"choice" discussion on homosexuality (split from closed pedophelia thread)

[Radical Rambler]

People don't chose what they're attracted to sexually any more than they chose what tastes good.

This idea, which dovetails with the dominant homosexual narrative about being born with homosexuality, is what causes the "Left" to bend over backwards defending pedophiles. This idea is, of course, false.

The modern homosexual identity is a social-construction. Homosexuals are not a separate species. They are not biologically separated from the rest of the population, contrary to the dominant homosexual narrative about the nature of the homosexual identity.

Pedophiles are, and will continue, abusing this false idea of the nature of the homosexual identity in order to normalize their sadistic child-rape fantasies. They want to turn LGBTQ into LGBT-P, and certain members of that community are more than willing to accommodate them.

[Slavic]

This idea, which dovetails with the dominant homosexual narrative about being born with homosexuality, is what causes the "Left" to bend over backwards defending pedophiles. This idea is, of course, false.

The modern homosexual identity is a social-construction. Homosexuals are not a separate species. They are not biologically separated from the rest of the population, contrary to the dominant homosexual narrative about the nature of the homosexual identity.

Wow, so lets just ignore the fact that physical attraction is a biological response and pretend that we can just mentally chose who we are attracted to. If that is the case then all those "Gay Away" clinics must be quite successful.

Physical attraction is biologically based. Being born with a physical attraction to pre-pubesent children is not wrong. Acting upon this attraction is wrong because a child can and will never be able to give consent.

Similarly I am attracted to women, there is nothing wrong with being born with this attraction. If I have sex with a women with out consent then the action is wrong, but the desire is not.

[Radical Rambler]

Physical attraction is biologically based. Being born with a physical attraction to pre-pubesent children is not wrong.

This is a lie. In the case of this lie being used by homosexual men (lesbians predominately know this idea is false, as their chosen sexual identity is based on a conscious rejection of Patriarchy) to get mainstream acceptance of themselves, it was mostly a harmless lie. Today, it serves nothing but a reactionary purpose, and is even used by child-rapists to justify their sadistic anti-social fantasies.

The homosexual thinker Michael Foucault long ago showed the origins of the dominant homosexual narrative in his brilliant The History of Sexuality. I suggest people read the Palestinian Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs to see how this concept of the homosexual identity is used today in a reactionary way by Western imperialism.

[Lily Briscoe]

(lesbians predominately know this idea is false, as their chosen sexual identity is based on a conscious rejection of Patriarchy)

Uh... I actually agree that the idea of hardwired orientation is wrong, but the idea that most lesbians are lesbians due to their political convictions is really beyond ridiculous.

[Slavic]

This is a lie. In the case of this lie being used by homosexual men (lesbians predominately know this idea is false, as their chosen sexual identity is based on a conscious rejection of Patriarchy) to get mainstream acceptance of themselves, it was mostly a harmless lie. Today, it serves nothing but a reactionary purpose, and is even used by child-rapists to justify their sadistic anti-social fantasies.

The homosexual thinker Michael Foucault long ago showed the origins of the dominant homosexual narrative in his brilliant The History of Sexuality. I suggest people read the Palestinian Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs to see how this concept of the homosexual identity is used today in a reactionary way by Western imperialism.

First of all I would like to thank you for shocking me twice in one day. I never knew that lesbians were only in it to "stick it to the man".

Secondly, I do not think that a philosopher's musings on the origins of homosexuality really have any merit whatsoever in the face of scientific fact. Linked here is a informative site that compiles results from numerous studies to show the biological and genetic conditions that appear to be commonplace amongst those born as homosexuals.

http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/1961to1999/1995-biological-aspects.html

[The Feral Underclass]

The modern homosexual identity is a social-construction.

So your claim is that being gay is the consequence of a capitalist society?


Homosexuals are not a separate species. They are not biologically separated from the rest of the population, contrary to the dominant homosexual narrative about the nature of the homosexual identity

This argument doesn't logically follow. I don't see how being biologically pre-disposed to a sexual attraction of your own gender constitutes a "separate species," unless you are starting from the basis that heterosexuality is the default natural position and being biologically homosexual would somehow be an abnormality.


In the case of this lie being used by homosexual men...to get mainstream acceptance of themselves, it was mostly a harmless lie. Today, it serves nothing but a reactionary purpose, and is even used by child-rapists to justify their sadistic anti-social fantasies.

The view that being gay is something that is chosen or something that society constructs is as fallacious as the notion that straight people choose to be straight.

The problem here, of course, is that you don't accept the position that straight people choose their sexuality because you are ultimately of the opinion that being straight is a normal, natural occurrence and that if homosexuality were biological it would therefore be abnormal or unnatural, which, since you are clearly trying to mould your homophobic views into a more tolerant narrative, means you have to conclude that it is a choice or a "social construction" that you probably claim you have no issue with, therefore presenting yourself as accepting (as if we require your acceptance in the first place).

Aside from the obvious absurd aspects of believing someone would choose to live a life that is legislated against, discriminated against; is the leading contributor to bullying, teenage suicides, mental health problems and general stigmatisation, as well as the boundless empirical evidence, in the shape of human experience, including myself, whom can confirm that being gay wasn't a choice, all you are doing with your confused ideas is reinforcing heterosexist domination and the heteronormative world view that gives legitimisation to that domination.

Your views contribute to our oppression, whether you are intending them to or not. My feeling is that your intentions here are to contribute to that oppression, because I sense nothing but contempt in your posts. If it is not contempt, then it is an almost pathological insensitivity. Either way, your posts are not welcome here.


(lesbians predominately know this idea is false, as their chosen sexual identity is based on a conscious rejection of Patriarchy)

All this statement does is reveal your detachment from the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ people.


The homosexual thinker Michael Foucault long ago showed the origins of the dominant homosexual narrative in his brilliant The History of Sexuality

I am not confident that you have interpreted Foucault's views correctly.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Modern homosexual identity is a social construction in that capitalism informs that identity (just as capitalism informs heterosexual identity), but homosexuality at it's most base level is not created by capitalism. That idea, and the idea that, say, lesbians are lesbians because of a conscious rejection of patriarchy, kind of treads closely to the deeply reactionary idea which was unfortunately popular among certain socialists of homosexuality being a symptom of "decadent capitalism".

[The Feral Underclass]

Modern homosexual identity is a social construction in that capitalism.

What homosexual identity is this?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Everyone who is gay and also lives under capitalism? I mean capitalism informs everyone's identity to a certain degree simply through the experience of living within the system, doesn't it?

[Sabot Cat]

I find it evident that sexual orientation is something that is not chosen, and I'll provide an incredibly simplified account below as to why. The concept of "sex" here is being used uncritically, but please note that I do disagree with it; it's simply less wordy to say "sex" and not "those with similarly shaped genitalia".

(1) Numerous animals, including mammals and especially Bonobos, exhibit same-sex attraction.
(2) If a person had the intelligence of a lion or monkey, the actions they perform would not be considered "choices" because they would lack the anticipation of consequences and selection among lucidly conceived possibilities to the degree that most people are capable of. Hence it can be said that these animals did not chose to be attracted to members of their sex in the way that the term is typically used.
(3) Because same-sex attraction occurs without conscious choice in other animals, it's not parsimonious to explain human same-sex attraction by pointing to culture or conscious choice, as any such explanation would have less empirical evidence and precedence than the theory that it's a by-product of preconscious physiology.

However, I will append a caveat:

(a) Only the domesticated sheep shows exclusive same-sex attraction, and approximately 8.6% do so. Most animals that exhibit same-sex attraction also engage in heterosexual intercourse and relations.
(b) Hence, it's possible that most people are on a spectrum of bisexuality, but are more attracted to one sex or the other depending upon conscious or cultural factors. It's also possible that humans could be like sheep, and have preconcious and exclusive attraction to the same sex.

Sources:
On the commonality of same-sex attraction in the Animal world: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616122106.htm
On exclusive same-sex attraction in domestic sheep: http://books.google.ca/books?id=EftT_1bsPOAC&pg=PA179#v=onepage&q&f=false

[IBleedRed]

Being born with a physical attraction to pre-pubesent children is not wrong.

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTX2-kRXcPEx2M6fJ2HnddHksjOu_vVEmM0Xfn7qTS41dtuakeCew

No wonder we fail to resonate with more people...

[the debater]

I will re-post this study I highlighted in the previous thread dealing with homosexuality being a choice:


In a 30-year longitudinal study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, although the authors found that men with histories of childhood sexual abuse were more likely to report ever having had same-sex sexual partners, they did not find any "significant relationships between childhood physical abuse or neglect and same-sex sexual orientation in adulthood;" neither men nor women with histories of childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect reported more same-sex sexual partners in the previous year or same-sex romantic cohabitation compared to men and women without such histories. Authors of the study speculated that "sexual abuse may result in uncertainty regarding sexual orientation and greater experimentation with both same- and opposite-sex relationships," but may not affect ultimate sexual orientation.

[Skyhilist]

Homosexuality is biological in hundreds of other species, it stands to reason that it's be biological in humans.

[Sabot Cat]

Homosexuality is biological in hundreds of other species, it stands to reason that it's be biological in humans.

Chomsssssssky: Usefully summing up a point that takes me 287 words to say in less than twenty.

[The Feral Underclass]

Everyone who is gay and also lives under capitalism? I mean capitalism informs everyone's identity to a certain degree simply through the experience of living within the system, doesn't it?

I'm asking you to characterise this identity that you're talking about. Describe what this constructed identity is.

[Comrade Jacob]

It's very much biological, I used to want to change my sexuality years ago but failed and got over it and moved to accepting myself.
It's definitely not a choice for me.

[The Feral Underclass]

I never had a period in which I found women attractive. As soon as puberty kicked in and I started having sexual feelings -- from the get go -- it was guys.

[Slavic]

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTX2-kRXcPEx2M6fJ2HnddHksjOu_vVEmM0Xfn7qTS41dtuakeCew

No wonder we fail to resonate with more people...

Thank you for your insight into my post, it was most appreciated now that I understand your position on the matter.

Maybe the left would resonate more with people if its members weren't childish and prone to one liners when debating serious issues. Also this issue was said and done in the previous thread because some users can't hold a discussion without demanding the heads of those they disagree with and don't understand. So thank you for staying on topic in this new thread.

Continuing


Everyone who is gay and also lives under capitalism? I mean capitalism informs everyone's identity to a certain degree simply through the experience of living within the system, doesn't it

The implications of this statement are so broad that it renders it useless. If you are stating that homosexuality and heterosexuality are just social constructs within capitalist systems that are informed by said systems, then every identity is "informed" by capitalism. There would be no sound base for any identity because it can just be stated to be informed by capitalism.

I do not think private property and the market are informing my attraction to either men or women.

[IBleedRed]

Thank you for your insight into my post, it was most appreciated now that I understand your position on the matter.

Maybe the left would resonate more with people if its members weren't childish and prone to one liners when debating serious issues. Also this issue was said and done in the previous thread because some users can't hold a discussion without demanding the heads of those they disagree with and don't understand. So thank you for staying on topic in this new thread.

Defense of pedophilia doesn't warrant a serious reply. It'd be insulting to give a response to something so clearly harmful and opposed to the well-being of human beings, as if the argument held any merit to begin with.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm asking you to characterise this identity that you're talking about. Describe what this constructed identity is.

Pretty much everyone who's gay and also holds certain assumptions true about the world, as informed by socio-economics. Socio-economics doesn't create homosexuality, obviously, that's an ahistorical and anti-scientific perspective. But homosexuality as a cultural identifier is obviously informed by capitalism, esp. as it's seen as more and more "normative". I mean, just look at your own signature. There's a book called "Why are faggots so afraid of faggots" by Mattilda Sycamore that's a decent critique from a radical queer perspective of what I'm talking about, vis-à-vis mainstream society informing homosexual identifiers.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The implications of this statement are so broad that it renders it useless. If you are stating that homosexuality and heterosexuality are just social constructs within capitalist systems that are informed by said systems, then every identity is "informed" by capitalism. There would be no sound base for any identity because it can just be stated to be informed by capitalism.

I do not think private property and the market are informing my attraction to either men or women.

Maybe I'm misreading you, but this sounds a little defensive based on what I was writing, or maybe I just didn't make myself clear enough :unsure: I'm pretty sure that we're actually in agreement.

[The Feral Underclass]

Pretty much everyone who's gay

You're not answering my question. You said: "Modern homosexual identity is a social construction," but you have not described what that identity is. Or are you really saying that the modern homosexual identity that is a social construction is someone who is gay, because that doesn't make any sense...


But homosexuality as a cultural identifier is obviously informed by capitalism

What does that cultural identity look like? What are its specific, individual characteristics? An identity has to actually have an identity in order for it to be one.

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

I do think that sexuality as a black and white, gay or straight, and set in stone label is a social construct. According to Harvard-educated psychologist Robert Epstein, sexual orientation is a continuum, not a collection of labels. While most people seem to be firmly attracted to the same or opposite sex, there are some people in between who will dart back and forth between different partners, spending a decade dating men and then a decade dating women.

When I was little and during my early teen years, I was almost exclusively interested in girls, but now I'm into guys and can't really imagine having a "real" girlfriend. Was it because I "chose" to change my orientation? No, it was just a gradual shift in preferences.

Here's an article by Epstein if you're interested:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=robert%20epstein%20gays&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrrobertepstein.com%2Fdownloads%2 FEpstein-Do_Gays_Have_a_Choice-SciAmMIND-3-06.pdf&ei=DnfQUubuOpWrsATijIGwDA&usg=AFQjCNG6L3VxNuhw9YeKGppTbOzig99hVw&bvm=bv.59026428,d.cWc


Now all I can do is ask myself: how did we get here from a discussion about how to deal with pedophiles!?!:laugh:

[Os Cangaceiros]

You're not answering my question. You said: "Modern homosexual identity is a social construction," but you have not described what that identity is. Or are you really saying that the modern homosexual identity that is a social construction is someone who is gay, because that doesn't make any sense...



What does that cultural identity look like? What are its specific, individual characteristics? An identity has to actually have an identity in order for it to be one.

Not sure what you want me to say. Homosexuality as sexual preference is not a social construction. Homosexual identity, culture etc. obviously is, I think, because it changes over time, and it simultaneously informs and is informed by the dominant mores in society. Back during the 1960s, 1970s etc it was more radically-politicized than it is now, partly because the system was explicitly against it at that point. It was more informed by the counter-culture of that time, there's a pretty decent article by Tom Burke from that era about it, although I unfortunately couldn't find it online other than this quote: "the new homosexual of the Seventies [is] an unfettered, guiltless male child of the new morality in a Zapata moustache and an outlaw hat, who couldn’t care less for Establishment approval, would as soon sleep with boys as girls, and thinks that ‘Over the Rainbow’ is a place to fly on 200 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide". Obviously this subculture only represented a piece of all gay people in the USA overall (this was, after all, around the same general time period as the non-radical "homophile" movement), but at the same time I'd argue that the culturally there's more of a conformist element within the gay community than there was back then, what with gay marriage and "don't ask don't tell" being repealed and just homosexuality being more and more "accepted" within the establishment.

[The Feral Underclass]

Homosexual identity, culture etc.

I don't know how I can put my question any simpler than I already have.

You said that there was a modern homosexual identity that was socially constructed and now you use the word culture. I want to know what that constructed identity, and now culture, looks like. What characterises this socially constructed identity/culture?

[Sea]

Everyone who is gay and also lives under capitalism? I mean capitalism informs everyone's identity to a certain degree simply through the experience of living within the system, doesn't it?No, not if I'm understanding you correctly anyway. The ancient Greeks and Romans got their stinky parts going just like everyone else and it wasn't always heterosexual. There's also a lot of material available on how homosexuality was treated in "primitive" (heh) cultures, which implies that it existed enough for it to be a recognized thing. And of course for the vast majority of capitalism's life gayness wasn't really a big thing on the agenda so what you're saying is rather dubious.

