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I love that technology can reshape bodies inside and out
I don't think I need that
I can reject the gender without rejecting the body
I appreciate your comment for describing all of the difficulties with issues relating to transgender children. It's not as simple as "men are men, women are women" but it also isn't as simple as "whatever modifications a child wants to make to their body, for the purpose of gender affirming therapy, are OK".
I would argue that a minor should not be allowed to make irreversible changes to their body -- wait until you're 18. Part of being a human and part of being a member of society is that we have age-graduated sets of rights and responsibilities. If, when you become an adult, you continue to want to make irreversible changes to your body, and you can find a properly licensed medical professional who agrees, then you may make that choice.
I would argue that a minor should not be allowed to make irreversible changes to their body -- wait until you're 18. Part of being a human and part of being a member of society is that we have age-graduated sets of rights and responsibilities. If, when you become an adult, you continue to want to make irreversible changes to your body, and you can find a properly licensed medical professional who agrees, then you may make that choice.
Queer folk have designated June as the month when they get to parade in the streets and otherwise celebrate being Queer: it's Pride month!
It's also the month when the otherwise non-political kinky dudes I follow on Twitter start arguing over what Pride means and who gets to take part and how people should behave while taking part.
Which is one reason why I find Pride so annoying at age 54.
But I also find Christmas annoying, so ... themed holidays in general annoy me ;-)
-----
Unfortunately the phrase "Gay Pride", later updated to "LGBTQ+ Pride", is a misnomer. What is today labeled "the first Gay Pride parade" was called a "Liberation Day march" at the time, back in 1970. Somehow some of the activists started calling it Gay Pride instead of Gay Liberation, and the Pride name stuck instead. And somehow we stopped calling them "marches" and call them "parades" now instead.
I'd much rather we called these LGBTQ+ liberation marches than pride parades. Because pride is simply an emotion, an emotion that is often negatively perceived by laypersons, psychologists, and spiritual leaders; whereas liberation is more of a tangible and lasting goal, both personal and political, that I consider much more important. Also, parades are things we do to celebrate holidays or sports victories, whereas marches are more confrontational, political, and meaningful. We are marching for liberation, or, we should be.
-----
More specifically, I've become irate at how many of my Queer siblings now tend to view Pride as a way to exclude elements they do not like, rather than a way to include as many sexual minorities and allies as possible. The worst example is how New York Pride -- the descendant of the original 1970 Liberation March -- now excludes individuals who work in law enforcement from marching in their parade.
But a more widespread example is the now-annual fight over displays of kink, unclothed body parts, and public affection. Some people who identify as asexual complain about overt displays of sexuality at Pride. Some parents complain that Pride events should be "family friendly", as though the mere suggestion of sex is dangerous to any children who are attending a celebration of sexual minorities.
Then there are the perennial arguments over the commercialization of Pride. All a corporation has to do is rebrand with rainbow colors for a month and they're now somehow supporters of the daily struggles that LGBTQ+ individuals face.
That I feel compelled to weigh in at all on these points makes me feel stupid. I feel the concept of sexual liberation, so palpable in 1970, has been transformed into something completely different, and I'm not even sure what this new amalgam is supposed to be. I watch friends fly to cities for [City] Pride, or make plans to go watch the local parade, and I feel more bored by it than anything else.
-----
In 2022, despite a recent Supreme Court decision holding that transgender persons are protected from discrimination, the Republican Party is making a purposeful and concerted effort to demonize transgender persons. It used to be that the "T" in LGBT was pretty much ignored by everybody except the Ts, but now they're under attack.
I'd much rather spend Pride Month focusing on the plight of those who feel oppressed by gender norms, and showing them our support, than by attending some sort of parade/festival or fighting over who should attend or how they should behave.
Transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming individuals are under attack. We should be treating this as a crisis, not a celebration. Show your support by speaking up, by offering direct support or assistance, by registering to vote, by donating, by writing, and in whatever way you can.
And when the month of June ends, keep on supporting gender minorities. This cannot be a one-month-of-the-year thing. This is a long-term battle for liberation from gender norms. We may never win, but the battle is worth fighting.
Gender norms oppress everybody, whether they are cisgender, transgender, or agender; whether they are heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, or asexual. Everybody benefits when we liberate each other from gender norms. This is not a matter of pride, but a matter of liberation. And the struggle transcends this month, this year, or this decade. I'm committed to liberation from gender norms. I hope you will join me.
