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Here's a chance to have an open discussion about being LGBT, or better still, just plain old queer. Read the following editorial carefully before you respond. [Tim & I have had numerous chats discussing a great deal of the variety of issues that are covered in it.] This editorial directly ties in with Tim's current efforts and campaign to seek out the reasons people visit here or don't.
I agree with a great deal of what Alex says in this editorial, but then too, my experience is considerably different from that of most of the others here. So, let's see what you all make of this.
Sacred Cows & Sacrificial Lambs
By Alex Blaze (Paris, France) Nov 27 | That post about rich people getting kicked out of the LGBT movement the other day was intended as satire. I see from the comments that a lot of people didn't get it, even though the proposition was ridiculous, untenable, contradicts the general gist of what I post here on TBP, was filled with very specific references to the subjects being satirized ("revolutions from above don't take," "silent majority," "all criticism proves how brave and free-thinking I am"), contradicted itself in several places, and included "satire" as one of the tags. Then I left several comments saying that my "proposal" was "modest" after Dr. Weiss called me "swift" and even told people to go read the tags.
It was obvious.... Except, well, not obvious enough. Apparently.
If I'm going to explain irony, though, I might as well make that explanation thorough. I was making fun of/spoofing/criticizing/pointing out the feeble absurdity of:
1. the folks who think the trans can just be dropped from LGBT,
2. the various discussions that assume that we, the peons, can even decide what the movement's priorities are or who gets included in "the community,"
3. the fact that we're completely unable to question, understand, or even discuss the roll money plays in the movement and its priorities,
4. that we're unable to understand that some people are already represented more than others in the movement, and
5. the process by which certain people and groups get relegated to the back, how some people and goals are relegated to the role of constant sacrificial lamb with no real discussion of why and some other people and goals are sacred cows, again with no real discussion of why.
Let's start at #1.
1. Transgender people are the queer community's unexamined sacrificial lamb on the altar of acceptance by straight/cis/conservative society.
Wednesday morning, The Advocate posted this question as a poll on their website:
Would you support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act if gender identity protections were again taken out of the bill?
I love the Advocate. I read their site every day. They cover lots of issues that are interesting and need attention, and often get unfairly criticized for things beyond their control.
But, seriously: WTF?
ENDA's hitting some stumbling blocks, no doubt about that. But it's not related to gender identity. Since the beginning of the House's work on ENDA this year, it's been clear that gender identity was going to be included, and, if the bill doesn't get passed, it has nothing to do with transgender protections, which are polling quite well and almost no Reps or Senators have mentioned as issues.
In 2007 we had a huge debate on this topic because the House wanted to offer up those protections as a way to get the ENDA through the House and.... Well, it wasn't really clear what they wanted to do after that, and it never even made it through the Democratically-controlled Senate.
Who cares, many people thought back then. It's just the transgender people. It's not like they're anything like us gay people in the first place.
Hence all the references in my previous post to rich gays being "nothing like me"; the references to me being brave and free-thinking, since the pro-ENDA split crowd loved to call themselves that because apparently believing something is one thing, being a brave believer means you're right; and all the arguments about dropping trans people from the movement replaced to attack rich gays.
Part of what I was raising was that if the standard is that we're fighting for people who are "like me," then why are transgender people the ones getting offered up as sacrificial lambs? There are plenty of people who are LGBT who live their lives less "like me" than the average trans person.
Anyway, that poll and several of the longer discussions these past few weeks on Bilerico showed me that, no matter the political situation, there are some people who are looking to convince everyone else that dropping transgender people is necessary. It makes their howls of "pragmatism" ring empty considering there's nothing really to be pragmatic about right now.
2. We don't have the power to determine, in a conversation on this site, the priorities or make-up of the LGBT movement
I've been reading more and more lately about the make-up of the LGBT movement, and there seems to be a fairly basic assumption that, if we came to a conclusion in the comments somewhere, that X group could be dropped from the movement. They would have to go home, regroup, and never call themselves queer again.
That was part of the point of my post the other day. I said:
These folks have nothing in common with me, so can we please start having endless discussions about cutting them out of "LGBT"?
The stress was on the "endless" nature of those discussions.