Not sure what you want me to say. Homosexuality as sexual preference is not a social construction. Homosexual identity, culture etc. obviously is, I think, because it changes over time, and it simultaneously informs and is informed by the dominant mores in society. Back during the 1960s, 1970s etc it was more radically-politicized than it is now, partly because the system was explicitly against it at that point. It was more informed by the counter-culture of that time, there's a pretty decent article by Tom Burke from that era about it, although I unfortunately couldn't find it online other than this quote: "the new homosexual of the Seventies [is] an unfettered, guiltless male child of the new morality in a Zapata moustache and an outlaw hat, who couldn’t care less for Establishment approval, would as soon sleep with boys as girls, and thinks that ‘Over the Rainbow’ is a place to fly on 200 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide". Obviously this subculture only represented a piece of all gay people in the USA overall (this was, after all, around the same general time period as the non-radical "homophile" movement), but at the same time I'd argue that the culturally there's more of a conformist element within the gay community than there was back then, what with gay marriage and "don't ask don't tell" being repealed and just homosexuality being more and more "accepted" within the establishment.Yeah that makes me put on my frowny face. Though I do like the entertainment that liberal acquaintances provide if gayness ever comes up in the conversation. It's hilarious how they make such a big fuss about NOT BEING JUDGMENTAL I TOTALLY SUPPORT YOU BRO and judging you so fucking hard as the same time. What's the big deal for christs sake/? Of course radical isn't always the same as class conscious though. So maybe it doesn't make me sad. I mean, isn't it at least a positive thing that homophobia is (in the us) associated with the right or maybe I'm just being an optimist.

[Radical Rambler]

So your claim is that being gay is the consequence of a capitalist society?

There were no homosexuals or heterosexuals prior to the invention of these terms in the 19th century in the West, so yes, that would be accurate.


I don't see how being biologically pre-disposed to a sexual attraction of your own gender constitutes a "separate species,"To quote Foucault:


homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy into a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species.The homosexual has been turned into a "species" by the nature of the dominant homosexual narrative about the nature of the homosexual identity.


unless you are starting from the basis that heterosexuality is the default natural position and being biologically homosexual would somehow be an abnormality.That is the implication of the dominant homosexual narrative itself. Homosexuals, according to that narrative, are a biological abnormality. They are an aberration that happens from time to time, and thus shouldn't be negatively judged because they can't help who they are. That is the message this narrative conveys to people.


The view that being gay is something that is chosen or something that society constructs is as fallacious as the notion that straight people choose to be straight.Straight people do choose to be straight. If they didn't, they would be labeled as a homosexual, bisexual, etc. The logic of the dominant homosexual narrative would then claim that the straight person was never actually straight (no matter what they themselves report about their prior heterosexual relationships). Most homosexuals aren't "gold star" gays. Most of them have had heterosexual sex and were able to achieve orgasm. They are formerly straight people who have chosen to become homosexual, bisexual, queer, etc.


The problem here, of course, is that you don't accept the position that straight people choose their sexualityExcept I do. It seems fairly obvious to me that is the case. Only the prevalent discourse in the West about sexual identity obscures this reality.


Aside from the obvious absurd aspects of believing someone would choose to live a life that is legislated against, discriminated againstThis happens all the time. People haven chosen religions and political ideologies regardless of the social consequences throughout recorded history. There is nothing particularly special about choosing to identify openly as a homosexual in a hostile environment. Communists have received just as much, if not more, backlash for being openly communists, but no one would say they were born that way (unless they wanted sympathy from the hostile population, that is).


as well as the boundless empirical evidenceThere is no real evidence of the biological basis of homosexuality, despite decades of searching for it. There is no "gay gene."


including myself, whom can confirm that being gay wasn't a choiceThe Queer By Choice people would disagree your "human experience" means anything. Not all self-identified homosexuals maintain your narrative. Trying to reconcile what the Queer By Choice people say and what those who maintain the dominant homosexual narrative say leads to people saying some people are born gay and for others it is a choice, but that is just reaching.


all you are doing with your confused ideas is reinforcing heterosexist domination and the heteronormative world view that gives legitimisation to that domination.Except I do no such thing. It is the dominant homosexual narrative itself that turns homosexuals into a species, a biologically separated entity forever doomed to minority status as some sort of evolutionary aberration (one that should be pitied, according to the narrative).


Your views contribute to our oppression, whether you are intending them to or not.My views do nothing of the sort. Being born black doesn't make people any less racist toward them. If somehow it was ever "proved" homosexuality was genetic (not gonna happen), people would just include it in prenatal screenings and abort gay fetuses. The dominant homosexual narrative may confer benefits before the courts or certain sectors of civil society, but it isn't going to protect you from everyday prejudice.

Just look at the reaction of people when you tell them people are born wanting to rape children. They don't care, they still hate them. Like a bedbug infestation, the only response they get is one of extermination. It doesn't illicit any sympathy for the child-rapists.


My feeling is that your intentions here are to contribute to that oppression, because I sense nothing but contempt in your posts. If it is not contempt, then it is an almost pathological insensitivity. Either way, your posts are not welcome here.This is just an attempt to silence an alternative point of view. That you feel threatened by someone challenging the dominant homosexual narrative about the nature of the homosexual identity only speaks of your own intolerance.


All this statement does is reveal your detachment from the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ people.Actually it is a view very commonly expressed. It is common knowledge to anyone that lesbians typically conceive the nature of their sexual identity very different from male homosexuals.

[Os Cangaceiros]

No, not if I'm understanding you correctly anyway. The ancient Greeks and Romans got their stinky parts going just like everyone else and it wasn't always heterosexual.

Like I said, the idea that sexual preference is something created by a specific socio-economic system is ahistorical and anti-scientific.

Anyway, I'm obviously communicating my ideas poorly in this thread so I'm going to bow out of this discussion.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Has Radical Rambler revealed his sexual orientation yet and revealed the exact process by which he chose it?

[Jimmie Higgins]

There were no homosexuals or heterosexuals prior to the invention of these terms in the 19th century in the West, so yes, that would be accurate.there were same sex attractions, relationships or acts, but you are correct that the concept of there being distinct types of sexuality did not exist until recently.


The homosexual has been turned into a "species" by the nature of the dominant homosexual narrative about the nature of the homosexual identity.i don't think this is correct because the attempt to categorize and create specific designations of sexuality was done by the domanent male Christian bourgeois sciences. They organized ideas about gender differences and created concepts like "the third sex" or whatnot.


That is the implication of the dominant homosexual narrative itself. Homosexuals, according to that narrative, are a biological abnormality. They are an aberration that happens from time to time, and thus shouldn't be negatively judged because they can't help who they are. That is the message this narrative conveys to people. i don't know where you are coming from with all this, but frankly terms like "dominant homosexual narrative" are a big turn off because it sounds like a euphemism for "the homosexual agenda".


There is no real evidence of the biological basis of homosexuality, despite decades of searching for it. There is no "gay gene."


I don't totally disagree with your arguments, I don't think sexuality is hard wired and attractions and preferences are not static or black and white. But "choice" is pretty loaded since it implies a conscious choice that most people who have any kind of sexual preference never directly thought about who they would tend to be attracted to.


Except I do no such thing. It is the dominant homosexual narrative itself that turns homosexuals into a species, a biologically separated entity forever doomed to minority status as some sort of evolutionary aberration (one that should be pitied, according to the narrative).this argument I just find wrong and offensive because you are essentially blaming oppressed people for their own oppression. If only women would dress like X then maybe they'd be taken more seriously, if only black kids pulled up their pants, then they wouldn't be profiled....

Marginalization and oppression of Lgbt people is the main thing. Defensiveness in regards to identity, enclaves, gay pride, are all ways of people trying to deal with, challenge, or cope with the fundamental and real oppression. Blaming marginalization of gay folks on arguments among gay people that are basically a way to counter bigoted claims from the 70s and 80s is totally useless and offensive.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Has Radical Rambler revealed his sexual orientation yet and revealed the exact process by which he chose it?

I think what RR is trying to get at (and I think their articulation maybe obfuscates matters), isn't that one "chooses" like one chooses how one wants their eggs, but rather that one's "choice" isn't genetic, or inherent, but a reflection of hegemonic discourses of sex and gender. ie Hetero and homosexuality both imply a sex/gender binary, etc.
When one takes, for example, a queer or anti-eurocentric critique into consieration, things become muddier. So, let's say I'm a "straight" cis male in a relationship with a transman. It would be transphobic as all fuck to be like, "Well, you're 'genetically' striaght, obviously!" Or, alternatively, at what point does that change? What degree of "passing" is necessary for my "gayness" to be authentic? etc.
Point being, looking for a "genetic" (whether literally genetic, or otherwise "naturalized") basis to explain gendered sexuality is putting the cart ahead of the horse on one hand, and has some implicit heteropatriarchal baggage on the other.

[Sabot Cat]

I'm confused by Radical Rambler and their insistence that there is no evidence that exclusive same-sex attraction isn't a conscious choice, despite the existence of at least one animal where a sizable minority refuses to engage in heterosexual intercourse while mating with partners of the same sex (the domestic sheep). Furthermore, the "homosexual narrative" simply acknowledges the situation of being a minority; the view that we are an "aberration" relies upon the notion that there is something that doesn't fall into the purview of nature, and the idea that gay people are a separate species is also a logical leap that accords with nothing in our discourse.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

But "choice" is pretty loaded since it implies a conscious choice that most people who have any kind of sexual preference never directly thought about who they would tend to be attracted to.
When I first realized I was bisexual, if I had any choice at the time, I would have chosen not to be bisexual, but I had no choice over who I was attracted to. I didn't choose to be bisexual, and I couldn't choose not to be.

[Radical Rambler]

Has Radical Rambler revealed his sexual orientation yet and revealed the exact process by which he chose it?

As a sort of thought-experiment (and to gauge people's reactions), sometimes I ask guys who identify as 'straight' if they would have sex with a post-op trans-woman who has cis-privilege and is considered attractive by Hollywood standards. They almost always say no. Then I ask them if they would have sex with a robot that looked exactly the same. They all inevitably resort to some essentialist sexual epistemology to justify not having sex with the trans-woman but having sex with the hypothetical robo-girl.

I think saying you would have sex with trans-women, even if you make it limited to those with cis-privilege, makes you a Queer. On that basis, I'd identify as Queer, though others might disagree with that categorization (I don't really care).

I read a very anti-trans piece on Counterpunch called "The Left Hand of Darkness" awhile back. One section in particular got me thinking;


Tauni also discusses how as an adolescent she had identified as transgender because there was social pressure to conform as well as to disassociate with feminist politics of the 70s and 80s. Tauni observed first-hand the disintegration of the lesbian community in Australia and now questions if transgenderism is becoming a means of bypassing homosexuality because of the notion that gender requires norms and stereotypes: ‘The ideologies were all transgender and queer was being pushed onto us. I never wanted to get married, I had very strong ideas about my role in society and didn’t like the way I saw women being treated. Now the vibrant lesbian community is all gone so we do understand what it is like to be trans, and we understand what it is like to be boxed into gender. We just disagree that being transgender is the way to resolve this issue.’ Like every feminist I interviewed, Tauni echos that gender needs to be dismantled and that transgender individuals are perpetuating stereotypes that hurt women. More worrying to Tauni, however, is how lesbians are being pressured to transition, often by their partners: ‘There is this particular aesthetic you have to be—it is the coolest thing to be trans. The hottest lesbian now is the trans man and so a lot of lesbians are going this way. The other lesbians can pressure their partners to become trans. They fetishise other trans men and then they pressure their partners through their sexuality.’

The trans-man generally has cis-privilege. It is much easier for a trans-man to pass as a man than for a trans-woman to pass as a woman, though modern medical practice has allowed the trans-woman to more fully transform her gender than the trans-man. Certain post-op pornographic film actresses have vaginas that no one could tell the difference from someone who was born female (that's how good the surgeries are now). One could even imagine scandal errupting in the adult film industry with one of these trans-women staring in multiple films directed toward a straight-male audience and then revealing she was a trans-woman.

[Radical Rambler]

I'm confused by Radical Rambler and their insistence that there is no evidence that exclusive same-sex attraction isn't a conscious choice, despite the existence of at least one animal where a sizable minority refuses to engage in heterosexual intercourse while mating with partners of the same sex (the domestic sheep).

Animals will also try to have sex with members of other species. Here is a video of it:

M40Jz5-AChE

I defy you to come up with a genetic explanation for this behavior. People use this "animals do it too" non-argument without really understanding the implications of what they are saying.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I think saying you would have sex with trans-women, even if you make it limited to those with cis-privilege, makes you a Queer. On that basis, I'd identify as Queer, though others might disagree with that categorization (I don't really care).
So you're exclusively attracted to women? When and how did you choose that attraction?


I read a very anti-trans piece on Counterpunch called "The Left Hand of Darkness" awhile back. One section in particular got me thinking
Whoever wrote that article definitely had an anti-trans agenda. "Like every feminist I interviewed, Tauni echos that gender needs to be dismantled and that transgender individuals are perpetuating stereotypes that hurt women." That's a minority tendency within feminism, so the author was clearly seeking out only those within that tendency so they could say "every feminist I interviewed."

[Radical Rambler]

So you're exclusively attracted to women? When and how did you choose that attraction?

That you don't acknowledge it as a form of non-heterosexuality doesn't bother me. Again, I don't really care. The question is, how many straight people would acknowledge me as one of them is a better test, in my mind.


Whoever wrote that article definitely had an anti-trans agenda.That's true. Within the LGTBQ community, the trans-woman is definitely at the bottom of the hierarchy. This prejudice is caused by the political nature of most lesbianism, which sees trans-women as men trying to enter their spaces, and the dominant homosexual narrative, which often sees the trans-woman as a homosexual with a mental disorder.

[Sabot Cat]

As a sort of thought-experiment (and to gauge people's reactions), sometimes I ask guys who identify as 'straight' if they would have sex with a post-op trans-woman who has cis-privilege and is considered attractive by Hollywood standards. They almost always say no. Then I ask them if they would have sex with a robot that looked exactly the same. They all inevitably resort to some essentialist sexual epistemology to justify not having sex with the trans-woman but having sex with the hypothetical robo-girl.

I think saying you would have sex with trans-women, even if you make it limited to those with cis-privilege, makes you a Queer.

No. No it doesn't. This would only be so if trans women weren't women, which is a notion that is both untrue and transphobic, even if we were going with a cissexist framework of genitalia shape=sex, because the trans woman in your example has had genitalia reconstruction surgery.


Animals will also try to have sex with members of other species. Here is a video of it:

I defy you to come up with a genetic explanation for this behavior. People use this "animals do it too" non-argument without really understanding the implications of what they are saying.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, honestly. Inter-species intercourse =/= same-sex attraction.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

That you don't acknowledge it as a form of non-heterosexuality doesn't bother me.
To me, a heterosexual man is one with an exclusive attraction to women, which you indicated you have. Again, you avoided my question. When and how did you choose that attraction?


This prejudice is caused by the political nature of most lesbianism, which sees trans-women as men trying to enter their spaces
Actually, that's a view held by a minority of lesbians and feminists, not most.

[Sabot Cat]

That you don't acknowledge it as a form of non-heterosexuality doesn't bother me. Again, I don't really care. The question is, how many straight people would acknowledge me as one of them is a better test, in my mind.

Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.


This prejudice is caused by the political nature of most lesbianism, which sees trans-women as men trying to enter their spaces, and the dominant homosexual narrative, which often sees the trans-woman as a homosexual with a mental disorder.

These are caused by patriarchal, heterosexist narratives, and I really don't know why you're trying to pen the oppression of trans people exclusively on lesbian and gay people.

