special
May 5th, 2021
Mind. Blown.
For anyone unfamiliar with this latest iteration of the soul, here’s a perfectly deadpan explanation from Stonewall.
Latest book…
Random oldie…
December 5, 2012-
- NICE T-SHIRT (Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust). Currently unavailable.
“Your” instead of “you’re” in panel one.
Good one Author, love it 🙂
Just to clarify – the “your not” should be corrected to “you’re not”
‘Feminity’ should be ‘Femininity’ in panel 3
Should be ‘femininity’ in panel 3 too…
And we must remember the Catholic god is a threesome in one. I’d have preferred he’d chosen a dog instead of a pigeon, but it’s his choice.
Thanks all for spotting the typos. Fixed now. (It will take a while for all the caches to clear)
“You’re either non-binary or you’re not, my boy.”
That’s just… I mean… ::chef’s kiss::
I read through the Stonewall article, but I feel it is VERY much language dependent!
eg: “use sibling instead of brother/sister.” Neither Dutch, nor German,nor French nor Spanish HAVE a gender-free word for another child of your parents! (Afaik Swedish is giving it a serious try). And the whole article could be dissected with similar arguments.
The second paragraph of that stonewall article seems to be where the confusion here lies:
“Non-binary people can feel that their gender identity and gender experience involves being both a man and a woman, or that it is fluid, in between, or completely outside of that binary.”
One can have varying degrees of masculinity and femininity and still view oneself as a man or woman. The point of being non-binary, to my understanding, is that the person doesn’t identify with this assignation.
No, I don’t get it either. But gender identity is subjective, not objective (“I feel there is a god” speaks to objective reality; “I feel like a man” is subjective, regardless of male or female biology – though I think there is neurological evidence to support the experience). I don’t get synesthesia either as I’ve not experienced it, but am happy to accept that it’s a thing.
Since there is no objective reason to reject a non-binary person’s experience, since it does not injure me to respect it, and since it treats them with the respect I would hope they would extend to me, I don’t need to get it to respect their wishes; I just need to not be a dick.
…there are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who do not…
UH-oh. Mo has really set the cat among the pigeons now.
What’s that creaking sound?
FYI, Stonewall is a reference to the Stonewall riots, a response by gay people to injustice by police.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots
People will take being treated like shit for a while, but not usually forever. Eventually they won’t even care if they live or die, but they’ll fight it.
…there are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who do not…
Indeed! 🙂
DTW, you wrote:
“Since there is no objective reason to reject a non-binary person’s experience, since it does not injure me to respect it, and since it treats them with the respect I would hope they would extend to me, I don’t need to get it to respect their wishes; I just need to not be a dick.”
I agree. And it’s nicely written too.
I’d add that the older one gets, the harder it is to remember new ways of speaking, so I’ll forget the new clumsy-feeling pronouns, and don’t deserve to be vilified when I do. There should still be special respect for age, even when we try and fail.
Hmm…, I wonder if I can turn a smiley face into a link? 🙂
Yes!!!
(I am easily amused…)
My take on binarity is this:
First off, sex =/= gender. Sex is biological; it’s a matter of DNA and anatomy, genotype and phenotype. Like all things biological, it has variation, with a few intermediate and mixed cases, but overall the distribution is highly bimodal. Gender is psychosocial; it’s a matter of identity and training. It is far more variable than sex, far less binary, and it’s inherently subjective.
Regarding nomenclature: I don’t like the label “LGBTQIAA”. OMG, WTF? That bureaucratic acronym formed by accretion. It looks like the name for an artificial food ingredient. I counter-propose “gender minorities”, which is in the English language, and is explicit about its politics.
Regarding identity: it is mostly illusory. Identity is mostly imposed by society, and therefore not really yours. Its ultimate effect is to divide the people, the better to conquer them. I counter-propose unity politics.
And regarding the law: law is public, and therefore must rely on objective measures. That tends to mean sex, not gender. So, penises to one bathroom, vaginas to the other. Clothes are public, so perhaps we could arrange for a cross-dressing exception.
