Category: Transexuals

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A Cervical Cancer society in the UK recently made a suggestion, and it was a suggestion and not a command, to medical professionals to use the term bonus hole or front hole instead of vagina when talking to trans patients. It isn’t going to happen. One, if someone said bonus hole to me I wouldn’t have a clue what they are talking about. My mind drifted to golf for some reason but it did not go to vagina. There is also a perfectly good word already in use for vagina that would be vagina. I am not sure why it is offensive to Trans people and I am not sure why it needs to change.

But what about Trans people’s feelings? I doubt that many Trans people actually are offended by the use of the word vagina. Has anyone ever checked into this? Or are Trans activists, with nothing better to do with their time, imagining offenses where no offense is being taken. The Trans community would be better served by activists who can explain why Trans people might need medical treatment, how they are not forcing these medical options on Trans people, and helping parents make the necessary decisions regarding their children’s future. Until then, Trans Activists are acting as if they have won the day and that they are in a position to direct people’s language. They are not. Trans activists are going to lose while also alienating potential supporters of Trans rights which is something I would think they would like to avoid.

Then there is the argument that if it is important for people to be comfortable and to use language that supports this comfort, what about all the people who prefer vagina to bonus hole? Aren’t they people too? Last year, Bette Midler got entangled in another controversy because she objected to replacing the word woman with birthing people or menstruators. She wants to be called a women and I am betting that there are billions of other women who have the same preference. Billions, mind you, while Trans people being offended by the word woman is how big a group — I am guessing hundreds, maybe thousands at best. And to make it even more confusing, what about Trans women who want to be called women? Can they use women? Language is around to make life simpler. Menstruator and Bonus Hole makes life more complicated so are doomed for failure.

So in summation, this society is recommending replacing a perfectly useful and widely understood word like vagina to a different word nobody knows so nobody will understand it when used in order to prevent offending a very small group within society who may not even be offended by vagina in the first place. There is a better use for people’s energies than this losing battle.

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Radical trans activists claim that you can’t choose the genitalia that you are attracted to. If a born woman now claims she is a man now even though she hasn’t had the actual operation, her still present female genitalia shouldn’t stop people who like men. Once a trans man says he is a man, people should treat that person like a man even though he still has female genitalia. It doesn’t matter that some people may prefer a person with actual male genitalia. The only gender that matters is the one that the individual says they are. So if a person likes men, anyone who claims to be a man becomes dateable.

This baffles me as, I suspect, it baffles you. I am not a machine. There is no switch than can be flipped that will make me suddenly accept someone as a man who still retains female genitalia. My actual taste is even more refined than genitalia. I prefer a certain body build and an age group. Now, I am open to change but the very reason I am gay is I am attracted to the male body. I can’t explain it. It just is. If I could change to preferring the female body, I would have flipped that switch years ago when I was trying to be straight.

I don’t believe this to be a transphobic statement. Except I am being told that because I prefer bodies with male genitalia over trans men who still have female genitalia, I am being transphobic. The genitalia of a person shouldn’t make a difference. Well, then if so, why would I come out as gay, with all of the doubt and confusion surrounding this recognition, only to end up with a trans man who still has female genitalia. Why wouldn’t I just have stuck with heterosexuality and skip the trauma?

I think I am sympathetic to trans people so I try to understand the arguments regarding genitalia attraction. These articles are densely academic. Often I am not even sure that what I am reading pertains to what I want to learn about. They are that obtuse. If you find one that clearly states the argument, by all means, let me know but, at this point, I am unconvinced. I also am not saying it’s impossible. I am saying it hasn’t happened.

Which is where I begin to have problem with trans rights activists. In your mind you have created a perfect world and everyone should play by the rules of this perfect world. We don’t, however, live in your perfect world and, because of that, there needs to be a rather broad respect for people with varying opinions in this very flawed world. Given that I am a gay man who runs with a liberal group of individuals, I would say trans activists still need to do more work on convincing people. They are welcome to continue making this argument but until they sway large numbers of presently unbelieving Democrats and Liberals, they might find a better way to disagree with these allies on other issues in order to get good things done for everyone.