[Radical Rambler]

Again, you avoided my question. When and how did you choose that attraction?

I chose to allow myself to be attracted to some trans-women because I thought about it, and decided it made no sense not to. I'd say I came to this realization a couple years ago.


Actually, that's a view held by a minority of lesbians and feminists, not most.

Oh? Has someone done a poll?

[Manic Impressive]

Have you guys ever heard of the Kinsey scale? It's all about preference, how inclined a person is to be attracted to one sex or another. I was just looking it up on wiki to remind myself of some of the details and found this excellent quote.


Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. While emphasizing the continuity of the gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual histories, it has seemed desirable to develop some sort of classification which could be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history [...] An individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life. [...] A seven-point scale comes nearer to showing the many gradations that actually exist.
The title, "Choice". Of course it is not a conscious choice, even if you believe in free will, attraction is certainly not conscious. But as it says in the quote two distinct categories of sexuality where one can either be hetero or homo is solely based on social expectations which have grown up over millennia. In Kinsey's studies he found that the majority of people existed somewhere in the middle and that exclusive attraction to one sex is fairly rare which ever side of the scale you are on. I think to have a proper discussion on this we would need to look at what we mean by attraction and what we mean by love. If you said love to an ancient Greek (them again) they would respond "which kind?". They had 6 types of love which were all connected to each other, this is part of the reason same sex acts were not stigmatized the way they were in other societies, because it would be completely unnatural, weird, and a negative personality trait not to love others of the same sex. Not necessarily to have sexual relations with them. In fact the culture of sexual acts were usually between older men or men of power with younger men or their students. A bonding exercise, but one surrounded by submission and domination.

This topic is just too big to put in one post. Too big for one thread. I've written and deleted more than you'll ever know in just this one post. But my main point I think is that the whole ruling paradigm on what sex is, what it should be and how we do it is completely messed up. Rather than it being unnatural NOT to love others in a variety of different ways. It is seen as unnatural to love. So much so that you are either in or out, natural or unnatural. This forms it's own identity, which people then feel a need to conform to.

[Radical Rambler]

I really don't know why you're trying to pen the oppression of trans people exclusively on lesbian and gay people.

I never said anything about transphobia being exclusive to lesbians and homosexuals. It is just very, very prevalent in that community, and is based on the logic of their chosen sexual identities.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I chose to allow myself to be attracted to some trans-women because I thought about it, and decided it made no sense not to. I'd say I came to this realization a couple years ago.
If you're exclusively attracted to women, then you chose nothing. You simply decided that if a woman is attractive to you, her being trans isn't an issue.

How nice that a straight cis dude decided to call himself queer. :rolleyes:


Oh? Has someone done a poll?
So there needs to be a poll when I say most lesbians aren't transphobic, but not when you claim most are?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I never said anything about transphobia being exclusive to lesbians and homosexuals. It is just very, very prevalent in that community, and is based on the logic of their chosen sexual identities.
Quit bashing lesbians. It's not as prevalent as a cis straight dude like you imagines. Just because you might fuck a trans woman if she's passable enough doesn't make you queer or an expert on queer people.

[Bostana]

Oh? Has someone done a poll?
Has someone had a pole on the ridiculous claim that the majority of feminists and lesbians have a discontent towards trans-women?
In fact since you're stupid enough to show a video of animals having sex, please show a poll or anything that proves feminists and lesbians don't like trans-women

[Slavic]

I chose to allow myself to be attracted to some trans-women because I thought about it, and decided it made no sense not to. I'd say I came to this realization a couple years ago.

So why did you chose not to be attracted to men? I mean if I was able to choose who I could be attracted, I would chose every gender since I enjoy sexual activity so much, but I can not chose who I'm attracted to. So I'm stuck with my innate attraction to femininity.

[bill]

Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.

These are caused by patriarchal, heterosexist narratives, and I really don't know why you're trying to pen the oppression of trans people exclusively on lesbian and gay people.

I don't believe this person was pinning it exclusively on anyone. It seems you are pinning prejudice within the lesbian community solely on patriarchy/heterosexism. Is this not overly simplistic? Patriarchy is not a byword for oppression, but one form of oppression--albeit the largest by far. Here however I don't see how it could apply though.

[BIXX]

So why did you chose not to be attracted to men? I mean if I was able to choose who I could be attracted, I would chose every gender since I enjoy sexual activity so much, but I can not chose who I'm attracted to. So I'm stuck with my innate attraction to femininity.


Out of curiosity, is it femininity or the body type associated with it you are attracted to?

[Slavic]

Out of curiosity, is it femininity or the body type associated with it you are attracted to?

I'd have to say a mixture of both. I'm very much attracted to the feminine body, whether it belongs to a woman or a trans-woman, but there has been on some occasions were I held a sort of attraction for extremely feminine males. I've dated one extremely feminine male who loved to drag. Its rare for me to be attracted to a man unless they posses a certain level of feminine features. Since that is mostly the cause I usually just date women and the occasional trans-women.

[Radical Rambler]

If you're exclusively attracted to women, then you chose nothing. You simply decided that if a woman is attractive to you, her being trans isn't an issue.

Again, I don't really care if you choose to accept my categorization or not. If you see me as a "heterosexual," fine and dandy. It's obvious your desire to do so is about maintaining the dominant homosexual narrative about the nature of sexual identities. It is this same logic that drives men with the homosexual identity to see trans-women as homosexuals with a mental disorder. According to the dominant homosexual narrative, I would actually be having sex with a homosexual, albeit one with a mental disorder.


So there needs to be a poll when I say most lesbians aren't transphobic, but not when you claim most are?It certainly would help settle the issue. The experience of myself and many others who have worked around the LGBTQ community suggests this is overwhelmingly the case. Some people on this forum say differently, based on their own subjective experiences. Some more scientific means of gauging the anti-trans prejudice of lesbians and male homosexuals would be welcome, though I doubt anyone has done any sort of research like that, nor would I believe lesbians and male homosexuals answer these sort of polls honestly.


In fact since you're stupid enough to show a video of animals having sexThe only thing that is stupid is using animal behavior as a basis for arguing homosexuality has a genetic basis. Humans also engage in sexual practices with animals. Animals will have sex with other animals. Ergo, beastiality ("beastsexuality" if you will) must have a biological basis? I think not.

Need I remind you this thread is a split from a thread where people were arguing child-rapists are born child-rapists?


So why did you chose not to be attracted to men? I mean if I was able to choose who I could be attracted, I would chose every gender since I enjoy sexual activity so much, but I can not chose who I'm attracted to. So I'm stuck with my innate attraction to femininity.I choose not to be attracted to men because society has largely conditioned me to choose to be attracted exclusively to women. I could choose to become attracted to members of the same-sex, but I don't want to.

Many people, in fact, do make this choice. Most homosexuals were formerly straight people who chose to adopt the homosexual identity. Only the dominant homosexual narrative obscures this reality.

There are plenty of testimonials of people who made this choice on this wonderful website. I suggest you browse around it.

http://www.queerbychoice.com/

[Sasha]

Wut? homosexuals think trans women who have sex with males are mentally handicapped homosexuals?!? Maybe I should start selling you shovels, since you can both shovel shit and dig yourself deeper at the same time.... I could make a good buck...

[Radical Rambler]

Wut? homosexuals think trans women who have sex with males are mentally handicapped homosexuals?!? Maybe I should start selling you shovels, since you can both shovel shit and dig yourself deeper at the same time.... I could make a good buck...

Maybe you could also make some money writing a book on why you think child-rapists are born wanting to rape children.

[Sasha]

Where did I say they where?
Saying "its not a choice" doesn't equal "born that way".

[Radical Rambler]

Where did I say they where?
Saying "its not a choice" doesn't equal "born that way".

Then exactly how did they make the transition from non-pedophile to pedophile, in your imagination?

[Sasha]

Stunted mental development, abuse, chilhood physical or mental trauma, maybe a partial genetic predisposition, its not clear yet.
No one choses to be a psychotic schizophrenic, there is a genetic deposition to schizophrenia, not everyone with the genetic predisposition becomes schizophrenic, not every schizophrenic has the gentetic predisposition and last but not least not every schizophrenic ends up murdering their mother and wears her skin while directing traffic.

Now are you just completely clueless or are you trolling?

[Radical Rambler]

Stunted mental development, abuse, chilhood physical or mental trauma, maybe a partial genetic predisposition, its not clear yet.

In other words, you don't want to offer any real explanation.


No one choses to be a psychotic schizophrenic, there is a genetic deposition to schizophrenia, not everyone with the genetic predisposition becomes schizophrenic, not every schizophrenic has the gentetic predisposition and last but not least not every schizophrenic ends up murdering their mother and wears her skin while directing traffic.

Schizophrenia isn't genetic at all. It is a thought disorder. It is actually possible to make yourself schizophrenic (http://www.amazon.com/How-Become-Schizophrenic-Biological-Psychiatry/dp/0595242995). The late Italian psychiatrist Silvano Arieti wrote a most wonderful book, Interpretation of Schizophrenia (http://www.amazon.com/Interpretation-Schizophrenia-Silvano-Arieti/dp/0465034292), describing in detail the nature of schizophrenic thought.

Compared to schizophrenia, pedophilia should be easy to understand. The pedophile at some point willfully chooses to eroticize the rape of children, in a very similar manner to the way people choose to adopt the homosexual identity, lesbianism, becoming queer, etc.


Now are you just completely clueless or are you trolling?

I'm not clueless at all. And I suspect, you aren't either.

[Ele'ill]

http://psychcentral.com/lib/schizophrenia-and-genetics-research-update/0008736

[Bostana]

The only thing that is stupid is using animal behavior as a basis for arguing homosexuality has a genetic basis. Humans also engage in sexual practices with animals. Animals will have sex with other animals. Ergo, beastiality ("beastsexuality" if you will) must have a biological basis? I think not.
No what is stupid is posting a video of animals having sex.
No it is a solid argument to use animals as examples for human behavior considering we came from apes.


Need I remind you this thread is a split from a thread where people were arguing child-rapists are born child-rapists?

When did i say this? I personally believe it is a mental illness
Also since you just dodged my question I'll ask it again.
WHERE IS YOUR PROOF THE FEMINIST AND LESBIANS FEEL OFFENDED BY TRANS-WOMEN?

There is none because what you said is stupid


choose to adopt the homosexual identity, lesbianism, becoming queer, etc.

I don't think anyone 'adopted' to be attracted to certain people sexually. Did you adopt to be sexually attracted to women

[Sasha]

And whatever, my point is that you can be many things that you weren't born nor chosen.
I can bring up examples all day long but you know damn well what i meant the first time arround.

[Radical Rambler]

http://psychcentral.com/lib/schizophrenia-and-genetics-research-update/0008736

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/schizoph.htm

[Sasha]

Lol, so you are trolling; " Anyone joining us will be asked for assurance they are not affiliated with the "Church" of Scientology or its Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which have publicized the harm done by psychiatry but which we want no affiliation with. This web site does have links to YouTube video critiques of psychiatry by CCHR because these videos are excellent and accurate and worth seeing, but this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of CCHR or Scientology."

[Radical Rambler]

Lol, so you are trolling; " Anyone joining us will be asked for assurance they are not affiliated with the "Church" of Scientology or its Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which have publicized the harm done by psychiatry but which we want no affiliation with. This web site does have links to YouTube video critiques of psychiatry by CCHR because these videos are excellent and accurate and worth seeing, but this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of CCHR or Scientology.

I am not a Scientologist, nor do I have anything to do with the CCHR.

I suggest people get the book Toward a Marxist Psychology (http://www.amazon.com/Toward-a-Marxist-Psychology/dp/B000IG48MM). As the author states, psychiatry is the last line of defense for capitalism. Quite a wonderful book, in my opinion.

[Ele'ill]

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/schizoph.htm

The text is so full of stunted conclusions that I am not even going to bother replying to it.

[The Feral Underclass]

Well this thread to took a turn for the worst.

Before I continue, can Radical Rambler please explain what this "homosexual narrative" actually is, how it came to be and what it exists for? I need to understand this before I can respond to your post.


There were no homosexuals or heterosexuals prior to the invention of these terms in the 19th century in the West, so yes, that would be accurate.

Well, by that logic there were no paedophiles prior to 1951.


Schizophrenia isn't genetic at all.

Can you explain what your medical, psychological/psychiatric or scientific credentials are?


The pedophile at some point willfully chooses to eroticize the rape of children, in a very similar manner to the way people choose to adopt the homosexual identity, lesbianism, becoming queer, etc.

This series of statements are not substantiated by science.

[The Feral Underclass]

Radical Rambler, could you also comment on Dean Hamer's work?

[Radical Rambler]

Before I continue, can Radical Rambler please explain what this "homosexual narrative" actually is, how it came to be and what it exists for? I need to understand this before I can respond to your post.

It is the hegemonic idea prevailing through the culture about what homosexuality is, obviously. I already gave you a reference that explains it quite well, namely the homosexual Michael Foucault's brilliant The History of Sexuality (http://mongolianmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/history-of-sexuality-volume-one.pdf). You can also do a google search with the terms "homosexuality," "social-construction" and "essentialism" to get some shorter summaries of the idea.


Well, by that logic there were no paedophiles prior to 1951.

There were still people who raped children.


Can you explain what your medical, psychological/psychiatric or scientific credentials are?

If I said I had a degree, would that make you accept anything I said? Of course not.


This series of statements is not substantiated by science.

What "science" would that be?

[Radical Rambler]

Radical Rambler, could you also comment on Dean Hamer's work?

Could you comment on Susan McKinnon's Neo-liberal Genetics: The Myths and Moral Tales of Evolutionary Psychology (http://www.amazon.com/Neo-liberal-Genetics-Myths-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0976147521)?

[The Feral Underclass]

It is the hegemonic idea prevailing through the culture about what homosexuality is, obviously.

I'm sorry, that's not a satisfactory response. I want you to outline to me clear responses to my questions. Your interpretation of Foucault is flawed, stop using him as your defence. You have come here and made a series of preposterous statements, thus opening a debate: Now defend your opinions with your own words.


There were still people who raped children.

Much like there were people who had an exclusive sexual attraction towards their own gender before the term homosexual existed.

You are trying to conflate the way language structures our understandings (Foucault) with the rise of queer liberation. It is a bogus attempt to try and undermine queer liberation politics, while at the same time also reinforcing heternormative domination.


If I said I had a degree, would that make you accept anything I said?

Not necessarily a degree, but having some kind of academic or expert credentials would give you some credibility.


Of course not.

So you have no credentials to speak of?


What "science" would that be?

This "question the nature of science" shtick that you have going on is conspira-loon nonsense.


Could you comment on Susan McKinnon's Neo-liberal Genetics: The Myths and Moral Tales of Evolutionary Psychology?

I'm confused. Are you saying Dean Hamer's scientific discovery is a hoax?

[Radical Rambler]

I'm sorry, that's not a satisfactory response.I don't really care if you don't find it "satisfactory." I'd recommend consulting a dictionary, but we both know you're just posturing.


Your interpretation of Foucault is flawedSo says you.


Much like there were people who had an exclusive sexual attraction towards their own gender before the term homosexual existed.And how did they conceive their sexuality?


You are trying to conflate the way language structures our understandings (Foucault) with the rise of queer liberation. It is a bogus attempt to try and undermine queer liberation politics, while at the same time also reinforcing heternormative domination.Saying that homosexuality is a choice isn't an "attempt to try and undermine queer liberation politics." You're only trying to construe it that way, as if adherence to the lie of being born homosexual is some sort of required foundational myth, that if questioned, would cause an apocalypse on the LGBTQ community.


This "question the nature of science" shtick that you have going on is conspira-loon nonsense.Lots of people think "science" backs up their views. Asking you for what "science" shows you are correct is asking you for evidence. There is nothing conspiratorial about it.


