "a bit different from the mainstream"? Is it really important that we raise children's awareness of the plight of men who make a living by parodying women? Is that really where we want to broaden children's exposure?

If you want to raise acceptance of homosexual people, then have Gay and Lesbian story hour. If you want to raise acceptance of transgender people, have trans story hour. FFS, all this does is to normalize the idea that 1) parodying women for laughs is cool and 2) all gay or transgender people are clowns.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We should all aspire to expose children to the existence of minstrel actors, and humanize them as people.

 

[Emily Lake]

A man wearing stereotypical women's attire

What is "stereotypical" about what drag queens wear? That's not stereotypical women's attire - it's exaggerated women's attire. Seriously, when was the last time you saw an actual woman dressed in that fashion? How many do you see when you're out and about in the world?

 

[southernhybrid]

From what I've read, children aren't watching drag shows. Sometimes a drag artist reads to children in a library or some other venue. I think it's probably fun and interesting for children to be exposed to people who are a little different from the mainstream.

Children aren't watching minstrel shows. Sometimes a blackface actor reads to children in a library or some other venue. I think it's probably fun and interesting for children to be exposed to people who are a little different from the mainstream.

Doesn't really hold up so well when it's white people dressing up as exaggerated stereotypes of black people does it? Why is everyone so accepting of male people dressing up as exaggerated stereotypes of female people?

Have you watched any of the SNL episodes over the last few years? A lot of the women are dressing up like men, while doing impersonations of male politicians and celebrities. Kate McKinnon did a hilarious impersonation of Giuliani. I'm a left leaning feminist and I have no problem with drag. I'm glad to see more women impersonating men in comedic roles. So far, I haven't heard men complaining.

I do tend to think that parts of society have become absurdly super sensitive about a lot of things these days, including the usage of certain words. Perhaps it would be better if we feminists all lightened up a bit about things like this and worried about more important things, like women being sexually abused, being denied reproductive rights, or paid less than men for the same job etc. A man dressing up in drag is silly but I don't see it as offensive or an exaggerated stereotype of females. I've never known a female who dresses like a drag queen. So, we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[Emily Lake]

It's important that children be exposed to human diversity. Minstrel shows are just one little corner.

So is necrophilia. Why must we pounded with adult sexuality? Let them have their innocence as long as they can.

Meh, that's a bit further than I'd go here.

I will reiterate that I have TWO objections to drag being presented in relation to children.

One objection is that MANY (not all) drag performances are overtly sexual in nature, and rely on entendre and suggestion for a fair bit of their entertainment value. MANY (not all) of the drag performers who have been involved in DQSH perform with sexualized stage names, regularly perform their evening shows in sexualized ways... and have used their stage name while reading to children (eg. Flow Job). I think this is something that many parents would reasonably find objectionable, just as I think many parents would find "Burlesque Story Hour" to be inappropriate for young ages, even though the readers aren't actually nude in front of their kids.

The other objection is that I find drag to be, on the whole, insulting toward women. Even if it is unintentional, it still relies on exaggerated costumes and behaviors, presented in ways that I find to be mocking parodies of womanhood. I find it to be a close parallel to minstrel shows - it relies on unrealistically exaggerated parodies of the subject, being performed by people who are unquestionably NOT a member of the class of people that it parodies. And I don't think that presenting children with womanface performers as if that's laudable is a good thing.

 

[Emily Lake]

Some men might be more misogynistic than they are aware, but if anything men are more likely to be unaware that some positions they hold impact women in a way in which they had not appreciated would occur, mainly because they are men who live most of their lives through a man's experience.

You know what, I actually agree with your assessment. And that's where I began my complaint.

But please, feel free to climb up the mega-pedestal and shout down at everyone all the while providing the least compelling reasons to listen to you.

Well, when the polite and friendly introduction of the impact on women gets dismissed, ridiculed, and ignored, when we women are told we just have to deal with it and suck it up, no big deal... when we're told we just have to try it and see, and after a while evaluate whether "enough" women got harmed for it to be considered a big deal by men... well... yeah, sometimes the pedestal is required because a whole lot of men simply don't give enough of a fuck about women to be bothered with listening until someone is yelling in your face.

Then we get told to calm down because it's not a big deal.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Some men might be more misogynistic than they are aware, but if anything men are more likely to be unaware that some positions they hold impact women in a way in which they had not appreciated would occur, mainly because they are men who live most of their lives through a man's experience.

You know what, I actually agree with your assessment. And that's where I began my complaint.

ROFL.

But please, feel free to climb up the mega-pedestal and shout down at everyone all the while providing the least compelling reasons to listen to you.

Well, when the polite and friendly introduction of the impact on women gets dismissed, ridiculed, and ignored, when we women are told we just have to deal with it and suck it up, no big deal... when we're told we just have to try it and see, and after a while evaluate whether "enough" women got harmed for it to be considered a big deal by men... well... yeah, sometimes the pedestal is required because a whole lot of men simply don't give enough of a fuck about women to be bothered with listening until someone is yelling in your face.

Then we get told to calm down because it's not a big deal.

Yeah, that's nice and all... but that doesn't address the issue of you providing very uncompelling arguments. Toni writes one or two posts and I can see where she is coming from... you... it is just anger.

 

[Emily Lake]

Have you watched any of the SNL episodes over the last few years? A lot of the women are dressing up like men, while doing impersonations of male politicians and celebrities. Kate McKinnon did a hilarious impersonation of Giuliani.

I've never found SNL to be funny. It's almost entirely low-hanging fruit that literally makes fun of people. It's elementary school humor. I get that a lot of people enjoy it, but it's never hit home with me.

I'm a left leaning feminist and I have no problem with drag. I'm glad to see more women impersonating men in comedic roles. So far, I haven't heard men complaining.

Sure... but you also don't hear white people complaining when the Wayans brothers dress up as white men for a comedy either. It's a matter of punching up versus punching down, isn't it? Personally, I view it as hypocritical, but at least I can understand why it's more acceptable for a black man to dress up as a parody of a white person than the other way around. Which is why I find it so baffling that men dressing up as women for the laughs is so incredibly acceptable.

I do tend to think that parts of society have become absurdly super sensitive about a lot of things these days, including the usage of certain words. Perhaps it would be better if we feminists all lightened up a bit about things like this and worried about more important things, like women being sexually abused, being denied reproductive rights, or paid less than men for the same job etc. A man dressing up in drag is silly but I don't see it as offensive or an exaggerated stereotype of females. I've never known a female who dresses like a drag queen. So, we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

We can certainly disagree. As far as the items you mention... those are certainly higher up on my list. But given that nobody here seems to be taking the side of arguing that it's great to beat up women or to ban abortion... I'm pretty much left with just the eternal argument with Loren about whether or not pay for women is commensurate to that of men... or this. And honestly, this is a lot more intellectually stimulating than the argument that's been going on for... what... nearly twenty years now?