Gender is ultimately a spiritual matter; so its freedom ought to be guaranteed by the First Amendment. I propose a “Freedom to Love” amendment, which guarantees that consenting adults in private may express physical love as they will, if it harms none. This cuts through the tiresome interference and oppression of gender identity politics.
I think one of the drivers for terms like LGBTQIAA is forcing people to say things like “LGBTQIAA”. By that metric, the more awkward the better.
Binary? Pfft. Octopussy, now there’s some Bond power gender bender. That Broccoli guy, he was REALLY into fractals (comes with the name?).
But that’s neither here nor there.
paradoctor & jb: I too find LGBTQIAA awkward. It’s not a tag I often need to use, but, if I have to, I say/write LGBT , where the represents all the other arcane possibilities. In fact, I think that used to be the standard label, and rolls off the tongue (or keyboard!) fairly easily. I seem to remember that, even farther back, it was just LGB.
In my post of a few moments ago, I typed a “plus” sign after LGBT, but it has not appeared, so maybe my “solution” is not so perfect after all.
I’ll try again: LGBT+
This time it worked!
What a pile of bull shit. Just stop using the word gender and use sex instead. Some shit disturber needed to create a controversy. We just need an agreement to never use the word gender again.
Done
paradoctor, the only part of your comment that I disagree with is I counter-propose “gender minorities” in place of the bad pick of Scrabble tiles, simply because the original LGB component is about sexual orientation, not gender identity.
In fact, I have no idea why everything from the T onwards got affixed to the LGB because they have nothing to do with sexuality. I mean, the A is for asexual, for God’s sake, which is to sexuality as anti-matter is to matter.
As far as I can tell, the T, etc. has acted almost parasitically on the LGB, the latter seeming to gain nothing but trouble from having the former riding its coat-tails, but the former gaining by latching on to an established movement, thereby saving itself much time, energy and resources in gaining traction in its activism. It has gained far more, though, by being able to frame any criticism of itself as ‘attacks’ on the LGBTETC. community, a deliberate silencing ploy designed to deter criticisms from those who oppose its dogma or disagree with its aims but do not want to be unfairly accused of homophobia, so prefer to remain silent.
That they definitely gain from the arrangement was made clear when those who realised how parasitical the situation had become broke away to begin the LGB Alliance. The TETC brigade went apeshit, throwing the usual accusations of bigotry and transphobia at the alliance and anybody who spoke even slightly favourable of it. Why? Because they knew that it was the LGB that gave them at least a veneer of respectabiity; it was their shield from ridicule and it was packing up and walking away.
But, even more telling, despite it being made very clear that the LGB had had enough of the one-way relationship and was severing ties with them, the TETC parasites did not drop the LGB component of that letter salad. Why? Because they intend to milk it for as long as they can, and because by continuing to falsly claim close links to LGB they can at least fool others into thinking that all is fine and that it’s all one mutually supporting community.
Not that I’d ever accuse the TRAs of acting in anything but complete faith – in their neo-religious dogma.
Does this all mean we have to change the name of the city of my birth? And eradicate, man, woman, he , she , her , him from the language? Jesus Christ, what about colloqual collective nouns like Doris or the Aussie version Sheilah?
Acolyte of Sagan: How about LGB+ to lump your TETC into one symbol?
(Let’s see if the plus sign comes out this time – Oh dear, “comes out” – no pun was intended!)
SoG, I don’t think that anything from the T onwards has anything to do with LGB at all, since LGB is about sexual orientation and the rest is all about ‘identity’.
There’s no real connection between the groups. What does a transwoman who claims to be heterosexual have to do with LGB? or an asexual? It’s so random it might as we include trainspotters, traffic wardens and circus clowns: after all, they’re all villified by the general public as much any trans or enbie.
Anyway, LGB+ wouldn’t work because it doesn’t specifically specify the special identity groups, and thats erasure or genocide or something.
Paradoctor, you wrote, “Gender is psychosocial; it’s a matter of identity and training.”
I think that’s only partly true, a small part. Consider that since the invention of Bakelite, over a century ago, humans have been polluting our environment with plastics, which are known endocrine disruptors.
It has recently been reported that currently we are ingesting an average of 5 grams of plastic every week, the equivalent of a credit card, due to the ubiquity of tiny particles of plastic in our food, drinking water and air. Plastic is in our food chain. It is blowing in the wind. The amount has been steadily increasing for decades.
