In 1967 when I enlisted in the Marine Corps one of the questions that was asked was, "Have you ever committed a homosexual act?" That question goes to the heart of "is Feffy's husband homosexual?" What's in a word? Does it shine a light on honesty?
Is a person who is attracted to the opposite sex who has a one-time homosexual experience a…
In 1967 when I enlisted in the Marine Corps one of the questions that was asked was, "Have you ever committed a homosexual act?" That question goes to the heart of "is Feffy's husband homosexual?" What's in a word? Does it shine a light on honesty?
Is a person who is attracted to the opposite sex who has a one-time homosexual experience a homosexual? Heterosexual? Bi-sexual? The military questionnaire didn't ask about any of those identities, it asked about a homosexual act having taken place. If I was sexually attracted to a beautiful and passing non-transitioned transwoman and had sex with her in an act that included her penis would the answer to that question be, yes? I think that it would. Which of those identities should I claim? Which would others assign? Does it really matter? It does to the people who think identity is important. I don't dismiss that just because it is not a matter of importance to me.
I doubt that that question is still on enlistment/induction questionnaires, but it shines a light on Feffy's identity issue. If it is complicated for people without gender dysphoria, think of what a quagmire it is for the gender dysphoric.
Jesus, even the language! "Committed" a homosexual act. I'm aware that there's still progress to be made, but I'm so glad we've moved forward from that time.
Anyway, given that Feffy's husband identifies as gay, and I presume Feffy isn't his first partner, I guess it's safe to say that he has "committed" homosexual acts before. But yeah, regardless of the presentation, his relationship with Feffy isn't homosexual. You can think of it as a slippery slope analogy.
If I have sex with a woman with short hair, is that homosexual? How about if she has no discernible breasts? What if she has a little facial hair? What if she's physically stronger than me? What if she's taking male hormones? What level of deviation from feminine stereotypes is required before my relationship with this woman becomes homosexual?
Homosexual is a completely neutral term that describes certain behaviours. Feffy and her husband's relationship, completely valid though it is, doesn't fit the definition. The mistake we've made as a culture (as I mentioned to Feffy) is assigning weight and identity to these words.
In the end, as you say, none of it really matters. I fully support people's right to love whoever they want, in whatever way makes both of them happy. That support simply doesn't extend to (and doesn't *need* to extend to) losing track of objective reality.
I think Feffy's "you must say that my husband is gay" was about validation of Feffy's manhood. More about Feffy's identity than his.
A sad thing about the whole thing is that it is rooted in the failure of people to live and let live for the affairs of others. With apologies to Thomas Jefferson, it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg if someone's views on sex or gender are different from mine.
And yes, that enlistment question was a sign of the times although it was considered an issue for a security clearance as something that made you subject to blackmail. But that was only a thing because of prevailing attitudes. Progress is slow which is frustrating. Going backwards is worse.
"I think Feffy's "you must say that my husband is gay" was about validation of Feffy's manhood. More about Feffy's identity than his."
Oh yeah, 100%. So much of the difficulty with this conversation is about validation.
I disagree with your next point though. Or rather, while it almost certainly won't pick your pocket or break *your* leg, it does have a material impact on the lives of women.
The key issue here is that T issues have been so completely conflated with LGB issues. But they're not the same at all. A gay person's life has no impact on anybody else's. Why anybody ever felt the need to interfere in other people's love lives or cared who they married is beyond me.
But the reason trans issues are different, is because it's not simply about how they live their own lives. I don't think that any reasonable person wants to interfere with that. The issue is female-only spaces and female sport and what a woman even *is*. These questions materially affect ~51% of the population.
It's not quite as simple as saying "live and let live." Because gender identities, as opposed to sexual preferences, require the participation and validation of the whole of society. Men will be almost completely unaffected by this. But women won't.
You stated things I do agree with and would like to elaborate on.
There is not so much controversy with trans-men as with trans-women. I think that has a lot to do with our thoughts on a woman's space being a bigger deal than a man's space. I could go on about that, but I don't think it necessary. So yes, trans-women trying to force their way into women' spaces is an issue I neglected in my live and let live thought.