It's also the month when the otherwise non-political kinky dudes I follow on Twitter start arguing over what Pride means and who gets to take part and how people should behave while taking part.
Which is one reason why I find Pride so annoying at age 54.
But I also find Christmas annoying, so ... themed holidays in general annoy me ;-)
-----
Unfortunately the phrase "Gay Pride", later updated to "LGBTQ+ Pride", is a misnomer. What is today labeled "the first Gay Pride parade" was called a "Liberation Day march" at the time, back in 1970. Somehow some of the activists started calling it Gay Pride instead of Gay Liberation, and the Pride name stuck instead. And somehow we stopped calling them "marches" and call them "parades" now instead.
I'd much rather we called these LGBTQ+ liberation marches than pride parades. Because pride is simply an emotion, an emotion that is often negatively perceived by laypersons, psychologists, and spiritual leaders; whereas liberation is more of a tangible and lasting goal, both personal and political, that I consider much more important. Also, parades are things we do to celebrate holidays or sports victories, whereas marches are more confrontational, political, and meaningful. We are marching for liberation, or, we should be.
-----
More specifically, I've become irate at how many of my Queer siblings now tend to view Pride as a way to exclude elements they do not like, rather than a way to include as many sexual minorities and allies as possible. The worst example is how New York Pride -- the descendant of the original 1970 Liberation March -- now excludes individuals who work in law enforcement from marching in their parade.
But a more widespread example is the now-annual fight over displays of kink, unclothed body parts, and public affection. Some people who identify as asexual complain about overt displays of sexuality at Pride. Some parents complain that Pride events should be "family friendly", as though the mere suggestion of sex is dangerous to any children who are attending a celebration of sexual minorities.
Then there are the perennial arguments over the commercialization of Pride. All a corporation has to do is rebrand with rainbow colors for a month and they're now somehow supporters of the daily struggles that LGBTQ+ individuals face.
That I feel compelled to weigh in at all on these points makes me feel stupid. I feel the concept of sexual liberation, so palpable in 1970, has been transformed into something completely different, and I'm not even sure what this new amalgam is supposed to be. I watch friends fly to cities for [City] Pride, or make plans to go watch the local parade, and I feel more bored by it than anything else.
-----
In 2022, despite a recent Supreme Court decision holding that transgender persons are protected from discrimination, the Republican Party is making a purposeful and concerted effort to demonize transgender persons. It used to be that the "T" in LGBT was pretty much ignored by everybody except the Ts, but now they're under attack.
I'd much rather spend Pride Month focusing on the plight of those who feel oppressed by gender norms, and showing them our support, than by attending some sort of parade/festival or fighting over who should attend or how they should behave.
Transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming individuals are under attack. We should be treating this as a crisis, not a celebration. Show your support by speaking up, by offering direct support or assistance, by registering to vote, by donating, by writing, and in whatever way you can.
And when the month of June ends, keep on supporting gender minorities. This cannot be a one-month-of-the-year thing. This is a long-term battle for liberation from gender norms. We may never win, but the battle is worth fighting.
Gender norms oppress everybody, whether they are cisgender, transgender, or agender; whether they are heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, or asexual. Everybody benefits when we liberate each other from gender norms. This is not a matter of pride, but a matter of liberation. And the struggle transcends this month, this year, or this decade. I'm committed to liberation from gender norms. I hope you will join me.
[I wrote this at least two years ago]
Gendered third-person singular pronouns are a mess! I wish I were the English Language Deity and could simply order everybody who speaks English to use "it/its" for all third-person singular entities. English already has "it/its" as a perfectly good non-gendered third-person singular pronoun. But because we've long presumed that every mammal has one, and only one, of two exclusive genders, it feels weird to use "it/its" when speaking about a human. I also blame the movie The Silence of the Lambs for making "it/its" even creepier to use, LOL.
On the other hand, I really have no desire to start a campaign to get everybody to refer to me as "it/its" and then to convince everybody to get everybody else to to refer to them as "it/its".
The mere existence of nonbinary and genderqueer folk makes it difficult for everybody to properly apply gendered third-person singular pronouns. It is even more difficult when everybody starts designating their own personal third-person singular pronouns -- it becomes impossible to use third-person singular pronouns to designate people whose personal pronouns are not previously known, or not accurately remembered, by the hapless speaker.
So the only logical solution is to apply "it/its" to everybody. Seriously, having to memorize each person's preferred pronouns just doesn't scale up.
