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Pride Month and Father’s Day
Sunday was Father’s Day and June is Pride month. Until a few years ago, I’d have found nothing particularly incongruous about that conjunction: there is nothing about the celebration of one’s sexual preference, however odd it may be to call that “pride,” that precludes, obfuscates, or undermines an appreciation of the role fathers play in the lives of their children and their value to society.
But times change, and not always for the better.
Today, the LGB community, those people who are, to varying degrees, attracted sexually to members of their own sex, has chosen to associate itself with a distinctly different group, those who embrace one or another form of gender-identity fantasy or delusion: That’s what the T in LGBT refers to.
I’m sympathetic to homosexuals, as we used to call people who experience strong same-sex attraction. (I think it’s no longer considered appropriate to use the term, but I’m nothing if not no slave to fashion. Parse that at your leisure.) Attraction, whether to members of one’s own sex or the more quotidian kind, is what it is, and I’m perfectly willing to believe that it isn’t something one can change even if one wishes one could. I’m glad that being gay or lesbian is legal, tolerated, and accepted.
I’m sympathetic as well to those who suffer one or another form of gender dysphoria, who imagine or wish themselves to be of a different sex, or who are so confused about the nature of sexuality as to imagine that there’s a meaningful category of human sexual identity that is neither male nor female. People suffer all kinds of emotional and psychological troubles, and their suffering is real.
But the so-called trans movement is nonsense, the self-righteous pouring of gasoline on to the sputtering psychoses of true gender confusion. That it has been elevated to the level of a fad and given a patina of the same victimhood status to which the homosexual community could once lay legitimate claim, is a sign of the narcissistic unseriousness of our time.
The gender identity movement, the trans movement, is a self-contradictory celebration of inchoate and childish urges, of the desire to make it so by wishing it so. The pursuit of its confused fantasy of sexual mutability, of parallel universes of ever more contrived sexual identity, necessitates the abnegation of the simple truth of sexual reality: that there is male and female, man and woman, and, barring a handful of ambiguously and unfortunately malformed individuals, nothing else.
The world can not gracefully accommodate both physiological reality and gender-identity fantasy, and neither can the culture. Unfortunately, the levers of popular culture are in the hands of deeply unserious people, and so the tide of opinion favors the fantastic over the actual.
Which brings us to Father’s Day. The point of this holiday is the recognition that being a father matters; that men have something unique to offer, that masculinity is distinct from femininity, distinct and valuable. That claim is incompatible with the spiraling nonsense of the trans movement.
My favorite band will play at my favorite bar this week in celebration of Pride month. I’d go if it were merely an LGB event. But the trans thing is stupid, is on the march, and has to be opposed by people who think Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are acknowledgments of something non-trivial.
Published in Culture
In Southern, that just means you’re not a slave to fashion.
I predict that at some time in the future, the Trans folks will be out of the LGB movement, especially as Trans Women who have all of the male physiology start competing in sports with real women.
Destroying Title IX is the only upside of the whole thing.
What you do not seem to understand is that the T-group belong to the movement. They share a common world view and cause. To remove them is not possible because they are more alike than not.
I agree with the sympathy and also respect that you talked about and should be shown to all people. I also agree that there is a serious push to encourage children and young people to see themselves as a fluid gender – to just morph and change as the mood hits you. The transvestites that are trying to “give back to society” at the local library can do that without the hideous costumes and the rainbow balloons behind them. Is there anything wrong with giving back by reading to little children with no makeup, no political statement, just a person reading a cute book to innocent kids?
On another note – everyone is born into this world by a man and a woman, period. Even if the sperm or egg is frozen and put together in a petri dish, there is no other way to create a human being and the same applies to nature.
Agreed: everything after the LGB is different in kind, but perhaps there is too much blurring of distinctions. Some people are gay; other people are gay but confused too.
For homosexuality biology is central. For the trans and other categories, the claim seems to be that biology is irrelevant OR that biology should confirm to the desired cultural construction. Kind of like a tattoo.
I’m not, at this time, going to bother positing a reason for the willingness of the homosexual activist movement to accept inclusion of the trans movement with their own. My observation is simply that homosexuality is very different from, and far more legitimate than, the various gender identity movements. Homosexuality is real, accepted, and undoubtedly here to stay (as the saying goes); it also requires for its acceptance no rejection of biological reality or the vast majority of cultural gender norms.
The gender identity/fluidity/etc. movement, in contrast, is ridiculous and, worse, demands that we embrace its absurdity at the expense of reality. Whatever the shared nuttiness of movement enthusiasts of various stripes, homosexuality is a real thing; the trans movement, for the most part, is not.
LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual) always confused me. LGBTQ is much easier to remember. We have had same sex couples adopting children in Utah for 6 years & some identify as fathers.
I’m baffled but grateful the other letters were dropped & we now have LGBTQ. I still don’t understand what the difference was between bisexual & pansexual. Or if the Q now means questioning & not queer.