The conflation of the T in the Lthru+ has been successful beyond justification. It is partly due to the trans-what? blurred line. I am strongly influenced by Thai culture. They have spectacularly passing Kathoeys. Are they homosexual transvestites or genuine transexuals? I have previously mentioned one who told me that he was saving up to get transition surgery. I'm no longer in touch with him and don't know if that happened but he seemed to be perfectly happy as a transvestite homosexual where "the girls" kindly treated him like one of their own while knowing that none of them thought of him as an actual woman. While they have a live and let live attitude there, I've stood at a urinal in a public restroom next to a pretty man with his dress raised because, unless things have changed, they are unbending in the idea that you use the restroom you are plumbed for and gendered spaces are controlled as sex specific spaces. So yes, there comes a time when the distinction between trans-woman and woman requires some tempering on live and let live. My empathy/sympathy for their plight got carried away in my statement.
Wanting to politely be treated like and accepted as are two different things. To say otherwise is denial of reality. Now that 96 genders makes the whole thing seem like a twisted fad, I am left to wonder about the difference between actual transgenders and those who aren't really. I frequently see androgynous people out and about. Since their sex or gender identification has no bearing on our interaction, I am ingraining a live and live attitude where it doesn't matter. As you pointed out, sometimes it does matter.
"My empathy/sympathy for their plight got carried away in my statement."
Yeah, this is really the tragedy for me. So many people, myself very much included, just want to take this attitude. And it's only when you start to think carefully about the implications that it becomes clear that it's not really possible to *always* just live and let live when it comes to trans people.
Especially if we indulge the idea that men can become women simply by saying "oh, I'm a woman now."
So many people who speak up on these issues (JK Rowling always springs to mind) have had their characters absolutely assassinated because the instinctive response is "what are you trying to interfere in these poor people's lives?" And all the issues of child safeguarding or female sport or female spaces kind of get lost in the noise unless you're spectacularly careful about how you talk about them.
Is there anything to this "grooming" stuff? I have a hard time believing that a child can be manipulating into doubting his sex. OK, when we're talking about hundreds of millions of people there are going to be some dots on the extremes of the distribution but this Florida thing with voters spraying blood from their eyes at the idea that teh libs are "grooming" kids is just nuts.
"I have a hard time believing that a child can be manipulating into doubting his sex."
Yeah, "grooming" is obviously evocative, disingenuous language, but it's not entirely without basis. Think of it this way:
If you tell a very young female child (4/5, say) who is exploring their identity, that liking "boy" things means that hey are literally a boy, they not only have no mental framework to doubt you, they'll believe you. You're an adult after all.
They'll feel validated and heard, and this is a pretty rare, exciting experience for a child. If you persist with that by using male pronouns and having all the other adults around them treat them as a boy too, the path back to "Oh, no, I've changed my mind since I was 4", shrinks pretty dramatically. I've heard the same story from numerous detransitioners. Even when they start having doubts, the social pressure of the identity that's been crafted around them is very hard to overcome.
It's a difficult one to discuss with any precision. Social and surgical transition is obviously right for some people. It's obviously wrong for others. The question is, how many, and what's the correct balance of affirmation and questioning? I think we're getting that balance very wrong right now as a society.
It's important to me to keep my friendships asexual; I've had guys I met regularly for sex but in all my life there has only been one I had any social life with. But the number of nominally heterosexual friends who wanted to have sex with me has been frankly depressing (and most of them wanted to be the bottom).
A lot of straight men harbor homosexual desires and no few have given in to them. And I've known several gay men who were married to women. I didn't ask how much of a sex life they had.
People are often what they appear to be, and labels aren't really helpful. I always wondered why men who were not flaming gay (sometimes married) thought they could hit on me. I suspect it might be more common than people are willing to talk about.
My military active duty was in the 60s when homosexuality was not tolerated. If there were gay Marines around me, they did nothing to reveal that. It might mean that they were just more cautious about allowing it to show. A few years back I learned that one of the guys from my platoon has undergone a sex change. Quite a surprise, but gender dysphoria isn't necessarily about homosexuality.
Like you, my social activities are asexual. At this time a big one for me is old-time music jam sessions. An equal mix of men and women in my general age group. It's about the activity, music, and I've never noticed sex entering into the activity. The same could be said for a ukulele group that I used to play with. I like it that way because sex changes things.