Even pregnant women are consuming endocrine disruptors: a credit card’s worth per week. It should now be no surprise that since, say, 1950, there has been noticeable increase in the numbers, visibility, and acceptance of what you call “gender minorities”. (It is an elegant term, and I like it). Part of that increase is social, but I think most of it is biological, and driven by endocrine disruptors.
When marine life stops reproducing, civilization will begin to crumble. It won’t happen immediately. It might take centuries to play out. In 1000 years the historians of a diminished humanity will be discussing the role of our technologies in our demise.
Laripu — Do you have a link for that 5 grams report? The endocrine disruptor thing is a huge wildcard that I’ve been concerned about for a long time, but you don’t see many numbers put on it. (I’d like to think that once plastic gets reduced to the size of dust anything active gets leached out before the particles get into your body, but that may be wishful thinking).
Where is the white papers to support the plastic endocrine disruption and societal impacts proven?
Laripu, re. It should now be no surprise that since, say, 1950, there has been noticeable increase in the numbers, visibility, and acceptance of what you call “gender minorities”.
Well, yes, put that way it certainly sounds as though some environmental factor was in play to create a noticeable increase, but then again, word order is important, and perhaps you are putting the cart before the horse.
Consider that by the start of the 1950s there had been two devastating world wars played out in the preceding 36 years, wars in which millions were killed, many millions more wounded, cities destroyed, countries chopped up and divided among the victors.
By 1950 the full horror of what the world had suffered had had the time to sink in and people had begun to be less eager for more of the same, and so began an era more inclined toward reconciliation and tolerance, particulary across Western Europe but even the USA saw an increase in white support for the civil rights of the black population.
Now, LGB people have always been with us but by necessity remained hidden, but in the post-war era, as the populations of nations – if not necessarily their political and legal systems – showed that they were increasingly less bothered by petty differences the LGB people began to emerge into the open.
With that in mind, look at the difference that swapping just two words around in the sentence of yours I quoted makes.
It should now be no surprise that since, say, 1950, there has been noticeable increase in the acceptance, visibility, and numbers of what you call “gender minorities”.
So I wonder, did an increasingly-polluted environment cause a rise in numbers, leading to greater visibility and finally acceptance? Or is it possibe that a more tolerant (and better educated) people began to accept LGB as normal, alowing for increased visibility and a perceived increase in numbers? I say ‘perceived’ because of course when non-heterosexual people had to keep their sexuality hidden there really is no telling what the numbers used to be, but it cannot be a coincidence that, on a country-by-country basis, the numbers really ballooned as homosexuality was de-criminalised.
Acolyte, you seem to be conflating homosexuality with the gender irregularities that I think Laripu’s talking about. They aren’t the same thing, are they? I think it’s commonly accepted that homosexuality of some kind has been a significant thing for millennia, and probably doesn’t need any novel environmental factor to explain it.
Not that the gender issue is totally new to us, maybe it was just a lot less interesting prior to the advent of elective surgery.
Laripu: point taken, for ultimately mind and body are one. So, ultimately, are subjective and objective. But short of ultimately, there are detectable distinctions.
I have little doubt that we are running multiple biochemical experiments on ourselves, like the lead-plumbing experiment that the Romans ran on themselves. I am confident that future civilizations will find our example very educational. “They did WHAT?”
I speculate that we are seeing an indirect consequence of humanity filling its ecological niche. This ecological event has produced an economic effect; the rising price of breeding. Society has responded to this price signal by discouraging breeder sex and encouraging non-breeder sex. Therefore gender minorities. I predict that if a major technological change increases the size of our niche, then gender minorities will return to obscurity.
To all: my definition of sex is about biology, and gender is about psychology. Very roughly speaking, above and below the neck; though to repeat, mind and body are one. I include LGB as genders – as I include heterosexuality – because those terms about about how and with whom a given person uses their sexual organs. Identity is subjective, therefore it is not a reliable basis for law; it is also highly conditioned by society, and therefore not really yours.
