“Substack is founded on the belief that writers and their work deserve respect. Keep conversations civil in the comments of this publication and other Substack community spaces, such as events. Respect one other’s perspectives and life experiences in your conversations, and refrain from cruel or derogatory language. “
I’m posting this as a reminder that Substack is for discussions and respecting other viewpoints.
Someone just called me a nasty name, but I noticed he deleted all his comments.
Just put this on here to remind people that we are not in competition here , so there is no need for abusing others ,even if there is a comment that upset you . Give others a chance to explain and let’s keep this civil!
What I want by my comment which you read incorrectly is that gays never pushed their beliefs on others, whereas trans do this all the time, ! I consider the trans ideology to be authoritarian..I do not feel that gays or lesbians are authoritarians. So I would really like an explanation from you.
Interesting point. There is perhaps a divide between trad gays and rad gays - which will become messier as time goes on. I just fear as well that the backlash against the latter will spill over onto the former.
Well, you are very harsh! Or overly sensitive ! So..no discussion. As I sad previously, I admired what you have posted previously, but you seem to be able to read other people’s motives as being negative.. too bad . Perhaps look at what makes you so angry?
I'm struck by how easily the organic body-mind can be overtaken by a socially created narrative. It's so obvious that TQ+ is strictly a mental narrative that is in complete opposition to the human instinctual body. This narrative is anti-life in multiple ways, not only going against the nature of the body, but also leading to destruction of family and childbearing. And yeah, for many kids and their parents, the new gay is a destructive force. Psychoanalytically speaking, this narrative is an example of Thanatos, the death instinct, pushing people towards death and extinction. It's opposite is Eros, the life instinct.
Both Thanatos and Eros are pre-Socratic ideas representing two aspects of human experience. Heraclitus is known for the concept of "the unity of opposites" including life and death. More recently, Freud included the psychological idea of Thanatos in his work, while Jung focused more on Psyche and Eros. My understanding is that, while Thanatos and Eros exist as potential in the individual psyche, these opposites also exist at various levels of the collective, and tend to be cyclical. For instance, following WWII the U.S. was focused on peace time and rebuilding social structures that had been disrupted by war. Family and children became a central focus. The 'happy days' of the 50s and early 60s reflected this, including family businesses, American made, and a burgeoning middle class. All of this was focused on 'life'. Now, 75+ years later, many of the activities that supported life, quality of life, and the middle class, have become their opposite (this is called 'enantiodromia'). Medicine has become anti-medicine (e.g., gender affirming care sterilizing kids), the food supply is not healthy, corporations have killed local businesses, the job market, and the middle class, technology has run rampant, and people are not having children, either because they have become infertile or don't want to raise children in an environment that does not support life. Not to get too political, but we can also see this in the fight between Hamas (the death cult) and the Israeli people (l'chaim! To Life!). The pendulum will eventually swing from Thanatos back to Eros, but it will take some time.
As a gay man I beg to differ. There is nothing imaginary about same-sex attraction. To the extent there is a gay ideology, it revolves around the fight for individual civil rights and an end to second-class status. I'm not even going to honor the second part of the claim with a response.
I apologize in advance, because I don't want to offend you, but I expect I will. Because I'm going to argue that it doesn't matter if some people are born with same-sex attraction or not. Just as it doesn't matter that some people may be born as MAPs. Society has an interest in *suppressing* both of those behaviors (and trans too). The real question is: how much suppression?
I would argue that if consenting adults want to enjoy each others company, that's fine - especially in private, that's none of my business. However, when their behaviors start *influencing* children, then it becomes my business as a member of society. And that is the explicit goal of many activists (I'm against the entire array of these "Pride" promotions - is there a "Heteronormal Pride parade"?)
I want as much heteronormality in the society as possible, just as I want as much liberty and personal opportunity as possible, because I believe those things will lead to the most prosperous society in the future. I understand there is some conflict between them, and I'm sorry for that, but the current state of society is leading towards some real problems.
I do not know if you will have empathy for my position. I do have empathy for yours, however, I also feel you have incentives that are ultimately contrary to the benefit of our future generations. And that is very unfortunate, as I believe, just from reading what you're written here, that you are a very thoughtful person, perhaps born with a condition that, through no fault of your own, brings you into tangential conflict with certain societal goals, which I believe are vitally important.
We now have the beginning of a wave of deaths due to the iatrogenic harms of puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones and radical sex trait modification surgeries. Griffin Sivrin, natal female, died at age 24 a few months ago, cause was sepsis resulting after a botched 'phalloplasty.' She documented her agony on social media for months before her death. Yarden Seveira, natal male, died last year at age 24, a suicide. He'd been revisiting Mount Sinai Hospital to ask the surgeon, Dr. Oren Gavis, if there was any chance of reversing the botched 'vaginoplasty' which caused a colon blockage. Mount Sinai Hospital responded by banning him from entry into any of their facilities. Liam Johns, a natal female and mother of 2 young children, died of liver failure after months on dialysis due to testosterone poisoning. She was 35. Oh yes. Dr. Oren Gavis is no longer performing 'vaginoplasties.' He's been relegated to facial surgeries.
Very sad! All this Frankenstein medical malpractice should end, but with a Democratic president in the future, I’m not hopeful! Plus it has contaminated so much of global society, that there is little chance that sanity will return any time soon.
Absolutely disgusting! That doctor should be in jail! How many other deaths from this anti human ideology?
I am glad my kids are not gay, but even more that they were born before the cult of trans took over .My younger grandchildren seem totally normal and their parents know what is going on and are raising their children well.
Minus the Pride flags, this could have been my family you saw (well, also minus the brother - both my kids are girls, though one would deny it). I remember reading something a couple years before life went off the rails about how much more common it was to be transgender among kids who’d been identified as “gifted” (whatever that really means) and I thought “Wow, that would be really difficult, but obviously I’d know that by now so I’m glad I don’t have to worry about it!” I believed the narrative that “trans” is some inborn, biologically determined thing that kids know and insist on from the time they’re very young. And since all other viewpoints are not allowed, and I’d never had reason to give it more thought than that, I believed it.
