LGBTQI - We're here, we're...you know the rest of it

[karaddin]

Given the subject came up due to someone for whom that approach is impossible, it obviously can't work for them and that's one of the big problems.

Robin you know I like you and care about you. We disagree on a fundamental level about this and its hard to get around that. I'm also struggling with my medication ATM and am very high today and don't know why so I'm not being very tactful. If you are just done with the subject I understand, we aren't going to get anywhere with it, but please don't be done completely with posting here. Your views are shaped by the experience you've had, mine are shaped by the different experience I've had which was only possible due to the work of those who came before.

[Robin Of House Hill]

Karaddin,

I'm not mad at you, or anyone else, here. Not even emberling. I'm just so tired of feeling like I understand cisgender people better than the transgender community as it exists today.

So if the discussion is about helping an individual, I'll participate, but I can't get involved in current theories or trans politics.

[Lily Valley]

I just picked a random book off the bookshelf the other day and started reading it. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. I'm sure some here have read it. Sci-fi about a world called Winter where no one has a gender until specific times of year when their hormones would change an individual and their potential mate in a complementary way simultaneously. It uses "he" as the default pronoun throughout, but I'm digging the eloquent and non-visual take on indeterminate/fluid gender.

WS, that's one of my favorite books.  The language is so beautiful, keep a box of hankies nearby.  When you're finished, you might like Ancillary Justice.  

[karaddin]

Well The Advocate has one piece preaching detransition and that trans people need to accept the bodies we are born with, which includes some really horrible stuff on mental health generally, and are giving Brennan a platform in another. There's one LGB publication not even pretending to include the T anymore.

I still say we cling to the allies we can, the ones we can't will show themselves like this anyway. But those tires going over your back as you fall under the bus do sting. I fear for any baby trans people who read that shit and get fucked up by it.

[Robin Of House Hill]

Well The Advocate has one piece preaching detransition and that trans people need to accept the bodies we are born with, which includes some really horrible stuff on mental health generally, and are giving Brennan a platform in another. There's one LGB publication not even pretending to include the T anymore.

I still say we cling to the allies we can, the ones we can't will show themselves like this anyway. But those tires going over your back as you fall under the bus do sting. I fear for any baby trans people who read that shit and get fucked up by it.

 

If you are referring to this, I can add some background material.  Mark Angelo Cummings and his ex-partner, Jessica, were once on my FB friends list.  Back then, they were a freewheeling couple who traveled around the country, posting all kinds of interesting things.  Around the time of the fracas about RuPaul's use of transphobic slurs, their tone changed and they began defending RuPaul and claiming we shouldn't police anyone's language.  One evening Mark posted something on his timeline about how wrong it was to berate others because of language.  I and a half dozen others began commenting that it wasn't for the people using the language to determine if a word was a slur, but for those the word referred to.  As you can imagine, the conversation escalated as the evening went on.  It finally ended with Mark calling us a pack of whining tr*nnies.  Blocked both of them in 30 seconds.

 

A few months ago, I saw links to  information that Mark was claiming to be ex-trans and his current partner was spouting the gender critical party line.  I think there is a connection between this and the paragraph above.  These are people who began trying to please their most virulent oppressors, sort of the Stockholm syndrome.  They feel they will never be accepted and try to curry favor by denying who they are.  Sad, really, but dangerous because those those considering transition are already under enough pressure, without having to  endure propaganda that they aren't real, being thrown at them.

 

As to why the Advocate would publish this, I think I have some information, as well.  The Advocate's new news editor and the author  of that piece, is a trans woman who worked for ABC News and transitioned on the job.  Sometime later, she suffered a seizure and amnesia.  During that time, she detransitioned.  Months later, she re-transitioned, but ABC News decided to let her go..  I'd guess she was trying to be fair and open-minded and didn't recognize the danger in publishing that article.

[TerraPrime]

The Advocate also used to publish Andrew Sullivan and Camille Paglia, so you can see their track record. If you want to be charitable you can say that they publish opinion pieces that are not always popular because they want to give all voices a platform. If you don't want to be charitable, you can say that they are using journalistic diversity as a cover to publish awful opinions. 

[Lamb of the Gods]

LGBTQI 

This is getting worse. I don't know what some of those letters even mean, but I don't really want to know, nor care.

