LGBTQ+ 7

[Ran]

Reminder: This thread is for the discussion of issues relating to the lives of LBGTQ+ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender/transsexual, queer/questioning) people. This thread aims to be a supportive space for issues on sexuality and gender identities. Please do not post comments that negate, belittle, or insult people's chosen identity.

This thread operates with a number of givens, including (but not limited to): that equal marriage rights are human rights, and thus are not subject to debate in this thread; that bisexuality is a legitimate orientation and is not up for debate in this thread; that trans-identities are valid and is not up for debate in this thread; And so on. This is not an exhaustive list, and it is up to the mods' discretion what is or isn't a legitimate avenue of debate. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by Ran

[Ser Reptitious]

As an ally, I just want to give a big shout-out of support to @karaddin and all our trans brothers and sisters. 

[felice]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

This thread operates with a number of givens, including (but not limited to): that equal marriage rights are human rights, and thus are not subject to debate in this thread; that bisexuality is a legitimate orientation and is not up for debate in this thread; among others.

It would be nice to have "trans identities are valid" or equivalent explicitly added to that list of things not subject to debate.

[Ran]

14 minutes ago, felice said:

It would be nice to have "trans identities are valid" or equivalent explicitly added to that list of things not subject to debate.

Done.

[Raja]

3 hours ago, Ser Reptitious said:

As an ally, I just want to give a big shout-out of support to @karaddin and all our trans brothers and sisters. 

Samesies . I'm sure these threads are not always easy reading

[Varysblackfyre321]

Remember how so many people  got(or at least pretended to get) really morally indignant when progressives warned about the don’t say gay bill?

Its so frustrating the old “think of the children, I’m a mother/ father who doesn’t want my kid getting corrupted!” shtick is enough to get people to back off from criticizing reactionaries from making steps to disenfranchise and even possibly criminalize people they deem degenerate(queer people, racial minorities, etc).

I brought this up before but I really struggle to see a practical reason not to oppose this bill other than the fear of getting called a pedophile for opposing it.

Such stunts need to be met with a lot more brutal mockery instead of letting bad faith actors framing it as a logical, good faith, attempt to protect children that invites the same level of polite debate as an argument on some minute local tax law.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[TormundsWoman]

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Remember how so many people  got(or at least pretended to get) really morally indignant when progressives warned about the don’t say gay bill?

Its so frustrating the old “think of the children, I’m a mother/ father who doesn’t want my kid getting corrupted!” shtick is enough to get people to back off from criticizing reactionaries from making steps to disenfranchise and even possibly criminalize people they deem degenerate(queer people, racial minorities, etc).

I brought this up before but I really struggle to see a practical reason not to oppose this bill other than the fear of getting called a pedophile for opposing it.

Such stunts need to be met with a lot more brutal mockery instead of letting bad faith actors framing it as a logical, good faith, attempt to protect children that invites the same level of polite debate as an argument on some minute local tax law.

Just came to post this.

I have a 12th grader who takes AP Pshyc this upcoming school year. They also want to apply to UF at Gainsville. I told them that as a queer 18 yr old this is not ok and there are other options, but they really like that university and the specific program they apply for. IL puts AP Pshyc on their transcripts. I wonder since that university is public if they'll consider it. I suppose they must, otherwise the kid will be one class credit short of graduating high-school according to the state of FL. I won't be heartbroken if they don't get accepted. I much prefer other universities.

Edited August 4, 2023 by TormundsWoman

[Varysblackfyre321]

9 hours ago, TormundsWoman said:

UF at Gainsville

Uf being a Florida college? State or private?

[Mr. X]

2 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Uf being a Florida college? State or private?

UF = University of Florida, and it is a state school.

[IlyaP]

On 8/4/2023 at 4:46 AM, Ran said:

that bisexuality is a legitimate orientation and is not up for debate in this thread

Much love here for this, @Ran, thank you. Was part of a choir once where one guy (older gay dude) in my presence, before I'd come out publicly, said to people around him, and in ear shot of me, that "there's no such thing as bi men, they're just gays who're in the closet". And it's like, you're a member of a queer choir, where the third letter is B. 