Needless to say, I’ve now had reason to give it more thought and I know that the official narrative is, well, total bullshit. Everything you said is correct. It’s a rejection of self. These kids have absolutely been manipulated by a self-interested community that doesn’t care how many lives they destroy. The kids are living their lives as fake personas, building identities instead of growing up. They are terrified of responsibility, terrified of people having expectations of them, terrified of the idea of having kids. They are terrified of being shamed for being “basic” and “privileged”, and this is the one disadvantaged identity that one can opt into. My daughter had a boyfriend and so she was a “gay boy” and he was “bisexual” because he was dating her - so they were two straight kids pretending to be gay so they could fit in. I thought the whole purpose of gay rights was so that people wouldn’t have to pretend to be something they’re not to fit in? You’re absolutely right about the fact that this is being marketed to kids, and the most vulnerable kids, the ones who don’t fit in, the ones who’ve always felt a little different, the ones who got made fun of, are the ones falling for it.
Not all parents are happy about this. I didn’t sign up for this. It’s incredibly painful to watch. I don’t want to be an ally. I want to be the mom of two wonderful, amazing daughters who are confident and true to themselves and lovely just as they are. One is doing well, but the other just fell down this internet rabbit hole and got sucked into what I believe is essentially like a cult. I hang on as tight as I can, try not to say too much, and remind myself every day that you can’t control another person’s thoughts and feelings. Maybe someday she’ll wake up. I hope so.
Best wishes! I don't have a daughter or son in this situation, but my heart goes our to you and any other parent who has to go through this experience.
Coming out of my very deep, dark closet was an enormous improvement in my life, no, truly life saving. I could never have recovered from an ultimately fatal addiction without it.
Nevertheless, I sometimes recall a routine the great Lenny Bruce had about ways of admitting to others you're Jewish. One way was claiming, " I'm 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘥 I'm Jewish." "Who could be 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘥 to be Jewish except maybe a masochist?". Same for being gay.
Some years ago there was a campaign aimed at young people struggling with an emerging same-sex orientation with the theme, "It gets better." As someone who came of age in 1950's Texas, I want to say to the youngsters, you cannot imagine how much better. The gay character doesn't have to die before the end of the movie now.
Most of the young females who are calling themselves non-binary are heterosexual! Some of the young females who call themselves "transmen" and want to be accepted by gay males are heterosexual! Most of the adult males who are calling themselves transwomen are heterosexual with the sexual fetish of autogynephilia! The billionaires who have been financing the takeover of our universities and other institutions by transgender ideology are heterosexual! https://www.the11thhourblog.com/ Why call what is happening the new "gay" when it has actually hijacked the actual movement that promoted acceptance and the civil rights of homosexual men and women, and promoted the idea that a female attracted to a female "must be a man" and a male attracted to males "must be a woman"? What is "gay" about heterosexual males with the paraphilia of autogynephilia insisting that they should have access to single-sex female spaces? It is not just homosexual young people who are being victimized by transgender activism. Young people who have been sexually and otherwise abused, and/or who are autistic, and/or who have numerous mental health co-morbidities, and/or who have been adopted (particularly by parents of a different "race") or are in foster care are all more likely to be victimized by transgender activists.
Some simpler, more widely understood, non-Greek terms for adult - no, post pubescent - men who seek access to women-only spaces such as restrooms and locker rooms are 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘱 and 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵. Using clear, easily understood language is a virtue. We should all, myself included, resolve to do our best to use it.
There are lots of different types of perverts. Most of them aren't nearly as bad as autogynephiles, who are at once massively perverted, schoolmarmily censorious, and obsessed with invading and conquering every area of public and private life. They need to be named specifically, so ordinary people can recognize them and understand what to expect from them specifically.
Agreed! What's needed, though, is a one or two syllable word for them, the more contemptuous the better, to distinguish them from the pervs who conceal cameras in women's restrooms. Anybody got one to suggest?
AGP is three syllables. The term "troon" also has a lot of overlap with autogynephilia, given that it was invented to describe Something Awful goons who happened to be transexual, and you can bet at least 80% of them were AGP.
Calling trans the new gay is shorthand for two ideas.
One is that the reason straight people jumped on the trans bandwagon so hard and so fast is that they were guilty about how gay people were treated for so very long so they made up for it by being super affirming and inclusive toward trans people right away.
The other is that trans activists promoted the gay/trans analogy to reduce resistance to an otherwise outlandish set of beliefs.
The problem for me is that calling what is happening "the new gay" can play into what the T are trying to do: exploit the positive feelings and acceptance that people now have of lesbians and gay men (and the homosexual feelings of bisexual people) in order to get people to accept and support T, which has nothing to do with homosexual orientation. Most people assume that men who ID as transwomen are simply feminine gay males. They really do think that "transwomen" are homosexual men. They do not understand that most males who ID as transwomen are in fact heterosexual males with autogynephilia.
Those homosexual males who are trying to look like feminine women are most often doing so to escape the negative consequences of being a homosexual male, which can include being executed in some cultures/countries and/or to attract male sexual partners who are heterosexual but for whom it is "enough" that a sexual partner appear to be female/feminine. Males do tend to be very "visually" attracted. I have had many gay male friends tell me that some gay men really consider it an accomplishment to seduce a straight man. One way to do that is to look as much like a feminine woman as possible.
Support for gay men and lesbians is now declining because so many members of the public are alienated by the truly outrageous public behavior of the men who claim to be transwomen, including very pedophilic behavior such as "drag queens reading to children"
Calling what is happening "the new gay" just increases the backlash gay men and lesbians are now experiencing because of T hitching a ride on LGB.
It is not a radical thing to say "I hope my kids won't be gay". I find it bothersome that you would even characterize a statement likely true for greater than 90% of people for over 500 years including now as something that would come across as "radical"
This is a question for the author. How much of what you've written about gay life and people today is based on your first-hand knowledge? Take this passage:
"It's gay™️: a fantasy-scape virtual reality where you can invent new ways to define youself and your social world will ripple outward to encompass and applaud each new avatar. Because if I support your delusion you'll support mine. It's a way to create, for a generation of play-deprived, screen-raised kids to PLAY with each other."
Have you witnessed this? Do you know gay young people who exhibit that behavior and possess those attitudes and beliefs? If not, what sources inform your arguments?
I'm a gay man in my late 60s. I wouldn't wish the dystopian world of your essay on a gay youngster any more than I would want him to spend what should be his formative years trapped in the closet like I was during high school, college and law school during the decade of the 1970s. I missed out on the romance, sex and relationships that my straight peers at my educational institutions took for granted. I was in my mid-20s before the experiences I should have had starting at age 14 were finally available.
I'll come right out and say I don't know any gay youth. There are none in my small family circle (that I know of) or in my even smaller social circle. For that matter, I can't recall the last time I read a story about gay youngsters in the mainstream media.