I'm confused. Are you saying Dean Hamer's scientific discovery is a hoaxNo, but some have claimed Hamer falsified his data (https://web.archive.org/web/20100802190339/http://archive.guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=C5352D91-2D9E-11D4-A7AD00A0C9D84F02&Method=guidefulldisplay). Others have critiqued (http://web.archive.org/web/20050305150039/bcn.bi.org/issue12/gene.html) his work without even assuming he did falsify his data. Hamer himself offered an alternative explanation (http://web.archive.org/web/20130403230929/http://www.queerlinks.com/library/selfsuff.asp) that doesn't rest on the "gay gene" hypothesis.

All this information and more, again, can be found at this wonderful website:

http://www.queerbychoice.com/gaygenelinks.html

[Marshal of the People]

This is a strange and confusing thread.

[Sasha]

Do you even know any gay people?

[Geiseric]

Do you even know any gay people?

Do you even know any victims of pedophilia?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Do you even know any victims of pedophilia?

You are fucking hopeless. Whenever you open your fucking mouth it's something so profanely stupid it's unfathomable. Just please, shut the fuck up.

[The Feral Underclass]

I don't really care if you don't find it "satisfactory."

Then why are you here, debating this subject with people? The fact you are taking this obstinante stance in response to my questions just makes you look suspicious -- as if you don't really know what you're talking about, or are purposefully trying to get a rise out of people.


I'd recommend consulting a dictionary, but we both know you're just posturing.

The fact you consider my attempted interrogation of your opinions as "posturing" demonstrates very clearly that you're not particularly serious about your convictions.

You just come across as a charlatan.


So says you.

Well, yes, I am me, so that would be accurate.


And how did they conceive their sexuality?

It has been conceived in various different ways throughout history, the point is that an exclusive sexual preference existed before the term homosexual was used to describe that preference, so at what point did people choose to have that exclusive preference? How did men who have an exclusive preference for other men have that preference if they couldn't choose to be a homosexual?


Saying that homosexuality is a choice isn't an "attempt to try and undermine queer liberation politics."

I didn't say it did (although it does). What I said was: "trying to conflate the way language structures our understandings (Foucault) with the rise of queer liberation" undermines queer liberation politics.


You're only trying to construe it that way, as if adherence to the lie of being born homosexual is some sort of required foundational myth, that if questioned, would cause an apocalypse on the LGBTQ community.

The problem here is that your position is incredibly confused. Someone can choose to describe themselves as a homosexual. I can describe myself as being a heterosexual if I wanted. That is a choice I can make. By accepting that I can choose to use whatever language I want, we can even understand how those terms came into existence as ways to confine and conform human sexuality, especially to create stigmatisation and persecution in order for the domination of one to prevail over the other.

Nevertheless, whether we choose to call ourselves homosexual or heterosexual or bippityboppityboos, individuals have exclusive sexually preferences, in spite of those terms, that are not the consequence of a choice -- even if there are specific individuals in existence whom made a conscious choice to prefer one thing over the other, as if one can choose to prefer apples over oranges even if you don't like the taste. But all that is ultimately irrelevant. It isn't of importance whether we choose to term ourselves in one way or the other; it's not even relevant whether an individual is born with an exclusive sexual preference or whether they consciously choose a preference, what is relevant is the way current society structures the privileges of one sexual preference over another and ultimately how we smash that domination.

So, the issue I have with you is not so much what your stupid opinions on sexual preferences are, or the choices we can make to term ourselves, but that you frame this discussion in such a way that it obscures that real and important debate -- How queer people liberate themselves.

Now, my feeling on this is that you are doing it intentionally because you're a homophobe. Thus far you've done nothing to disprove that.


Lots of people think "science" backs up their views. Asking you for what "science" shows you are correct is asking you for evidence. There is nothing conspiratorial about it.

You are confused again. You made a series of statements, none of which are backed up by science, which is what I told you. As a response you then tried to imply that science was a myth...


No, but some have claimed Hamer falsified his data (https://web.archive.org/web/20100802190339/http://archive.guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=C5352D91-2D9E-11D4-A7AD00A0C9D84F02&Method=guidefulldisplay). Others have critiqued (http://web.archive.org/web/20050305150039/bcn.bi.org/issue12/gene.html) his work without even assuming he did falsify his data. Hamer himself offered an alternative explanation (http://web.archive.org/web/20130403230929/http://www.queerlinks.com/library/selfsuff.asp) that doesn't rest on the "gay gene" hypothesis.

All this information and more, again, can be found at this wonderful website:

http://www.queerbychoice.com/gaygenelinks.html

So at the very least you accept he could be right?

[Radical Rambler]

Then why are you here, debating this subject with people?Because I want to.


The fact you are taking this obstinante stance in response to my questions just makes you look suspiciousOh Please. You are feinging lack of understanding.


You just come across as a charlatan.Oh really?

Tell me, what do you suppose you come across as in this discussion that started out about pedophiles?


It has been conceived in various different ways throughout history...And now these people are appropriated by those possessing the modern homosexual identity as one of them. Like Mormons baptizing Holocaust victims so they can get to Joseph Smith's version of the Kingdom of God, they have been historically re-imagined as would-be homosexuals, if only they had the right narrative to express their sexual identities.

Except they weren't.


Nevertheless, whether we choose to call ourselves homosexual or heterosexual or bippityboppityboos, individuals have exclusive sexually preferencesPeople choose their "exclusive" sexual preferences. That is the point. Those who adopt the homosexual identity choose to become exclusively interested in same-sex relationships. Straight people choose to be exclusively interested in opposite-sex relationships.


even if there are specific individuals in existence whom made a conscious choice to prefer one thing over the other, as if one can choose to prefer apples over oranges even if you don't like the taste.You should be more careful with your metaphors. Tastes can be acquired. To quote queerbychoice.com:


[A woman on a panel said she chose to be a lesbian] and the audience was just going crazy! "What does this mean?" and "Well, do you still have an attraction to men?" And she said, "No, I don't." And they said, "But that can't be, if you had it before." And she said, "Yeah, I used to like cheese but I don't eat cheese anymore and I actually don't like it; it was an acquired taste. Men were an acquired taste. I no longer have the taste for them." People were like, "What? Oh no!" Weeping and gnashing of teeth.
—a queer man, quoted in Vera Whisman's Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Identity, 1996http://www.queerbychoice.com/feelings.html


So, the issue I have with you is not so much what your stupid opinions on sexual preferences are, or the choices we can make to term ourselves, but that you frame this discussion in such a way that it obscures that real and important debate -- How queer people liberate themselves.It's not gonna be with a lie.


Now, my feeling on this is that you are doing it intentionally because you're a homophobe. Thus far you've done nothing to disprove that.This is just baseless accusations thrown out by you to try and quash dissent from the dominant homosexual narrative.


You are confused again. You made a series of statements, none of which are backed up by science, which is what I told you. As a response you then tried to imply that science was a myth...The way you (*ahem*) comprehend what you read is fascinating. I'm not sure such a confused misreading of my statements warrants any detailed response, so I'll just leave this as is.


So at the very least you accept he could be right?No. Once you have a sufficient grasp of the social-construction theory of the modern homosexual identity, there is no need to take these studies seriously.

[The Feral Underclass]

Because I want to.

You want to have a debate with people whose opinion you don't care about?


Oh Please. You are feinging lack of understanding.

No, my questions were genuine.


Oh really?

Tell me, what do you suppose you come across as in this discussion that started out about pedophiles?

A many number of things, I'm sure. None of which would be a charlatan.


And now these people are appropriated by those possessing the modern homosexual identity as one of them.

But the "modern homosexual identity" is to have an exclusive sexual preference to your own gender, so I'm confused at what the actual issue is? The term exists to describe something that exists irrespective of the term...Could it be that your issue here is with homosexuality?


they have been historically re-imagined as would-be homosexuals, if only they had the right narrative to express their sexual identities.

What do you think a homosexual is if it is not someone who has an exclusive sexual preference?


People choose their "exclusive" sexual preferences.

I didn't...


Those who adopt the homosexual identity choose to become exclusively interested in same-sex relationships.

What about those people who didn't?


Straight people choose to be exclusively interested in opposite-sex relationships.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtjqLUHYoY


It's not gonna be with a lie.

You haven't actually addressed my argument...


This is just baseless accusations thrown out by you to try and quash dissent from the dominant homosexual narrative.

Dissent away. As I have said quite clearly, your stupid opinions about sexual preferences aren't what's of issue to me?

My accusation that you are a homophobe comes from the fact you believe there is some conspiratorial "homosexual narrative" designed to lie to people, you contemptuously refuse to engage with my argument, which attempts to reframe this debate towards one of queer liberation, and obstinately refuse to clarify your own views because you don't care what I think.

What else should I conclude from this other than you are a homophobe?


The way you (*ahem*) comprehend what you read is fascinating. I'm not sure such a confused misreading of my statements warrants any detailed response, so I'll just leave this as is.

If I am having trouble comprehending what you are saying, it is because you are saying it badly.


No.

It's very easy to defend an opinion if you accuse everyone with a contrary opinion of making theirs up. It's a common tactic within delusional thinking.


Once you have a sufficient grasp of the social-construction theory of the modern homosexual identity, there is no need to take these studies seriously.

If homosexuality is a choice, as you say, and homosexuality didn't exist until the 19th century, which you also said, how did people know they only wanted to have sex with their own gender before then?

[Radical Rambler]

You want to have a debate with people whose opinion you don't care about?

Debates are more about the spectators, wouldn't you say?


No, my questions were genuine.I don't believe you.


A many number of things, I'm sure. None of which would be a charlatan.Then you're a sincere what?


But the "modern homosexual identity" is to have an exclusive sexual preference to your own genderExcept it isn't. It is also a set of assumptions about where the homosexual identity comes from (among other things).


Could it be that your issue here is with homosexuality?No, despite your repeated insinuations.


What do you think a homosexual is if it is not someone who has an exclusive sexual preference?It is an identity. One that didn't exist until the modern era.


I didn't...So you say.


What about those people who didn't?Except they did. Only the narrative obscures this reality.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtjqLUHYoY Most straight people have a very similar essentialist understanding of sexual identity as well. Most don't think very deeply about the issue, as this video demonstrates.


You haven't actually addressed my argument...Your "argument" is just a emotional plea to maintain a "frame" for the 'discussion' which you think is essential for LGBTQ people. "Woah unto ye if thou dost blasphemy the gay gene." As if this issue is a life or death matter.


Dissent away. As I have said quite clearly, your stupid opinions about sexual preferences aren't what's of issue to me?Now who is the one that wants to "debate with people whose opinion you don't care about?"


What else should I conclude from this other than you are a homophobe?You could conclude a lot of different things, you just want to insinuate dissent from the dominant homosexual narrative is homophobia, which is just nonsense.


If I am having trouble comprehending what you are saying, it is because you are saying it badly.There is another interpretation; you don't comprehend what you read very well.


It's very easy to defend an opinion if you accuse everyone with a contrary opinion of making theirs up.What does this have to do with whether or not Hamer's research has any validity?


If homosexuality is a choice, as you say, and homosexuality didn't exist until the 19th century, which you also said, how did people know they only wanted to have sex with their own gender before then?Maybe you should invent a time machine and go ask someone from the past that question.

[Sabot Cat]

I don't believe this person was pinning it exclusively on anyone. It seems you are pinning prejudice within the lesbian community solely on patriarchy/heterosexism. Is this not overly simplistic? Patriarchy is not a byword for oppression, but one form of oppression--albeit the largest by far. Here however I don't see how it could apply though.

No, it's not overly simplistic, and I don't see how you can't understand that patriarchy is the root cause of trans-exclusionary radical feminism. Here, this article explains it better than I could: http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/12/13/complicity-vs-cause-in-trans-misogyny-and-violence/


It certainly would help settle the issue. The experience of myself and many others who have worked around the LGBTQ community suggests this is overwhelmingly the case. Some people on this forum say differently, based on their own subjective experiences. Some more scientific means of gauging the anti-trans prejudice of lesbians and male homosexuals would be welcome, though I doubt anyone has done any sort of research like that, nor would I believe lesbians and male homosexuals answer these sort of polls honestly.

Appealing to personal anecdotes is another fallacious tactic; also, if you think there can't be an answer and there isn't one readily available based on empirical evidence, stop using it as a talking point.


The only thing that is stupid is using animal behavior as a basis for arguing homosexuality has a genetic basis. Humans also engage in sexual practices with animals. Animals will have sex with other animals. Ergo, beastiality ("beastsexuality" if you will) must have a biological basis? I think not.

This a faulty analogy. Bestiality is behavior that doesn't require conscious choice, but unlike same-sex attraction, it's detrimental to the animals because they can't give consent to a human being.


Need I remind you this thread is a split from a thread where people were arguing child-rapists are born child-rapists?


I believe the argument was that attraction to children isn't a choice, not that they were born rapists, which is obviously unsound. Nonetheless, this topic isn't about that anymore and so that's a red herring.


Many people, in fact, do make this choice. Most homosexuals were formerly straight people who chose to adopt the homosexual identity. Only the dominant homosexual narrative obscures this reality.


And I'm not prone to outbursts but:

(1) You've compared being gay to bestiality and pedophilia. Multiple times.
(2) You say being gay is a choice and that all gay people used to be straight.
(3) Almost every response you give to every question are flippant one-liners that don't even broach the subject at hand, and finally this gem:


Your "argument" is just a emotional plea to maintain a "frame" for the 'discussion' which you think is essential for LGBTQ people. "Woah unto ye if thou dost blasphemy the gay gene." As if this issue is a life or death matter, as if the people who now want to cure your homosexuality will just try to kill you instead. It's ludicrous.


It is a life and death matter. Suicides, families destroyed, capital punishment and lifelong jail sentences have occurred around the world because of homophobia and the conception that you can "cure" gayness, that it is a conscious choice and thus an actionable offense or sin. Love, attraction, and sexuality between people of the same sex is not a disease, and it's not a choice. The people who want to 'cure' us are operating on the logic of those who want to kill us.

[The Feral Underclass]

Debates are more about the spectators, wouldn't you say?

No.


I don't believe you.

Like I said, it's easy to defend yourself when you accuse people of making up their opinions. It's very easy to avoid addressing people's criticisms if you just accuse of them lying. It's a clever tactic, I guess.


Then you're a sincere what?

In regards to what?


Except it isn't. It is also a set of assumptions about where the homosexual identity comes from (among other things).

If homosexuality is not an exclusive sexual preference for your own gender, what is it? And if an exclusive sexual preference is not homosexuality, what is that?


It is an identity.

Characterised as what?


One that didn't exist until the modern era.

But people with an exclusive sexual preference for their own gender did exist, so what were these people? How did they come to choose their sexual preference if homosexuality didn't exist?

Your argument doesn't follow. It's just confused.


So you say.

Is this a lie also? We can see this common pattern emerging...Whenever someone presents you with a contrary opinion you just deny that it exists. The only alternative is that it isn't a lie and that I wasn't aware of making a choice, in which case it wasn't a choice, since you can't choose something if you're not aware of a choice existing.


Except they did.

So why do they think they didn't?


Only the narrative obscures this reality.

How does it achieve that?


Most straight people have a very similar essentialist understanding of sexual identity as well. Most don't think very deeply about the issue, as this video demonstrates.

If they are not aware that they have made a choice, how can it have been a choice?


Your "argument" is just a emotional plea to maintain a "frame" for the 'discussion' which you think is essential for LGBTQ people.

You don't think queer liberation is essential? Further proof that you are a homophobe.


"Woah unto ye if thou dost blasphemy the gay gene." As if this issue is a life or death matter, as if the people who now want to cure your homosexuality will just try to kill you instead. It's ludicrous.