I quit the choir not long after. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

You know I’ve been thinking;  if there was hard data in the idea of significant amount of people regretting transitioning or really a lot of pro-trans people it’d be trotted out as often as white-nationalists use 13/50 by terfs or transphobes in general. Usually it’s other incredibly rare horror stories or imagined possible scenarios with no close real world example.

45 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Was part of a choir once where one guy (older gay dude) in my presence, before I'd come out publicly, said to people around him, and in ear shot of me, that "there's no such thing as bi men, they're just gays who're in the closet". And it's like, you're a member of a queer choir, where the third letter is B. 

That’s a sad trend I think is due to society having a different standard for male to male affection and female to affection.

Cis women and girls can cuddle and sleep together in the same bed without controversy. Two guys holding hands can get immediately called gay. 
Gay people unfortunately can still be effected by society.

Hell there are some(I don’t want to say many but it’s an unfortunate repeated occurrence) lesbians who find bi women as simply experimenting straight women, see lesbians who have had sex with men as lesser or more distrustful, and gay men as simple perverts.

It should be recognized a lot people just morally luck out into their positions and are only progressive/liberal as far as it benefits their ambitions or lives.—though sometimes their reactionary sentiments wins out and they do things that directly hurt them(like allying with fascists).

[IlyaP]

11 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

It should be recognized a lot people just morally luck out into their positions and are only progressive/liberal as far as it benefits their ambitions or lives.—though sometimes their reactionary sentiments wins out and they do things that directly hurt them(like allying with fascists).

It doesn't help that bisexuals have historically been depicted in a negative light in media. And also that people feel that they'll never be satisfied, or can't compete with others (e.g. a man can't compete with a woman and vice versa where sexual/romantic/tactile/social desires are sought).

There's a very accurate joke about how a bisexual doesn't have double the options, they have half the options, because they have to work through socialised layers of distrust from everyone. Sad but true. And people also forget that Kinsey's scale was insanely two-dimensional, and that the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid is a far better depictor of human sexuality across space and time. (Yes, you can - hur hur - insert a Doctor Who gag here.)

[Ormond]

3 hours ago, IlyaP said:

It doesn't help that bisexuals have historically been depicted in a negative light in media. And also that people feel that they'll never be satisfied, or can't compete with others (e.g. a man can't compete with a woman and vice versa where sexual/romantic/tactile/social desires are sought).

There's a very accurate joke about how a bisexual doesn't have double the options, they have half the options, because they have to work through socialised layers of distrust from everyone. Sad but true. And people also forget that Kinsey's scale was insanely two-dimensional, and that the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid is a far better depictor of human sexuality across space and time. (Yes, you can - hur hur - insert a Doctor Who gag here.)

As a gay man who is 30 years older than you, can I give some historical perspective?

The way people come to label their own sexuality has evolved over time as society has come to be more accepting of GLBTQ orientations.  Many gay men who are now over 70 have the incorrect belief that "there's no such thing as bisexual men" because it was really common 50 years ago for gay men to have a period during their personal coming out period when they labeled themselves as "bisexual" while trying to come to terms with societal prejudice. Although bisexuals wouldn't have been presented in a positive light in the media 50 or 60 years ago, the way homosexual men were depicted back then was even worse. Most gay men in the USA of my generation had the perception when they were young that they would be more accepted and have less prejudice against them if they were "bisexual" rather than gay, and a great many actually labeled themselves as "bi" for several years before they became fully comfortable calling themselves "gay" or "homosexual".  I actually saw one research study published around 35 years ago that followed men who had called themselves "bisexual" in an initial interview and over time about half of them had switched to labeling themselves as "gay."

Also, 50 years ago it seems to me that most men who did label themselves "bisexual" were men who had at least 50% of their physical attractions to other men. Those who were only occasionally attracted to other men would suppress that and just call themselves "straight" or "heterosexual".  It really has blown my mind how in the last couple of decades I have seen young men willing to label themselves "bisexual" when the majority of their attractions are to women and only 20% or less of their attractions are to other men. In my experience that would almost never have occurred 50 years ago. 