So the question I want to pose to all those people who left angry comments about me wanting to drop rich people from the LGBT (one wonders how excited the same cis-people would have gotten if I posted about dropping gender identity from ENDA): how do you think I would go about doing that? How would that be written into law?
Would we put an income cap on the ENDA? Would it apply to pay before discrimination or after discrimination? Would it be based on wealth? Would you have to have your assets audited before the EEOC would look at your case?
Similar questions apply to dropping transgender protections from the ENDA. The equations aren't as simple as "sexual orientation = LGB protections" and "gender identity = transgender protections." To me, the cultural and social links that hold "LGBT" together are intuitive, and, as Lamba Legal famously pointed out two years ago, the concepts are also linked when it comes to the law. You can't really separate out the T all that easily, so I took the idea to absurdity.
More importantly, though, is the assumption that anyone here actually has the power to kick a segment of the community out. Sure, we can do what we can to make others feel unwelcome (we're very good at that), but actually forcing transgender or rich people to stop advocating against discrimination? (Even if we got HRC to change their name to "No Rich Snobs Allowed," they'd still argue that they're allowed one rich snob since the name is plural, and it would all be downhill from there.)
Instead of thinking of the movement as at all organized from the top-down, with a clear set of enumerated goals, it should be thought of as a more organic body, with people participating with both time and money as they can, various projects and orgs starting and ending as interest increases and decreases, and priorities being set by how people want to spend their time and money in the movement.
As in, we can get everyone in the movement together for a day, they'd vote for an agenda that, perhaps, puts state-level marriage fights on the back-burner, but then a lesbian couple in Michigan who wasn't invited would just mess everything up by suing the state for marriage.
As much as we talk about the priorities, goals, and make-up of the movement, we don't have absolute power over it. Especially not us peons.
3. The way we talk about queer politics is ill-equipped to deal with questions of class and money
In that big, queer wish list (DADT repeal, DOMA repeal, ENDA, etc.), do most of us ever even consider what would actually improve our lives and what wouldn't? Or are we more concerned with LGBT folks getting a bigger piece of the pie, getting our much-deserved pinata of rights and protections, and getting recognized as a bona fide minority who experiences real discrimination?
The way we discuss homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia, usually as overt "discrimination," leaves little possibility for addressing the way people use money to secure power and influence at the expense of other people who share their same identity. As one person put it in the previous comment thread: "Equality means same" (emph. his).
But to what end does that sameness extend? More and more it's becoming clear that, in our attempt to be equal, we're really just asking to be able to buy into massive, large-scale inequality so long as there's no difference along the lines of gender identity or sexual orientation. If all that the language we developed as a community calls for is an end to substantive discrimination along the lines of immutable identity, then we aren't going to be able to address power and the way it operates, both inside and outside the community.
Because class doesn't work well with the politics of raising up identities. There is no poverty version of gay pride, girl power, or black is beautiful. It reminds me of an exercise we used to do back in my ID politics survey class in college, where people were told to make up a list of privileges we'd lose if we were a minority in any group, depending on what that group was for that unit (and members of that group were asked to do the opposite, and imagine what would change if they were members of the dominant group). But when we got to the unit on classism, that framework proved ridiculously futile. "If I were poor, I would have less stuff." It's not that complicated to see why being poor is less fun than being rich, and it's hard, even mildly offensive, to try to turn being poor into a badge of honor for everyone.
It reminds me of Michel Foucault's criticism of Marxist-based movements in France in the 1960's and his disillusionment with the fact that their political language simply wasn't set up to even begin to discuss sexual liberation. Just as his criticism was necessary several decades ago, we need to realize now that the language of identity politics and discrimination and rights is ill-equipped to discuss class and money. As Naomi Klein put it in No Logo:
Poverty wasn't an issue that came up much back then; sure, every once in a while in our crusades against the trio of 'isms, somebody would bring up "classism," and, being out-P.C.-ed, we would dutifully add "classism" to the hit list in question. But our criticism was focused on the representation of women and minorities within the structures of power, not on the economics behinds those power structures. "Discrimination against poverty" (our understanding of injustice was generally construed as discrimination against something) couldn't be solved by changing perceptions or language or even, strictly speaking, individual behavior. The basic demands of identity politics assumed an atmosphere of plenty. In the seventies and eighties, that plenty had existed and women and non-whites were able to battle over how the collective pie would be divided: would white men learn to share, or would they keep hogging it? In the representational politics of the New Economy nineties, however, women as well as men, and whites as well as people of color, were now fighting their battles over a single, shrinking piece of the pie - and consistently failing to ask what was happening to the rest of it. For us, as students, to address the problems at the roots of "classism" we would have had to face up to the core issues of wealth distribution - and, unlike sexism, racism or homophobia, that was not what we used to call "an awareness problem."
