I made the above poll for anyone who feels like participating. It’s just to get a sense of how others feel about sense of belonging. It’s very basic. People may have their unique reasons for feeling the way they do. This one is specifically for LGBT people only.
EDIT: Not implying that belonging necessarily means you are conventional. Maybe you are very unconventional even by queer standards but still feel you belong in the community…It’s more complicated for some than for others
Honestly, I often feel like I don’t belong in the queer community. I don’t really care anymore, but it’s just… I wonder if other queer or trans people even feel this way. It’s like, there’s so many toxic people you can’t say a single thing without some idiot or other trying to ‘shape’ you into something you’re not.
I understand anger because I experience it a lot myself. But anger at people just for trying to define who they are as separate from the community… it’s a joke. It’s like some ppl expect you to care about the same topics they care about (which are not nearly as ‘open-minded’ as they claim to be) and express yourself the same way… I had an identity before I came out and I’m not going to change that for anyone, including the queer community.
I just wonder if other people know what I mean.. or are most content to be rainbow squares? ugh.
I always thought of the Trump presidency as the last death throe of a dying system… so this is not surprising to me. There’s something called the ‘dustbin of history’, it’s where old ideas and those who represent repressive beliefs belong. Sooner or later.
I don’t know about Politics, but there are still occupational fields in which TALENT and DISCIPLINE means more than empty air.. in which, you know, QUALIFICATIONS actually matter.
The only thing I ever have to say to this scum is that he should go back to reality tv because that’s all he’s good at, and even in that he’s less than third rate.
My favourite part of that entire article was this bit:
‘Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote in hers last October that transgender people are a “discernible class” who “have suffered, and continue to suffer, severe persecution and discrimination” but display “exemplary military service” regardless.’
This is an essay I wrote for a grammar course, about the use of singular ‘They’, edited a bit:
My essay:
Any applied study of English
grammar would reveal that language comprises a constantly evolving set of
conventions. For this reason, language experts often find themselves warring
over the rules of grammar. These people typically fall into two main factions. Prescriptivistsaregrammarians
who recommend writers follow “long-established” rules, viewing any deviations
as “incorrect” usage; descriptivists, on the other hand,are linguistic experts who assert that
“a language is defined
by how its users speak and write it, and that language ‘authorities’
can only describe usages, not allow or disallow
them”. One example of a practice under dispute is the use
of they as a singular pronoun, with a
singular, indefinite antecedent. By examining the history of this usage, we can
begin to see how much a language is shaped by the people who use it, often to
the point of persuading even the most inflexible of prescriptivists to bend the
rules a little to reflect changing times.
Dennis Baron, a
professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois,
reveals through his research that people have been seeking a common gender pronoun
for more than two centuries. Some past suggestions included hi, le, hiser, and thon, but
none were universally accepted. Meanwhile, the use of they as a singular, common gender pronoun can be observed in the
works of many well-known writers, from Chaucer to Shakespeare. As Linguist and
writer, Jonathon Owen, points out in his
blog, the disagreements arose when prescriptivists began favouring the use of he as an all-inclusive, singular pronoun
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This was problematic because the
use of primarily masculine pronouns to refer to a common gender caused readers
to envision a male subject, even when the context did not specify gender. The
result was that many felt excluded—both women and gender non-conforming
individuals alike.
In his discussion of
the history of pronounson a podcast
by MPR
News, Professor Baron takes us back to the matter of
“correctness”. He notes that in earlier examples of written language, the
resistance to the use of they as a
singular pronoun had more to do with grammatical correctness and logic than
inclusivity. The
pronoun-antecedent
rule holds that a pronoun must agree with its antecedent in both number as well
as gender. Baron gives us the example
phrase:
Everyone loves his
mother.
The
issue with this phrase, as Baron explains it, is that although his (being singular) agrees in number
with its antecedent, everyone, it
fails to meet the gender-agreement part of the pronoun-antecedent rule, since everyone is an indefinite, singular
pronoun that could refer to either gender. By this rule, using singular they would not be any more correct, as
it would fail the number-agreement part of the pronoun-antecedent rule, they being plural while everyone is singular.
Modern day conversations place more
of an emphasis on the question of inclusivity as opposed to convention. The Merriam-Webster
dictionary recognizes that “Though singular they
is old, they as a non-binary pronoun
is new. [It is used] for a person whose gender is known, but who does not
identify as male or female”. Kristen Hare, a media journalist at
Poynter Institute, echoes this observation when
she speaks of print media. In 2014, the Wall
Street Journal began allowing the use of singular they to refer to contributors that did not identify with a specific
gender. Soon afterwards, the New York
Times and Washington Post followed.
More and more Universities and Colleges are also making changes to school
policies to include gender-neutral pronouns for students to choose from in
their registration processes. Data
collected indicates they as one of
the main choices made by gender non-conforming students.
John
Eastwood writes, in his Oxford Guide to
English Grammar, that in modern times the
use of he as a common gender pronoun
is “less common than it used to be.” Eastwood is of the opinion that singular they is “neater than [her or she]” and is common in informal
contexts.
Other
academics and grammarians have mixed views, however. Some still recommend using
the generic he or she coordinate with
singular, indefinite antecedents—or avoiding pronouns altogether. Dictionaries
such as the Canadian Oxford Dictionary
list the singular use of they as
being “disputed,” though popular, while the Merriam-Webster
dictionary lists it as a respectable secondary option to the old convention,
citing that it’s been used in
both literary and formal contexts alike.
Despite all the recent acceptance in the mainstream, authors Patricia T.
O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman feel that although singular they has a long history in usage, it still has a long way to go
before becoming universally accepted.