Trans people need good education, good health care, good public transportation and livable communities. In an evenly divided electorate, we need everybody on board. Trans activists have called both J.K. Rowling and Martina Navratilova transphobic. Well, OK, but they really haven’t convinced me and it doesn’t look like they intend to try. This is a problem. If Ted Crus, J.K. Rowling and Martina Navratilova are all transphobic, what they are saying is 100% compliance with their perfect world. There is a rather big difference between what Rowling believes about trans people and what Cruz believes, and there is even bigger difference between Navratilova and Cruz. The whole world is in transition about trans people. Not all people are in the same place.

Right now, the best we can do is have civil arguments about the place of Trans people in our society. For some reason, this is increasingly difficult to manage. It is nearly impossible for Democrats and Republicans to argue civilly, it would be a shame if this dying art disappears within the ranks of Liberals and Democrats.

In the meantime, it is annoying to tell people who they should lust after. I know what arouses me and I don’t need your help, thank you very much.

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Whenever someone starts complaining about how bad the younger generation is, I think what exactly is missing. Much of the time, the person wants to bring back some form of corporal punishment. All the kids of today need is a good smack in the face and all will be right with the world. Lionel Shriver, in her recent column, adds another missing element — ignorance. She writes that modern culture is turning out messy empty individuals instead of good characters that society used to produce. Shriver starts her column with the controversy regarding trans children even though she contends her point is a much broader point and is about all modern children. Shriver feels that modern institutions (read here parents and schools) listen too much to the children’s feelings instead of guiding children like in the good old days. Then, based on these children’s feelings, society lets them make important decisions like gender identification about their lives.

I have some issues with what Shriver’ thinking. Sometimes children do know what they feel and they are right. Take for example what hand a child should write with. In the good old days, children who were naturally left handed were told to write with their right hand since most people write with their right hand, it was obviously the correct hand to use. Adults, wrongly, guided children to behave against their nature. These adults thought they knew better than the child. They were, however, wrong and they did damage to these left handers.

Then Shriver argues that children couldn’t possibly know anything about gender identity problems because they don’t know enough about gender to make these decisions. Shriver may be right but there is no way to determine this because, in the past, parent and schools pretty much ignored sex except at the most fundamental level. They certainly didn’t discuss homosexuality or gender confusion so how can she determine that the society handled this better in the good old days.

Shriver wants adult guidance so that when a girl says she wants to be boy, that some adult is guiding the child to a better decision. But then what does Shriver mean by guiding and what is a better decision? The best guidance would vary from child to child since every situation would be different. There is no stock answer that resolves all sexual identity questions. The only way for an adult to know how to proceed is to listen to the individual child. If all Shriver wanted was for people to be cautious when a child makes these statements regarding gender identity and to be extremely careful before allowing body altering surgery based on a child’s feelings, I am willing to listen to what she has to say; however if she is suggesting shutting down any conversation about what the child is saying and guiding the child to heterosexuality, then I think she is damaging the child.

But to contend that the character building regime of the old days was somehow better is quite a stretch. In fact, gender confused children or gay children had a pretty miserable life in the good old days which is something I can personally confirm. My parents told me exactly nothing about sex – heterosexual, homosexual, gender confusion, and how babies were made were all equally ignored– which, judging from the conversations with my contemporaries, was a fairly standard parental practice of the good old days. As I went to Catholic schools, I didn’t get much more from them until my senior year of high school. So when, a gay person or a gender confused person started having sexual feelings there was no one they could talk to much less get support from. My first attempt to learn more about homosexuality was from a Webster’s dictionary and, as you can imagine, it wasn’t much help.

How is not knowing anything about sex better than listening to the concerns children have about sex? Neither my education nor the parents of my generation gave enough information regarding sex for a child to know how to move forward in their character building. The good old days opted for ignorance over information. This didn’t stop anyone from having sex though. We ignorantly fumbled in the dark with our sexual desires because we wanted to have sex which is a pretty normal feeling for adolescents. Ignorance has its own problems because some poor kids suffering the consequences of young parenthood, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases. Even heterosexual children have a much better time now because people accept the notion that teenagers might have sex and educate them on how to handle these situations.