Why do you keep repeating this? This is the third time I have had to tell you that this idea of choice isn't what the issue is...


Now who is the one that wants to "debate with people whose opinion you don't care about?"

I want to debate with you, but I want the debate to be honest and about what is of importance to queer people, instead of it being obscured by this nonsense.

If, as you claim, choosing to be gay is perfectly legitimate, why is it that you are avoiding discussing the real issue, which is how we relate all this to fighting heternormative domination?


You could conclude a lot of different things, you just want to insinuate dissent from the dominant homosexual narrative is homophobia, which is just nonsense.

You're repeating yourself.


What does this have to do with whether or not Hamer's research has any validity?

I can't argue Hamer's research better than he has. Your response to his research is to claim it is made up. I think that is an interesting debating tactic and worth highlighting.


Maybe you should invent a time machine and go ask someone from the past that question.

If you are unable to provide an answer to such a simple interrogation of your argument, then why should anyone trust what you are saying?

[Radical Rambler]

Appealing to personal anecdotes is another fallacious tacticThere is nothing wrong with relating different subjective experiences.


also, if you think there can't be an answerI never said that.


and there isn't one readily available based on empirical evidence, stop using it as a talking pointNo. It's perfectly acceptable to share experiences with lesbian and male homosexual prejudice against trans-women, and to identify the cause of it. That you don't like the airing of dirty laundry doesn't change the fact anti-trans prejudice amongst lesbian and male homosexuals is quite real and based on their understanding of their own chosen sexual identities, nor does it make it "fallacious."


This a faulty analogy.It's actually a perfect analogy. If homosexuality is biological because animals engage in same-sex behavior, then zoophilia ("beastsexuality") should also be biological in origin, as animals engage in that behavior as well.


Bestiality is behavior that doesn't require conscious choice, but unlike same-sex attraction, it's detrimental to the animals because they can't give consent to a human being.It seems you have transposed this issue into a moral realm, rather than one about the nature of sexual identity.


I believe the argument was that attraction to children isn't a choice, not that they were born rapists, which is obviously unsound.Except pedophilia is a choice, just as adopting the homosexual identity is a choice. Pedophiles choose to eroticize children. They choose to be attracted to them.


Nonetheless, this topic isn't about that anymore and so that's a red herring.I see no reason to pretend the topic has changed. That adopting the homosexual identity is a choice reflects directly on the original topic.


It is a life and death matter.Except it isn't. Nothing about the myth of the biological separateness of homosexuals prevents discrimination against homosexuals.

If anything, the opposite is the case, as argued quite convincingly by the Palestinian scholar Joseph Massad in his Desiring Arabs (http://en.bookfi.org/book/1098732). The dominant homosexual narrative serves an imperialist project today, and puts people who engage in same-sex relationships in danger.

[Sabot Cat]

There is nothing wrong with relating different subjective experiences.

Yes, but they do nothing to effectively counter other subjective experiences.


I never said that.



Some more scientific means of gauging the anti-trans prejudice of lesbians and male homosexuals would be welcome, though I doubt anyone has done any sort of research like that, nor would I believe lesbians and male homosexuals answer these sort of polls honestly.




No. It's perfectly acceptable to share experiences with lesbian and male homosexual prejudice against trans-women, and to identify the cause of it.

A significant proportion of trans women and men, myself included, are lesbian and gay! In fact, there are more lesbian trans women then heterosexual trans women.

[Citation: Bockting, W. O., Benner, A., & Coleman, E. (2009). Gay and bisexual identity development among female-to-male transsexuals in North America: Emergence of a transgender sexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 38(5), 688-701.

Dr. Walter Bockting is the Interim Assistant Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry and Nursing) and the Co-Director for the Initiative for LGBT Health at Columbia University]



That you don't like the airing of dirty laundry doesn't change the fact anti-trans prejudice amongst lesbian and male homosexuals is quite real and based on their understanding of their own chosen sexual identities, nor does it make it "fallacious."


There is anti-trans prejudice among other lesbian and gay people, yes. But the majority of them are not if the commonly accepted acronym 'LGBT' is anything to go by. Including the lesbian and gay people who are also trans, which are you know, a large portion of us.

Finally, bestiality and pedophilia =/= same-sex attraction. Stop trying to insert that reactionary meme into the discussion, please.

Also: This entire conversation kind of feels moot because free will is illusionary anyway.

[Radical Rambler]

No.

Then you don't get the point.


Like I said, it's easy to defend yourself when you accuse people of making up their opinions.You're the who started accusing me of being a "charlatan," remember? It's okay for you to continuously accuse your opponent of insincerity, but you whine and cry when it is suggested you're pretending to not understand simple words?


It's very easy to avoid addressing people's criticisms if you just accuse of them lying. It's a clever tactic, I guess.One you have used repeatedly.


In regards to what?How people perceive you in this discussion which originated about pedophiles. You're a sincere what, exactly? Take a guess.


Characterised as what?The modern homosexual identity is characterized by a lot of things. Like any other sort of commonly shared identity, such as nationality, it comes with more than a simple description like "likes men" or "born in this area."


But people with an exclusive sexual preference for their own gender did exist, so what were these people?They didn't possess the homosexuality identity, so we know what they weren't.


How did they come to choose their sexual preference if homosexuality didn't exist?You should invent that time machine and go ask them how they chose their sexual partners.


Is this a lie also?Not necessarily. I don't think people are necessarily lying about recovered memories of past sexual abuse either, doesn't mean I believe any their claims. Why you might sincerely believe this is open to speculation, and no one can really know about you in particular. Maybe you have forgotten when you made the choice. Maybe you choose not to remember, under pressure to conform to the dominant homosexual narrative.

Here is a long excerpt from Queer By Choice which attempts to answer such a question in the general case.



QBC 101: i do not know what it means to feel "unable to change" the way you do. you have experienced feeling "unable to change" but i have not
QBC 101: and so . . . i can make up theories all day long about why others go through this experience of "unable to change" but i am still really just as unable to RELATE to their experience as they are to relate to mine
FRANKAQ: yes
QBC 101: and then you talk about gender roles and power structures, how people choose to be exclusively with their own sex b/c it is more comfortably equal, nonexploitative, etc.
QBC 101: so, what does that mean about my choice to be bisexual?
QBC 101: i enjoy exploitation?
QBC 101: i am more optimistic about different genders' ability to get along?
QBC 101: what does it MEAN? why does the whole gender role thing just completely not MATTER to me in terms of my chosen bisexuality whereas evidently it matters enough to you to cause you to choose to be exclusively homo?
QBC 101: if we are all born the same then why do some turn out homo and some turn out bi?
QBC 101: i can handle why some turn out hetero b/c i think they are either cowards or just uneducated about their own sexual potential
FRANKAQ: different choices
QBC 101: but WHY? is the life of a "typical homo" fundamentally different from a "typical bi"?
QBC 101: what makes us into people who make different kinds of choices?
FRANKAQ: i would think experience
QBC 101: ok here is the trouble then
QBC 101: i am trying to imagine an experience that would have led me to choose to be homo
QBC 101: and i am having extreme difficulty imagining it
FRANKAQ: give me the floor a sec....
QBC 101: by all means take it, i don't seem to be able to handle it myself
FRANKAQ: make it a boy....playin with a doll he's age 3/4 and he's alone and his play and fantasy with the doll are private and his and are influenced by the roles and ideas floated around him...so he's maybe playing daddy and the doll is mommy...
FRANKAQ: and this is all his...he's alone...and it is in that time that he plays and fantasizes that this 'core' i'm speaking of develops...he forms his own reaction to the doll....his own feelings...his own thoughts...they may be a combo of other roles and thoughts...
FRANKAQ: but he mixes it up himself
FRANKAQ: and it becomes his...
FRANKAQ: NOW....
FRANKAQ: in walks Mom or Dad...or Aunt Betty
FRANKAQ: and brings all the weight of 'boy playing with doll' to the forefront
FRANKAQ: lots of conflict
FRANKAQ: lots of pressure
FRANKAQ: how does the boy respond?
FRANKAQ: in any number of ways
FRANKAQ: he can never pick up a doll again
FRANKAQ: he can be very determined to never put one down again
QBC 101: lol
FRANKAQ: am i right?
QBC 101: sure . . . or he can become so terrified of dolls that despite never picking one up again he fixates on them and thinks of nothing all day long but them and asking himself what terrible thing may be inside of him that drove him to pick up that one doll so many years ago
QBC 101: one of the questions in his mind being of course "does this mean i'm homosexual?"
QBC 101: so at puberty or later when the memory comes back to him and brings that question with it then he examines his feelings and discovers the same-sex love potential that all people have within them although so many do not discover it
FRANKAQ: so this is the core i'm speakin of
FRANKAQ: and how it forms and develops is only a blur to me but i think it doeshttp://www.queerbychoice.com/transcript.html



How does it achieve that?Because the logic of the dominant homosexual narrative dictates anyone who chooses to adopt the homosexual identity is considered to have always been a homosexual, they just didn't realize it. Since homosexuality is not a choice (according to the logic of the narrative), they were always gay, they just didn't realize it.


If they are not aware that they have made a choice, how can it have been a choice?(for anyone having trouble following this, this reply is a response to my response about a video The Anarchist Tension posted)

Because they could choose to start being attracted to the same-sex. Nothing is preventing them from doing that. They choose not to develop same-sex attraction. That is what makes them straight.


You don't think queer liberation is essential? Further proof that you are a homophobe.Perhaps further proof you have difficulty comprehending what you read (or perhaps you're deliberately trying to convey a false impression of my statement). I never said anything about queer liberation not being essential.


I want to debate with you, but I want the debate to be honest and about what is of importance to queer people, instead of it being obscured by this nonsense.What does a debate about the lie of being born homosexual have to do with "what is of importance to queer people?"


If, as you claim, choosing to be gay is perfectly legitimate, why is it that you are avoiding discussing the real issue, which is how we relate all this to fighting heternormative domination?Only the socialist revolution can do that.


I can't argue Hamer's research better than he has. Your response to his research is to claim it is made up. I think that is an interesting debating tactic and worth highlighting.Hamer was under a federal investigation because one of his own assistants accused him of falsifying data. I merely posted a link to an article talking about it, along with failure to duplicate his results. People can draw their own conclusions about what Hamer's research is worth.


If you are unable to provide an answer to such a simple interrogation of your argument, then why should anyone trust what you are saying?Your question is nonsense, so I gave you a flippant answer. You think your question has meaning, but it doesn't.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

If you see me as a "heterosexual," fine and dandy.
By your own admission, you're a man who's only attracted to women. It was like pulling teeth to get you to even say that much, and now you're trying to latch on to a queer identity. Quit trying to appropriate the identity of an oppressed group.


I choose not to be attracted to men because society has largely conditioned me to choose to be attracted exclusively to women. I could choose to become attracted to members of the same-sex, but I don't want to.
"I could be gay if I wanted to...but I'm not." If you don't have a single drop of same-sex desire, it's not because of society, it's because you're *gasp* heterosexual. Every queer person in existence comes from a heteronormative society, but that doesn't stop us from having same-sex desire.

I struggled with my bisexuality for years. I didn't choose to have those desires, nor could I simply choose to not have them.


Most homosexuals were formerly straight people who chose to adopt the homosexual identity. Only the dominant homosexual narrative obscures this reality.]
Well, now you're deliberately trying to confuse the matter by bringing up identity. Yes, every gay man or lesbian made a choice to identify as gay or lesbian, but that's not the same thing as choosing to have same-sex desire.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Because the logic of the dominant homosexual narrative dictates anyone who chooses to adopt the homosexual identity is considered to have always been a homosexual, they just didn't realize it. Since homosexuality is not a choice (according to the logic of the narrative), they were always gay, they just didn't realize it.
Or perhaps this "dominant homosexual narrative" you talk about simply reflects the experience of most queer people (which includes bisexuals) that same-sex desire wasn't a choice we made one day, and many of us knew long before puberty that we were different.

[Radical Rambler]

By your own admission, you're a man who's only attracted to women.

No. I'm a man who is attracted to women and some trans-women. I think this makes me Queer, though you would attempt to deny me that self-classification. Maybe you could get a video camera and go around asking people if straight people would have sex with trans-women, see what their responses would be.


"I could be gay if I wanted to...but I'm not." If you don't have a single drop of same-sex desire, it's not because of society, it's because you're *gasp* heterosexual.

I could choose to develop that desire. I choose not to, for now. But who knows, maybe I will decide to change my mind one day and allow myself to develop same-sex desire.


Every queer person in existence comes from a heteronormative society, but that doesn't stop us from having same-sex desire.

Heteronormative society generally frowns upon men having sex with trans-women, and sees this as a form of homosexual activity, though I wouldn't say my choice is as difficult to make as those who choose to adopt the homosexual identity.


I struggled with my bisexuality for years. I didn't choose to have those desires, nor could I simply choose to not have them.

Except you could. People can and do make these decisions.


Well, now you're deliberately trying to confuse the matter by bringing up identity. Yes, every gay man or lesbian made a choice to identify as gay or lesbian, but that's not the same thing as choosing to have same-sex desire.

One chooses to have same-sex desire as well.

[Bostana]

I choose not to be attracted to men because society has largely conditioned me to choose to be attracted exclusively to women. I could choose to become attracted to members of the same-sex, but I don't want to.
Listen dude.
One does not choose whether or whether not he or she is attracted to the same-sex. You can't develop the nature to be attracted to the same sex or not.

Except you could. People can and do make these decisions.
Fuck you dude. Bi-sexuals don't choose to be attracted to both. I hit puberty and bam to my surprise I am attracted to boys and girls. I didn't adopt this or choose this. I was born with it

Edit:
Being attracted to trans-women doesn't make you queer. You're sexually attracted to women, you're hetero

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

No. I'm a man who is attracted to women and some trans-women. I think this makes me Queer
If trans women are women, then it doesn't make you queer. It makes you a heterosexual.


Except you could. People can and do make these decisions.
Believe me, at that time I tried not to have bisexual desires, but it wasn't a choice. They existed on their own. At best, I could have chosen to never act on them, but that's not the same thing as choosing not to have them.

I think I've had enough of a heterosexual man telling me that my personal experience of bisexuality is wrong.

[Radical Rambler]

A neglected part of this discussion is how the Western sexual epistemology is used in the service of imperialism. I have linked to a pdf copy of the Palestinian scholar Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs (http://en.bookfi.org/book/1098732) already, but allow me to quote the full text of an interview with him, highlighting in bold what I think are particularly interesting points for this discussion.

The Empire of Sexuality: An Interview with Joseph Massad (http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/10461/the-empire-of-sexuality_an-interview-with-joseph-m)



Félix Boggio Éwanjé-Épée and Stella Magliani-Belkacem (FE&SM): In your work and your academic interventions, you have argued that the imposition of the categories of homo-hetero on the non-Western world is inseparable from the politics of imperialism and the dominance of the capitalist mode of production. Can you describe this process?

Joseph Massad (JM): The difficulty of speaking about a particular term like sexuality is on account of the ongoing Euro-American efforts to universalize it, and that in this particular Euro-American context there has been a need, nay a necessity, which has increased measurably since the 1970s, to consider it as always already a universal category. The point of my work is not to remind us that “sexuality” is experienced differently in different historical or geographical contexts, and that it has distinct “cultural” interpretations that shape it. Rather, what I insist on is that “sexuality” itself, as an epistemological and ontological category, is a product of specific Euro-American histories and social formations, that it is a Euro-American “cultural” category that is not universal or necessarily universalizable. Indeed, even when the category “sexuality” has traveled with European colonialism to non-European locales, its adoption in those contexts where it occurred was neither identical nor even necessarily symmetrical with its deployment in Europe and Euro-America.