Hence the ridiculous of attacking the issue with the language of identity politics, assuming that rich people are a discreet class and everyone else is "normal."
And that's the issues with trying to import same-ness into the LGBT community - we're going to end up inevitably replicating the same power structures found straight society.
4. Wealthy people's values are already over-represented in the LGBT movement
To be clear, the out-sized representation wealthy people have in decisions make that affect the priorities, goals, and make-up of the LGBT community isn't avoidable. As I stated above, thinking of the LGBT movement as a finite group of people that either is or was democratically controlled is a fantasy. It never was democratic, nor will it ever be. In fact, that's what I was referring to when I said:
And LGBT activists have, for reasons that completely escape me, fused our populist and radical movement with people who want DOMA repealed to escape the federal estate tax. It wasn't organic. It wasn't democratic. I don't ever remember being asked if I wanted to be lumped together with these people.
Trust me, the reasons that LGBT activists generally listen to the desires of wealthy LGBT people doesn't escape me: they provide the funds that keep most of the LGBT nonprofits going. And that's not a bad thing. There are quite a few accomplishments in the march towards queer liberation/LGBT equality that wouldn't have happened if others weren't able to work full-time on making them happen, thanks to the wealthy LGBT donors.
(BTW, this is where most some people started to think that this was proof-positive that I'm a black-clad, European, Marxist intellectual wannabe, not aware, apparently, that black-clad, European, Marxist intellectual wannabes tend to be some of the worst when it comes to worshipping the ground the rich walk on, but hold middle class bourgeois society in contempt.)
What it does mean, though, is that the way decisions are made in the community and with relation to our activism are generally skewed towards the decisions the wealthy donors want.
It's rare to see this addressed in the community. To address that would require us to finally understand that not everyone who identifies as LGBT has the same needs. Transgender people have generally made some LGB people aware of this, but, when it comes to class, it's generally assumed that the same politics of identity and focus on ending discrimination along the lines of sexual orientation and gender identity is shared by everyone in the community. Everyone who's "gay," it's assumed, has the same vision for a homophobia-free world, and, since we're not trained to articulate goals along the lines of class, there aren't many who challenge that.
It's easy to think that. Before I started working on Bilerico, I generally equated the LGBT movement with same-sex marriage. It's no wonder: if we only think of inequality as blatant, stated discrimination against a minority group, then same-sex marriage (followed by DADT) is the biggest, most obvious source of LGBT oppression.
Working on this project, though, has forced me to consider the role homophobia plays in my own life. How does being gay affect me? In terms of relating to society in general, it wasn't a lack of marriage that reminded me every day that I was lesser-than; it was that I had had several jobs where I was certain I would be fired if I came out and that I was generally afraid of showing signs of my sexuality (like holding hands with my boyfriend) in uncontrolled environments for fear of getting the crap beat out of me that constricted me from achieving my potential.
Groups like HRC, which are often (and sometimes unfairly) criticized for only looking out for wealthy LGB's interests, get that criticism not because wealthy people shouldn't be represented in Congress, but because their representation crowds out the rest of us. HRC's yearly budget is miniscule in comparison to other lobbies and interest groups. The reason they're able to even get the time of day in Congress is because many Reps and Senators assume that they represent an important part of the interests of 5% of the population. If a representative actually thought HRC only represented the votes of their 40 or 50 top donors, then they wouldn't seem to powerful at all.
HRC then turns around and sells the resulting access back to their donors. Even the biggest fans of the org must admit that, if it didn't get access, donors wouldn't give it the time of day either.