Then Shriver veers over to the young serial killers who shoot up American schools. She contends that the proliferation of mass casualty shootings have less to do with the availability of guns and more to do with the moral nihilism. Now moral nihilism may be good explanation for the mass killers’ feelings but how this supports her bigger point that all children are suffering from a lack of guidance and are left to their own devices when fleshing out their character is quite a stretch. She only discusses trans children and serial killers. She is extrapolating her theory from two incredibly small and troubled groups of children. How this affects the vast majority of children is a complete mystery.

The good old days, at least in Shriver’s very specific focus, have little to tell us about how to move forward. The good old days had precious little to offer the troubled child or the sexually confused child. The good old days didn’t even deal with these children. They ignored the sexually confused children and kicked out the nihilist trouble makers. Shriver believes that children need guidance in order to build character, yet, her reference point, the vast ambiguous but nonetheless good old days, offered very little in the way of adult direction even for the majority heterosexual population much less for gay and trans children.

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Governor DeSantis is pulling the Democrats into an impossible argument with his “Don’t Say Gay” law. DeSantis claims he is trying to protect children from homosexual indoctrination. Democrats say he is preventing teachers from even saying the word Gay in the classroom. Think about the words here. DeSantis is talking about children, protection and indoctrination. Democrats are saying Gay. The optics on this are terrible. The Republicans look like they are trying to protect children from learning about sex before they are ready. Democrats look like they want teachers to talk about Gay relationships. Now, ask your average parent what they want for their children?

DeSantis’ law is vague and nearly impossible to enforce. What is and is not sexual indoctrination is never defined, so this little baby will be in the Florida courts for years to come as martyr teachers and wingnut parents duke it out. In reality, very little will happen as Republicans want you to believe that teachers are introducing the joys of sodomy to small children. This is not happening. Since no one is indoctrinating children in the first place, this law is unnecessary and should be pretty easy to comply with. At its worst, it stifles communication between teachers and students if a child raises the topic of homosexuality. This means that teachers will have to be more circumspect when these issues arise in the classroom. This is sad and incredibly unhelpful to children who may have these concerns.

But, as far as giving children any additional protection from indoctrination, this bill fails to do anything meaningful because teachers are not trying to indoctrinate their charges into homosexuality. This should be obvious to every sane Floridian. The gay population is, at best, 10% of the American population, more conservative estimates peg it a 5%; the transgender population is much smaller coming in at less than 1%. Assuming that Florida’s population mirrors the American estimates, why would 90% of Florida teachers be teaching little Floridians to be gay? It makes absolutely no sense because it isn’t happening.

People have been trying for years to change Gay children into heterosexuals. These children get years of heterosexual indoctrination and they desperately want to change, and yet they can’t change. If straight indoctrination doesn’t work to change someone’s sexual inclinations, why would Gay indoctrination? So DeSantis’ argument that the entire teaching establishment is engaged in a conspiracy to create gay and transgender people is beyond absurd.

On the other hand, DeSantis has cleverly forced the Democrats into defending Gays in the hopes that one of these defenders will stumble into some gaffe that the Republicans can use in campaign ads. Sadly, it is working. Democrats are taking the bait and wanting everyone to say Gay. While the intention is good, teacher should be able to say Gay in the classroom, it is giving a wrong impression on what teachers are doing in the classroom. Again, teachers are not drawing diagrams of the pleasures of gay sex for 2nd graders, they, however, may have to explain to a class why Johnny has two Moms. These are two distinctly different actions. One, which most parents would agree, is something that might occur and needs explanation; the other isn’t happening at all. However what the Democrats are embedding into the public’s mind is that the Democrats want to talk about Gay relationships in schools.

DeSantis has created a problem where there was none to begin with. He denies that the law stops teachers from saying Gay. Time will tell. But lets disabuse ourselves of the notion he doesn’t want people saying Gay. He loves it. Say Gay every chance you get. Gay. Gay. Gay. Say it loudly. Say it clearly. Say it so the news media blasts it on television every night. He is betting that the 90% heterosexual population is, at best, ambivalent about saying Gay in the classroom and, at worst, actually opposed to it. In the meantime, every time a Hollywood star says don’t say Gay, some middle class straight people are thinking why exactly do they want to say Gay in front of 2nd graders? This is not the argument the Democrats want to be having.