John D’Emilio argued many years ago that “gay men and lesbians have not always existed. Instead, they are a product of history, and have come into existence in a specific historical era…associated with the relations of capitalism.” We must add that this equally applies to heterosexual and straight men and women who also are a product of a specific historical era and that their historical emergence and production was also specific to those geographic regions of the world and those classes within them where a specific type of capital accumulation had occurred and where certain types of capitalist relations of production prevailed.

As I argue in my forthcoming book Islam in Liberalism, as capitalism is the universalizing means of production and it has produced its own intimate forms and modes of framing capitalist relations, these forms and modes have not been institutionalized across national laws and economies, and in the quotidian and intimate practices of various peoples, in the same way. They have also not produced similar effects as they have in the United States and Western Europe. This does not mean that the hetero/homo binary was fully successful in normalizing Euro-American societies either, but, rather, that it set itself as the hegemonic form of organizing identities and continues to normalize populations in the West who resist it (by claiming that they suffer from internalized homophobia, false consciousness, and the like). The inability of the hetero-homo binary and its commensurate socio-sexual identities to institute themselves in the same way everywhere is also not unlike many other categories and products that travel with imperial capital from the metropole to the unevenly developed periphery, and are not always used or consumed in the same metropolitan way.

The sexual order of the postcolonial context to which contemporary western sexual identities are introduced is already the effect of a colonial epistemology that has been translated and iterated earlier. As I chronicle in Desiring Arabs, the European shaming of non-Europeans on the basis of sexual desires and practices begins at the dawn of the colonial encounter, inciting a reactive discourse of assimilation into (and at time difference) from European norms. This means that the more recent imperial export of the homo-hetero binary—and specifically of gay and lesbian identities—takes place in a context that has already suffered a prior process of translation. This process produced particular “peripheral” understandings of normative and natural desires, inflected with western medical and scientific arguments and taxonomies, but which mostly failed to institute a replica of the western regime of sexuality.

Mind you, I am not arguing that these sexual identities always fail to institute themselves inside or outside the West and that this failure is total, rather that they succeed and fail differentially across classes and countries depending on the effect of capitalist structures, and their production of certain lifestyles, forms, and modes of intimate life on different classes, which are in turn the outcome of uneven capitalist development. While imperial capital is often productive of new identities, including sexual identities commensurate with its dissemination of the heterosexual bourgeois nuclear family form globally, whatever new sexual identities it creates and generates in the periphery are not always or often mappable onto the homo-hetero binary. That Gay Internationalists seek to assimilate these identities by forcing them into the frame of the homo-hetero binary is itself a culturally imperialist symptom of imperial capital’s penetration of these countries, and not the outcome or effect of such penetration, since in most cases it was unable to reproduce or impose normative European sexual identities on the majority of the population. Here, we must bear in mind that, as Edward Said reminds us, “imperialism is the export of identity.” It operates in the register of producing non-Europe as other, and sometimes as almost the same as (or potentially the same as) Europe.

D’Emilio sought to demonstrate that the effect of capitalism on the emergence of gay and lesbian identities in the West was both an outcome of labor relations that required new residential and migratory activities, the dissolution or weakening of kinship and family ties, and the development of a consumer society and the emergence of social networks that produce, shape, and articulate sexual desires that are commensurate with these changes, which led to the development of sexual identities. The extent to which crusading sexual identitarians have insisted on the presence of such identities in a number of countries in the periphery as proof of a parallel development of what happened in Europe and the United States, however, appeals to the subjective identifications of few elite members of these societies, and neglects the absence of economic and social structures that led to their emergence in the West.

FE&SM: Your work has challenged the politics of gay internationalism espoused by Western NGOs and by their potential partners in the Arab world. What are the political consequences of this challenge, especially in the struggle against the heterosexualization of the world?

JM: American neoliberal imperialism since the 1980s—and in a much more intensified way since the fall of the Soviet Union—has sought to supplant all independent civil society activism and organization across the world with non-governmental organizations that it creates and/or coopts, that it trains and finances, and that are beholden to an internationalized American agenda (underwritten by a Western sexual epistemology and ontology) dealing with identities, rights, governance, the economy, administration, laws, transnational finance and investment, religion, culture, the arts, literature, etc. The goal was to destroy all existing efforts in those societies which organize the population against pro-Western dictatorship, neoliberal economics, and US and European imperial control, to name the most salient. The export of the particular and limiting white middle class urban-based Protestant American liberal value system as a universal system of values which (after having been imposed on Western Europe at the elite and popular levels) must be imposed on the rest of the world as a precursor to the imposition of American understandings of the future of (a neoliberal) humanity necessitated these NGOs, which would do much of the footwork already prepared for them by the International Monteray Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in earlier decades—and which created the debt crisis of the 1980s.

Of course this was a model already imposed inside the United States to control societal activism and organizing, and which replaced 1960s-style organizing by groups who opposed and resisted societal and state definitions of racialized and gendered citizenship as well as sexual normativity, among other struggles. Much of that energy was coopted by the 1970s and organized in NGOs funded by the state or private foundations with long-term experience in advancing US imperial policies during the Cold War (the Ford Foundation should be mentioned here as being at the forefront of that effort). The occupied Palestinian territories would be the largest scale theater for the execution of this program outside the United States, by which the large majority of West Bank and Gaza civil society was being decimated and supplanted by Western NGOs linked to the peace process and subject to the regulations of the American and European alliance with the Jewish settler colony and its interests. In the case of Gaza and less so the West Bank, this effort would be resisted politically, but would take the same form—namely that of Islamist NGOs with local and international, though non-Western, financing.

It is in this context that the internationalization of gayness, being a more public and specific effort, compared to the internationalization of straightness and heterosexuality, which is a far more protracted and general project, gets to be championed by neoliberal white American (and European) gay men—while imperialist white American (and European) women would busy themselves in projects of saving non-white women globally from non-white men—seeking to spread freedom and liberty for the oppressed “homosexual” masses around the world while half the American states meanwhile had laws on the books that criminalized homosexuality—laws which it became necessary to remove from the books in one swoop in 2003 by the US Supreme Court in order to better advance this universalizing agenda of American liberal values.

In this context, only one Arab Gay Internationalist organization was created in Lebanon, and a few more in Israel that are staffed by Palestinian citizens of Israel who insist that the adoption of the homo-hetero binary as definitional is essential to the struggle of liberating the sexually oppressed in their countries and beyond them, while unwittingly (or by now wittingly) advancing the repression of those who are not beholden to the Western hetero-homo binary. Their attempt to normalize the Arab world by transforming it into a copy of Euro-America, proceeds from their naïve and indeed pernicious belief—which does take the form of a religious belief that they pursue with a missionary zeal—that Arabs are already subject to the homo-hetero binary and that the task is simply to liberate the homosexuals among them. However, what their intervention participates in is the heterosexualization of the majority of Arabs and the homonormativization of a minority of them. What these organizations want to impose as part of the Gay International is a regime of sexuality predicated on a recent western ontology, wherein one’s sexual desires become the TRUTH of one, of one’s identity, of who one is.

They are assisted in this effort by diaspora Arab Gay Internationalist groups located in the United States and Europe, who are part and parcel of the white imperial Gay International. While Gayatri Spivak in an earlier era diagnosed a situation in which white men wanted to save brown women from brown men, in the era of the Gay International and the rightwing investment and abduction of the notion of “agency,” the situation has become much more complicated. What we have today is a situation where brown women (gay and straight) and brown gay men (located in the Euro-American metropole and those who work for NGOs with Euro-American funding in their home countries), and their white allies of all genders and sexualities, are engaged in saving brown women (“straight” and “gay”) and brown “gay” men (in the Third World and in Europe and the United States) from brown “straight” men.

Meanwhile, Gay and Straight Internationalist efforts are assisted by the Western internationalization of homophobia into areas of the world where neither homosexual identities nor homophobic identities existed. Conservative secular and religious American homophobic ideologies and organizations are intervening all the over the world to export American “family values” which aim to heterosexualize non-Europeans and to instruct them in homophobia, which is always a simultaneous effort. This is being carried out not only though social engineering projects executed by Western-funded NGOs but even by interference in legislation with calls to criminalize certain kinds of sexual conduct that are seen as not helpful to the imposition of American hetero-homo binarization, which, in this case, is known as Christian and American “family values,” while Gay Internationalists insist that they should be “decriminalized” to facilitate their project of hetero-homo binarization, known in their case as “liberation” of sexual minorities. We know what this has led to in Uganda with American Gay Internationalists and American evangelicals fighting it out, ostensibly on behalf of Ugandans, and increasingly with the intervention of American rightwing Islamophobic and homophobic evangelist Pat Robertson in places like Kenya and Zimbabwe, where he has opened chapters of his American Center for Law and Justice. So what we see then is an export of Western cultural wars, wherein both sides are equally racist and colonialist, and they both have one joint major imperial export, namely the hetero-homo binarization of the world, which will essentially bring about the massive heterosexualization of non-Europeans who heed the call of the binary by accepting heterosexuality, and the minoritization of those among them who heed the call by accepting homosexuality and gayness or fail to heed the call by refusing to accept the binary, wherein they both become targets of another western export, namely homophobia.

FE&SM: How do you respond to your critics who accuse you of rendering Arabs who identify as gay invisible and of rendering Arab LGBT organizations as agents of imperialism?

JM: I have never sought to render anyone invisible. Indeed, nothing I can do could render Arabs who identify as “gay” or “homosexual” invisible. Those among Arabs who live in the Arab world and who adopt this identity as a public social identification and seek its internationalization through the rubric of Western-funded organizations (I should say in one “organization” located in Beirut to be numerically precise) in order to impose it on others are championed, funded, and defended by a huge imperial apparatus that not only makes them visible, but which makes invisible the many more numerous Arabs who desire and/or engage in different-sex and same-sex contact and who refuse the hetero-homo binary as a way to organize their identities, much less render their sexual desires as their inner truths as required by the western regime of sexuality. The production of the gay (and her/his correlate, the straight) Arab is predicated on the invisibilization of the majority of Arabs whose ontology is not dependent on this Euro-American formation nor on its imperial missions and who do not live under a Western regime of sexuality.

I have never called “LGBT Arabs” agents of imperialism, as Gay Internationalists often misquote me. One should assert here that the academic wing of the Gay International suffers from an egregious theoretical illiteracy. I have however said that Gay Internationalist Arabs are complicit with imperialism, and their complicity is not unlike the complicity of nationalist Arabs or Islamist Arabs (in my book Desiring Arabs, I study how all three groups came to be complicit with Euro-American imperialism and Orientalism). The fact that all of these groups (and in the case of Gay Internationalists, I am referring here to those who are located in Beirut and Israel) are anti-imperialist in the sense that they oppose the imperial political, economic, and military presence of the United States or European countries in the Arab world, that they oppose US wars on the Arab and Muslim worlds, that they oppose Israeli and Zionist aggression against Palestine and the Palestinians, is well established in the official statements of their organizations and their literature. I am speaking of complicity at the level of epistemology and ontology, where all of these groups begin to understand themselves through a European universalized ontology and epistemology that is disseminated through imperial channels. That Arab nationalists begin in the late nineteenth century to see themselves and their history in cultural and civilizational terms follows this imperial universalization. That Muslims begin in the same period to speak of something amorphous called “Islam” that opposes itself to something called the “West” and that some of them begin to think of Islam as a “religion” or a “civilization” is also an effect of Orientalist and imperial impositions and internalization. Similarly, the tiny number of gay-identified Arabs organized in Gay Internationalist organizations are complicit with an imperial sexual regime that rearranges the world along the hetero-homo binary, which they fully adopt without questioning and insist on reproducing and disseminating across the Arab world as the road to liberation.

In this sense, the imperial complicity of the Gay International, including its Arab members, lies in their calling upon all Arabs who refuse the imperial hegemony of the hetero-homo binary to unlearn and unthink the way they desire, and that they learn and think their desires along the lines of the hetero-homo binary, indeed that the way they exist and the way they are, their very ontology, is a form of false consciousness, which they must shed, as the truth of who they are, according to this logic, lies in their adoption of the imperial hetero-homo binary through which they must apprehend themselves and their desires, which will lead, according to the Gay International, to their emancipation.

FE&SM: How do you explain your critics’ attraction to and support of the work of Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages, Homonationalism in Queer Times?

JM: I believe that those Gay Internationalist groups who oppose imperial foreign policy and American imperial nationalism found in Puar’s very important and critical book a way out of the impasse that they felt (correctly in my opinion) my book Desiring Arabs led them to. My work (and some of this will be further elaborated in my forthcoming book Islam in Liberalism) does not understand sexuality as a universal formation whose cultural understandings differ depending on specific cultures and countries, but rather that sexuality is a specific regime that arose in a particular culture, Western Europe and its colonial-settler American extension, at a specific time, that sexuality is a particular cultural formation and not a universal category, and that the only way it can and has been disseminated universally is imperialism, and that those who adopt its identifications and binaries and its universalization project are wittingly or unwittingly complicit with its taxonomies. Puar’s fine book on the other hand proceeds from an objection not to the universalization of sexuality or of sexual identities, which, if I understand her correctly, are taken as givens in her book, but rather the specific nationalization of gayness in the United States (and also in Europe) in the form of homonationalism (Puar’s important coinage) and the imperial form of its internationalization. Thus, Gay Internationalist organizations like Helem or the Israeli-based al-Qaws and their supporters find a way out of their ontological and epistemological complicity with imperialism in annexing Puar’s intelligent and very useful book to their cause, as they see themselves as opponents of US homonationalism and its imperial pretensions, thus exonerating themselves of the charge of imperial complicity.

FE&SM: You have recently worked on the formulation of “sexuality in Islam.” According to you, this formulation is inadequate and obscures the real question that should be posed by Western scholars, namely, the production of Islam through the prism of sexuality. Can you tell us what is at stake in your reversal of the question?

JM: My project is to understand how Islam is produced in sexuality discourses among activists and academics. I argue that it is the production of Islam in sexuality that needs to be studied so that we can understand the emergence of a field that seeks and insists on the need to study an object it calls “sexuality in Islam.” I seek to show how this very production which operates through the rubric of studying “sexuality in Islam,” is the way this discourse masks itself while what it is engaged in is the production of “Islam” itself as essential to its understanding of how sexuality functions in the West, indeed how the West itself is constituted through sexuality. This is an old Orientalist method of course, which we may even call a trick, that need not be conscious of itself though at times it is.

I believe that what is required is a Foucaultian investigation into the conditions of possibility for truth statements to be made about “Islam,” and sexuality. Instead of assuming and seeking to uncover the mechanisms by which something called sexuality operates inside the category Islam, we must begin, as Foucault taught us, with the “positive mechanisms” that generate this Western will to know. The outcome of this kind of approach will reveal much about how Western scholarship on sexuality not only constitutes something it calls “Islam” but also how it constitutes “Europe,” the “West,” and an always already racialized normativity.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Radical Rambler has made some token posts in other threads, but his real agenda is simply to argue that everyone chooses to be LGB, to the point of dismissing what actual LGB people say about their own experience.

[Radical Rambler]

Radical Rambler has made some token posts in other threads, but his real agenda is simply to argue that everyone chooses to be LGB, to the point of dismissing what actual LGB people say about their own experience.

My first post is this split-thread was to explain why some of those on the "Left" defend pedophiles the way they do. I think I've done quite well in explicating exactly that.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Radical Rambler, at the end of the day, you're still a straight dude presuming to tell queer people what our experiences are while trying to appropriate a queer identity.

[Radical Rambler]

If trans women are women, then it doesn't make you queer.

But trans-women were men who decided to become women. In that sense, I am choosing to allow myself to develop attraction for some men who have become women.


Believe me, at that time I tried not to have bisexual desires, but it wasn't a choice.

In what way did you "try" not to have desires for the same-sex? Did you tell yourself that you can develop and not develop desire for anyone? Or did you shame yourself? What exactly did you do?