After that process, though, people seem to assume that whatever trickle-down activism comes from those wealthy donors in the form of donations to the Ali Forney Center should be enough to compensate someone like me for what's being sold as my vote and my participation in civil society. More to the point, the fact that I don't have a voice in the process, we're told, is unimportant because I should be happy that those wealthy donors are helping me be represented anyway, whether I actually am represented or not.
Criticisms of groups like HRC that accuse them of only caring about "rich, white gay men" miss the mark. The point isn't that a certain identity is being favored, and that's why such criticisms are so easily dismissed. Leaving that criticism in terms of identity politics only elicits the obvious rejoinder: they're addressing the interests of black and poor and latino and Asian gay men and women as homosexuals, everything else is to be addressed by another group, org, or movement. If your complaint is that a certain identity isn't being represented, go find another movement that represents that identity.
Framing the question in terms of power, though, it's more accurate and harder to ignore.
5. There are sacred cows and sacrificial lambs in the LGBT movement. Why doesn't that bother more of us?
But the knee-jerk defense of rich people from one satirical call to have them removed from the LGBT movement was revealing in and of itself. It's fairly obvious from reading those comments that there's something more going on when it comes to defending the rich than just worries that they'll stop donating or that we shouldn't kick anyone out of the movement for fairness' sake.
Part of it, of course, is the very American belief that anyone can become rich if they just stop being lazy. Several people told me that I too could become a millionaire if I just worked hard, moved to an urban center, or waited for inflation to kick in (you know, I'm assuming that the estate tax exemption will be adjusted for inflation before $1,000,000 becomes the average working class savings. But that's just me).
And a bigger part of it has to do with the fact that we Americans love rich people. For all that those Goldman Sachs executives whined earlier this year that people were saying mean things about them as they were looting hundreds of millions in public funds via bonuses as the economy continued to crash, criticism of rich people for being rich is exceedingly rare.
The snooty gossip columns of yesteryear have been replaced by People magazines; now the unwashed masses can read every exciting detail in the lives of rich people. High school popularity is defined by access to the latest trends and best brands, which can only be bought with cash. Even wealthy and powerful people who commit war crimes, destroy the economy while stealing billions, and rape children have friends in major publications willing to go to bat for them, distressed that anyone could even think of trying such wonderful, rich, powerful people.
Power is an aphrodisiac, and we, as a culture, are weak in the face of power's alluring call.
On the other end of the spectrum, the movement seems too willing to kick out transgender people for a dollar. There's almost no talk on Capitol Hill that gender identity is the reason Congress is dragging its feet on ENDA, yet the LGBT paper of record is already asking how we'd feel about dropping the T.
Some folks are a little too eager for an opportunity to kick transgender people to the curb, don't you think?
As is clear to anyone paying attention: the LGBT movement has sacred cows and sacrificial lambs. But most people don't pay attention to that.
And why should they? If a group of people is, in reality, preferred to other groups of people, it only happens because we are willing to overlook or justify the ways in which they get preferential treatment. And if another group of people is indeed disliked more than other groups of people, then people would actually harbor ill will towards them and, naturally, think that it's justified.
Anyway, that's what I meant. If you feel like disagreeing now, go ahead. But at least you'll be disagreeing with stuff I actually mean.
And, like the last time, everyone who agrees with me agrees with me, anyone who doesn't comment is assumed to agree with me, and everyone who disagrees with me only proves what a courageous and free-thinking person I am, and is proving me right in the process. 
Alex Blaze has been the Managing Editor of the Bilerico Project since 2008. Photo Courtesy of Alex Blaze.
[Updated on: Sat, 28 November 2009 03:47] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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When I was a kid I never knew much about being queer, except that queers were disgusting. I have a ridiculous blind spot over lesbians and am more than a little jealous that they get a classical name, but we poofs only get "Gay" which we have to share with them.
I sort of knew about men dressing as ladies, so that part of the "T" was clear in a way, and yet I never classed a simple transvestite as "one of us" because, well they aren't. They are heterosexual men who dress as ladies, in the main.
I'd never heard of Transgender. And, even when I had, Transgender or Transsexual was a curiosity, until I met my cousin I once knew as Graham who is now Lindy. At that point Trans became personal, with a mind and a body and hopes and fears and feelings.