I think the man in the choir you speak of was ignorant. But his ignorance was probably a product of having known many men his age who switched from self-labeling as "bi" to "gay" back when he was young. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

!

[Heartofice]

53 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

!

Hmm, that twitter feed claims that there was no transgender nurse, yet if you read the thread its clear they are just making that up, pure conjecture.

In reality the hospital has apologised for this and have never denied the events of what happened. 
 

[IlyaP]

9 hours ago, Ormond said:

It really has blown my mind how in the last couple of decades I have seen young men willing to label themselves "bisexual" when the majority of their attractions are to women and only 20% or less of their attractions are to other men. In my experience that would almost never have occurred 50 years ago. 

Your comments also accounts for and explains why my boyfriend back then, who was 20 years older, could say with an absolute straight face, that he'd never met a bisexual male until I came along. Whereas I know *dozens* of them here, and am friends with numerous bi men in the Sydney region. There is also qualitative research suggesting that bi men would claim to be gay to *heavy sigh* fit into the queer world, and stories of men coming out as bi among gay men and being ostracised for it (whether you want to read that as biphobia or group think or a feeling of having been lied to, is something I leave up to you.) Kevin Smith's movie Chasing Amy, if nothing else, captured that aspect of bisexuality quite well, in one particular scene involving Alyssa and her friends, where she reveals her attraction to a guy (Holden).

Though even attraction, interestingly, is not always consistent. Fritz Klein did some groundbreaking research in this area, building off Kinsey's work, but added a time dimension, which showed that peoples' attractions fluctuate, like, where sometimes a bi gal might be more attracted to women, othertimes less so, over the course of her life. (Ditto men, natch.)

As a side note to all this, I've observed among my cohort, that some of us millennials take the safer route of identifying as "queer" rather than "bi" to avoid stigmatisation - which itself has been an interesting thing to observe, as my generation has reclaimed the term "queer", which I know was once used as a dengrating slur to older queer folk, and has led to many a confused expressions among boomer/gen X LGBT+ folk when they hear it used by younger "queer" folk. 

[TrackerNeil]

10 hours ago, IlyaP said:

As a side note to all this, I've observed among my cohort, that some of us millennials take the safer route of identifying as "queer" rather than "bi" to avoid stigmatisation - which itself has been an interesting thing to observe, as my generation has reclaimed the term "queer", which I know was once used as a dengrating slur to older queer folk, and has led to many a confused expressions among boomer/gen X LGBT+ folk when they hear it used by younger "queer" folk. 

It was jarring at first to hear that word used casually, or even reverently; as has been said, in my youth that was a slur. But language changes all the time, fine.

What troubles me about "queer" is that, these days, I don't know what it descrbes. I've heard that term used by lesbians, which makes sense, and by straight men who practice polyamory, which IMO makes less sense. I mean, do addtional girlfriends somehow make a straight man less heterosexual? 

People can obviously identify any way they choose, but when someone describes themselves as "queer", they have conveyed no useful information.

[IlyaP]

2 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

It was jarring at first to hear that word used casually, or even reverently; as has been said, in my youth that was a slur. But language changes all the time, fine.

What troubles me about "queer" is that, these days, I don't know what it descrbes. I've heard that term used by lesbians, which makes sense, and by straight men who practice polyamory, which IMO makes less sense. I mean, do addtional girlfriends somehow make a straight man less heterosexual? 

People can obviously identify any way they choose, but when someone describes themselves as "queer", they have conveyed no useful information.

Demisexuals I know also use this term, which made me take pause, and wonder "erm...how is this...queer?" 

But I think at present queer has come to basically mean or represent/encompass anything that is not "cishet kink-free, vanilla, and straight as it gets sexuality". 

I grant you, that's not exactly the most elegant of ways to describe it, but I'm always open to better phrasings! 

[TormundsWoman]

On 8/4/2023 at 6:51 PM, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Uf being a Florida college? State or private?

What Mr. X said.

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, TormundsWoman said:

What Mr. X said.

Ah. I don’t envy queer people in education whether they be students or teachers. I’d hope for them to leave the state quickly but understand that many would like to stay and try and make things better or simply can’t afford to(either through family ties, or financial ones).