While my storehouse of knowledge about contemporary gay youth and young adults is empty, I think I have a fairly good picture of life under gender identity ideology. It was Will "Lia" Thomas and the sheer unfairness of his strapping manly body competing against women that turned me into a sex realist. I am an avid consumer of information and opinion about the social manifestations of gender ideology.
On that basis, I get the distinct impression that gay youth have been abandoned as the public has stampeded towards the new bright shiny thing called gender and all the exotic new identities who owe their existence to gender ideology. Sure, there are probably more rainbows in our public schools now than could have been found on any Gay Pride day in San Francisco in the late 70s. But today's rainbow flag has picked up a hitchhiker who has no intention of leaving. It's that triangle at the top consisting of the bruise-like trans colors and intruders in the form of identity group markers. The phrase "LGBTQ" may be ubiquitous today, but "LGB"? It's almost extinct. It's practically unheard-of for trans activists and their myriad allies to utter the word "gay," much less concern themselves with the welfare of gay people.
Here I do have evidence to back up my claim that Queer and Trans have pushed gay to the back of the bus. Just last week I looked into what my alma mater is doing to support students who belong to the set who say they "identify as."
It turns out the university has built a lavish administrative infrastructure and programming to welcome, affirm and accommodate trans and nonbinary kids. The online materials on preferred pronouns alone are state-of-the-art and, as one might expect, thoroughly doctrinaire and coercive. Once I'd found what I came for, I decided see how the school meets the needs of gay students. The good news is that they're not invisible they way we were in the mid-70s. It's nice to know the school sees us, even if only as part of a larger rainbow. But that's about it. Gays are nothing special compared to their trans classmates. They're just part of the crowd who's hidden behind the hegemonic label "Queer."
Gay people have been around long enough to be roundly condemned in the Old Testament, whereas today's trans is a modern invention rooted in 20th and 21st century philosophy. What is it they didn't like about us in Old Testament times? That's right: we were men who had sex with men. That is one fundamental and, I think, eternal difference between gay people and those who identify as the other sex or no sex. In the world of adolescent stereotypes, the quarterback lusts after the cheerleader; his gay team mate lusts after him; and all the trans-wannabe girl cheerleader can think about is trying to pass as a guy. Among trans people, the compulsive focus on identity and appearance hasn't just temporarily replaced the adolescent interest in romance and sex; it has sent it into exile.
If the gay youth of today are anything like my contemporaries and I were in our teens, their sex drive is far too strong to be sidetracked by "denying the limits of nature and their own bodies, to do everything but except themselves as they are and to direct their focus on what to BE." Living "behind a fragile carapace of identity held together by vanity and shared delusion" is for the unfortunate people who've been captured by gender ideology. It is not a gay thing. Heck, like his straight classmate, the gay teen just wants to make out and, if he's lucky, get laid. And if he can't do that, it's what's going to occupy his thoughts unless something truly pressing comes up.
There's another reality that divides gay from trans. There are exceptions, but for most people the onset of puberty is accompanied by a heightened interest in and attraction to individuals they find sexually desirable. Most of the gay men I know were aware of their same-sex attraction from an early age. They didn't work at it; it just happened. That's why most gay people do not say they "identify as" gay. They ARE gay. I knew I was attracted to males years before I knew there was such a thing as being gay and decades before I met anyone who was gay.
In contrast, if children were not indoctrinated into the tenets of gender identity ideology from a young age in school (to wit: the execrable "Genderbread Person,") a room full of chimps would type the works of William Shakespeare before a tot came up with the 1-2-3s of gender identity on his own. That's because gender identity ideology is neither real nor natural. That is why it has to be taught. And because trans is teachable and so heavily affirmed by our inclusive institutions and the people within them, unfortunate youth who are susceptible to gender ideology due to trauma, a co-morbidity like autism or social contagion come to believe they're trans.
Until and unless the indoctrination ends, trans activists stand down and doctors and mental health professionals resume heavy-handed gatekeeping, the numbers of people identifying as trans will continue to rise. What role does societal acceptance play in the incidence of people coming out as trans compared with those coming out as gay? I submit that the percentage of same-sex attracted people in the population is constant and small. The sea change in the percentage of out gay men between, say, 1960 and 1990 is almost certainly due to greater acceptance and the improved prospects and quality of life that comes with it. I would argue that the incidence of "true trans" people in the population is minuscule, much lower than gays, and that the extraordinary spike isn't due as much to greater acceptance but a huge increase in the number of people who latch onto an illusory trans identity. It beggars belief that enough heterosexual teens could be induced to start having gay sex because it is considered "cool" that it would have an impact on the number of gay people in our society. Even if we accept the Kinsey spectrum where men are exclusively straight on one end and exclusively gay on the other, few males who are members of team straight are going to decide to bat for the other team for the rest of their lives just because somewhere someone is gushing about how great it is to be gay.
In closing, there is an known unknown here that requires some discussion. It concerns the fate and well being of same-sex attracted people who come under the influence of gender identity ideology. How badly do they get their wires crossed? At-risk populations include children who do not conform to sexual stereotypes (I won't say "gender nonconforming because gender in the queer sense is imaginary), kids who've been raised in a homophobic faith and family; effeminate boys; and autistic youth and minors with personality disorders or who have suffered trauma. It is entirely possible that they could be so alienated from their gay sexual orientation that they become one of the lost youth in this essay. I want to think that they are an unfortunate minority. Like everyone else in our society, they will benefit if and when gender identity ideology is relegated to the dustbin of history.
Surely by 2024 it must be well understood that being gay doesn't rule out being masculine or having a family. If I may be so bold, except for a few details, I would say that I have fulfilled the life that the author wishes for her son:
I have grown up to be a strong man who loves a strong man, with all the wonder, grit, disappointment, limitation, and expansion that entails. After helping raise my husband's daughters after his wife passed away, I have seen his features smiling back at me in our grandchildren. We have lived a full life, meeting when I was in my mid-20s and he was 40. He is now 82 and I am pushing 70. This has entailed moving through many phases of life, both good and bad.
It would have been unthinkable for either of us to "get stuck in a Peter Pan phase of sexual childishness and selfishness where consent is the only limit, or in a life where sex is a solo project with visual aids, never integrated into a loving relationship, where parenthood is not on the table." We don't know any gay person who fits that description.
I want to think that most gay youth with dodge the trans mirage and turn our just fine.