I cam out and spent my first years as a gay man in Norfolk, VA, a Navy town. The bars had a lot of short-haired guys and the clientele burgeoned when the fleet was in. I had sex with a few Marines and every one of them was a bottom, not what anyone would expect. Kinda scary topping a guy who could kill you if he suddenly got mad.
Sorry for the TMI but we are exploding stereotypes here. A lot. Anyway.
Yeah sex changes things, sex ruins things. If I had a friend who suddenly wanted me to f him it wasn't the same anymore. It introduces tension. With my regulars we never did anything more social uh afterward than grab some coffee.
I had to Google "TMI." Our personal experiences influence our stereotypes, but that doesn't make them universally true or false. It can be informative pertaining to where our views come from.
In the spirit of that, when I was 15 (too young to drive) I liked to shoot pool. My neighborhood pool room had no snooker tables and I liked to play on them to stay sharp. There was a big pool room where a world championship had once taken place at Grand & Olive that had them. That was also a red-light district and there was a gay bar there.
I hitch-hiked and quickly got picked up leaving. Often by gay men who would offer me money for sex at some point before we got where I said I was going (never before I got into the car). Which take-away would be appropriate? They were pedos trying to turn an adolescent boy into a homosexual prostitute or did they think that I was a prostitute looking to get picked up? Is there any sweeping generalized stereotype justified by that? I don't write that to counter anything that you wrote. In a gay bar you will find gay men. Do they represent a larger group that they are a member of? I don't think you were saying that. We all have our life experiences.
Was that aimed at me from a previous unpleasant exchange we had or adding something you find valuable to this story? I don't know, but you should know that I've got no hard feelings. Not a double entendre ;0)
We're cool. I offer the same apology for anything inadvertent from me. We'd probably like each other at a table with a pitcher of beer and a bowl of chips. The internet often leads to misunderstanding.
Patient communication leads to understanding and there is precious little of that on the Internet. Steve brings a contagious reflection and thoughtfulness to this little forum.
Were there only more of that n the social media. Even Medium is a cesspool now; any deviation from the trans orthodoxy brings on horrible attacks, at least as bad as those from the right. I find this symmetry most troubling.
In 1967 when I enlisted in the Marine Corps one of the questions that was asked was, "Have you ever committed a homosexual act?" That question goes to the heart of "is Feffy's husband homosexual?" What's in a word? Does it shine a light on honesty?
Is a person who is attracted to the opposite sex who has a one-time homosexual experience a homosexual? Heterosexual? Bi-sexual? The military questionnaire didn't ask about any of those identities, it asked about a homosexual act having taken place. If I was sexually attracted to a beautiful and passing non-transitioned transwoman and had sex with her in an act that included her penis would the answer to that question be, yes? I think that it would. Which of those identities should I claim? Which would others assign? Does it really matter? It does to the people who think identity is important. I don't dismiss that just because it is not a matter of importance to me.
I doubt that that question is still on enlistment/induction questionnaires, but it shines a light on Feffy's identity issue. If it is complicated for people without gender dysphoria, think of what a quagmire it is for the gender dysphoric.
"Have you ever committed a homosexual act?"
Jesus, even the language! "Committed" a homosexual act. I'm aware that there's still progress to be made, but I'm so glad we've moved forward from that time.
Anyway, given that Feffy's husband identifies as gay, and I presume Feffy isn't his first partner, I guess it's safe to say that he has "committed" homosexual acts before. But yeah, regardless of the presentation, his relationship with Feffy isn't homosexual. You can think of it as a slippery slope analogy.
If I have sex with a woman with short hair, is that homosexual? How about if she has no discernible breasts? What if she has a little facial hair? What if she's physically stronger than me? What if she's taking male hormones? What level of deviation from feminine stereotypes is required before my relationship with this woman becomes homosexual?
Homosexual is a completely neutral term that describes certain behaviours. Feffy and her husband's relationship, completely valid though it is, doesn't fit the definition. The mistake we've made as a culture (as I mentioned to Feffy) is assigning weight and identity to these words.
In the end, as you say, none of it really matters. I fully support people's right to love whoever they want, in whatever way makes both of them happy. That support simply doesn't extend to (and doesn't *need* to extend to) losing track of objective reality.
I think Feffy's "you must say that my husband is gay" was about validation of Feffy's manhood. More about Feffy's identity than his.