Gendered third-person singular pronouns are a mess! I wish I were the English Language Deity and could simply order everybody who speaks English to use "it/its" for all third-person singular entities. English already has "it/its" as a perfectly good non-gendered third-person singular pronoun. But because we've long presumed that every mammal has one, and only one, of two exclusive genders, it feels weird to use "it/its" when speaking about a human. I also blame the movie The Silence of the Lambs for making "it/its" even creepier to use, LOL.
On the other hand, I really have no desire to start a campaign to get everybody to refer to me as "it/its" and then to convince everybody to get everybody else to to refer to them as "it/its".
The mere existence of nonbinary and genderqueer folk makes it difficult for everybody to properly apply gendered third-person singular pronouns. It is even more difficult when everybody starts designating their own personal third-person singular pronouns -- it becomes impossible to use third-person singular pronouns to designate people whose personal pronouns are not previously known, or not accurately remembered, by the hapless speaker.
So the only logical solution is to apply "it/its" to everybody. Seriously, having to memorize each person's preferred pronouns just doesn't scale up.
"Tell Me Why"
6 September 2020 18:53Started playing the video game Tell Me Why this afternoon. I'd classify it more as interactive fiction than a game. But you "play" as a young transgender man who reunites with his sister to head back to their childhood home ...
Seems appropriate for me to role play as a transgender man after picking on the concept of gender in my journal. Struggling with being brought up as a girl, my character wanted to do boy things instead. Reminds me of when I was a boy, sometimes I wanted to do girl things instead. I played jump rope with the girls in 4th grade instead of kickball with the guys. My mother taught me needlepoint. In 6th or 7th grade some male friends and I performed a play for the entire school in which we portrayed women characters, wore dresses and wigs.
Then I started falling in love with other guys.
Anyway, the story is not about me. The story is pretty good so far, setting off some of my emotions as I'm here at the house, processing the actual fact of K moving to Portland. I told T about the news, and he was supportive, saying now I'd have a reason to visit Portland. And K will continue to own the condo here and to work for his employer who is headquartered here. Not like I'll never see K again, but it will be less often than every week or two. The time between will be measured in months, not weeks, but also not years. We will likely take trips together as we did before Quarantine.
It did cheer me when Robin said he was still interested in meeting up with me for toy time at the condo. I haven't arranged any such things (with anybody except K) since Quarantine began in March. The monthly play parties have been suspended, of course, so I haven't seen any of my play buddies. Haven't seen Sir B :-( Social isolation, from everybody except for T.
And K agreed to have weekly phone calls with me after they move -- we've never had an agreement like that before. K said I'm as important to him as he is to me, he's not going to disappear from my life, but he's never liked living in DC and now he's finally got an opening to live somewhere else. I've also been talking about wanting to live somewhere else. T also talks about wanting to live somewhere else. But K is the first person to have the chance to act.
Some tough emotions this afternoon, but I'm here with T and the pets, and I know I've got supportive friends and family, and this Quarantine won't last forever, and K will remain in my life, at a reduced frequency of physical contact. K said to me that our relationship survived the 15 months he lived in Madrid. It will survive this change, but it's still OK for me to feel sad about it and to write about this sadness in my journal.
Seems appropriate for me to role play as a transgender man after picking on the concept of gender in my journal. Struggling with being brought up as a girl, my character wanted to do boy things instead. Reminds me of when I was a boy, sometimes I wanted to do girl things instead. I played jump rope with the girls in 4th grade instead of kickball with the guys. My mother taught me needlepoint. In 6th or 7th grade some male friends and I performed a play for the entire school in which we portrayed women characters, wore dresses and wigs.
Then I started falling in love with other guys.
Anyway, the story is not about me. The story is pretty good so far, setting off some of my emotions as I'm here at the house, processing the actual fact of K moving to Portland. I told T about the news, and he was supportive, saying now I'd have a reason to visit Portland. And K will continue to own the condo here and to work for his employer who is headquartered here. Not like I'll never see K again, but it will be less often than every week or two. The time between will be measured in months, not weeks, but also not years. We will likely take trips together as we did before Quarantine.
It did cheer me when Robin said he was still interested in meeting up with me for toy time at the condo. I haven't arranged any such things (with anybody except K) since Quarantine began in March. The monthly play parties have been suspended, of course, so I haven't seen any of my play buddies. Haven't seen Sir B :-( Social isolation, from everybody except for T.