In closing, I agree that there is no need to teach K-12 kids how to have sex of any kind. Sex ed should be limited to the facts of life, birth control and STD prevention.
Thank you for this thorough and heartfelt comment. I think gender ideology hijacks the goodwill of gay rights activists- when I say we kept running and ran our kids off a cliff, that's what I mean. People got caught up in the momentum of activism and didn't think about where to draw the line- so that now how young people understand "gay" is hopelessly entangled in gender propaganda. I appreciate the work you put into laying your story out, and I think it is a beautiful story.
Thank you for taking on an extremely fraught issue in such a thought-provoking way. I appreciate your kind words.
I am not even sure there are gay rights activists today, at least not of the kind who won so many civil rights victories under the U.S. Constitution right up to the marriage equality decision in 2015. It's common knowledge that so-called trans rights have supplanted gay rights on the agendas of organizations that were formed to advocate for gay people.
For example, Oregon is one of the states that adopted a constitutional prohibition against same-sex marriage in the run-up to a Bush re-election campaign. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell made that provision unenforceable but it did not repeal it. Justice Thomas as good as invited challenges to Obergefell in dictum in the opinion that overruled Roe v Wade. Years before that, I urged Basic Rights Oregon to mount a campaign to repeal Oregon's constitutional ban on gay marriage. Otherwise, if the religious right succeed in having the Supreme Court marriage equality case overruled and return the regulation of marriage to the states, my husband and I would no longer be married and neither would any other gay couples who are Oregon residents. Basic Rights never replied to my letter or to my follow-up. They're all in for trans and queer, but gays have fallen off the radar.
Today it is practically impossible for sex realists who oppose the many excesses of trans activism, which include opening female-only spaces to men and the ticking time bomb that is gender medicine, to make their case in the mainstream media or most social media.
What's galling is that our institutions adopted gender identity ideology and implemented it undemocratically. Trans activists never had to defend their positions to the general public. We never had an effective say in whether institutions implemented gender ideology through policies and programs such as indoctrinating K-12 students on scientifically baseless concepts like gender. Furthermore, from the get-go trans activists persuaded liberals and progressives that anyone who so much as questioned any of the tenets of gender ideology hated trans people.
I do not know what it is going to take for sex realists to surmount the formidable obstacles to undoing all the harm that trans activism has done to our society in such a short time. What is certain is that if critics like you and countless others do not stand up and tell the truth, gender identity ideology will only strengthen its stranglehold on our society. As much as I oppose the politics in red-state America, one thing their legislatures are getting right is passing laws to protect youth from gender ideology. The Supreme Court will hear a case on gender medicine this year. I hope the gender critical side prevails.
"A drop in birthrate, sure. And increased demand for children engineered artificially outside of heterosexual relationships, without mother and father and at massive cost to women’s bodies (surrogacy, IVF, etc), not to mention technological monstrosities like CRISPR and artificial wombs. Is this the world we want to create?"
I'm glad you brought this up. There is a misguided belief that we are still in an overpopulation crisis. It couldn't be farther from the truth. Most counties in the world (USA included) are heading towards population collapse with dire economic and social consequences. Proponents technologically generated human beings have no idea of the genetic consequences of commandeering procreation after countless millennia of natural childbirth. Neither do advocates of "choosing one's own family" over a traditional family know what that will do to the fabric of human experience (e g Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious).
My wife and I, though heterosexual, always understood from close family and friends who are gay that being gay was never a choice. Now, all of a sudden, *everything* is a choice and every "choice" must be supported, even from children who are inherently inexperienced to be making irreversible decisions with their lives. Merely question the gender ideology narrative, let alone raise concerns, and you will be summarily judged a TERF or bigot, cancelled, and forcibly estranged from your own grandchildren. --JRG
I did not choose to be gay any more than straight people choose to be straight. When puberty kicked in, I was attracted to guys. That's not propaganda. That's my life.
It was. Political affiliation is more genetic than homosexuality. It's just the bien-pensants were uncomfortable with the Ganna GWAS study that destroyed the idea that homosexuality was genetic, so they totally buried its lede:
Beautifully written. I have been feeling the exact same way. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, fighting for gay acceptance and for allowing kids to be who they are , rejecting sex stereotypes. I'm embarrassed to say that when my step children were young, I did almost hope one of them might be gay, so that we could shower them with all that love & acceptance we thought gay kids were being deprived of. To prove our ideals. Now as my own child enters puberty, I have been having the exact same musings you described, and questioning what has changed in me. Nothing would dim my love for him, but I so hope he is not gay, for all the reasons you illustrated.
Thank you Jennifer. It's a strange process, walking back some of one's previously strongly-held positions. I really like your phrase "nothing would dim my love for him..." yes, exactly. :)
i can understand this. my wife and i want to be parents, but we don’t know how to start. we’re not rich, and being rich would make it a little easier. it was a lot easier for our straight neighbors: they have one beautiful little girl and another on the way, all in the last year or two.
i never had a choice but i don’t at all blame bisexuals who choose the hetero life. i can sit around and wish someone in policy would make it easier on us but no one is owed the right to be parents. we will just have to figure it out.
Sadly in about 10 years we will hear the horror stories of those that transitioned and took hormones and have life long medical issues as well as mental health issues from the "new gay". Yes, there are some now but I believe the future will be very telling.
What is interesting here is the angle about refusing to grow up- the Peter Pan reference- that kids today are under less pressure than ever in human history to grow up.
Makes one afraid that they never will.
I think that is part of what the author is talking about here.
In a traditional society, marriage and children are the markers of adulthood. A society that avoids them can be about a lot of things. It could be about avoiding adulthood.
It shouldn't take bravery to say this, but it does, I know. Thank you for writing it even though it's daunting.
And, I hate this phrase, but in this context it's necessary, as a gay man I agree with you, for all your reasons and some of my own.
“Substack is founded on the belief that writers and their work deserve respect. Keep conversations civil in the comments of this publication and other Substack community spaces, such as events. Respect one other’s perspectives and life experiences in your conversations, and refrain from cruel or derogatory language. “
I’m posting this as a reminder that Substack is for discussions and respecting other viewpoints.
Someone just called me a nasty name, but I noticed he deleted all his comments.
Just put this on here to remind people that we are not in competition here , so there is no need for abusing others ,even if there is a comment that upset you . Give others a chance to explain and let’s keep this civil!
I worry much more about the trans ideology.
What I want by my comment which you read incorrectly is that gays never pushed their beliefs on others, whereas trans do this all the time, ! I consider the trans ideology to be authoritarian..I do not feel that gays or lesbians are authoritarians. So I would really like an explanation from you.