In
light of this history, we are left with a question of what to do while the
natural process of language evolution takes place. For the time being, when it
comes to singular they, choosing to
subscribe to the prescriptivist or descriptivist view appears to be a matter of
personal preference. As a student of literature, an aspiring writer, and
someone who identifies as a member of the trans community, I too share the
mixed feelings of many others. I used to think that the rejection of singular they was driven purely by transphobia. I
can see now that this assumption was largely the result of having grown up with
the modern usage and attitudes. I’ve learned that this fight
was always more about linguistics and the rules of grammar than intentional transphobia.
Although one does have to wonder whether things might’ve been different if non-binary
people came out back when these rules were being made…
While trans people may not
have been part of the picture back when more people were closeted, in
today’s world the use of pronouns cannot be entirely removed from its implications for the trans community.
Generally, I find it very
hard to read about any religion without feeling anger; just idea that while
minorities are struggling every day to live authentically and with dignity, a
bunch of privileged people are sitting around discussing who gets to be the
final authority on morality.
Even in the distant past of
human history, it seems that sexually non-conforming people were reduced to
that one part of their identity—as though they were all about sex—with no other
dimensions to them.
The article “Homosexuality and Theravada Buddhism,”written
by A. L. De Silva, exposes some of the major inconsistencies in social
attitudes towards this subject from religion to religion.
Compared with
religions like Christianity, Buddhism seems to take a far less intrusive approach to
morality, encouraging people to refrain from judging others based on their
actions, and to use reason instead of personal biases to determine whether or
not an action is harmful. De Silva writes, Buddhism is an “ethics based upon
reason and compassion rather than tradition, superstitions and taboo.”
Buddhism teaches that the knowledge we gain on earth (a combination of “revelation”, “tradition”,
“scriptures”, and even our life experience) cannot give us the authority to
decide what is right or wrong.
It offers an interesting perspective by respecting autonomy
while at the same time defining some basic guiding principles for ethics. There
is acknowledgement of the unknown so that no principle is inflexible, but most
importantly, it does not grant society license to punish an individual for not
conforming. This mode of thinking gives people the chance to choose their own
paths, explore themselves, and find empowerment as a minority. It embodies the
“Live and Let Live” spirit.
Buddhist values provide a strong basis on which to introduce the LGBTQ cause. The author
acknowledges this in his analysis of the core teachings:
“All the principles we would use
to evaluate a heterosexual relationship we would also use to evaluate a
homosexual one. In Buddhism we could say that it is not the object of one’s
sexual desire that determines whether a sexual act is unskillful or not, but
rather the quality of the emotions and intentions involved.”
Since Buddhism encourages
introspection into the self and meditation, I always wondered whether
meditation brought the Buddha some kind of advanced knowledge that other
religions lack, concerning the true diversity of human experience… if so, it would explain (from a spiritual standpoint) why Buddhist teachings are not as strict/limited in their definitions of “right” or “wrong” as other religions are.
I need to make a note about a few things I’ve written on here that I only realized later could come off as kind of rude/ignorant. No one told me to do this, it just occurred to me I should.
I typically mean everything I say and I am consistent in my beliefs.
But 2 points:
-In one post I may have come off like I can’t stand mentally ill people. I didn’t meant it that way… I just have a lot of anger about having to deal with someone with a mental illness in my family (which has nothing to do with the topics of this blog because there is no incest in my direct lineage). When I talk about that person I can’t say anything positive, but I don’t have anything against others with mental illness, if they at least try to be decent people.
-In another post I said that no one who is a guy on the inside would want boobs… but I’ve seen online stuff of trans guys who are ok with keeping their breasts. And I’ve met a trans guy who even went through pregnancy before he got his top surgery… so I’m very sorry if it came off like I’m insulting those guys. They are so brave and I respect them alot. My dysphoria is just really bad so I can’t imagine being ok with my body as it is…
I was on the bus today and these two guys were talking about their personal lives.. I usually get irritated when people begin talking about relationships and stuff on the bus when I’m tired and on my way home from work.
But when they started talking about other guys and how to spot a gay guy in the classroom, I began to get kind of curious. I found their conversation to be amusing and was just thinking that this was a rare thing to witness on a bus full of people… I didn’t have an issue with it until it got to that one bit about the “guy” who now has BOOBS.
The moment they said that I knew they were talking about a trans person, who was likely going through a medical transition (a transwoman or nonbinary person). I suddenly felt dread that this conversation was going to take an ugly turn… the guys weren’t horrible about it. They were just really ignorant.
The whole time they were talking about the person they kept calling them a “he” and I kept thinking that no one who is truly a guy on the inside would willingly go get boobs. I should know because I had the opposite procedure done (FTM).
The most unbearable part of this conversation to me, personally, was how one guy just casually says “If I ever did something like that, I’d go all the way. The first thing I’d do is cut off my….”
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
There’s so much there in that one moment and about people’s attitudes towards transgender transition in general that it can’t possibly be covered in one post. So I’m not going to try. I just want to speak for myself.
For those who don’t understand why many trans people don’t go “all the way” with their surgeries or hormones, the answer is that there are many answers… it depends on who you ask. But if you want to learn something, genuinely want to have a sample answer to that question, I’ll give my perspective. I can only speak for myself:
Medical transition is risky. I have had one surgery. It took years to make up my mind to do it and I only did it because it was extremely low-risk and predictable. The risk is the main reason why I would likely not “go all the way”. Believe me, if there were such a thing as magic, the first thing, the FIRST thing I’d do is get a sex change. Other people can have their cars and money and houses. I will go get the sex change I wanted since I was six.
.
My answer to this unbelievably annoying (but legitimate) question is simply that
surgery is not magic
and in a world where people still don’t get the essence of what it means for someone to be trans, it only makes taking the risk that much less appealing to me.
rainbowamory 