Jesus dude it's a perfectly fair question framed in the context of when we grew up and the nature of our experiences in realizing we deviated from a rigidly enforced social norm. Why would we want to whitewash that history?
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Serious LGBTQ
- Thread starter Chinchou
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EV
Banned deucer.
There's always the option to ignore the question, which is what I did originally. Worse yet would have been to acknowledge it and accept it, which is what I'm gathering some people are comfortable doing. But I chose to challenge the status quo. I don't often get involved in Cong threads/debates but this felt particularly close to home and I wanted to contribute my opinion.
I don't know if Adiane is part of the LGBTQ+ crowd. Regardless, the question is inherently flawed. Note that my problem wasn't that Adiane was curious about people's self-realization in this thread. Rather I took chagrin with it being couched in a straight-as-the-default assumption.
And by no means am I trying to attack Adiane. So I apologize to you directly if it came off that way.
I don't know if Adiane is part of the LGBTQ+ crowd. Regardless, the question is inherently flawed. Note that my problem wasn't that Adiane was curious about people's self-realization in this thread. Rather I took chagrin with it being couched in a straight-as-the-default assumption.
And by no means am I trying to attack Adiane. So I apologize to you directly if it came off that way.
I wasn't trying to whitewash anything. I think you misinterpreted my post. Also it's pretty ironic you would even mention "whitewashing history," when propagating the assumed straight-as-the-default orientation does that exactly. It erases the possibility that LGBTQ+ people might even exist on their own and instead implies they exist solely in the absence of the norm.
Except it doesn't unless you read the question with a tremendous lack of charity. For many of us, the way Adiane framed the question was a perfectly fair one and more accurately reflects the context in which we came out, and the experience of that coming out. It acknowledges the inherent courage and radicalness of the act given history and the culture of the time, and shaming him for that framing actually does more to undermine that than support it.
And maybe that's not at all what you intended, but notice how immediately hostile this whole thing gets when you starting policing people asking genuine questions under the least charitable reading of their intentions, and likely the irony of this whole thing will become clear.
Im certain that I didnt have any sexual attractions at all until around age 13. (I had two disastrous 'straight' relationships before that) And that was just pictures on the inernet. I cant exactly recall when I started to notice that people in real life were attractive; that probably wasnt until I turned 14-15.
Which is funny because nowadays Im one of those people that are like "3 oclock dont stare, eyebrows and biceps, nice shoes, 8.5/10" while all my friends are playing Pokemon Go
Which is funny because nowadays Im one of those people that are like "3 oclock dont stare, eyebrows and biceps, nice shoes, 8.5/10" while all my friends are playing Pokemon Go
yeah i'mma be honest here straight ~is~ the default in our society. discovering our non-straightness is pretty damn accurate because when the rest of the world defaults to straight being not-straight is inherently subversive and is in fact probably a better overall quantifier than gay or bi or queer or anything else. in fact, non-straight sexualities are defined by their non-straightness so "when did you realize you were non-straight" is perhaps the most valid and fair way to ask that question.
honestly, realizing i was "not-straight" was exactly my process of discovering my sexuality. when society tells you that "boys fall in love with girls and girls only", that is taken at face value and accepted until evidence is provided to the contrary. it's not a matter of "when you became LGBTQ", it's a matter of "when you realized you were LGBTQ" which is exactly what the question was asking.
also quelling discourse under the argument of "we shouldn't have to have this conversation if society was equal" is a shit thing to do because society isn't equal and if don't talk about it it sure as hell isn't going to become more equal. pretending equality exists where it does not has a history of failing miserably in terms of enacting real change [see: colorblindness].
while phrases like "when did you realize you weren't like everyone else" are rather extreme and dramatic and downplay the number of queer people in the world, they're also largely accurate to the initial sense of isolation, exclusion, and alienation that characterize many queer people's realization that they aren't straight.
I think part of what made me realize my own sexuality was my propensity to pretend to be female/play extremely "girly" roles despite being a man. I thought I was just being comfortable in my heterosexuality, to be honest: "Adiane" is a holdover from that phase.
Oh, and Thor 2.
Oh, and Thor 2.
I don't think there's necessarily a connection. I usually play as a female, pick healer/support classes, like a lot of the "girly" pokemon, enjoy cooking and sewing plushies, etc, yet I'm still straight.
ye probably because without straight people (and bis in m/f relationships) humans would basically die off, so it makes sense that straightness is the norm
Well, for me there was.
Thor 2, like, the movie? Wait, what?
*googles it*
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oh
I get it.
Anyways, to be completely honest I've never really experienced this "oh shit im gay" moment in my life, or at the very least I don't remember to. I just sort of always knew, but didn't know how to call it, does that make sense?
When did I come to terms with it, though? Now that took a hell of a while for a plethora of reasons.
Ten was when I found out what I was experiencing was not just a glitch in the matrix but actually a known and stigmatised phenomenon, I had a breakdown tbh
If I'd known you could be not straight I'd say five but I had no model for it until I heard ppl in my class gossip about t.a.t.u.