Interesting point. There is perhaps a divide between trad gays and rad gays - which will become messier as time goes on. I just fear as well that the backlash against the latter will spill over onto the former.
Rad gays have a name. They're queer.
Well, you are very harsh! Or overly sensitive ! So..no discussion. As I sad previously, I admired what you have posted previously, but you seem to be able to read other people’s motives as being negative.. too bad . Perhaps look at what makes you so angry?
Would you please explain what you mean? I generally agree with everything you post, and I didn’t mean my statement as denying your comment on gays .
I'm struck by how easily the organic body-mind can be overtaken by a socially created narrative. It's so obvious that TQ+ is strictly a mental narrative that is in complete opposition to the human instinctual body. This narrative is anti-life in multiple ways, not only going against the nature of the body, but also leading to destruction of family and childbearing. And yeah, for many kids and their parents, the new gay is a destructive force. Psychoanalytically speaking, this narrative is an example of Thanatos, the death instinct, pushing people towards death and extinction. It's opposite is Eros, the life instinct.
Thank you, this perspective is intriguing and I'd like to learn more about those concepts.
Both Thanatos and Eros are pre-Socratic ideas representing two aspects of human experience. Heraclitus is known for the concept of "the unity of opposites" including life and death. More recently, Freud included the psychological idea of Thanatos in his work, while Jung focused more on Psyche and Eros. My understanding is that, while Thanatos and Eros exist as potential in the individual psyche, these opposites also exist at various levels of the collective, and tend to be cyclical. For instance, following WWII the U.S. was focused on peace time and rebuilding social structures that had been disrupted by war. Family and children became a central focus. The 'happy days' of the 50s and early 60s reflected this, including family businesses, American made, and a burgeoning middle class. All of this was focused on 'life'. Now, 75+ years later, many of the activities that supported life, quality of life, and the middle class, have become their opposite (this is called 'enantiodromia'). Medicine has become anti-medicine (e.g., gender affirming care sterilizing kids), the food supply is not healthy, corporations have killed local businesses, the job market, and the middle class, technology has run rampant, and people are not having children, either because they have become infertile or don't want to raise children in an environment that does not support life. Not to get too political, but we can also see this in the fight between Hamas (the death cult) and the Israeli people (l'chaim! To Life!). The pendulum will eventually swing from Thanatos back to Eros, but it will take some time.
Thank you for these insights!
> It's so obvious that TQ+ is strictly a mental narrative that is in complete opposition to the human instinctual body.
The same is true of the LGB.
As a gay man I beg to differ. There is nothing imaginary about same-sex attraction. To the extent there is a gay ideology, it revolves around the fight for individual civil rights and an end to second-class status. I'm not even going to honor the second part of the claim with a response.
I apologize in advance, because I don't want to offend you, but I expect I will. Because I'm going to argue that it doesn't matter if some people are born with same-sex attraction or not. Just as it doesn't matter that some people may be born as MAPs. Society has an interest in *suppressing* both of those behaviors (and trans too). The real question is: how much suppression?
I would argue that if consenting adults want to enjoy each others company, that's fine - especially in private, that's none of my business. However, when their behaviors start *influencing* children, then it becomes my business as a member of society. And that is the explicit goal of many activists (I'm against the entire array of these "Pride" promotions - is there a "Heteronormal Pride parade"?)
I want as much heteronormality in the society as possible, just as I want as much liberty and personal opportunity as possible, because I believe those things will lead to the most prosperous society in the future. I understand there is some conflict between them, and I'm sorry for that, but the current state of society is leading towards some real problems.
I do not know if you will have empathy for my position. I do have empathy for yours, however, I also feel you have incentives that are ultimately contrary to the benefit of our future generations. And that is very unfortunate, as I believe, just from reading what you're written here, that you are a very thoughtful person, perhaps born with a condition that, through no fault of your own, brings you into tangential conflict with certain societal goals, which I believe are vitally important.
Funny, the trans people say exactly the same thing.
We now have the beginning of a wave of deaths due to the iatrogenic harms of puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones and radical sex trait modification surgeries. Griffin Sivrin, natal female, died at age 24 a few months ago, cause was sepsis resulting after a botched 'phalloplasty.' She documented her agony on social media for months before her death. Yarden Seveira, natal male, died last year at age 24, a suicide. He'd been revisiting Mount Sinai Hospital to ask the surgeon, Dr. Oren Gavis, if there was any chance of reversing the botched 'vaginoplasty' which caused a colon blockage. Mount Sinai Hospital responded by banning him from entry into any of their facilities. Liam Johns, a natal female and mother of 2 young children, died of liver failure after months on dialysis due to testosterone poisoning. She was 35. Oh yes. Dr. Oren Gavis is no longer performing 'vaginoplasties.' He's been relegated to facial surgeries.
Griffin Sean Sivret is the correct name. She suffered greatly. She wrote how the surgeries did not resolve her dysphoria and dysmorphia.
Very sad! All this Frankenstein medical malpractice should end, but with a Democratic president in the future, I’m not hopeful! Plus it has contaminated so much of global society, that there is little chance that sanity will return any time soon.
These deaths are the result of dozens of doctors' actions.
Terrible! A real medical scandal ! And so many victims!
Absolutely disgusting! That doctor should be in jail! How many other deaths from this anti human ideology?
I am glad my kids are not gay, but even more that they were born before the cult of trans took over .My younger grandchildren seem totally normal and their parents know what is going on and are raising their children well.
Minus the Pride flags, this could have been my family you saw (well, also minus the brother - both my kids are girls, though one would deny it). I remember reading something a couple years before life went off the rails about how much more common it was to be transgender among kids who’d been identified as “gifted” (whatever that really means) and I thought “Wow, that would be really difficult, but obviously I’d know that by now so I’m glad I don’t have to worry about it!” I believed the narrative that “trans” is some inborn, biologically determined thing that kids know and insist on from the time they’re very young. And since all other viewpoints are not allowed, and I’d never had reason to give it more thought than that, I believed it.