I reject this premise totally. I am Catholic and June for me has always been dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
I agree with this 100%
Can we please stop using “Pride Month” for June. Why do we buy into their narrative?
June is also, apparently, Men’s Health Month, African-American Music Appreciation Month, National Turkey Lover’s Month (speaking of alternative lifestyles…), National Dairy Month, Student Safety Month, and a bunch of other things.
As I said, I think the “pride” thing is silly, and the homosexual movement has become about the most tedious, old-news kind of activism. Trans is another matter: it’s a real problem, because it demands that we confess to believe its delusions.
Taking off their make up to read at the library is also a political statement – forced or not. It’s not neutral (and never was).
I also assume (am I right?) that there’s an element of parents’ choice in their children attending these things. If they choose for their children to attend – however enthusiastically or unenthusiastically – that’s what family choice means regarding world view they want their children to have. Restricting that is also political, and certainly undermines the principle of parental rights (not least for Conservative parents).
June is Migraine Awareness Month for me. I hate that businesses turn everything into rainbows during June. I’m just tired of gay everything.
Whereas I find the rainbows less disturbing than, say, pumpkin spiced coffee. We all suffer our seasonal afflictions.
But sorry about the headaches. Yes, June actually is Migraine Awareness Month.
We did an event at work for pride month and invited everyone to post selfies of themselves on a poster-board rainbow in the lobby for support. Less than 10 people did it out of the 200 that work in the building. Those that did are all straight. Turns out that most gays don’t like being placed on display in museums for people to observe. More importantly, many don’t believe that gay and trans are the same thing and refuse to be classified in the same group as trans people.
LGBTQ isn’t a community, it’s a lobbyist group.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with Chad Felix Greene, he’s an openly gay conservative writer over at the Federalist. Last June, he was commenting on Twitter that the acronym has grown in such a way that it now technically also includes straight people, it’s just not readily apparent on the surface.
If I remember the gist of his argument, he said that one of the letters in the current LGBT alphabet soup stands for people who are exclusively attracted to other people who feature a certain characteristic (i.e. red-haired people, people with high IQs, etc.). Basically, if you are straight, you can also be described as a cisgender individual of this persuasion who is exclusively attracted to other cisgender people who feature the opposite sexual characteristics.
I’ll leave it to others to debate the ultimate utility of a category that includes everything within it.
You may believe whatever you wish, regardless of the facts. I posted on this about 3-4 months ago, at length, demonstrating from the empirical literature that homosexuality is not genetically predetermined and that sexual orientation among homosexuals is quite unstable, with relatively high self-reported change rates. I suggest that you reconsider your position, as the present acceptance of sexual deviancy is the result of a relentless Left-wing propaganda campaign of approximately 30 years duration.
I also continue to be surprised that very intelligent people continue to hold — at least apparently — to the illogical “born that way” and “immutable” arguments in favor of accepting homosexuality as a positive good. This is strange to me.
I think that both homosexuality and gender dysphoria are psychological disorders. I think that this is obvious, and that it was Left-wing political pressure that resulted in the declassification of homosexuality as a disorder. Homosexuality is a psychological condition resulting in sterility. Sterility is obviously a disorder, and is immediately recognized as such when the source is physiological.
I have some sympathy for both homosexuals and trans individuals, though my sympathy is limited. It’s somewhat similar to my sympathy for someone with a drug addiction or someone who is extremely overweight. I don’t doubt that there are underlying conditions, both individual and environmental, that led to such situations, but I think that there is also an element of individual choice.
The mention of “choice” generally results in vociferous objection, which is also strange to me. If one smokes, is that not a choice? While the desire to smoke, in the first place, may be innate, it is also strengthened by ongoing smoking, like any habit.
I also agree with FJ/JG #4 that the fundamental error in thinking is the same for T as for LGB.
They will stand fast against ‘norms’.
Henry, I do not follow you reasoning here. Homosexuality seems to be a type of gender confusion or dysphoria, similar to transgenderism. In transgenderism, the confusion relates to the sense of one’s own biological sex. In homosexuality, the confusion relates to the biological sex of one’s sexual partners. These appear quite similar to me.
You draw a distinction based on three characteristics of homosexuality.
First, you say that homosexuality is “real.” Well, sure, and so is transgenderism, if what you mean is that some people report having certain feelings or desires (and often act in accordance with such feelings).
Second, you say that homosexuality is “accepted.” I’m not sure what you mean by this, i.e., whether you mean that it is “accepted” as permissible behavior or even positively good behavior, of if you mean that it is “accepted” that homosexuality exists. If the latter, your second point is the same as your first. If the former, then the trans activists are on the right track, because (presumably) if they achieve social “acceptance” of transgenderism, you will recognize it as proper.
Third, you say that homosexuality is “undoubtedly here to stay.” Well, sure, if you mean that whatever we may do, some people are still going to have homosexual desires and engage in such conduct. The same applies to transgenderism. If you mean that societal attitudes toward homosexuality have changed in a way that is now immutable, then again, the trans activists are on the right track, because (presumably) if they achieve a change in societal attitudes that appears permanent, you will recognize it as proper.