So I do think it matters that straightness is the default to the exclusion of awareness there are other possibilities, even
I started questioning when I was 17 and I figured out my sexuality at 20, and I'm still in the closet now at 23, I think it depends from person to person.
I actually don't know how to define me, I think I'm pansexual, but I don't like labels, I focus on who I am instead on what I am.
I'm closeted too. You guys are literally the first people I have ever told. :(
I realized around the age of 8, I found someone attractive in the year/grade above me. It didn't really sink in until I was around 14 or 15 though I just brushed it off until then and I came out to some friends at the age of 18, some close family members not long afterwards and I was open to everyone I met at university.
However I'm still not out to my dad's side of the family due to my dad being quite homophobic, I know he probably wouldn't cut contact with me but it's just his attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community so I know he would still treat me different and I'm not ready for that yet. I know I can come out to others on his side of the family but I'd rather he heard it from myself first than someone else accidentally letting it slip to him.
I'm 22 btw.
I sort of always knew, looking back it's been a progressive "wait.. nonoNONONO FUCK, im really gay aren't I" type of thing. The hardest part was coming to terms with it and realizing it without trying to make any excuses for myself or that I'll 'grow out of it'. So, I guess within the last few years was when I started to fully accept that I wasn't straight.
When did you come to terms with it? And who are you afraid to tell it to?
There are some countries where being gay is not just stigmatised against but criminalised against, and LGBT people who live there cannot be open without repercussions.
pokemonisfun
Banned deucer.
I knew for sure AFTER my boyfriend asked me out! I just thought it was a friendly movie but then he asked me to start dating. Naturally I rejected but then I thought later that night he was pretty pretty and super smart so here we are several years later in love :)
I'm so lucky to live in a liberal country. Frankly all the queers in the Middle East, where states like Saudi Arabia have the harshest anti queer laws (and anti human rights in general) probably have it the worst, apart from some African states. This a reason why all politically aware queers should be hoping for democratic change in the Middle East and support Israel as a bastion of liberal democracy in one of the least democratic parts of the world.
As for moving though all I can say is I'm lucky I do not need to think about that.
I'm so lucky to live in a liberal country. Frankly all the queers in the Middle East, where states like Saudi Arabia have the harshest anti queer laws (and anti human rights in general) probably have it the worst, apart from some African states. This a reason why all politically aware queers should be hoping for democratic change in the Middle East and support Israel as a bastion of liberal democracy in one of the least democratic parts of the world.
As for moving though all I can say is I'm lucky I do not need to think about that.
Liberal democracies aren't the only societies where being gay isn't criminalised (especially since plenty of people here dying extrajudically and it's very recent that it wasn't criminal; many of Israel's anti-LGBTQ laws were formed as part of its colonial statehood), and many liberal democracies criminalise or at least legally discriminate against many aspects of being gay or trans, or legalise such discrimination. I don't see the logical connection between supporting Israel and liberalism and supporting the emancipation of queer people in other societies, and I'm not about to tell e.g. Palestinian queer people (some of whom I know irl; it's complex given the way Palestine is for LGBTQ people) that they should accept colonisation and subjugation part and parcel, or other countries that they should accept war. Like it seems a bit of an off-topic opinion to be like 'if you like queer people you should like Israel' since LGBTQ rights in Israel (or the US) are not particularly advanced, only relative to some of their neighbouring states (their law on ID is pretty advanced but that's only because not many states legislate much on trans people at all except to deny our existence)
That being said my solidarity is and always will be with queer and other oppressed peoples worldwide and the righteousness of their own liberation
We can do better and should always strive for better, now and in the future, without throwing parts of our (queer poc etc.) community under the bus
That being said my solidarity is and always will be with queer and other oppressed peoples worldwide and the righteousness of their own liberation
We can do better and should always strive for better, now and in the future, without throwing parts of our (queer poc etc.) community under the bus
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pokemonisfun
Banned deucer.
I'm not going to argue with you jumpluff because I know you're more well versed than me and I would just lose hah, I'm actually curious though as a gay person about LGBT rights worldwide so I would just like to explain to you my thought process of my post.
1) I have used polityIV before ( http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm ), which is a respected scholarly source, to look at which countries are democracies and non democracies based on their index which includes, transparency of elections, changes in power, rule of law, etc. all the good stuff associated with measuring regime type
2) I thought it would be a good idea to just look at gay rights for countries so I found out about this site ( http://www.equaldex.com/ )
3) What I saw: there is a pretty obvious correlation between non democracies and criminalizing homosexuality (which I know doesn't cover the gender identity issue yet but its just a start)
4) Israel in particular always fascinated me as a democracy surrounded by nondemocracies and throughout its history often hostile states
5) I thought this was relevant because someone posted what would you do if you lived in a country where being queer was illegal.