And K agreed to have weekly phone calls with me after they move -- we've never had an agreement like that before. K said I'm as important to him as he is to me, he's not going to disappear from my life, but he's never liked living in DC and now he's finally got an opening to live somewhere else. I've also been talking about wanting to live somewhere else. T also talks about wanting to live somewhere else. But K is the first person to have the chance to act.
Some tough emotions this afternoon, but I'm here with T and the pets, and I know I've got supportive friends and family, and this Quarantine won't last forever, and K will remain in my life, at a reduced frequency of physical contact. K said to me that our relationship survived the 15 months he lived in Madrid. It will survive this change, but it's still OK for me to feel sad about it and to write about this sadness in my journal.
(1) I will try to write without assuming people have access to the past 17 years of my LiveJournal (or 20 years, if you know how to find my first LiveJournal), as though I'm writing for a new audience, although my audience is always ... the journal itself. Hey, new journal, you don't know me, so I'll try not to assume you know anything about me. But I'm not going to start my story from the beginning either. Minimal exposition? We'll just drop in here.
(2) I won't post "friends only" stuff or whatever they call it here. Only public, or private. So some of the details I used to write about in friends only posts won't be available to anybody but me. Public, or private. No in between, no gradations of various friends groups, etc.
(3) I will try to only write about topics that derive from stuff that happens directly to me. Conversations I've had with people, either in person or online. Stuff I've done. Stuff people have done to me. So, for example, I'll only write about the economy if I'm recording an actual conversation I've had about the economy, or a way the economy affected me, or something I've done in response to the economy. Less pontificating and predicting and so forth. But once a topic is sparked by reality, I may follow up in ways that go beyond what I did in person.
(4) Basically this means nothing in here that's purely a reaction to something I've seen in the news media. I'm going to excise the News Junkie, Stock Market, Pandemic, and Econ stuff. But if I'm reading a book, or some poetry, or listening to music, watching a film, I'll write about that stuff. Current events will only find their way into my new journal if I've spoken/texted about them with somebody else. Like, I spoke with Public Health Friend about the Pandemic, and she said ...; or, I invested in a new financial instrument this morning, ticket symbol TBF, ...
(5) As an experiment in avant-garde intentional misgendering, because I want to break down gender stereotypes, I reserve the right to refer in this journal to cisgender males as females, and cisgender females as males. For example, President Trump as "she". But if you are transgender or nonbinary I will do my best to respect your chosen pronouns. I'll try to make an exception for the people who actually read this thing (to the extent I know who you are).
(6) And I guess I'll stop using full names for friends, family, partners, and so forth. Pets will still get their full names, however. I live with T, our pets are named Astrid, Dax, and Sam. The only other person in my Quarantine Bubble right now is K. We'll see who else ranks an initial around here.
(7) I will only post to my journal if earlier that day I've done my required amount of zen meditation.
(2) I won't post "friends only" stuff or whatever they call it here. Only public, or private. So some of the details I used to write about in friends only posts won't be available to anybody but me. Public, or private. No in between, no gradations of various friends groups, etc.
(3) I will try to only write about topics that derive from stuff that happens directly to me. Conversations I've had with people, either in person or online. Stuff I've done. Stuff people have done to me. So, for example, I'll only write about the economy if I'm recording an actual conversation I've had about the economy, or a way the economy affected me, or something I've done in response to the economy. Less pontificating and predicting and so forth. But once a topic is sparked by reality, I may follow up in ways that go beyond what I did in person.
(4) Basically this means nothing in here that's purely a reaction to something I've seen in the news media. I'm going to excise the News Junkie, Stock Market, Pandemic, and Econ stuff. But if I'm reading a book, or some poetry, or listening to music, watching a film, I'll write about that stuff. Current events will only find their way into my new journal if I've spoken/texted about them with somebody else. Like, I spoke with Public Health Friend about the Pandemic, and she said ...; or, I invested in a new financial instrument this morning, ticket symbol TBF, ...
(5) As an experiment in avant-garde intentional misgendering, because I want to break down gender stereotypes, I reserve the right to refer in this journal to cisgender males as females, and cisgender females as males. For example, President Trump as "she". But if you are transgender or nonbinary I will do my best to respect your chosen pronouns. I'll try to make an exception for the people who actually read this thing (to the extent I know who you are).
(6) And I guess I'll stop using full names for friends, family, partners, and so forth. Pets will still get their full names, however. I live with T, our pets are named Astrid, Dax, and Sam. The only other person in my Quarantine Bubble right now is K. We'll see who else ranks an initial around here.
(7) I will only post to my journal if earlier that day I've done my required amount of zen meditation.
