JohnH wrote:I may look a lot like a woman and want to wear dresses and skirts, but darn it, I ABSOLUTELY refuse to identify as a woman as I am a man. So those of us who have "feminine" tendencies need to be MEN and go against the pernicious narrow conventions and be ourselves. I really appreciate this website where genetic men are not to take on feminine names.
Allow me to expound on the point I was trying, subtly, to make to everyone in the Café in previous posts. Subtley is not my forte, so I’ll offer apologies for hurt-feelings in advance.
The following quote, rightly or wrongly, is attributed to Lyndon Johnson, D-TX, POTUS 1963-1969, according to renowned journalist Bill Moyers: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Let me translate this into the mentality of many in this forum as: "If the most ridiculous heterosexual man can convince himself that he's better than the best homosexual (or transgender) he won't notice that people are laughing their asses off about him."
Please allow me to ask this question (and then answer it myself.) What do you think the average straight person sees when they see you, or any of us, in skirts and dresses? I feel confident in telling you what they DON'T see. They don’t see our excuses and rationalizations. They don't see a heterosexual man acting on his desire for clothing "comfort." They don't see a heterosexual man wrestling with societal oppression of clothing choice. They don't see an individual boldly taking on the constraints of society over their consciousness and/or conscience regarding gender defining clothing. They don’t see a “rebel with a slightly eccentric cause.”
This is what I think we all know they see: QUEER. With a capital Q.
Am I being pessimistic or misanthropic to assert that belief? I think I’m just being realistic.
Are any of us really deluded enough to think that because we rationalize our proclivity to ourselves, and to each other, that we are, by any stretch of imagination, rationalizing it to the broader world? If we deign think so, I’d suggest we are in need of a collective (figurative) DOPE SLAP.
Even if we could clearly, succinctly, concisely articulate that our presumably “vanilla” sexuality and male gender identity has no bearing on our clothing choice, and make it publicly known that we are just “ordinary average guys” in all respects, aside from a harmless (if, arguably, mildly fetishistic) obsession with clothing, the reaction of the broader, bemused world would likely be a collective head-shake and eye-roll, with the patronizing sarcasm of a “Yeah, sure, buddy…whatever…” reply.
My point is that, to the casual (normal) viewer, we ARE ALREADY lumped with, and no different than, any homosexual or transgender individual. The facts, rationalizations, and distinctions, as we preach them to ourselves and one another, really DON'T MATTER...because the casual viewer does not know or care. He/she assesses by instinct, and there is little we can do - aside from earning respect and regard, individual by individual - that can/will abate ignorance. We are and will remain, in the general eye, oddities, curiosities, and, more fundamentally, QUEERS.
So, forgive me if I shake my head at members’ disdain for being "lumped in" with homosexuals and TG folk...because we already are. Expressing disdain just strikes me as a pointless and even harmful exercise. The distinctions we perceive are, for the practical world, invisible, and we hold them mainly to prop-up our own self-images. To the common anonymous “beholder,” our rationalizations and distinctions are meaningless. For any of us who know this fact, yet still worry about keeping our distance from gay and trans-*, suggests that we – who should know better – may still have phobic prejudices of our own to reel-in. I suppose that likelihood does, indeed, make us “ordinary average guys.”
And that is my principal reason for us NOT to distance ourselves from LGBTQ community, even at the possible cost of offending members whose religious values are so retro that they cannot find their way to embrace those who most represent Christ's admonition "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you." Matthew 5:12