As a bloke I still find it hard to understand lesbians. I wonder if that's because I don't have fantasies about svelte young women all over each other like a rash. Heterosexual men do, apparently, along with a feeling that their wondrous charm can convert them. To what, to Buddhism?
As a gay man I can easily include lesbians, of course I can, but I still wonder "what do they do?" I am fixated on sex involving some form of pleasurable penetration. So are many heterosexual ladies. So I do, genuinely, fail to understand. I'm not that good at understanding ladies anyway. Very few men are. Some have the fortune to find them sexually appealing, which overcomes the lack of understanding, though.
Equally I fail to understand a MM relationship that doesn't involve penetration.
I do like svelte young gentlemen dressed in ladies' clothing, but obviously still young gentlemen. I can understand the mutual pleasure such an arrangement could bring. But that is because ladies' clothing is so much more glorious in form and colour than gentlemen's clothing. We are not allowed to be peacocks.
As much as I empathise with Lindy, I don't at all find preoperative M2F transsexuals attractive. Chicks with Dicks is not what I want. Breasts do not turn me on. As Graham I found Lindy very attractive. Lindy is simply great company.
I wonder where that leaves me on L, G, B, and T?
[Updated on: Sat, 28 November 2009 13:45]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Well, I waded through it: I admit that I found it heavy going: I think a precis rather then the full article might have made me feel more on top of it!
I fundamentally disagree with what I understand to be the thrust of the article.
I was very active in the burgeoning "gay" (which then was understood to include lesbian) movement in London in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There was a massive push, by a number of very determined members of a significant community, to get themselves included in the movement, have themselves legitimated and their aims included in policy documents and campaigns, and so forth. In some cases they succeeded, and the queer theorists routinely included them. One open member of the movement was elected as President of a Students Union.
The name of the movement, perfectly legal to be a member of, and advertised at subsidised rates in the burgeoning gay.press? P.I.E. That stands for "Paedophile Information Exchange", and their goal was the total abolition of the age of consent, to enable them to have sex with children of any age from birth upwards. The formal inclusion of PIE objectives in the London Gay Student founding declaration was the thing that precipitated my withdrawal from involvement in organised gay politics for half a decade!
It was clear to me then, and remains clear to me now, that there is *no* gay / LGBT consensus movement: there are a lot of movements that overlap and ally. Each of us argues within a number of groups and public forums what level of inclusiveness and integration we're going for, and work together on common areas which are always fluid. I don't see necessarily as a weakness: diversity is good! Though I admit it's frustrating when - for example - I'm firmly pushing for full marriage rights, and others believe equally fervently that CP's are good enough.
So, on trans people. I'm happy to include equal treatment in campaigns, and work alongside trans people. But I don't find the commonalities enough for my to personally buy in to supporting specific work on specifically trans issues: there is much else that I'm more personally involved in.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Yep, NW.
All movements are coalitions and there are always groups just outside that want to come in and groups just inside that threaten to go out.
It has always been true that the rich have more influence than the poor, person for person, though the larger numbers of the poor to a small extent compensate. That is one of the better reasons for wanting to be rich (I mean to influence events in a way that seems right to you).
But in general wanting equality in society ought to mean reducing the great discrepancy between the rich and the poor. I cannot see how to justify the situation where even a few rich people get paid (they don't "earn" it) more than a hundred times as much as many (even most) poor people.
So should we exclude thatcherites for greed (and maybe all millionaires)? Should a decent movement be limited to liberal socialists?
It doesn't really matter whether you agree or not. The world will go on whatever you think.
And if you think an education system that gives the rich an advatage is wrong and an economy and tax system that bring up a third of our children in poverty is OK then I merely think the worse of you and try not to stimulate you into active opposition.
Politics is the art of the possible and I think it is possible to eliminate child poverty. They've almost succeeded in Denmark and Sweden. Why can't we have a go?
So I think equality is at the bottom of it. Anyone agree?
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Apart from being a political doctrine not backed with facts, it has not one single thing to do with the topic. It reminds me of he banners "Let's Make Poverty History" put up by namby pamby do-gooders a year or two back. It's sloganeering, a short term feel good droplet in an ocean of reality.