From time to time I make an LGBTQ sandwich for myself. Its ingredients are lettuce, garlic, bacon, tomato, and quinoia, on San Francisco sourdough with organic mayonnaise. I use turkey bacon, so it’s a “kosher” LGBTQ; of course there could be classic or veggie LGBTQs. It’s delicious and _very_ filling.
paradoctor, lesbianism, homosexuality, bisexuality and heterosexuality are not genders, they’re sexual orientations.
This is exactly the kind of conflation that the TETC brigade intended to cause when they attached themselves to the LGB movement. It’s dishonestly conflating gender identities with sexual orientation, intersex conditions and those with atypical combinations of chromosones in order to pretend that criticism of the gender identifarians’ nonsensical and biologically impossible beliefs is criticism of every group.
Seriously, it’s bullshit of the highest order, it’s replacing established biological facts with fantasies no different from religious beliefs, it’s causing healthy young women to endure double mastectomies – euphamistically termed ‘top surgery’ because that doesn’t sound anywhere near as drastic – and through promotion of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is causing infertility and a lifetime dependancy on medication for thousands.
It’s an absolute disgrace and I wish more people would wake up to it, and that a lot more of those who are aware of the realities would raise their fucking voices.
Turkey Bacon? What’s the point of that? Culturally prohibited food selection is alien to me. I eat everything and the only thing I dislike is lemon-grass (tastes of washing up.liquid).
I had about a dozen links and comments and all got deleted somehow. Damn cell phone. I’ll try to reproduce them. My main idea is that both non-CIS sexuality and non-binariness and trans-gendering are increased by the consumption of endocrine disruptors via plastics.
Paradoctor, I like your sandwich. Here’s something I add to sandwiches: think slices of apple. They add crunchiness and fruitiness. Might be a good compliment in your LGBTQ sandwich.
Links:
https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?348337/Revealed-plastic-ingestion-by-people-could-be-equating-to-a-credit-card-a-week
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3862078/
https://www.endocrine.org/topics/edc/why-you-should-care
https://www.ewg.org/consumer-guides/dirty-dozen-endocrine-disruptors
There were many more links, but I’m getting tired of reproducing them, and you all have Google too.
M27Holts, this lists 14 kinds of bacon: https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/types-of-bacon-you-should-know/
They have vegan bacon, but not turkey bacon, so that makes at least 15 kinds. I prefer the American (streaky) variety.
“You’re either non-binary or you’re not, my boy.”
LOL!!
If it’s a way to become infertile due to filling ecological niche, then (I postulate) it’s a response to some particular “niche is full” signal, and you’d be able to speculate about what that signal is by looking at the demographics, of both breeding rates and of sex confusion.
My hunch is, it wouldn’t add up – you’d find 90% or more of your overt gender confusion in affluent, relatively uncrowded 1st world communities. The only way they could perceive the filled ecological niche is intellectually, and then you’d hear things like “I feel like I’m really a man, because it’s a way I can’t have babies” etc.
In the 70s we rallied to the banner ‘LGB’
In the 90s we invited the Transsexuals to ‘T’
2000 found so many Queers, they had to form a ‘Q’
Since then, a list of wannabees inexorably grew
When Intersex, Asexuals (or Allies, we’re not sure)
Pansexuals and Gender-fluids showed up at the door
The ‘I’ and ‘A’ scraped in, but there we had to draw the line;
As acronyms sound silly when they get too serpentine
If you face discrimination for your sexual orientation
You shouldn’t be impacted if your bent has been redacted
Though there weren’t quite enough of you for your initial to get through
To LGBTQIA, you still deserve to have your say
When seven designations will not stretch to cover you
We’ve added an addition sign, so you’re included too
Now you’re a +! Though clearly, you’re not really one of us
We had to learn you think you’ve earned your own seat on the bus
Please don’t think that it’s your fault that we have had to call a halt
To specifying versions of what bigots call ‘perversion’
You’re Furry, or a Unicorn? We don’t care how you get the horn
We won’t be adding F or U, for fear of mockery and scorn
Embrace your +! Rock your fluorescent purple latex truss
Whatever floats your boat’s of little consequence to us
It really can’t be helped because your oddity’s so niche
You’ve no letter of your own; enjoy your slender slice of quiche
Though some say it’s scarcely better than a glorified ‘etc.’
