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A Letter to My Gay Friends
June is widely recognized as “Pride Month,” and I’m sure we’ll see lots of reminders of that over the next few weeks. Most people aren’t aware that the Pride movement was inspired by, and is in part to commemorate, a specific series of events, the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969.
Like members of many other minority groups in American history, homosexual men and women faced discrimination, both legal and cultural, that was overcome only slowly and often at great personal cost. But it was overcome: today people who experience same-sex attraction have the same rights as heterosexuals and enjoy widespread public acceptance.
While the acronym “LGBT” (often with additional letters appended) is now ubiquitous, some in the gay community recognize, correctly I think, a problem with the inclusion of gender identity (trans, etc.) in what has traditionally been a gay rights movement. While the LGB movement sought equality and acceptance, the trans movement attempts to demand more than that and does so in ways that many people reasonably find objectionable.
Many of us don’t want to be told what to say, what pronouns to use, that our daughters must compete against biological males in sporting events, and share locker rooms with them in school. We also reject the seemingly nonsensical notion that we should pretend a boy is a girl simply because the boy declares that he is a girl. We resent the myriad circumlocutions increasingly required to avoid recognizing simple sexual reality: such nonsense as calling mothers “birthing people,” for example.
Beyond that, the trans movement is fundamentally hostile to the notion of basic human sexuality, and in particular of womanhood. It represents the final denial that men and women are different in important ways, in favor of a fictitious equivalence that, predictably, tends to serve men well at the expense of women.
I think there is a growing awareness among some in the gay community that there will be pushback against the increasingly extreme and unacceptable demands of the trans movement, and that, to the extent the gay movement is seen as inextricably bound to the trans movement, that pushback may undermine and threaten legitimate gains made by gay rights activists. It’s perfectly reasonable to encourage tolerance and understanding of people who are different; it isn’t reasonable to demand professions of belief and unacceptable accommodations (e.g., in athletics) based on a fanciful reimagining of human sexuality.
I think it would be prudent to begin to question whether being strongly allied with the so-called “trans” movement is in anyone’s best interests.
Published in Culture
Actually what’s important is how people behave when their child turns out to be gay today.
It’s funny that the point of the post was to express criticism of the “trans” movement, but the topic has overwhelmingly been of homosexuality — and mostly about minor points of perceived etiquette.
I think that probably speaks to how very marginal the “trans” movement is, which invites a question: why is it so incredibly influential right now?
Both seem rather dangerous to me, although perhaps not quite equally so. But even the first perspective is likely causing some damage, such as by insufficiently guiding young women – who may otherwise be more susceptible to homosexuality – towards a normal heterosexual identity.
Because they make a lot of noise, and people prefer quiet. Which could also explain if Biden actually did win legitimately. It was still wrong, because it was the media creating all the hubbub – same as with trans – but could be an explanation.
The Democrat party organization believes that unrest is a significant political advantage, so they rolled out this flavor-of-the-month, placed it on the list of talking points, and efficiently distributed it to all the media outlets, who broadcast it (literally) word-for-word. Everything else follows.
As a bonus, this one includes a redefinition of the word “gender”. (Up until very recently, the word was 1., a classification of nouns in the grammar of certain languages, and 2, a synonym for sex.) Dictionaries are also media, so they are quickly being updated.
Democrats need homosexuals and blacks and whoever is popular at the time to feel oppressed so they will cede their power the democrats.
If both blacks and homosexuals feel that they aren’t oppressed. What do the democrats offer them that they don’t offer everybody else?
If you don’t believe me check out Dr. Bastiat.
Because at its heart it’s a question of who should be treated equally and who should not and why. Trans people test the principle in a way that straight passing gays don’t.
It should be pretty clear that no group – POC, trans, homosexuals – really wants to be treated EQUALLY. And that’s certainly not what their advocacy groups and the Democrat Party are after, even if some/many/most actual members of those groups don’t support those efforts.
I think we gotta define equality here.
Can I demand that a bakery make a cake for me, for any reason, and they must comply or face loss of their business and possible financial ruin at the hands of the government? No. They can turn me down for any reason they like, or no reason at all. And yet that’s just one thing demanded by certain groups.
One problem is that “equality” is being re-defined by various groups with axes to grind.
Not at all.
At it’s heart, it’s a post about the absurdity of the so-called “trans” movement, and why gays, who are already accepted in society and have achieved equal rights, would be wise to distance themselves from this nonsensical but overly assertive movement that has managed to hijack their acronym.
Trans people should be treated equally, but not taken seriously. They’re just regular people suffering from emotional problems (occasionally) or foolishness (usually).
Should we be principled or not? Fair question, though I have a feeling that unfair inequality anywhere in a society undermines equality everywhere in that society. So it really might be in our self interest to be principled.
The insanely high suicide rates of trans people both before and after surgery seem to indicate that trans folks are really quite different than homosexuals.