Needless to say, I’ve now had reason to give it more thought and I know that the official narrative is, well, total bullshit. Everything you said is correct. It’s a rejection of self. These kids have absolutely been manipulated by a self-interested community that doesn’t care how many lives they destroy. The kids are living their lives as fake personas, building identities instead of growing up. They are terrified of responsibility, terrified of people having expectations of them, terrified of the idea of having kids. They are terrified of being shamed for being “basic” and “privileged”, and this is the one disadvantaged identity that one can opt into. My daughter had a boyfriend and so she was a “gay boy” and he was “bisexual” because he was dating her - so they were two straight kids pretending to be gay so they could fit in. I thought the whole purpose of gay rights was so that people wouldn’t have to pretend to be something they’re not to fit in? You’re absolutely right about the fact that this is being marketed to kids, and the most vulnerable kids, the ones who don’t fit in, the ones who’ve always felt a little different, the ones who got made fun of, are the ones falling for it.
Not all parents are happy about this. I didn’t sign up for this. It’s incredibly painful to watch. I don’t want to be an ally. I want to be the mom of two wonderful, amazing daughters who are confident and true to themselves and lovely just as they are. One is doing well, but the other just fell down this internet rabbit hole and got sucked into what I believe is essentially like a cult. I hang on as tight as I can, try not to say too much, and remind myself every day that you can’t control another person’s thoughts and feelings. Maybe someday she’ll wake up. I hope so.
Well said. Your clear, articulate voice is needed. Keep speaking up.
Best wishes! I don't have a daughter or son in this situation, but my heart goes our to you and any other parent who has to go through this experience.
You nailed it. That “thing” I’ve felt yet heard no one describe until now. Thank you for your courage in spelling it out for us.
Thank you, Glenda 🙏
Coming out of my very deep, dark closet was an enormous improvement in my life, no, truly life saving. I could never have recovered from an ultimately fatal addiction without it.
Nevertheless, I sometimes recall a routine the great Lenny Bruce had about ways of admitting to others you're Jewish. One way was claiming, " I'm 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘥 I'm Jewish." "Who could be 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘥 to be Jewish except maybe a masochist?". Same for being gay.
Some years ago there was a campaign aimed at young people struggling with an emerging same-sex orientation with the theme, "It gets better." As someone who came of age in 1950's Texas, I want to say to the youngsters, you cannot imagine how much better. The gay character doesn't have to die before the end of the movie now.
Most of the young females who are calling themselves non-binary are heterosexual! Some of the young females who call themselves "transmen" and want to be accepted by gay males are heterosexual! Most of the adult males who are calling themselves transwomen are heterosexual with the sexual fetish of autogynephilia! The billionaires who have been financing the takeover of our universities and other institutions by transgender ideology are heterosexual! https://www.the11thhourblog.com/ Why call what is happening the new "gay" when it has actually hijacked the actual movement that promoted acceptance and the civil rights of homosexual men and women, and promoted the idea that a female attracted to a female "must be a man" and a male attracted to males "must be a woman"? What is "gay" about heterosexual males with the paraphilia of autogynephilia insisting that they should have access to single-sex female spaces? It is not just homosexual young people who are being victimized by transgender activism. Young people who have been sexually and otherwise abused, and/or who are autistic, and/or who have numerous mental health co-morbidities, and/or who have been adopted (particularly by parents of a different "race") or are in foster care are all more likely to be victimized by transgender activists.
Some simpler, more widely understood, non-Greek terms for adult - no, post pubescent - men who seek access to women-only spaces such as restrooms and locker rooms are 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘱 and 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵. Using clear, easily understood language is a virtue. We should all, myself included, resolve to do our best to use it.
There are lots of different types of perverts. Most of them aren't nearly as bad as autogynephiles, who are at once massively perverted, schoolmarmily censorious, and obsessed with invading and conquering every area of public and private life. They need to be named specifically, so ordinary people can recognize them and understand what to expect from them specifically.
Agreed! What's needed, though, is a one or two syllable word for them, the more contemptuous the better, to distinguish them from the pervs who conceal cameras in women's restrooms. Anybody got one to suggest?
AGP is three syllables. The term "troon" also has a lot of overlap with autogynephilia, given that it was invented to describe Something Awful goons who happened to be transexual, and you can bet at least 80% of them were AGP.
Once?
Calling trans the new gay is shorthand for two ideas.
One is that the reason straight people jumped on the trans bandwagon so hard and so fast is that they were guilty about how gay people were treated for so very long so they made up for it by being super affirming and inclusive toward trans people right away.
The other is that trans activists promoted the gay/trans analogy to reduce resistance to an otherwise outlandish set of beliefs.
I understand what you are saying.
The problem for me is that calling what is happening "the new gay" can play into what the T are trying to do: exploit the positive feelings and acceptance that people now have of lesbians and gay men (and the homosexual feelings of bisexual people) in order to get people to accept and support T, which has nothing to do with homosexual orientation. Most people assume that men who ID as transwomen are simply feminine gay males. They really do think that "transwomen" are homosexual men. They do not understand that most males who ID as transwomen are in fact heterosexual males with autogynephilia.
Those homosexual males who are trying to look like feminine women are most often doing so to escape the negative consequences of being a homosexual male, which can include being executed in some cultures/countries and/or to attract male sexual partners who are heterosexual but for whom it is "enough" that a sexual partner appear to be female/feminine. Males do tend to be very "visually" attracted. I have had many gay male friends tell me that some gay men really consider it an accomplishment to seduce a straight man. One way to do that is to look as much like a feminine woman as possible.
Support for gay men and lesbians is now declining because so many members of the public are alienated by the truly outrageous public behavior of the men who claim to be transwomen, including very pedophilic behavior such as "drag queens reading to children"
Calling what is happening "the new gay" just increases the backlash gay men and lesbians are now experiencing because of T hitching a ride on LGB.
It is not a radical thing to say "I hope my kids won't be gay". I find it bothersome that you would even characterize a statement likely true for greater than 90% of people for over 500 years including now as something that would come across as "radical"
Glad to hear that!
This is a question for the author. How much of what you've written about gay life and people today is based on your first-hand knowledge? Take this passage:
"It's gay™️: a fantasy-scape virtual reality where you can invent new ways to define youself and your social world will ripple outward to encompass and applaud each new avatar. Because if I support your delusion you'll support mine. It's a way to create, for a generation of play-deprived, screen-raised kids to PLAY with each other."
Have you witnessed this? Do you know gay young people who exhibit that behavior and possess those attitudes and beliefs? If not, what sources inform your arguments?
I'm a gay man in my late 60s. I wouldn't wish the dystopian world of your essay on a gay youngster any more than I would want him to spend what should be his formative years trapped in the closet like I was during high school, college and law school during the decade of the 1970s. I missed out on the romance, sex and relationships that my straight peers at my educational institutions took for granted. I was in my mid-20s before the experiences I should have had starting at age 14 were finally available.
