Dennis Prager has a rant at the National Review Online on the self-posed question, “Why the ‘T’ in GLBT?”
First of all, Dennis, it’s LGBT — lesbians first. We found out at the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement that gay men in the 1970’s confused lesbians with their mothers and thought we lived to get them coffee and follow their orders. We promptly disabused them of these notions and to remind them of this we insisted the lesbians get listed first in the acronyms.
Second, “B” and “T” and “S” and “M” and motley hordes of sexual minorities then poured into the gay rights movement without so much as a “by your leave.” Each and every one of them is still intent on claiming superior victim status to entitle them to hijack our movement to their own benefit. Of these minorities, “T” has been the most successful in usurping the energies of lesbians and gays in our quest for equality thanks to their manipulativeness, which is backed up by epic tantrums and histrionic displays.
My own point of view is that transsexualism is a self-mutilation personality disorder and that if transsexuals want civil rights, they should have the integrity to found their own movement. I also want them the hell out of lesbian spaces, which they like to invade and dominate.
I never use the acronym “LGBT” because I think “B” and “T” should be running their own civil rights organizations, neither of which will ever get any support from me.
The bottom line is that the Left has not concocted a plot to blur the distinctions between male and female — although, dude, lighten up, the Fifties are over.
Update, 6/4/2010, Fri.: Over in the Hot Air Green Room, Cassy Fiano has some thoughts about a pair of MTF (male-to-female) transgender women who had both had breast implant surgery but had not yet had their penises flayed and inverted to create a facsimile of a vagina. They took their tops off while sunbathing on the beach in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware, but could not be arrested because they still have penises and there’s no law against men going topless:
My point is that the anatomical truth stands. You can do whatever you want to your body, you can carve it up however you like, but biologically speaking, you remain the gender you were born with.
(snip)
And hey, they have every right to do so. I don’t think there should be any rules against it, nor do I think they should be harassed or intimidated or anything of that nature. If that’s what makes them happy, then go for it. But let’s get real here, and call it what it is.
These two weren’t arrested because they were men, despite their breast implants (and probably countless other gender modifications). Regardless of how much people like Jill huff and puff about it, the fact remains that if you have a penis, you are a MAN.
I figure those two intended to create a drama in which they could hurt everyone around them and yet play the victims. I am sorry that it didn’t end with them going to jail for disturbing the peace.
FYI, if you suspect that someone presenting themselves as a woman is really a man, don’t look for the “package” to give him away, even if he’s wearing a tight bathing suit. They pull the package down between their legs and tape it. Listen to the voice, look at the jaw line and check for an adam’s apple. The bullying is another giveaway.
Bis and Tranis are like party switchers?
BTW, no problem with voters being party switchers (hopefully they are moving in the right direction). Politicians switching during races, however, are usually not motivated by conviction.
So…you’ll be very disappointed if I declare myself to be a transgendered lesbian when it suits me?
Like on “ladies night”, for instance??
I’m only partially joking, as my county comission recently passed an equal rights measure that includes transgendered individuals, and permits them to be self-defined.
So when someone gives me any grief, especially in a business setting, I’m going to be tempted to ask them why are you persecuting a transgendered lesbian?
I R A Darth Aggie,
Go for it and report back! In the business setting, I mean. At a lesbian event, first ask yourself this question: “Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you?”
Cynthia
The bottom line is that the Left has not concocted a plot to blur the distinctions between male and female — although, dude, lighten up, the Fifties are over.
Ok, I confess, I’m not understanding. In many respects, I see where you and Dennis actually agree on major points. But even a cursory reading of gender-feminist sites (such “feminism” is really a wholly-0wned subsidiary of Leftism) demonstrates they do hold that “gender” is a social construct and that any difference between men and women is just part of The Patriarchy’s conspiracy to oppress women (and unconforming men).
So what is so “fifties”? Because he believes the ideal is male/female marriage? Well, so be it, because the Left’s ideal is that the most important relationship an individual can have is NOT with a spouse or one’s own family but with Big Government to meet all your needs.
The Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizen.
Darleen Click,
What is “Fifties” is forcing women and men into rigid sex roles. How old are you? You must be very young not to know what a Procrustean bed that was.
I believe that both you and Dennis Prager do not understand what the majority of feminists mean when they talk about ” ‘gender’ as a social construct.” As a lesbian at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the 1970’s, I was in the freaking thick of this and we were not about trying to make men and women the same. My personal experience of the type of feminism you are citing — going back to the 1970’s — addresses rigid sex roles and advocates greater freedom for women and men to be inner-directed, rather than outer-directed (basing their actions on a set of rules and/or to please authority figures). This has allowed women to get educations, including advanced degrees, and to rise in their careers. Without greater freedom from rigid sex roles, we would not have leaders like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Liz Cheney and Nikki Haley. There would not be women serving as justices in the Supreme Court. We would not have journalists like Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and Megyn Kelly.
Also, listen to yourself. You seem to favor the anti-liberty position of denying homosexuals the equality of choosing a same-sex spouse in a federally-legal marriage. You seem to be OK with Big Government when it is operating as Big Church. One of the main reasons that the Left is able to keep control of liberals is that they perceive a worse totalitarianism on the Right, where they are forced by the government into following the tenets of religions they reject, than on the Left, where they believe they will still have a vote and some freedom of conscience. The totalitarian on the Right seeks to force both belief and conformity of behavior. The totalitarian on the Left seems content with conformity of behavior.
If you have not read Virginia Woolf’s essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” please do so, if only to get a well-documented and well-articulated explanation of the devastation wrought on the lives of women by the enforcement of rigid sex roles.
Cynthia