Come out and proud, hold hands near us,
And “Sing, if you’re glad to be +”
Animals do not respond to “niche is full” signals; they compete to outbreed each other, and if that means overpopulating themselves into starvation, from bacteria to rabbits they don’t hesitate. (Humans today appear to be a partial exception though, in that, unlike other animals, the more successful populations seem willing to step aside and let less successful populations outbreed them. We’ll see how well that works out…)
hotrats — That’s rather good! Is it supposed to be rapped? While I’m horrified at the content of most rap music, I respect it as a form.
jb, the last line of hotrats’ rather excellent ditty suggests the British activism-as-bad-folk music artiste, Billy Bragg.
Donn, the phrase ‘gender irregularities’ makes no sense to me. Gender is simply a set of outdated ideas about masculinity and femininity along with equally outdated ‘rules’ about what constitutes masculine and feminine behaviour. The only ‘irregularities’ are when males exhibit some of what are thought of as female traits, and vice versa, which is of course bullshit as that describes everybody.
It is a very rare person indeed who conforms only to the gender traits associated with her or his sex, as Jesus, Mo and Barmaid (pbuh) point out so well. If we accept those rules then logically we must all be gender non-binary and have been for as long as there have been gender rules imposed on us.
If by ‘gender irregularities’ you mean conditions such as intersex or atypical karyotypes then the phrase is clearly a misnomer because such conditions have nothing to do with masculinity or femininity. In fact, with the exception of those with the rare intersex conditions, the people with such conditions are physically no different from any other male or female.
Which leaves ‘gender irregularities’ applying to transgender, enbies, queer and whatever other gender ‘identities’ are or will exist, and those irregularities exist only in the minds of those claiming to have them. Such people do not, as far as I’m aware, all have atypical karyotypes: if they did they’d be shouting it from the rooftops, just as any religious apologist would if they had a definite proof of their god or an absolute disproof of evolution, for example, but they don’t, they instead put their identity down to ‘deeply-held feelings’ of being x or y, and where else have we encountered the idea of deeply-held feelings as proof of something? Yep, and that’s why I see the TETC as a pseudo-religious belief rather than a ‘gender irregularity. A gender confusion may be more accurate.
I believe that Christians and Muslims and religious Jews and Hindus, etc. exist, I just don’t accept their claims behind their religion. In the same way, I accept that people exist who believe they are not of their birth-sex, or whose sex is fluid, or who is both or neither sex, but I reserve the right not to accept whatever lies behind their beliefs, not without a damn sight more evidence than fucking ‘deeply-held feelings’.
So, what is a ‘gender irregularity’ and what actual material proof is there that such a thing exists here in the real world?
What I meant by it is the phenomenon you don’t seem to have any name for either, though you have the advantage of knowing what “enbie” means. People deciding that the gender apparently assigned to them biologically isn’t the right one.
I’m not as invested as you are in the question of validity. It seems to me more a private matter, than religious faith – Christians believe in some external phenomenon, where the transgenderites believes only that their feelings are valid for their selves, which seems like a much more defensible position.
But if my opinion mattered for some reason … it seems like possibly a sign of some deeper problem, whether medical or cultural, and not something to celebrate.
Acolyte of Sagan, I think we ought to accept that homosexuals are indeed homosexual because their sexual behavior is evidence of it. Likewise the deeply held belief of transgender people, particularly if they’re subjecting themselves to surgery.
A co-worker of mine had a daughter, now a son, who had his female breasts removed. He did this in his twenties, at no expense to his parents, and without their approval. Beside the risk of complications, the pain, recovery time, and expense, he earned the ire of his mother for a significant span of time.
People don’t go to those lengths for a lie.
The existence of homosexual behavior and transgender people who accept surgery is strong evidence that people who claim to be some variety of non-binary are enunciating actual long-held feelings, which are not merely like religious belief.
As I’ve said, I think that the increase in such things is environmental pollution by endocrine disruptors. I would like to address such people the way they want, but I’m sure I’ll forget due to the increasing inflexibility of my advancing years.