I think I've had enough of a heterosexual man telling me that my personal experience of bisexuality is wrong.

People get upset when you tell them you don't believe in their recovered memories also.

[Sinister Intents]

But trans-women were men who decided to become women. In that sense, I am choosing to allow myself to develop attraction for some men who have become women.

Being transgendered is not a choice, but something you're born into.

[Radical Rambler]

Being transgendered is not a choice, but something you're born into.

No, it isn't. Many people have actually de-transitioned themselves, in fact.

To quote from the anti-trans piece I mentioned earlier, The Left Hand of Darkness (http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/07/the-left-hand-of-darkness/):



Similarly, some trans people have opted for a trans identity over a homosexual identity because of their own issues of coming out to their families. I have spoken with several transgendered people who have decided to de-transition back and while these individuals certainly do not represent the majority of trans experiences, they feel their voices are being obfuscated by the ‘official’ trans narrative. Heath Atom Russell tells me that when she was sixteen living in Orange County, California, she came out as trans rather than as a lesbian due to social and familial circumstances: ‘After spending time online and not having many real life friends, I ended up going to the local bookstore with my mom. I met a person who identified as a male with long hair and facial hair. My mom turned to me and asked if that was what I wanted to be. I felt this experience mirrored with many people. It was easier for me to come out as a guy than to come out as lesbian. ’ Russell continues, ‘I can safely say that I didn’t feel direct pressure, but you do hear ‘that is such a dude way to act.’ As a young child before the age of kindergarden, I remember one of my mom’s friends saying that I walked like my dad. As I grew older I still walked like my father and my mother taught me to walk like her, moving my butt and hips. In school I was physically assaulted because I had a ‘boy’s haircut.’ My high school had a conservative religious edge to it and so I came out as wanting to transition. I felt like I had more acceptance for transitioning as a man than for coming out as a lesbian.’ Dani Tauni contextualises this experience: ‘Women are always taught to hate their bodies from day one. Especially girls who are victims of childhood sexual abuse. They are trying to cut their femaleness off because they view it as a vulnerability. It is a body dysmorphia because they hate their bodies and they do this through transitioning. For women and lesbians it is hatred and mutilation of the body. Lesbians who are in the contemporary queer scene wish to conform to a specific aesthetics and if you are trans, you have more value as a person. Many lesbians feel that transsexuality is the way to go—the boy-girl. The uniform of this group is the way of transitioning—a lot of young women who hate their bodies go on the scene to internalise the hatred of their bodies. It is coming from a space of transitioning from oppression to maleness.’
Russell explains how she was accepted by the trans community when she had transitioned but after de-transitioning she was essentially told that her experiences do not count: ‘I haven’t had anyone outright tell me I was wrong for de-transitioning but I have been told that my experiences do not speak for trans people.’ Critical of the trans community’s censorship of the various non-success stories, Russell confirms that there is a specific agenda to wipe out certain types of trans narratives that she feels should not be excluded: ‘While the trans community likes to say that we are special and unique snowflakes, they don’t take into account that we have different experiences, if you stray from the trans narrative, you are condemned. I have had people tell me that I was never ‘really’ a trans person because I de-transitioned. If I were to use my binder and go back on hormones, I would be told, ‘You go, bro!’ ’
Adrian, a man who has somewhat de-transitioned, has not been able to completely transition back due to the fact that he had gone through sex reassignment surgery leaving him without a penis. Adrian tells me of his conservative upbringing and how his family reacted to what is now labelled by some as ‘gender non-conformity’: ‘I got berated a lot as a child playing with my sister’s toys and they would spank me with a wooden paddle or a belt telling me to go outside and mow the lawn or play with my brothers. It was a form of telling me how to be ‘this way’.’ Transitioning with sex reassignment surgery in 2004 Adrian never really felt comfortable living as a woman or with the trans women culture: ‘I don’t get involved in that community any more—it is so hyper feminized that it is almost disgusting in a sense. It is always about appearance since that is what they talk about. I laugh when I hear trans people say that gender is in the head, the majority of them are hyper-feminized and I am proof of this because I did it. When I was starting to live full time, I brought all my clothes to Good Will. I had to do my hair, my nails and this is not destroying gender because you were born xy. I was hyper-woman, or rather I thought I was being. Trans women are looking exactly how society says a woman should look. So they have it right but they still confuse their sex with gender…because you are still supporting a role.’ Finding the reality of being a trans woman not quite what he had imagined it to be, Adrian de-transitioned. ‘I don’t think I have any regrets, I don’t. I can be who I want to be but I still have to respect other people. People look at me and I don’t wear makeup or dresses, I still have breasts and no facial hair. I get ‘sirred’ more than ‘maamed’ and I don’t ask for people to correct this. It is so trivial. The gender queers have it right, but they still confuse sex with gender. Wear what you want to wear but don’t erase the fact that female and male exist.’ When I asked about his disappointment in transitioning, Adrian says: ‘I didn’t want to make my life being trans, I wanted to make my life life.’

[Sinister Intents]

No, it isn't. Many people have actually de-transitioned themselves, in fact.

To quote from the anti-trans piece I mentioned earlier, The Left Hand of Darkness (http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/07/the-left-hand-of-darkness/):


[/SIZE]

Did I choose to be a straight cisgender male?

[Radical Rambler]

Did I choose to be a straight cisgender male?

Yes.

[Sinister Intents]

Yes.

No, I didn't. I was born straight and cisgender, I didn't make the choice, and I had no understanding of these things when I was younger and my parents didn't raise me to be a sexist homophobe, not saying you are, but my family let me grow as an individual whether I would be gay, straight, et cetera.

[Radical Rambler]

No, I didn't.

Not only did you, you continue to choose that identity. You could choose to adopt the homosexual identity tomorrow, if you wanted to. You could choose to be queer. You could choose to adopt any sexual identity you want.

[Sabot Cat]

<sincerity>I just want to say that I'm in an excellent mood~</sincerity>


But trans-women were men who decided to become women. In that sense, I am choosing to allow myself to develop attraction for some men who have become women.

I didn't chose to be trans, silly cis person. :)


People get upset when you tell them you don't believe in their recovered memories also.

Haha, psychology doesn't work that way, and recovered-memory therapy has long been discredited.

Sources: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213401003131

Whitfield, CL; Silberg JL; Fink PJ (2001). Misinformation Concerning Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Survivors. Haworth Press. ISBN 0-7890-1901-9. ; pages 55-56.

In what way did you "try" not to have desires for the same-sex? Did you tell yourself that you can develop and not develop desire for anyone? Or did you shame yourself? What exactly did you do?


I harmed myself and looked at all of the horrible things done to trans people, the murders, the rapes, and used those as negative reinforcement. I also considered killing myself because I couldn't seem to avoid that seemingly terrible life. But then I realized, death is fucking terrifying. There's nothing left of you after you die. So I held on through fear and eventually found love. Lesbian love, I might add. =)

In the empirical side of things, "conversion therapy", the changing of sexual orientation through coercive psychological techniques, also has a terrible track record. Your viewpoint isn't supported by scientific inquires into the subject, sorry. Take your pseudoscience to a reactionary forum that cares, please, thank you. :)

Citations:


Shidlo, Ariel; Schroeder, Michael (May), Sexual conversion therapy: ethical, clinical, and research perspectives, p. 137, ISBN 978-0-7890-1911-0, retrieved 2011-05-17 (http://books.google.com/books?id=1jYuientrGoC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=Shidlo+and+Schroeder+gay+sample&source=bl&ots=eItHDTKVEw&sig=U1S7jLKQL-WxXLW2w6gZlwsJb5g&hl=en&ei=L-nSTeuSAsbz0gGJldWBDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Shidlo%20and%20Schroeder%20gay%20sample&f=false)

An overwhelming consensus from the American Psychological Association, as cited by the Psychiatric News. (http://www.psychiatricnews.org/pnews/99-01-15/therapy.html)

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

People get upset when you tell them you don't believe in their recovered memories also.
What gives you the right to tell me as a bisexual person that I'm somehow lying about my own experience of my own sexuality and comparing it to recovered memories?

[Sinister Intents]

Not only did you, you continue to choose that identity. You could choose to adopt the homosexual identity tomorrow, if you wanted to. You could choose to be queer. You could choose to adopt any sexual identity you want.

Not really, I've never been attracted to men sexually or romantically, I've only been attracted to women in that respect. I think I have the capability of being bisexual, but I'm not attracted to men, so I don't think I can make that choice even if I wanted to

[Radical Rambler]

I didn't chose to be trans, silly cis person.Oh? What made you trans then? Were you born trans? Is it in your DNA? Do tell.


Haha, psychology doesn't work that way, and recovered-memory therapy has long been discreditedHence the comparison.


I harmed myself and looked at all of the horrible things done to trans people, the murders, the rapes, and used those as negative reinforcement. I also considered killing myself because I couldn't seem to avoid that seemingly terrible life. But then I realized, death is fucking terrifying. There's nothing left of you after you die.That sounds like a bizarre and inherently self-defeating way to not be trans. Did you try telling yourself you can be whatever you want to be?


In the empirical side of things, "conversion therapy", the changing of sexual orientation through coercive psychological techniques, also has a terrible track record.Nevertheless, some people do successfully abandon the homosexual identity. Only the dominant homosexual narrative seeks to prevent their transition back to identifying as heterosexual, and to deny them their chosen heterosexual identity.

[Radical Rambler]

Not really, I've never been attracted to men sexually or romantically, I've only been attracted to women in that respect.

You can start developing attractions to the same-sex, if you want to.

[Radical Rambler]

What gives you the right to tell me as a bisexual person that I'm somehow lying about my own experience of my own sexuality and comparing it to recovered memories?

Who says I have to believe everything anyone tells me?

[Sinister Intents]

You can start developing attractions to the same-sex, if you want to.

Not really, what do you identify as, so I can start telling you you're wrong about who you think you are!

I do believe you may end up in the Gulag ov RevLeft.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Who says I have to believe everything anyone tells me?
Which is why I'm going back to what I said when you first joined RevLeft...you're a troll. I don't believe your claims to the contrary, and the admins/moderators need to call you on it. (Seriously, if a white dude came in here to attack the experiences of people of color and call them liars, how long would it take for them to be restricted?)

[Sabot Cat]

Oh? What made you trans then? Were you born trans? Is it in your DNA? Do tell.

What made you cis? :)


That sounds like a bizarre and inherently self-defeating way to not be trans. Did you try telling yourself you can be whatever you want to be?


Yes. It didn't work. As the research shows, it usually doesn't.


Nevertheless, some people do successfully abandon the homosexual identity. Only the dominant homosexual narrative seeks to prevent their transition back to identifying as heterosexual, and to deny them their chosen heterosexual identity.

This isn't a refutation of what I said, so I'm not going to entertain a rebuttal of it.

[Radical Rambler]

Not really, what do you identify as, so I can start telling you you're wrong about who you think you are!

I identify as Queer. I've chosen to, based on the fact that I would allow myself to develop attraction towards certain trans-women. Some in this thread don't like that, but I don't care.


Which is why I'm going back to what I said when you first joined RevLeft...you're a troll. I don't believe your claims to the contrary, and the admins/moderators are too fucking gutless to call you on it. (Seriously, if a white dude came in here to attack the experiences of people of color and call them liars, how long would it take for them to be restricted?)

I'm not a troll. I'm interested in revolutionary politics and queer theory. Nor have I ever called you a liar. You don't have to be consciously lying in order for me not to believe what you say.

[Sinister Intents]

Nevertheless, some people do successfully abandon the homosexual identity. Only the dominant homosexual narrative seeks to prevent their transition back to identifying as heterosexual, and to deny them their chosen heterosexual identity.

How? Through religious bullshit like that Christian bullshit that tries to turn those seen as sinful straight? Fuck You.

[Sabot Cat]

I identify as Queer. I've chosen to, based on the fact that I would allow myself to develop attraction towards certain trans-women. Some in this thread don't like that, but I don't care.

You mean that many in this thread know you're wrong, yet you persist in ignorance. If you are attracted to women, cis or trans, you are heterosexual.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I'm not a troll. I'm interested in revolutionary politics and queer theory. Nor have I ever called you a liar. You don't have to be consciously lying in order for me not to believe what you say.
No one seriously interested in queer theory would dismiss the actual lived experience of queer people. However, someone trolling queer people? They would.

[Radical Rambler]

What made you cis?

I choose to be cis.


Yes. It didn't work.

Why do suppose that is? Maybe you just actually wanted to be trans, but merely was trying to find a way to alleviate your own feelings of shame over it.


This isn't a refutation of what I said, so I'm not going to entertain a rebuttal of it.

The existence of people who once identified as homosexual re-identifying as straight is a direct contradiction to the dominant homosexual narrative. This is intolerable to those who have chosen to adopt the homosexual identity, so the reaction is to just deny they are now straight.

[Radical Rambler]

No one seriously interested in queer theory would dismiss the actual lived experience of queer people. However, someone trolling queer people? They would.

Lots of people identify as Queer By Choice. Are you suggesting this website is setup simply to troll people? That's pretty insensitive.

http://www.queerbychoice.com/

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I choose to be cis.
Which proves you have no fucking clue about being trans or cis.


Why do suppose that is? Maybe you just actually wanted to be trans, but merely was trying to find a way to alleviate your own feelings of shame over it.
Stop telling other people what their lived experience is or should be.

[Sinister Intents]

I choose to be cis.

Are you gonna try being trans?


Why do suppose that is? Maybe you just actually wanted to be trans, but merely was trying to find a way to alleviate your own feelings of shame over it.

I think you're a reactionary asshole RadRamb.


The existence of people who once identified as homosexual re-identifying as straight is a direct contradiction to the dominant homosexual narrative. This is intolerable to those who have chosen to adopt the homosexual identity, so the reaction is to just deny they are now straight.

Provide your sources.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Lots of people identify as Queer By Choice.
Which is irrelevant to a straight cis dude dismissing the lived experience of queer people.

[Sabot Cat]

I choose to be cis.

I would too, considering the advantages!



Why do suppose that is? Maybe you just actually wanted to be trans, but merely was trying to find a way to alleviate your own feelings of shame over it.


That's not a very scientific theory, considering it's based upon points that fail to be falsifiable e.g. wants that are so unknown even I don't know about them and can't be drawn out through empirical studies. The entire problem with psychotherapy, essentially.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

As I said earlier, if a white dude came in here to attack the experiences of people of color, how long would it take for them to be restricted?

[Radical Rambler]

Are you gonna try being trans

Say we lived in the far off future, and becoming the other sex and back again were simple and easy due to some sort of super advanced medical technology, I think I would try it. I think a lot of people probably would.

But no. I wouldn't personally choose to become a trans-woman.


Provide your sources

Type in "Ex-gay" in a google search. There are plenty of testimonials. Sure, some Ex-gays choose re-adopt the homosexual identity later, but not all of them.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Why do suppose that is? Maybe you just actually wanted to be trans, but merely was trying to find a way to alleviate your own feelings of shame over it.


Yes, totally, I wanted that, because it is so fucking merry, isn't it? It's so lovely to feel such immense incorrigible self-loathing at the mere sight of ones visage.

And that some would "de-transition", what makes you think those are decisions made as rational choices? Do you imagine it is impossible that the very harsh reality of society repression would affect people who have transitioned to stop it? Or that they would simply be unsatisfied with the possibilities of the current medical transition alternative and its limitations just opening them up to abuse and easy attacks? I know that's why I don't consider it.

So fuck off you little maggot.

[Sinister Intents]

As I said earlier, if a white dude came in here to attack the experiences of people of color, how long would it take for them to be restricted?

Fuck! I would restrict that asshole in a heartbeat!

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

But no. I wouldn't personally choose to become a trans-woman.
That's because you're a cis man.