A sad thing about the whole thing is that it is rooted in the failure of people to live and let live for the affairs of others. With apologies to Thomas Jefferson, it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg if someone's views on sex or gender are different from mine.
And yes, that enlistment question was a sign of the times although it was considered an issue for a security clearance as something that made you subject to blackmail. But that was only a thing because of prevailing attitudes. Progress is slow which is frustrating. Going backwards is worse.
"I think Feffy's "you must say that my husband is gay" was about validation of Feffy's manhood. More about Feffy's identity than his."
Oh yeah, 100%. So much of the difficulty with this conversation is about validation.
I disagree with your next point though. Or rather, while it almost certainly won't pick your pocket or break *your* leg, it does have a material impact on the lives of women.
The key issue here is that T issues have been so completely conflated with LGB issues. But they're not the same at all. A gay person's life has no impact on anybody else's. Why anybody ever felt the need to interfere in other people's love lives or cared who they married is beyond me.
But the reason trans issues are different, is because it's not simply about how they live their own lives. I don't think that any reasonable person wants to interfere with that. The issue is female-only spaces and female sport and what a woman even *is*. These questions materially affect ~51% of the population.
It's not quite as simple as saying "live and let live." Because gender identities, as opposed to sexual preferences, require the participation and validation of the whole of society. Men will be almost completely unaffected by this. But women won't.
You stated things I do agree with and would like to elaborate on.
There is not so much controversy with trans-men as with trans-women. I think that has a lot to do with our thoughts on a woman's space being a bigger deal than a man's space. I could go on about that, but I don't think it necessary. So yes, trans-women trying to force their way into women' spaces is an issue I neglected in my live and let live thought.
The conflation of the T in the Lthru+ has been successful beyond justification. It is partly due to the trans-what? blurred line. I am strongly influenced by Thai culture. They have spectacularly passing Kathoeys. Are they homosexual transvestites or genuine transexuals? I have previously mentioned one who told me that he was saving up to get transition surgery. I'm no longer in touch with him and don't know if that happened but he seemed to be perfectly happy as a transvestite homosexual where "the girls" kindly treated him like one of their own while knowing that none of them thought of him as an actual woman. While they have a live and let live attitude there, I've stood at a urinal in a public restroom next to a pretty man with his dress raised because, unless things have changed, they are unbending in the idea that you use the restroom you are plumbed for and gendered spaces are controlled as sex specific spaces. So yes, there comes a time when the distinction between trans-woman and woman requires some tempering on live and let live. My empathy/sympathy for their plight got carried away in my statement.
Wanting to politely be treated like and accepted as are two different things. To say otherwise is denial of reality. Now that 96 genders makes the whole thing seem like a twisted fad, I am left to wonder about the difference between actual transgenders and those who aren't really. I frequently see androgynous people out and about. Since their sex or gender identification has no bearing on our interaction, I am ingraining a live and live attitude where it doesn't matter. As you pointed out, sometimes it does matter.
"My empathy/sympathy for their plight got carried away in my statement."
Yeah, this is really the tragedy for me. So many people, myself very much included, just want to take this attitude. And it's only when you start to think carefully about the implications that it becomes clear that it's not really possible to *always* just live and let live when it comes to trans people.
Especially if we indulge the idea that men can become women simply by saying "oh, I'm a woman now."
So many people who speak up on these issues (JK Rowling always springs to mind) have had their characters absolutely assassinated because the instinctive response is "what are you trying to interfere in these poor people's lives?" And all the issues of child safeguarding or female sport or female spaces kind of get lost in the noise unless you're spectacularly careful about how you talk about them.
Is there anything to this "grooming" stuff? I have a hard time believing that a child can be manipulating into doubting his sex. OK, when we're talking about hundreds of millions of people there are going to be some dots on the extremes of the distribution but this Florida thing with voters spraying blood from their eyes at the idea that teh libs are "grooming" kids is just nuts.
"I have a hard time believing that a child can be manipulating into doubting his sex."
Yeah, "grooming" is obviously evocative, disingenuous language, but it's not entirely without basis. Think of it this way:
If you tell a very young female child (4/5, say) who is exploring their identity, that liking "boy" things means that hey are literally a boy, they not only have no mental framework to doubt you, they'll believe you. You're an adult after all.