Unlike religious people, the gender non-binary don’t ask me to be like them, merely to respect them as they are. They don’t claim I’m going to hell for being a cis male and having cis male sex.
Here’s something I find funny, but not ha-ha funny: trans-exclusionary radical feminists, so-called TERFs. Would I get in trouble for saying that I don’t have a bitch in that fight? 🙂
It’s a TERF war.
Donn, ‘enbie’ is just ‘NB’ (non-binary) as it is spoken. These are the ones who claim to not be part of the male/female binary; the plural pronoun brigade, if you will.
If that were how things are then there wouldn’t be a problem, but right now the TETC (but particularly the T) are more evangelical than the loudest, most rabidly evangelical Christians. They are demanding that their inner feelings be codified into law, that a man who identifies as a woman be legally classed as a woman without the need for any pesky surgery, and to be legally entitled to enter any protected, female-only space or group based on nothing more than their word. I do mean every space, from female sports to women’s shelters and prisons.
They demand that children be given puberty blockers on demand, that cross-sex hormones be available to all who want them, and – here’s a beaut – say that anybody advocating for a ‘watch-and-wait’ policy for teens and pre-teens with confusion over gender and sex rather than starting them on a lifetime of medication before they’re old enough to ilunderstand the implications, those cautious people are – according to the trans activists – demanding conversion therapy for the ‘vulnerable children’ and engaging in ‘genocide of trans folk’. But at the same time as accusing others of advocation for conversion therapy they are busily demanding that lesbians take transwomen, dicks and all, as lovers. They are literally telling lesbians that they have to learn to love the dick because otherwise they are transphobic bigots (Full disclosure: one of my adult daughters is lesbian and has been on the receiving end of the vitriol many times. She refuses to be swayed). But that, they claim, isn’t conversion therapy because transwomen are biological women, dicks notwithstanding (nor upstanding, not around my daughter, anyway).
So they are not keeping it a private matter, they are demanding that everybody accept their fantasy identities, as far-fetched and often biologically impossible as they are, as matters of fact, and further that those who disagree are to be punished by law and/or by their employers. People really are threatened with losing their jobs for privately disagreeing with trans dogma and some already have.
It’s one great big clusterfuck!
AoS, that is exactly the problem I see here — they are NOT keeping it private; quite the opposite, making it a matter of policy and legislation. Particularly, I suspect, a lot of non-trans people see a chance here to ride the trans’ coattails and gain much attention and power not otherwise deserved.
For my part, I am not a party to that conflict but I so see some horrible ramifications and actual harm to many people (like, half of humanity?) stemming from this utter superstition of our time. All the worse because it is at its core insincere.
Well, that is my take from up on these bleachers. So there. You made the point much better:
“So they are not keeping it a private matter, they are demanding that everybody accept their fantasy identities, as far-fetched and often biologically impossible as they are, as matters of fact, and further that those who disagree are to be punished by law and/or by their employers. People really are threatened with losing their jobs for privately disagreeing with trans dogma and some already have.”
But at the same time as accusing others of advocation for conversion therapy they are busily demanding that lesbians take transwomen, dicks and all, as lovers. They are literally telling lesbians that they have to learn to love the dick because otherwise they are transphobic bigots (Full disclosure: one of my adult daughters is lesbian and has been on the receiving end of the vitriol many times. She refuses to be swayed).
Wow AoS. I’ve read about this sort of thing, but it’s different to hear it from someone with direct knowledge. Do you think you could be a little more specific? Was your daughter criticized for personally refusing to date a specific transwoman? For saying that she had a policy of not dating transwomen? For defending the right of lesbians in general not to date transwomen? How serious was the vitriol? And if she was on the receiving end many times, did it come from many different people or the same one or two?
The thing is, I have no contact with this sort of lunacy in my own social circle, so despite what I read it’s sometimes hard to believe it’s real.