I'll come right out and say I don't know any gay youth. There are none in my small family circle (that I know of) or in my even smaller social circle. For that matter, I can't recall the last time I read a story about gay youngsters in the mainstream media.
While my storehouse of knowledge about contemporary gay youth and young adults is empty, I think I have a fairly good picture of life under gender identity ideology. It was Will "Lia" Thomas and the sheer unfairness of his strapping manly body competing against women that turned me into a sex realist. I am an avid consumer of information and opinion about the social manifestations of gender ideology.
On that basis, I get the distinct impression that gay youth have been abandoned as the public has stampeded towards the new bright shiny thing called gender and all the exotic new identities who owe their existence to gender ideology. Sure, there are probably more rainbows in our public schools now than could have been found on any Gay Pride day in San Francisco in the late 70s. But today's rainbow flag has picked up a hitchhiker who has no intention of leaving. It's that triangle at the top consisting of the bruise-like trans colors and intruders in the form of identity group markers. The phrase "LGBTQ" may be ubiquitous today, but "LGB"? It's almost extinct. It's practically unheard-of for trans activists and their myriad allies to utter the word "gay," much less concern themselves with the welfare of gay people.
Here I do have evidence to back up my claim that Queer and Trans have pushed gay to the back of the bus. Just last week I looked into what my alma mater is doing to support students who belong to the set who say they "identify as."
It turns out the university has built a lavish administrative infrastructure and programming to welcome, affirm and accommodate trans and nonbinary kids. The online materials on preferred pronouns alone are state-of-the-art and, as one might expect, thoroughly doctrinaire and coercive. Once I'd found what I came for, I decided see how the school meets the needs of gay students. The good news is that they're not invisible they way we were in the mid-70s. It's nice to know the school sees us, even if only as part of a larger rainbow. But that's about it. Gays are nothing special compared to their trans classmates. They're just part of the crowd who's hidden behind the hegemonic label "Queer."
Gay people have been around long enough to be roundly condemned in the Old Testament, whereas today's trans is a modern invention rooted in 20th and 21st century philosophy. What is it they didn't like about us in Old Testament times? That's right: we were men who had sex with men. That is one fundamental and, I think, eternal difference between gay people and those who identify as the other sex or no sex. In the world of adolescent stereotypes, the quarterback lusts after the cheerleader; his gay team mate lusts after him; and all the trans-wannabe girl cheerleader can think about is trying to pass as a guy. Among trans people, the compulsive focus on identity and appearance hasn't just temporarily replaced the adolescent interest in romance and sex; it has sent it into exile.
If the gay youth of today are anything like my contemporaries and I were in our teens, their sex drive is far too strong to be sidetracked by "denying the limits of nature and their own bodies, to do everything but except themselves as they are and to direct their focus on what to BE." Living "behind a fragile carapace of identity held together by vanity and shared delusion" is for the unfortunate people who've been captured by gender ideology. It is not a gay thing. Heck, like his straight classmate, the gay teen just wants to make out and, if he's lucky, get laid. And if he can't do that, it's what's going to occupy his thoughts unless something truly pressing comes up.
There's another reality that divides gay from trans. There are exceptions, but for most people the onset of puberty is accompanied by a heightened interest in and attraction to individuals they find sexually desirable. Most of the gay men I know were aware of their same-sex attraction from an early age. They didn't work at it; it just happened. That's why most gay people do not say they "identify as" gay. They ARE gay. I knew I was attracted to males years before I knew there was such a thing as being gay and decades before I met anyone who was gay.
In contrast, if children were not indoctrinated into the tenets of gender identity ideology from a young age in school (to wit: the execrable "Genderbread Person,") a room full of chimps would type the works of William Shakespeare before a tot came up with the 1-2-3s of gender identity on his own. That's because gender identity ideology is neither real nor natural. That is why it has to be taught. And because trans is teachable and so heavily affirmed by our inclusive institutions and the people within them, unfortunate youth who are susceptible to gender ideology due to trauma, a co-morbidity like autism or social contagion come to believe they're trans.
Until and unless the indoctrination ends, trans activists stand down and doctors and mental health professionals resume heavy-handed gatekeeping, the numbers of people identifying as trans will continue to rise. What role does societal acceptance play in the incidence of people coming out as trans compared with those coming out as gay? I submit that the percentage of same-sex attracted people in the population is constant and small. The sea change in the percentage of out gay men between, say, 1960 and 1990 is almost certainly due to greater acceptance and the improved prospects and quality of life that comes with it. I would argue that the incidence of "true trans" people in the population is minuscule, much lower than gays, and that the extraordinary spike isn't due as much to greater acceptance but a huge increase in the number of people who latch onto an illusory trans identity. It beggars belief that enough heterosexual teens could be induced to start having gay sex because it is considered "cool" that it would have an impact on the number of gay people in our society. Even if we accept the Kinsey spectrum where men are exclusively straight on one end and exclusively gay on the other, few males who are members of team straight are going to decide to bat for the other team for the rest of their lives just because somewhere someone is gushing about how great it is to be gay.
In closing, there is an known unknown here that requires some discussion. It concerns the fate and well being of same-sex attracted people who come under the influence of gender identity ideology. How badly do they get their wires crossed? At-risk populations include children who do not conform to sexual stereotypes (I won't say "gender nonconforming because gender in the queer sense is imaginary), kids who've been raised in a homophobic faith and family; effeminate boys; and autistic youth and minors with personality disorders or who have suffered trauma. It is entirely possible that they could be so alienated from their gay sexual orientation that they become one of the lost youth in this essay. I want to think that they are an unfortunate minority. Like everyone else in our society, they will benefit if and when gender identity ideology is relegated to the dustbin of history.
Surely by 2024 it must be well understood that being gay doesn't rule out being masculine or having a family. If I may be so bold, except for a few details, I would say that I have fulfilled the life that the author wishes for her son:
I have grown up to be a strong man who loves a strong man, with all the wonder, grit, disappointment, limitation, and expansion that entails. After helping raise my husband's daughters after his wife passed away, I have seen his features smiling back at me in our grandchildren. We have lived a full life, meeting when I was in my mid-20s and he was 40. He is now 82 and I am pushing 70. This has entailed moving through many phases of life, both good and bad.