Is the LGBT issue so small that we need to broaden it immediately into something that makes us lose touch with the simple fact that being gay is not quite as comfortable as we believe?
I'm not about to solve the problems of the world. I think "child poverty" is a load of bollocks however one phrases it anyway. If you want my views on the essential truths behind poverty and the global need for it in any socio-economic system, that's a different topic. It probably has a different home, too.
But I certainly do have a view on the PIE and it's having been embraced by the embryo gay movement that NW speaks of, and that view reflects his view to the extent that he has made a view at all public. It is and was wrong, socially, logically, and for the good of the children physically.
Such hijackings of a decent cause set the cause back and helped to foster the idea that "all queers want to bugger our sons!" Such a movement in the USA was (is?) NAMBLA, such a movement was the bizarre René Guyon Society with its reported motto "sex before eight or it's too late!"
And movements like this cause natural repulsion among all ordinary folk, LGBT or straight folk. And they confuse the issue hugely, making real reforms, real acceptance, slide back a thousand years.
So screw child poverty and inclusionism, neither of those things are relevant except as some sort of dogma. Were were talking about something entirely different, something far less comfortable!
[Updated on: Sat, 28 November 2009 11:18]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy wrote:
>
> But I certainly do have a view on the PIE and it's having been embraced by the embryo gay movement that NW speaks of, and that view reflects his view to the extent that he has made a view at all public. It is and was wrong, socially, logically, and for the good of the children physically.
>
> Such hijackings of a decent cause set the cause back and helped to foster the idea that "all queers want to bugger our sons!" Such a movement in the USA was (is?) NAMBLA, such a movement was the bizarre René Guyon Society with its reported motto "sex before eight or it's too late!"
>
> And movements like this cause natural repulsion among all ordinary folk, LGBT or straight folk. And they confuse the issue hugely, making real reforms, real acceptance, slide back a thousand years.
>
You see, the thing is, both paedophiles and trans-people are historically excluded minorities. And there's an argument that there is more of an intrinsic link between paedo's (who come in both gay and straight flavours) and gays - because both are about sexual desires and orientation - than between trans people and gays (trans people also come in both straight and gay flavours - there's no necessary link between their sexuality and their gender identity).
The thing also is that I support the right of trans people to have whatever drug or surgical regime they feel appropriate at an early age, the right for their birth certificate to reflect their gender identity, and their right not to be discriminated against. They - as well as gay people, and the paedo's of whom timmy uses the phrase above - "cause natural repulsion among all ordinary folk...". But it's a lukewarm support - I wouldn't march for miles in a downpour, the way I have for gay rights. I don't - and I realise this is surprisingly politically incorrect of me - see them as having any necessary association with the LGB community.
As for paedo's, I have no support to offer whatsoever. Yup, I feel some sympathy for those who feel attracted to prepubescent kids - it must be dreadful to struggle with that desire. However, I have NO sympathy whatsoever for anyone who succumbs to that desire, or who argues that it should be legitimised, and most certainly don't see them as having any necessary connection with the LGB community on the grounds that historically both sexualities have suffered at the hands of the majority.
So that's my response to the part of the opening post dealing with trans people.
As regards the over-representation of certain groups in the "movment" - of course there are! There are -for all kinds of reasons - in any movement or political group I've ever been part of! Which is why I think it doesn't make much sense to think of a "movement", but sets of groups of people who work together on particular projects when their interests coincide, and recognising that some groups will be larger, more articulate, better funded etc than others, and that we must use care and charity that people with whom we can potentially work constructively as allies are not unintentionally excluded.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Tim is 100% on-target! This thread is about LGBT politics. NOT bullshit about child poverty or how many malaria tents will help stop the disease in Africa!
NOR is it about topics that as Tim's stated make folks feel good because they are comfy discussing them.
This discussion is about YOU, ME, our fellow queers. The direct impact of topic matters that Alex brought up in his op-ed piece. NW made an excellent point about the early LGBT movement being in some ways hi-jacked by the paedophiles that created a horrible and long lasting negative impact, that to this day, still riles folks up and creates negative feedback and undesired attention. Negative enough that it is drawing away from the main thrust of the work by organisations like Human Rights Campaign, the ILG in Europe or Stonewall.