Type in "Ex-gay" in a google search. There are plenty of testimonials. Sure, some Ex-gays choose re-adopt the homosexual identity later, but not all of them.
So you presume they're being honest about their experience, but queer people whose experience of their sexuality is that it's innate aren't?

[Sinister Intents]

Say we lived in the far off future, and becoming the other sex and back again were simple and easy due to some sort of super advanced medical technology, I think I would try it. I think a lot of people probably would.

But no. I wouldn't personally choose to become a trans-woman.



Type in "Ex-gay" in a google search. There are plenty of testimonials. Sure, some Ex-gays choose re-adopt the homosexual identity later, but not all of them.

I think you're a moron

Maybe you should go fuck yourself. When I search ex gay and related I get a bunch of Christian fucking garbage! Fuck Christianity, Fuck Religion!

[Radical Rambler]

I would too, considering the advantages!

Again, so what made you trans? Were you born that way? Is it in your DNA? Do tell, do tell.

[Sinister Intents]

Again, so what made you trans? Were you born that way? Is it in your DNA? Do tell, do tell.

Did you choose to be cisgender? can you even define cisgender and transgender? Yeah I would say genetics plays a role but so does material conditions that affects that persons life.

[Radical Rambler]

When I search ex gay and related I get a bunch of Christian fucking garbage! Fuck Christianity, Fuck Religion!

True, the decision to abandon the homosexual identity and become heterosexual again is often religiously motivated, but it doesn't have to be. It's easy to conceive of people doing it for other reasons.

[Sabot Cat]

Again, so what made you trans? Were you born that way? Is it in your DNA? Do tell, do tell.

It's complex, like any scientific topic.

Here: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=causes+of+transsexuality&l=1

Or you can read this:

http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Sexual_Differentiation_of_the_Human_Brain__Relevan ce_for_Gender_Identity,_Transsexualism_and_Sexual_ Orientation.pdf

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/12/3132.full

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7689007.stm

[Sinister Intents]

True, the decision to abandon the homosexual identity and become heterosexual again is often religiously motivated, but it doesn't have to be. It's easy to conceive of people doing it for other reasons.

Are you a Christian? Are you religious in some way? Do you understand the role of religion as it relates to society and the state?

[Radical Rambler]

So you presume they're being honest about their experience, but queer people whose experience of their sexuality is that it's innate aren't?

Yes. Because the idea that people are born straight or gay is false. In fact, no one was straight or gay in all of human history, up to the 19th century when these concepts were invented.

[Radical Rambler]

Are you a Christian? Are you religious in some way?

No. I'm a materialist.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

So fuck off you little maggot.
As a moderator, don't you have the power to make him fuck off to the Restricted forum?

[Sinister Intents]

Yes. Because the idea that people are born straight or gay is false. In fact, no one was straight or gay in all of human history, up to the 19th century when these concepts were invented.

I think you should look through history a lot more.


No. I'm a materialist.

Sure.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Yes. Because the idea that people are born straight or gay is false. In fact, no one was straight or gay in all of human history, up to the 19th century when these concepts were invented.
I'm quite sure that before the 19th century there were people with exclusively opposite-sex desire, exclusively same-sex desire, and everything in-between, regardless of whether there were identities constructed around them.

[Radical Rambler]

It's complex, like any scientific topic.

In other words, you don't know, but want to believe the brain-sex theory.

Here is a critique of it, written by the transexual Anne A. Lawrence.

http://www.annelawrence.com/twr/brain-sex_critique.html

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

As a moderator, don't you have the power to make him fuck off to the Restricted forum?

I don't know how to, if I can restrict, it might only be admins that can. I can only ban, and I want to avoid taking action on myself for fear some admin might be unhappy with my decision.


In other words, you don't know, but want to believe the brain-sex theory.

Here is a critique of it, written by the transexual Anne A. Lawrence.

http://www.annelawrence.com/twr/brain-sex_critique.html

I don't think that would necessarily be the conclusion. The context of "it's complex" means it is probably beyond the scope of this discussion, seeing as it is not a scientific seminar, but that it nevertheless is a multifaceted thing with no one singular origin.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Anne Lawrence is a supporter of some dodgy theories, such as Ray Blanchard's transsexualism typology (trans women are either gay men who want a way to sleep with straight men or are sexually aroused by the idea of having a female body).

As a trans woman, I have to say, I didn't transition so I could have sex with men nor am I aroused by the idea of having a female body. I think Lawrence is full of crap.

[Radical Rambler]

Anne Lawrence is a supporter of some dodgy theories, such as Ray Blanchard's transsexualism typology (trans women are either gay men who want a way to sleep with straight men or are sexually aroused by the idea of having a female body)

I think it's more convincing than the brain-sex theory, given my personal experience with trans-women.


As a trans woman, I have to say, I didn't transition so I could have sex with men nor am I aroused by the idea of having a female body.

Why did you transition, then?

[Sabot Cat]

In other words, you don't know, but want to believe the brain-sex theory.

Here is a critique of it, written by the transexual Anne A. Lawrence.

http://www.annelawrence.com/twr/brain-sex_critique.html

Takayuki already addressed the points you raised better than I would've; also, research conducted by Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab found that the interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3) also had numerous differences between cis men, cis women, and trans women; this corroborates the theory. Not to mention the differences in gray matter sizes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754583/). That's what we call convergence of evidence, wherein gathered data is mutually supportive of a hypothesis; it's usually an indicator that it's correct.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I think it's more convincing than the brain-sex theory, given my personal experience with trans-women.
I'm glad your personal experience as a cis man allows you to think a theory that trans women are either gay men or self-aroused men is more "convincing."


Why did you transition, then?
Because I'm a trans woman and I wanted to live openly as who I am.

[Radical Rambler]

Takayuki already addressed the points you raised better than I would've; also, research conducted by Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab found that the interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3) also had numerous differences between cis men, cis women, and trans women; this corroborates the theory.

Anna Lawrence points out most of the brain differences measured by these studies can be explained as a by-product of the hormone therapy itself.



The brain-sex theory of transsexualism has never been easy to reconcile with clinical reality: Homosexual and nonhomosexual MtF transsexualism are so different clinically that it is almost impossible to imagine that they could have the same etiology. Nevertheless, for a time the Zhou/Kruijver data gave the brain-sex theory a certain superficial plausibility. In 2002, Chung et al. reported new data that raised serious doubts about the brain-sex theory, but the authors were able to explain why the theory might still be plausible. The new data reported by Hulshoff Pol et al. in 2006 did not invalidate these explanations, but it rendered them largely irrelevant. The simplest and most plausible explanation of the Zhou/Kruijver findings is that they are attributable, completely or predominantly, to the effects of cross-sex hormone therapy administered during adulthood. There is no longer any reason to postulate anything more complicated.



The brain-sex theory was never helpful in explaining clinical observations; now it has become irrelevant to explaining neuroanatomical observations. It is time to abandon the brain-sex theory of transsexualism and to adopt a more plausible and clinically relevant theory in its place

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Homosexual and nonhomosexual MtF transsexualism are so different clinically that it is almost impossible to imagine that they could have the same etiology.
The problem is Lawrence proceeds from the notion that trans women are either gay men or straight men aroused by the idea of having a female body, a theory proposed by a cis man.

[Sabot Cat]

Anna Lawrence points out most of the brain differences measured by these studies can be explained as a by-product of the hormone therapy itself.

But those examined in the study with the grey matter didn't have HRT; furthermore, the result was the same even without hormones in the study she's trying to refute. Also: "Compared to control females, FtM showed higher FA values in posterior part of the right SLF, the forceps minor and corticospinal tract. Compared to control males, FtM showed only lower FA values in the corticospinal tract." This is without hormones, which is spelled out in the paper itself. (Rametti, G; Carrillo, B; Gómez-Gil, E; Junque, C; Segovia, S; Gomez, A; Guillamon, A (2010). "White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study". Journal of Psychiatric Research 45 (2): 199–204)

[Radical Rambler]

The problem is Lawrence proceeds from the notion that trans women are either gay men or straight men aroused by the idea of having a female body, a theory proposed by a cis man.

And supported by a trans-woman.

Perhaps you could answer some questions for us.

Have you been married to a woman?

As a child, did people think you were about as masculine as other boys?

Are you nearly as attracted to women as to men? Or more attracted to women? Or equally uninterested in both?

Were you over the age of 40 when you began to live full time as a woman?

Have you worn women’s clothing in private and, during at least three of those times, become so sexually aroused that you masturbated?

Have you ever been in the military or worked as a policeman or truck driver, or been a computer programmer, businessman, lawyer, scientist, engineer, or physician?

Is your ideal partner a straight man?

As a child, did people think you were an unusually feminine boy?

Does this describe you? “I find the idea of having sex with men very sexually exciting, but the idea of having sex with women is not at all appealing.”

Were you under the age of 25 when you began to live full time as a woman?

Do you like to look at pictures of really muscular men with their shirts off?

Have you worked as a hairstylist, beautician, female impersonator, lingerie model, or prostitute?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

And supported by a trans-woman.
I know LGBT people who vote for homo/transphobic politicians. Hell, how many working class people openly support capitalism? People often participate in their own oppression. Trans women like Lawrence are no different.


Perhaps you could answer some questions for us.
Perhaps you could fuck off. I'm not here to be interrogated by a trans-misogynist cis straight man.

[Sabot Cat]

And supported by a trans-woman.

You can find an Uncle Ruckus in any minority circle you happen upon.


Perhaps you could answer some questions for us.

"Us" as in, you. Also, what's with these creepy, invasive questions? And what do they have to do with the matter at hand? Fuck off, and stop harassing Danielle.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

All right, that does it, I went ahead and banned him.

Note that his email ended in 123, and that he had not filled out his time zone right - I am saying this because I do not think he was serious, but a troll.

[Ritzy Cat]

The Catholic Church and other abrahamic religions have been primarily responsible for corrupting the notion of "homosexuality"...

For example, in Ancient Greece & Rome, if someone were to say "I think I am in love" it would often be met with the response "With a boy or a girl?"

It would be hard to find direct reasoning to say that homosexuality is a result of capitalism... It's much more of a cultural/religious thing.

[Sasha]

Do you even know any victims of pedophilia?


victims of pedopehlia? i suspect a few, they tend to identify as a-sexual because of the stigma though :rolleyes:
but i assume your talking about victims of pedo-sexual abuse, and yes, i know several people, scarred them for life, all done by direct family members so all would have been preventable if these people could have been open open about their affliction.
you see, i also know a family with an so called gold-star pedophile, he always worked oil-rigs to prevent himself from coming into contact with children, when his sister became a parent he outed himself to the family, so now everybody knows and still loves him, he is just not allowed to be near the kids without another adult present.
but this was not really the topic anymore now was it.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm quite sure that before the 19th century there were people with exclusively opposite-sex desire, exclusively same-sex desire, and everything in-between, regardless of whether there were identities constructed around them.I think this was the grain of truth in the troll's argument. Sexuality as an identity (not as a certain attraction or not) was constructed at that time. Before that sexuality was patrolled mostly by acts people did whereas at the end of the century sexuality began to be seen in terms of types and identities. This is also when new gender roles solidified and oppression of sexualities were most definately tied into corralling and policing gender. If the new model promoted for urban (industrial capitalist) societies needed to be the nuclear family with the father being wage labor and the mother being the unpaid reproductive labor in the homes, then same sex or poly or single groupings are problematic.

What the poster seemed completely to miss though is that the "essentialist" view of sexuality (most often presented as a medical or psychological "problem" when it came to people who didn't meet the constructed notions of heterosexual norms) is not something established defensively by oppressed people or the left, but was tied to sexual oppression and repression. It was only at this time that the legal code was changed in many places to make repression of homosexuality more systematically enforceable. It is only at this time that people were subject to repression simply for having the attraction, rather that a specific act done; homosexuality went from being an attraction or just same sex intercourse to being a state of being.

Someone affirming their own identity today is completely different though, it's a response to the condition of sexual oppression in society. People need to develop some kind of sense of community to help defend themselves or just get away from the bullshit and have commeraderie and some fresh air.

[Quail]

I'd just like to point out that Radical Rambler should have been banned a lot more quickly than he was, and sometimes these threads go on longer than they should because mods/admins have stuff to do or can't get online (for example, yesterday I was with my family celebrating my brother's graduation, and I have a university deadline tomorrow, so I haven't been on Revleft). Generally we will get on it asap so there is no need to make posts complaining and implying we take some issues less seriously than others, simply because there was nobody around to sort it out.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

there is no need to make posts complaining and implying we take some issues less seriously than others, simply because there was nobody around to sort it out.
Radical Rambler's trolling on this issue began in early December in another thread, which is the reason I was complaining. It wasn't just something that began yesterday or the day before.

[The Feral Underclass]

It might partly be my fault, as I asked psycho to split off this topic from the paedo thread as I wanted to engage with him. Much good it did.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I don't think most homosexual choose to be gay (what does it mean to "choose" homosexuality in the first place? Is that like a bisexual man just deciding that they prefer men over women?) but does it even matter? Doesn't it just fit certain bourgeois or feudal paradigms to think that an action is morally less blameworthy if its somehow not a choice but given to them by God? Doesn't it, on some level, imply that homosexual rights would be less worth supporting if it was a choice? Just saying ... I think its a good argument to use with those who have religious persuasions leading them to believe that God would not create such a category, but it should be a non-issue for Leftists who are critical of the notion of the divine creating absolute, determined categories that somehow don't map on perfectly to the world of creation.

[The Feral Underclass]

It could only be an implication if the framework for our understanding provided it as a possibility in the first place.

[Comrade #138672]

Here is an interesting (leftist) critique of the assertion that people are born gay: http://socialinqueery.com/2013/03/18/no-one-is-born-gay-or-straight-here-are-5-reasons-why/ You may or may not agree with it. I know that it is a sensitive subject.

[Firebrand]

I've always wondered why sex (physical) and gender are considered so important in constructing a persons sexual identity. If you think about it its actually quite an arbitrary factor to act as a dividing line between "gay" and "straight". Why is the most important factor in who we are attracted to a part that most of the time we can't even see. Why not something more obvious like hair colour. Why does lets say preferring brunettes to blondes, carry less social significance than lets say preferring women to men.

[Ritzy Cat]

I've always wondered why sex (physical) and gender are considered so important in constructing a persons sexual identity. If you think about it its actually quite an arbitrary factor to act as a dividing line between "gay" and "straight". Why is the most important factor in who we are attracted to a part that most of the time we can't even see. Why not something more obvious like hair colour. Why does lets say preferring brunettes to blondes, carry less social significance than lets say preferring women to men.

Western society loves to judge people on anything not remotely "normal". A few hundred years ago It wouln't have been as much as an issue - but religion is one of the main factors in helping elevating it to taboo status, and now it is too ingrained, killing the roots will take a while.

[The Feral Underclass]

Here is an interesting (leftist) critique of the assertion that people are born gay: http://socialinqueery.com/2013/03/18/no-one-is-born-gay-or-straight-here-are-5-reasons-why/ You may or may not agree with it. I know that it is a sensitive subject.

That article is awful for a number of reasons, not least of all it's combative tone.

In any case, the debate here is one between nature vs choice, not nature vs environmental factors. A choice is something people consciously make, having understood differing factors. That article is suggesting that environment/nurture is what shapes sexuality. That's fine; that's a fair enough argument. The issue here is when people start to claim that people making conscious lifestyle choices is how sexuality is shaped. Choice is not nurture or your environment.

It should be noted that homosexuality exists in other species of animals who don't have environmental/nurturing factors to take into consideration. It may be a crude observation to make, but it is nevertheless true, and it is something which this article, and many others seem to forget.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

My personal belief is that sexuality is shaped by a complex interplay between genetics and environment.