They'll feel validated and heard, and this is a pretty rare, exciting experience for a child. If you persist with that by using male pronouns and having all the other adults around them treat them as a boy too, the path back to "Oh, no, I've changed my mind since I was 4", shrinks pretty dramatically. I've heard the same story from numerous detransitioners. Even when they start having doubts, the social pressure of the identity that's been crafted around them is very hard to overcome.
It's a difficult one to discuss with any precision. Social and surgical transition is obviously right for some people. It's obviously wrong for others. The question is, how many, and what's the correct balance of affirmation and questioning? I think we're getting that balance very wrong right now as a society.
I wouldn't get too worked up over the word.
It's important to me to keep my friendships asexual; I've had guys I met regularly for sex but in all my life there has only been one I had any social life with. But the number of nominally heterosexual friends who wanted to have sex with me has been frankly depressing (and most of them wanted to be the bottom).
A lot of straight men harbor homosexual desires and no few have given in to them. And I've known several gay men who were married to women. I didn't ask how much of a sex life they had.
Oh, and there are a lot of gay Marines.
People are often what they appear to be, and labels aren't really helpful. I always wondered why men who were not flaming gay (sometimes married) thought they could hit on me. I suspect it might be more common than people are willing to talk about.
My military active duty was in the 60s when homosexuality was not tolerated. If there were gay Marines around me, they did nothing to reveal that. It might mean that they were just more cautious about allowing it to show. A few years back I learned that one of the guys from my platoon has undergone a sex change. Quite a surprise, but gender dysphoria isn't necessarily about homosexuality.
Like you, my social activities are asexual. At this time a big one for me is old-time music jam sessions. An equal mix of men and women in my general age group. It's about the activity, music, and I've never noticed sex entering into the activity. The same could be said for a ukulele group that I used to play with. I like it that way because sex changes things.
I cam out and spent my first years as a gay man in Norfolk, VA, a Navy town. The bars had a lot of short-haired guys and the clientele burgeoned when the fleet was in. I had sex with a few Marines and every one of them was a bottom, not what anyone would expect. Kinda scary topping a guy who could kill you if he suddenly got mad.
Sorry for the TMI but we are exploding stereotypes here. A lot. Anyway.
Yeah sex changes things, sex ruins things. If I had a friend who suddenly wanted me to f him it wasn't the same anymore. It introduces tension. With my regulars we never did anything more social uh afterward than grab some coffee.
I had to Google "TMI." Our personal experiences influence our stereotypes, but that doesn't make them universally true or false. It can be informative pertaining to where our views come from.
In the spirit of that, when I was 15 (too young to drive) I liked to shoot pool. My neighborhood pool room had no snooker tables and I liked to play on them to stay sharp. There was a big pool room where a world championship had once taken place at Grand & Olive that had them. That was also a red-light district and there was a gay bar there.
I hitch-hiked and quickly got picked up leaving. Often by gay men who would offer me money for sex at some point before we got where I said I was going (never before I got into the car). Which take-away would be appropriate? They were pedos trying to turn an adolescent boy into a homosexual prostitute or did they think that I was a prostitute looking to get picked up? Is there any sweeping generalized stereotype justified by that? I don't write that to counter anything that you wrote. In a gay bar you will find gay men. Do they represent a larger group that they are a member of? I don't think you were saying that. We all have our life experiences.
Was that aimed at me from a previous unpleasant exchange we had or adding something you find valuable to this story? I don't know, but you should know that I've got no hard feelings. Not a double entendre ;0)
First of all there was no implied message in there, in fact I have no idea what you're talking about. I apologize for anything inadvertent.
Some gay men are attracted to guys a lot younger than them. I came out at 20 and it wasn't for over a decade that my attractions began to age.
The idea that anyone not gay can be turned gay is something very few have ever believed.
We're cool. I offer the same apology for anything inadvertent from me. We'd probably like each other at a table with a pitcher of beer and a bowl of chips. The internet often leads to misunderstanding.
Patient communication leads to understanding and there is precious little of that on the Internet. Steve brings a contagious reflection and thoughtfulness to this little forum.
Were there only more of that n the social media. Even Medium is a cesspool now; any deviation from the trans orthodoxy brings on horrible attacks, at least as bad as those from the right. I find this symmetry most troubling.