What about Now? Here? Defense of Marriage, DADT in the U. S. Military. LGBT Marriage, and even more so massively important, erasing the hate that causes deaths like young Steven Lopez-Mercado or Sean Kennedy, or Matthew Shepard.
Pray, let's talk about the UNCOMFORTABLE issues that confront us as queer folk daily, not on some abstract bullshit political situation that has NO bearing on this discussion. I'll quote Tim again:
"Is the LGBT issue so small that we need to broaden it immediately into something that makes us lose touch with the simple fact that being gay is not quite as comfortable as we believe?"
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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With regard to Trans I agree with you. I have also seen discrimination in my own family, something I have done my small best to correct. The weirdness of growing up in the wrong shell is something that even a first hand description does not touch the surface of.
I see what you state as the apparent linkage in some people's minds between P and G, but I do not accept their view. Being gay is not the same, whatever they try to say, and being a Paedophile even of one takes the one vital difference that, in our nation at least, one may have a gay sexual relationship but one may not have a pedophilic one. That difference alone says that the two terms are terms for wholly distinct sets of people.
I recognise that the law of the time meant that each was as unlawful as the other, but there is a huge set of intellectual gymnastics to undertake before seeking to equate wanting sex with pre-pubertal children (the true definition - we are not discussing under age sex per se) and being naturally homosexual.
We may want many things. I want to have a bar of chocolate, but I am diabetic and must moderate my desires. Paedophiles may desire a child with all their heart, but touching one is unacceptable socially and morally, let alone lawfully. Even simple geometry says that it is inappropriate.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Lesbians are lovely people who I understand and admire.
Seems to me that there is a huge difference between effeminate gays and Transvestites. TVs seems to be a totally different issue and not part of the gay movement. Transgenders probably have a lot of common cause with TVs. It sorta seems that TVs are transgender lite. Understand, I am speaking from stupidity re TVs and Transgender. I did know one Transgender who was part of MCC; I really don't know what her sexual preference was. And I spent an evening with a TV who picked me up once, but I really couldn't connect with what I was supposed to do with him. He just seemed to want to be accepted. I hope I gave him that.
Maybe that's what we should do with these folks we don't understand. Try to accept them.
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Heterosexuals can be lovely people too. It's not that I don't like or appreciate them, I just don't understand the sex! Same with Lesbians.
Transvestism, pure transvestism, is a fetish, no more and no less. It runs the gamut from the drag queen at one end (Think Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) where by no means all are gay, through the comedian Eddie Izzard http://www.eddieizzard.com/index-main.php who is masculine yet with feminine accoutrements, all the way to gentlemen who dress as ladies and are indistinguishable from ladies when in costume.
By no means even 50% of men who dress as ladies are gay or even bi.
By no means all transvestites go out in drag. Often it is a solo performance.
Transvestism is also a way of expressing a different form of fun. It's fancy dress! Look at the pictures! I've kept them clean, but this guy turns me on very much by his makeup, hair and clothes, and in other pictures the careful lack of some of them
Transgender/Transsexual is very different. I asked Lindy how someone like she is can be gay or straight. My prurient homophobic cousin is very interested in that, and I thought I knew the answer. Lindy confirmed it for me. She has no idea. She has two fine sons and is their DAD. She happens to be a lady who enjoys having sex with ladies and also with gentlemen. But she is very clear that she is not bisexual. What she has is an imperfect set of equipment either for her body or for her partners' bodies.
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Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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My auntie plays Scrabble with Eddie Izzard's stepmother. It's got nothing to do with the argument, but I thought I'd drop it into the conversation.
On the other hand it might have something to do with the price of fish. Eddie, I gather, hates dressing up in women's clothes, but I know no more than that because my father's fallen out with his sister-in-law and so I haven't seen her for some years.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I don't think I have ever seen him in women's clothes, and yet he uses the word 'transvestite', thus complicating the term substantially.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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No Message Body
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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MontyPythonesque, Nigel.
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Ministry of Silly Walks?
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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So, now we have that out of the way, how does that help our understanding?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I haven't forgotten this post. I read something today that brought it vividly back to mind. http://tinyurl.com/38embkk has my take on what I read.
Opinions are not just for here on this forum. Put your opinion out n the real world as well.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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