It is generally acknowledged that gays, et. al. were once assumed to be, and encouraged to feel, ashamed.
That this was wrong does not mean that gays, et. al. should feel pride. Heteros don’t.
What minorities and majorities should be honoring is National Indifference Month where we go about our business and maybe note in passing that we’re not all the same but there’s no reason to make a big deal over it.
This.
Once upon a time, guys dressing up like women was grist for humor.; now there is no laughing.
It was something that was discouraged; now there may be no comment.
It was something that was someone else’s problem; now you can be punished for ‘dead-naming’ or ‘misgendering’.
It is this compulsion that I object to, the violence against people’s minds, the indoctrination of their children, the stifling of speech, the mau-mauing of common views.
The incredible force being brought to bear also suggests that the perpetrators also sense how untenable this change in culture is.
I get Henry’s reasoning.
I can “believe” that someone can be attracted to someone of the same sex despite not agreeing with it.
I do not believe that a man can be a woman if he wants to and vice versa. This is much different than homosexuality. Homosexuality does not require that my thoughts align with their ideology. The entire trans movement requires that you must also believe in gender-fluidity and other such nonsense, in some cases by law.
They both certainly create wider societal issues.
Thank you, James. Yes, that’s the gist of the difference.
Sexual attraction is real, whatever its cause (and I’m agnostic about the nature vs. nurture thing, suspecting that the ratio probably varies from individual to individual). Someone who experiences same-sex attraction simply does, and there’s nothing false about that.
On the other hand, a man who thinks he’s really a woman — or can really become a woman — is mistaken. It isn’t a matter of how he feels or what he wants: one’s sex is immutable.
I’m perfectly willing to accept that some men are uncomfortable with their masculinity and would rather behave in a feminine way. I simply refuse to pretend that they’re women, regardless of the cosmetic or surgical efforts they exert.
Possibly of interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender
And
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm
The Third Gender concept isn’t, I believe, popular with many trans folks in the West, but that could be a result of growing up a culture which is so reflexively binary about sex roles ?
This kind of thing always seems contrived to me.
If we accept what seems self-evident, that there are collections of human behavioral traits that are strongly, if imperfectly, sex-linked (that is, that tend to vary in accordance with one’s sex), then there’s no need to invoke this idea of “gender.” Some people strongly express certain traits associated with their sex; some people weakly express them. Some people weakly express many sex-linked traits more typically associated with either sex.
Some men are less masculine, some women are less feminine. Human sexual identity is binary: there are only two sexes. Human behavioral traits that are sex-linked are continuously distributed across the sexes, exhibiting characteristic (probably Gaussian) distributions centered on their respective linked sexes.
Only men can impregnate women. Only women can have babies. But members of either sex can exhibit a knack for interior decorating or enjoy getting into fistfights.
Yes, but if one doesn’t accept that? We all need to take confirmation bias into account.
Re some men who are not masculine despite being physically 100% male – so what is masculinity if it is not entirely and only defined just by being male? I think you’re edging into gender by another name.
Or perhaps, the structure/development of the brain actually is a physical thing? We don’t get to automatically assume that some physical characteristics are definitive while others are not. Or at least the assumptions aren’t universal.
If “one doesn’t accept” that there are human traits that are strongly sex-linked, then one is denying reality. One is free to do that, but it leads to silly conclusions.
People are free to come up with labels for various places on the distribution of behavioral traits. I know that some seem to find great value in creating quanta of humanity, rather than seeing us as all scattered about on a continuum. Among other things, identity politics requires such distinctions. Again, in the context of looking at sex-linked behavior, I find it contrived and not very useful — unless, of course, one wants to engage in identity politics or its cultural equivalent.
What is universal, however, is the binary choice between male and female. That distinction is neither continuous nor mutable, however one wishes to label individuals at various locations on the behavioral spectrum.
Henry, this exchange encapsulates the strange confusion surrounding trans and other gender related questions. There are different claims being made by different people purporting to be on the same side. One part of this – those who claim that sex is mostly irrelevant to behavioral traits – I agree with you that this is just silly. It’s unscientific too. Another part, though, isn’t quite as silly – that there are biological realities other than sex which contribute to behavioral traits. Where this part joins the first group in solidarity and silliness is when these other biological features are claimed to be more impactful than sex and when this continuum of traits and behaviors is claimed to be more useful and indeed the only legitimate categorization as opposed to our current (and long held – actually ancient, perhaps instinctual) classifications. The truth is that we already have a continuum of classifications, but it’s more of a hierarchical taxonomy than what is being proposed.
Zafar, I think you’re on to something here, but I disagree that we should repurpose gender. We already have a useful framework and language which recognizes both that sex is the dominant driver but that individuals will fall into a distribution in which some have varying degrees of typical sex-associated traits. We also already acknowledge that all people have all traits to some degree. So even if we can identify each micro-tick along the continuum, what purpose would it serve to replace the existing framework with the new gender classification panoply?