Not long ago a popular writer on electricity made this startling prediction of coming wonders: “Lovers conversing at a great distance will behold each other as in the flesh. Doctors will examine patients’ tongues in another city, and the poor will enjoy visual trips wherever their fancy inclines. In hot weather, too, Alpine glaciers and arctic snows will be made visible in sweltering cities, and when piercing northeast winds do blow, we shall gloat over tropical vistas of orchids and palms.”
This is no dream. The new “telephotograph” invention of Dr. Arthur Korn, Professor of Physics in Munich University, is a distinct step nearer the realization of all this, and he assures us that “television,” or seeing by telegraph, is merely a question of a year or two with certain improvements in apparatus.
And then it will surely be possible for the eminent surgeon in New York to see a bullet embedded in the body of a patient in Chicago or San Francisco…
Category Archives: General
DTM Bro
LGB…T
Homer writes about a piece by John Aravosis on transgendered people vs. gays. Aravosis opposes gay groups’ efforts to get gender identity included in ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act), because (1) the bill is never going to pass if transgendered people are included, and (2) when did transgendered people become part of the “gay community” anyway?
Homer takes issue with Aravosis on this, as well as with Andrew Sullivan (who agrees with Aravosis), calling it the opinion of some “well-to-do white men. Enough said there.”
The thing is… I understand where Aravosis is coming from, for a couple of reasons.
One, being transgendered is not the same as being gay. The former is about gender identity, and the latter is about sexual attraction. They’re different. Lumping the two groups together just plays into the misconception that gay men really want to be women and gay women really want to be men. It brings to mind the uninformed straight guy who asks a gay couple, “I don’t get how your relationship works. Which one of you’s the woman?” Um, neither of us. We’re both men.
Granted, sexual identity is not totally separate from gender identity. There are the studies showing that gay people’s brains are more similar to the brains of straight people of the opposite gender, and many of us certainly have characteristics that are more stereotypical of the opposite sex (whether this is learned behavior or has a biological basis isn’t clear).
But some of us are comfortable with this and some aren’t. Among gay men, for example, there’a a whole range of behaviors. On one extreme, some embrace hyper-feminine stereoypes, either as a big fuck-you to society — for example, Chris Crocker; as a way to show gay pride; or for other reasons. On the other extreme, some embrace hyper-masculine stereotypes, searching themselves in fear of any trace of femininity — for example, “I’m lookin’ for other hot dudes.” And then there’s the majority of us who are somewhere in the middle. How you feel about including transgendered people as part of the “gay community” probably has a lot to do with how comfortable you are embracing opposite-gender stereotypes.
Furthermore, all groups that work for change have an inner divide. Do you try to accommodate and compromise, or do you brook no opposition? Do you try to change the majority’s attitudes, which takes longer, or do you accept that attitudes are hard to change and work for what you can get? There are advantages and disadvantages either way.
(I do get embarrassed when I hear people at rallies speaking in support of the “lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgendered community,” or “the LGBTQ-identified community,” or whatever, because it sounds like a parody of early-’90s university English department political correctness. I’m not saying the concept is unworthy; I’m just saying it’s unfortunate how it comes across.)
So it’s complicated, as everything always is, and I think both sides have some points. I love ya, Homer — but I think it’s a bit simplistic to say that Aravosis’s opinion arises merely from his being a “well-to-do white man.”