Slightly off the topic here, but I see in this morning’s paper that the French are having their arms twisted to revise their language, to modify words with grammatical gender. Like élus – elected officers – should be élu-es (with the dash), so that one isn’t implying that the elected officers are of male gender. You’re réactionnaire if you don’t agree. (Or you’re sufficiently acquainted with French to know that grammatical gender is more or less meaningless.) Some of the réactionnaires are suggesting that this might cause French to fall to the onslaught of English – I think they’ve been putting their hopes in high fertility countries in Africa to keep English in the running, but screwing around like this would make the language harder. Or it would make people wonder why zey learn zis nutty language. Ironically, I think French may have played a role in relieving English of the idiocy of grammatical gender – it disappeared around the time of the Norman difficulties.
you blokes with all your refinement
of language and how to speak
remind me of a flock of birds
i saw along the beach
they swooped and grabbed
what bits they could
of what we had for lunch
they were a starved voracious lot
when slurp came to crunch
but when they tried to fly away
they knew they’d grabbed too much
and when they got excited
it was pennsylvania dutch
i hope yer feelin good
about your sex an gender
a gentle elbow rub
and not a fender bender
jb, my daughter has been hit on several times by transwomen – or trans-identifying males (TiMs) – in bars and clubs and has initially given the same response that she gives to women who come on to her, a polite refusal. If they continue she will tell them that she is happily married and monogamous (her wife is usually right there with her). The women generally either move on or just tone it down and stay friendly, but for some reason it’s always the TiMs who refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer. My daughter will not be the one to bring up the obvious point but it is almost guaranteed that the TiMs will, and at this point she will tell them that no, she isn’t a transphobe; but that as a lesbian her sexual tastes do not extend to penises, so married or not she would not be interested in them. This has led to many stand-up arguments of varying intensity, although my daughter is like me, she stays calm, smiles gently throughout and doesn’t raise her voice above normal conversational levels – a technique that really unnerves ranters and puts them on the backfoot.
Anyway, she has often been called the full gamut of names and occasionally threatened with violence, though that threat never bothers her. Despite being far from ‘butch’ she is, again, like me; tall and muscular and she is more than able to hold her own in any confrontation. However, it has never gone beyond threats and, as the confrontations tend to be in bars and clubs, security staff are usually quick to intervene. Clearly it’s the one ranting and raving and making violent threats who is shown the exit.
She will and does defend the rights of everybody to decide for themselves who they date and does not shrink from telling TiMs that they are not and never can be lesbians – but only when they’ve pushed her too far. She has no animosity towards any group of people, no matter how they identify, but will not be coerced into playing along with their fantasies.
So, yes, she has been attacked for refusing to date specific TiMs (some who say that she is using her wife as an excuse, and that it’s really transphobia that makes her refuse them. Talk about fucking entitlement!): for defending the rights of everyone to choose their own sexual partners: for refusing to buy into the dogma.
On a side note, I’m sure you didn’t intend to word it this way, but For saying that she had a policy of not dating transwomen? sounds a trifle odd. It’s no more a policy than is me not dating other men. It’s just her sexuality, and even were she single she would have no interest or desire to date TiMs. They are men who identify as women, and men are not her thing.
Acolyte, you’ve got a lovely daughter <– (to Herman's Hermits' old tune) (iirc)
Acolyte of Sagan: Your daughter sounds like a remarkable and admirable human being – dare I say almost too good to be true! You are a very fortunate father – as I’m sure you are well aware. (I was going to write gender neutral “parent” but you did indicate your own maleness in your final paragraph!)
AoS — Very interesting, thanks! And you’ve answered a question I didn’t think to ask. It’s sounds like the vitriol has come primarily or entirely from transwomen who were actively hitting on your daughter. That’s a pretty narrow demographic. I was thinking more along the lines of friends or associates of your daughter who were angry that she didn’t see things the way they thought she should. (I have a friend who has gotten very angry at me over political disagreements, something I find baffling and disorienting).
Your point about “policy” is taken — it does make it sound like an arbitrary choice that one might simply decide to change one day. What I was going for was a very broad “That’s entirely my call, and I don’t need to justify it”.
Everbody loves to role-play right? Or is that just MP’s who have been to Eton and Oxbridge?
jb – Rapped? Perish the thought – It’s supposed to be sung liltingly, a la Noel Coward, in the style of his ‘Don’t let’s be Beastly to the Germans’.
I cannot believe that I was once a patreon supporter of this site and called many of you friends.