It would have been unthinkable for either of us to "get stuck in a Peter Pan phase of sexual childishness and selfishness where consent is the only limit, or in a life where sex is a solo project with visual aids, never integrated into a loving relationship, where parenthood is not on the table." We don't know any gay person who fits that description.
I want to think that most gay youth with dodge the trans mirage and turn our just fine.
In closing, I agree that there is no need to teach K-12 kids how to have sex of any kind. Sex ed should be limited to the facts of life, birth control and STD prevention.
Thank you for this thorough and heartfelt comment. I think gender ideology hijacks the goodwill of gay rights activists- when I say we kept running and ran our kids off a cliff, that's what I mean. People got caught up in the momentum of activism and didn't think about where to draw the line- so that now how young people understand "gay" is hopelessly entangled in gender propaganda. I appreciate the work you put into laying your story out, and I think it is a beautiful story.
Thank you for taking on an extremely fraught issue in such a thought-provoking way. I appreciate your kind words.
I am not even sure there are gay rights activists today, at least not of the kind who won so many civil rights victories under the U.S. Constitution right up to the marriage equality decision in 2015. It's common knowledge that so-called trans rights have supplanted gay rights on the agendas of organizations that were formed to advocate for gay people.
For example, Oregon is one of the states that adopted a constitutional prohibition against same-sex marriage in the run-up to a Bush re-election campaign. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell made that provision unenforceable but it did not repeal it. Justice Thomas as good as invited challenges to Obergefell in dictum in the opinion that overruled Roe v Wade. Years before that, I urged Basic Rights Oregon to mount a campaign to repeal Oregon's constitutional ban on gay marriage. Otherwise, if the religious right succeed in having the Supreme Court marriage equality case overruled and return the regulation of marriage to the states, my husband and I would no longer be married and neither would any other gay couples who are Oregon residents. Basic Rights never replied to my letter or to my follow-up. They're all in for trans and queer, but gays have fallen off the radar.
Today it is practically impossible for sex realists who oppose the many excesses of trans activism, which include opening female-only spaces to men and the ticking time bomb that is gender medicine, to make their case in the mainstream media or most social media.
What's galling is that our institutions adopted gender identity ideology and implemented it undemocratically. Trans activists never had to defend their positions to the general public. We never had an effective say in whether institutions implemented gender ideology through policies and programs such as indoctrinating K-12 students on scientifically baseless concepts like gender. Furthermore, from the get-go trans activists persuaded liberals and progressives that anyone who so much as questioned any of the tenets of gender ideology hated trans people.
I do not know what it is going to take for sex realists to surmount the formidable obstacles to undoing all the harm that trans activism has done to our society in such a short time. What is certain is that if critics like you and countless others do not stand up and tell the truth, gender identity ideology will only strengthen its stranglehold on our society. As much as I oppose the politics in red-state America, one thing their legislatures are getting right is passing laws to protect youth from gender ideology. The Supreme Court will hear a case on gender medicine this year. I hope the gender critical side prevails.
"A drop in birthrate, sure. And increased demand for children engineered artificially outside of heterosexual relationships, without mother and father and at massive cost to women’s bodies (surrogacy, IVF, etc), not to mention technological monstrosities like CRISPR and artificial wombs. Is this the world we want to create?"
I'm glad you brought this up. There is a misguided belief that we are still in an overpopulation crisis. It couldn't be farther from the truth. Most counties in the world (USA included) are heading towards population collapse with dire economic and social consequences. Proponents technologically generated human beings have no idea of the genetic consequences of commandeering procreation after countless millennia of natural childbirth. Neither do advocates of "choosing one's own family" over a traditional family know what that will do to the fabric of human experience (e g Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious).
My wife and I, though heterosexual, always understood from close family and friends who are gay that being gay was never a choice. Now, all of a sudden, *everything* is a choice and every "choice" must be supported, even from children who are inherently inexperienced to be making irreversible decisions with their lives. Merely question the gender ideology narrative, let alone raise concerns, and you will be summarily judged a TERF or bigot, cancelled, and forcibly estranged from your own grandchildren. --JRG
> My wife and I, though heterosexual, always understood from close family and friends who are gay that being gay was never a choice.
Frankly that was just as much propaganda as the current trans craze.
I did not choose to be gay any more than straight people choose to be straight. When puberty kicked in, I was attracted to guys. That's not propaganda. That's my life.
It was. Political affiliation is more genetic than homosexuality. It's just the bien-pensants were uncomfortable with the Ganna GWAS study that destroyed the idea that homosexuality was genetic, so they totally buried its lede:
https://geneticsexbehavior.info/
Is there a layman’s version/summation of this study?
That you are verbally abused is because the trans agenda is an authoritarian ideology which doesn’t stand for any dissent.
Beautifully written. I have been feeling the exact same way. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, fighting for gay acceptance and for allowing kids to be who they are , rejecting sex stereotypes. I'm embarrassed to say that when my step children were young, I did almost hope one of them might be gay, so that we could shower them with all that love & acceptance we thought gay kids were being deprived of. To prove our ideals. Now as my own child enters puberty, I have been having the exact same musings you described, and questioning what has changed in me. Nothing would dim my love for him, but I so hope he is not gay, for all the reasons you illustrated.
Thank you Jennifer. It's a strange process, walking back some of one's previously strongly-held positions. I really like your phrase "nothing would dim my love for him..." yes, exactly. :)
i can understand this. my wife and i want to be parents, but we don’t know how to start. we’re not rich, and being rich would make it a little easier. it was a lot easier for our straight neighbors: they have one beautiful little girl and another on the way, all in the last year or two.
i never had a choice but i don’t at all blame bisexuals who choose the hetero life. i can sit around and wish someone in policy would make it easier on us but no one is owed the right to be parents. we will just have to figure it out.
Thank you for sharing this. Painful and good insights.
some kids need homes. i think we’d be good enough.
Please cite your sources.
That is a hateful and ignorant statement.
Sadly in about 10 years we will hear the horror stories of those that transitioned and took hormones and have life long medical issues as well as mental health issues from the "new gay". Yes, there are some now but I believe the future will be very telling.
Once again, "Brave" has to do the work here. I'm impressed.
Impressed enough to upgrade.
Thanks very much!
What is interesting here is the angle about refusing to grow up- the Peter Pan reference- that kids today are under less pressure than ever in human history to grow up.
Makes one afraid that they never will.
I think that is part of what the author is talking about here.
In a traditional society, marriage and children are the markers of adulthood. A society that avoids them can be about a lot of things. It could be about avoiding adulthood.
Hear, hear!