 

You know, I was talking to my friend a while back, and he was saying some pretty homophobic things. I asked him if he was, as said, homophobic? To which he replied he was just speaking frankly, and that he too had once or twice had sexual relations with a ladyboy (in Thailand, this is a man who undergoes a sex change, but retains their penis, the term ladyboy is what they're called here, but I'm not sure if the L in the quote above includes them, maybe you need more letters? If you like, since L is already taken (by yours truly, actually), you could ad a K, which is the first letter for katoei, which is ladyboy in Thai). So I asked him, after confessing he was "Attracted to men who look like sexy women," was he thus bisexual? And he said "no, sweet girl, I'm only attracted to them because they look like sexy women, which is heterosexual." But they're men? I mean, they may not look it (most of them), but they have a penis. To which the answer went something like, "Try not to overthink it, have you never considered that sexual identity isn't tangible, nor definable, and shouldn't be classified?"

 

I honestly don't even think there's such a thing as heterosexual. The classifications imply a sort of hardware in the brain, where people are wired to a specific sexuality, whereas the truth is it lies in the software instead, and software changes, has glitches, gets updated, so on. My friend likes sexy women, enough said, he likes anything which reminds him of sexy women, even if it's a man, or, in fantastic cases, he'd probably go for an alien too. Well I'm a Lesbian, but the L in that quote sure as Hell doesn't stand for me. I prefer a G, for girl, and I only call myself a Lesbian in honor of Sappho, whose poetry defied classification, and avoided definition.

[TerraPrime]

I don't know what some of those letters even mean, but I don't really want to know, nor care.

 

So you're straight-up admitting that you're commenting on something you know very little of. I guess that sorts out what we need to do with your opinion. But just in case, [url=https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=LGBTI]Google is not hard to use[/url]. 

 

 

This is getting worse.

 

Worse than what? Compared to what? In what way is it worse? 

 

 

 

I asked him if he was, as said, homophobic? To which he replied he was just speaking frankly, and that he too had once or twice had sexual relations with a ladyboy

 

Plenty of LBGT people are homophobic, at least early on before they came out. In some cases, they retain those society biases. Having fucked a lady boy or two or three doesn't make his comments any less reprehensible, nor does his sexual history immunize him from criticism. 

 

 

So I asked him, after confessing he was "Attracted to men who look like sexy women," was he thus bisexual? And he said "no, sweet girl, I'm only attracted to them because they look like sexy women, which is heterosexual." But they're men? I mean, they may not look it (most of them), but they have a penis. To which the answer went something like, "Try not to overthink it, have you never considered that sexual identity isn't tangible, nor definable, and shouldn't be classified?"

 

Sexual identity is self-appointed, and we should respect each person's chosen identity. If he says he's not bi, then he's not. Unless the ladyboys he had sex with identified themselves as women, then he had sex with men before. His sexual history can be objectively classified as mostly heterosexual but with a few isolated episodes of homosexual contact. On the Kinsey scale, his [i]sexual history[/i] will be a 5, but his [i]sexual orientation identity[/i] will be a 6. 

 

People are free, of course, to not choose an identity, although in your friend's case he did choose "heterosexual." I think a complete lack of labels and such will work  in a subjective sense, but it is highly unwieldy and unhelpful when you're interacting with the outside word. Labels and categories have their short-comings, too, and can be abused and misused easily. Yet, over all, they are more helpful than they are not in most cases. 

 

 

I honestly don't even think there's such a thing as heterosexual.

 

That's just another way of saying we're all bisexual. We're not. Some few people are really just gay, and a few more are just straight, and the rest are somewhere in between. Some people's orientation fluctuates over time, and most people's don't. Insisting we all have mutable sexual orientation is as draconically unhelpful as insisting we must all be straight, imo. 

[sologdin]

you're confusing people

perhaps the world is not so simple?

[Arkhangel]

Alright, I'm about to explode.  This is what happens when a word, transgender, is defined so broadly, that no one can possibly understand what it means.