Or they are treated much worse by their families and the rest of society. In a real sense their blood is on our hands.
Gay suicide rates fell with increased acceptance, though they remain higher than straight suicide rates. There is a lag to these things – none of us can re-do our childhoods or young adulthoods, and enlightened legislation and social movements (which are Good Things) can’t change that.
That is vile. How dare you. Flagged for lying, trolling, hypocrisy, and bad faith. The blood is on *your* hands, [redacted for profanity].
The insanely high suicide rate of trans people is completely consistent with depression that is misdiagnosed…
And I’ll point out that all transgender cases are self-diagnosed…
Which means they are mental health conditions diagnosed by people with mental health conditions…
With the help a transgender CULT that takes advantage of such people, as cults have historically taken advantage of people in a compromised state.
Don’t you *dare* blame it on anyone else.
Arguably – I would say obviously – trans (the real cases anyway, not the fashionable ones) is a very serious mental illness, and especially since nobody can know that they “should be” the opposite gender, all they can know is that what they ARE “doesn’t feel right,” even surgery etc isn’t going to fix it. Nor will “acceptance.”
Don Tillman, you are actually a lot of fun.
Edited to add:
No, I regret that. I should not have responded flippantly. I don’t apologise for my opinions, but I do apologise for the flippant response. Sorry.
Zafar, I have heard that the rates of suicide for homosexuals has been consistently twice that of the average in many different countries over a long period of time. I was surprised when I read this but it comes from a Professor I trust. What evidence do you have that the suicide rates of homosexuals are falling? Suicides are actually more important than self-reports of discrimination because we know they actually happen.
This article is on youth suicide:
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/suicide-rates-fall-among-gay-youth-still-outpace-straight-peers-n1135141
The numbers a bit confusing, IMO, but basically the increase in gay identifying kids – doubled over the study period – wasn’t matched by a doubling of the gay‘share’ of youth suicides. I think they also measured more than success (ie death).
Indeed. Examine the ‘Gay’, lesbian and Trans, thick as thieves in their political ideology. However, they could not be more different from each other. A Gay or lesbian insists that “I was born this way” and seek others to celebrate and salute upon their “coming out’, exactly as they are biologically. A Trans, however, also encouraged by this confused society, do not believe that they were born that way and thus must seek mutilation of their bodies and additional surgery to feel normalized. The exact opposite decision of an individual who self-identifies as Gay or lesbian.
Before being hi-jacked by the Gaystapo, the American Psychiatric Association, routinely labeled homosexuality as a mental disorder.
I can’t believe it’s still going on. I keep getting notifications, but I don’t see anything worth reading.
Unfollow.
Straight men kill themselves more than any other demographic.
Nobody cares.
The studies are interesting but they don’t compare like with like.
Many people who consider themselves to be sexual minorities now, would not be sexual minorities in the past. It’s fascinating that the youth suicide rate is going down. I though that all the suicide rates were going up in the United States.
My brother suffered a major trauma to his hand that resulted in several reconstruction surgeries and the use of massive long term pain management Rx. Already having a history of substance abuse, compounded by depression (from the injury) and psychosis inducing drugs, he was seeking like minded people in social media. And what is the overwhelming thing going on in the mental health sub culture of the internet? Transgenderism.
So my brother believed he was trans. And he was alienated from family that thought it was something else. And getting him help that tried to find the underlying issue is now incompatible with mental health “ethics”. He was depressed and on bad drugs.
He’s been in rehab for about a year now. He’s been plugged into a community ministering to spiritual needs. He no longer thinks he is trans.
The trans movement is aided and abetted by evil people taking sore advantage over the mentally ill that need serious help. And the push to outlaw therapists from not accepting the mentally ill’s self diagnosis is destructive and demented.
Typically it ends on the street regardless. A lot of teens in foster care are abused or runaways. Children’s homes are available to kids kicked out removed by the state.
This sounds alot like what Abigail Shrier about with autistic girls. Being trans is trendy right now. Thank you for sharing such relevant information Stina.
I’m just catching up on this thread – and largely staying out of it – so please forgive me if this has already been discussed further.
I don’t think you’re correct about this. I don’t claim that it’s raining gay men for me in my social circle, but just about every gay guy I know has at least one hetero encounter. A surprising number of female friends have lesbian-ish encounters when they are not lesbians. Ok, granted, no straight guy I know would ever admit to any homo-ish encounters, but I gather that it can happen.
Or, take rape. Neither men nor women want to be raped; they’re not excited by it (I’m not talking about some romance novel or porn fantasy so we don’t need to go down that road). Yet sometimes people’s bodies simply react to the physical thing being inflicted upon them. I’m not making some kind of comparison between rape and consensual choices, I only bring it up to say that one can respond even if it’s far, far outside one’s preference.