 

 http://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/this-transgender-woman-has-a-full-beard-and-she-couldnt-be-h#.xgalzGQxv

 

 

 

No, it is not for the greater good.  This just perpetuates the man in dress, idea.  This just makes us the object of more ridicule.  I've got 38 years of passing, maybe not perfectly, but well enough that I've survived 38 years after transition.  So when someone gives up trying and touts it as a benefit, I call bullshit.   :angry2:

 

I know the discussion's moved on a bit, but I think she looks really nice. I'm not sure it's a look which everyone could pull off, but she's got the eyes and the cheekbones for it.

[Robin Of House Hill]

 

I know the discussion's moved on a bit, but I think she looks really nice. I'm not sure it's a look which everyone could pull off, but she's got the eyes and the cheekbones for it.

 

Without re-opening the prior stuff, I have to say that without the beard, she looks a hell of a lot more "passable" than I do, yet she is of the belief she could never pass and gave up trying.  The first three paragraphs say it repeatedly.  She claims people are accepting of her.  That says wonders about Cardiff.  Where I live, I've not really encountered too much in the way of problems and I've observed other trans women in the area, who seem doing well.  But if she came here, wearing a beard, I shudder to think what would happen.

[Melphis Amekia]

So, guys, I've got a question for y'all(as a guy). I've always had a strong attraction for women - all my crushes were girls, I have a girlfriend, etc. But, I also feel some slight(I guess?) attraction for guys. I don't even really know how much of an attraction, since I may have conciously/sub-conciously/societaly-influenced surpressed that part of me(or maybe not, I am not sure really). Not that I can experiment where I am - hell, only last year my country(Croatia) overwhelmingly voted that 'Marriage is only the 'domain' of man and woman'(paraphrasing) into our Constitution. 

 

I guess I am not sure if I am completely straight, bi with a strong preference of women or whatever? It isn't actually a big of a deal for me, because I am far more open to any such idea than my fellow countrymen and I can embrace it easily, but I'd still like to be sure.

 

So my question is - are there some first-or-second-hand stories similar to how I feel and if you wish to share them with me? I can take them as pointers for myself, perhaps.

[Arkhangel]

I don't identify as bi in any way, but I've had what I guess I would call moments of latent attraction to girls - just like a random urge to kiss someone occasionally. I'm not sure if it's anything more than curiosity, since I've never really wanted to act on it. I guess a bit like you I'm open to the idea that someday I might potentially find myself feeling seriously interested in a girl, but until and unless it happens I don't see the point in dwelling too much on it either way.

[Melphis Amekia]

I don't identify as bi in any way, but I've had what I guess I would call moments of latent attraction to girls - just like a random urge to kiss someone occasionally. I'm not sure if it's anything more than curiosity, since I've never really wanted to act on it. I guess a bit like you I'm open to the idea that someday I might potentially find myself feeling seriously interested in a girl, but until and unless it happens I don't see the point in dwelling too much on it either way.

 

Mine is a bit(?) more substantial than that, and it's not like I'm dwelling on it, I'm curious.

[TerraPrime]

Bisexuality encompasses a large range of sexual attraction, and does not need a 50/50 split down the middle. I am predominantly attracted to men but some women do attract my attention. There are plenty of other bisexual people who are more on one side than the other. Then there are other bisexuals who really are nearly 50-50 split in their interests. So there are all types of "ratios" out there. 

 

One thing to keep in mind is that for most people, and depending on your age cohort that can change, we have been socialized in a heteronormative model. This means a worldview where heterosexuality is the default assumption. You may have gay friends and you are probably not antigay at all, but you may still be viewing the world in heteronormative ways. I know I still do from time to time, like assuming that someone new I've met who's wearing a wedding ring has a life partner that is the opposite sex. What this means is that you haven't really had a chance to ponder and explore the possibility of finding satisfactory sexual and/or romantic relations with members of the same sex (motss). 

 

Finally, in most western conventions, the notion of masculinity is often tied to heterosexuality. It might take some time to process and to sort through your own emotions on this issue. I know when I first realize that I like men in a sexual way, around the start of puberty, I was terrified that I cannot be a man anymore, that I would have to become a woman in order to have sexual relationships with men. You may or may not have similar fears, but if you examine the definitions and hallmarks of masculinity, you might see that a few of these are tied to heterosexuality. So as you explore the possibility of being bisexual, keep that in mind, as well, and don't let that distract you. 

 

On a more practical level, I would also let you know that some of your friends, both gay and straight, might start telling you that you're just being indecisive, or that you're trying to play it for personal drama, or that there's no such thing as bisexuality. They are all wrong, even if they mean well. There are clear biphobia in the gay community, so be prepared for it when you start to tell your friends about your thoughts on this. 

 

Best of luck. Sorting out your own sexuality can be a confusing and stressful event, but once you do, you'll be much better off for it. 

[Melphis Amekia]

Thank you TerraPrime for the awesome reply. I've read/heard about a lot of things you wrote about which just confirmed what I thought I knew before, like about the range of bisexual attraction, the heteronormative model of thinking(I don't think I'll be able to get rid of it, though I want to), the biphobia in the gay community(which is ridiculous, as far as I am concerned, and I'll treat it as such).

 

Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who is gay. I live in a far too small and uptight town and I'm not a really outgoing type, so I didn't get a chance to meet some who is gay. My best friend(girl) and girlfriend, though, I know are bi, even if my best friend might have some problem saying so.

 

As I said, I'd like to potentially experiment, but I can't at the moment. I may be hampering myself, but there's not a lot of incentive for me to try it right now, even if I'd like to(Maybe if I move somewhere more accepting, though that's out of the question now). It's part of why it's confusing, because I can't even try. Whatever happens, though, I know I'll accept it for what it ends up being.

[TerraPrime]

I think for most LBG people, the actual acts of sex are merely confirmatory. Without the desire to motivate you to try the sex, it wouldn't happen. Or, to put it another way, if you want to have sex with a man enough to actually do it, then you're most likely bisexual (though in some cases some people are just curious, try it, and decide nah, not for me). That said, I do recall that after my first motss encounter, I had a great sigh of relief, because there's no more doubt that I like this. 

 

But sounds to me like you've got the right attitude on this. Perhaps your life situation will change soon, either for school or job, and you can move to a new locale. If not, social apps are available for you to chat up some people in nearby cities, and a short weekend trip is not too impossible in most cases. 

 

Also, is your current girlfriend in on this? If not, you might consider letting her help. It's good to have someone to talk to and to rely on as you explore.

[Melphis Amekia]

I think for most LBG people, the actual acts of sex are merely confirmatory. Without the desire to motivate you to try the sex, it wouldn't happen. Or, to put it another way, if you want to have sex with a man enough to actually do it, then you're most likely bisexual (though in some cases some people are just curious, try it, and decide nah, not for me). That said, I do recall that after my first motss encounter, I had a great sigh of relief, because there's no more doubt that I like this. 

 

But sounds to me like you've got the right attitude on this. Perhaps your life situation will change soon, either for school or job, and you can move to a new locale. If not, social apps are available for you to chat up some people in nearby cities, and a short weekend trip is not too impossible in most cases. 

 

Also, is your current girlfriend in on this? If not, you might consider letting her help. It's good to have someone to talk to and to rely on as you explore.

 

Yeah, I should tell her more explicitly. With the vibe I get, she'd have no problem with it, especially if she could jump right in beside me. Though, as I said, I don't have the opportunity to explore yet, but it'll change.

[Kojiro]

So the cat came out of the bag before I was really prepared for it. So it's pretty much out in the open now. Mother's.... grudgingly acceptant of the admission, yet rather reticent, wanting me to hide in the shadows until certain family members are dead before transitioning. Yeah, so... there's a lot of work here to be done. This woman still acts like it's the 60s or 70s or something.

[Robin Of House Hill]

So the cat came out of the bag before I was really prepared for it. So it's pretty much out in the open now. Mother's.... grudgingly acceptant of the admission, yet rather reticent, wanting me to hide in the shadows until certain family members are dead before transitioning. Yeah, so... there's a lot of work here to be done. This woman still acts like it's the 60s or 70s or something.

 

That first step is always the most difficult, so take a bow on accomplishing what you have.  Grudging acceptance is better than outright rejection, so you have something to build on.  It will take patience and quiet discussion to improve that.  As for her wish that you delay transition until certain family members have passed away, do you have a sense of who she is protecting, you or them? 

 

For many people, it still is the 60s or 70s in some ways.  Some issues have never caught their attention, but there is a good chance they will learn and catch up.