Basically what I tried to say was being a liberal democracy has a good track record for gay rights - and I doubt that this is just some spurious relationship, I know that some scholars say that gay rights come naturally with post industrial societies and other scholars who say democracies come after modernization only (although this is probably the minority opinion now) so put together you get some type of logical flow modernization -> democracy -> gay rights.
You'll notice I never said anyone should be colonized. I said all people should support democracies of which Israel is a particularly important one. I say this because I think that will advance rights for queer people.
That said I know Israel is not without controversy, I should have qualified my statement by saying "support the democratic parts of Israel" or even "support democracy" and scrap Israel altogether...its just that my boyfriend is Jewish :(
1) I have used polityIV before ( http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm ), which is a respected scholarly source, to look at which countries are democracies and non democracies based on their index which includes, transparency of elections, changes in power, rule of law, etc. all the good stuff associated with measuring regime type
2) I thought it would be a good idea to just look at gay rights for countries so I found out about this site ( http://www.equaldex.com/ )
3) What I saw: there is a pretty obvious correlation between non democracies and criminalizing homosexuality (which I know doesn't cover the gender identity issue yet but its just a start)
4) Israel in particular always fascinated me as a democracy surrounded by nondemocracies and throughout its history often hostile states
5) I thought this was relevant because someone posted what would you do if you lived in a country where being queer was illegal.
Basically what I tried to say was being a liberal democracy has a good track record for gay rights - and I doubt that this is just some spurious relationship, I know that some scholars say that gay rights come naturally with post industrial societies and other scholars who say democracies come after modernization only (although this is probably the minority opinion now) so put together you get some type of logical flow modernization -> democracy -> gay rights.
You'll notice I never said anyone should be colonized. I said all people should support democracies of which Israel is a particularly important one. I say this because I think that will advance rights for queer people.
That said I know Israel is not without controversy, I should have qualified my statement by saying "support the democratic parts of Israel" or even "support democracy" and scrap Israel altogether...its just that my boyfriend is Jewish :(
so reading these posts im now a bit confused about my orientation.
you have to realize that for maybe the first 12 years of my life I've been very heterosexual guy. i used to like girls in elementary school and even dated a girl named aly from the last day of fifth grade (our only actual date tho) through the summer and well into sixth grade. we would go over to each others houses and swim and have fun and stuff like that. idk if its worth noting but we never hugged or held hands or anything like that. but i did really like her, probably loved her. But now im confused. You see in sixth grade i had a very active sex drive like i'd get turned on by looking at hot girls in my class most days. but now i have little sex drive and dont really like girls so im wondering what the hell happened? im relatively unsocial and am not really friends with any girls, maybe thats it? or am i becoming less "rash" and thinking about girls less as objects now? I think another explanation could be im just focusing energy on more things now, and i still like girls. But i think i might end up liking boys. This is probably a normal teenage thing and i probably wont figure this out for a while, but still I think i could use some help with this.
you have to realize that for maybe the first 12 years of my life I've been very heterosexual guy. i used to like girls in elementary school and even dated a girl named aly from the last day of fifth grade (our only actual date tho) through the summer and well into sixth grade. we would go over to each others houses and swim and have fun and stuff like that. idk if its worth noting but we never hugged or held hands or anything like that. but i did really like her, probably loved her. But now im confused. You see in sixth grade i had a very active sex drive like i'd get turned on by looking at hot girls in my class most days. but now i have little sex drive and dont really like girls so im wondering what the hell happened? im relatively unsocial and am not really friends with any girls, maybe thats it? or am i becoming less "rash" and thinking about girls less as objects now? I think another explanation could be im just focusing energy on more things now, and i still like girls. But i think i might end up liking boys. This is probably a normal teenage thing and i probably wont figure this out for a while, but still I think i could use some help with this.
Well, do you like boys? Or do you just think you like boys because you aren't into girls as much as you used to be?
You will have to ask yourself whether you actually do like boys or not. Have you realized you've been looking at boys like how you used to look at girls?
It could be that you've become bored and don't really care that much about girls for the time being. I have a friend who for a very long time thought that he was gay, he was a late bloomer (he hit puberty just before 16). He initially thought he liked girls but realized he had no sex drive, he lost interest in them and assumed he must be gay. (I don't advise this at your age) He even went as far as looking at gay porn every so often to see if he liked it. He always was confused until he actually hit puberty and realized his interest in females had come back, it takes time for some people to realize their sexuality and identity. It can be confusing as well.
Everyone goes through something different, myself I was sure from a young age that I was gay, I even had a couple periods where I didn't look at guys and I very rarely have an interest in getting into a relationship with anyone.
Statistically it is unlikely that you are gay but someone has to be, like everyone in this forum. You might just have to wait and see until you get older. If you ever wonder just ask yourself, and if you don't know the answer that is ok just give it some more time.
I'm not gonna wade too far into the Israel LGBT debate other than to say Israel is unusually good for LGBT people for a country with as generally conservative of a government as it has and even more so for a country that has an explicit religious society. This should be celebrated.
It's not necessary to view things in such black and white. It's possible to celebrate that Israel is a haven in the middle east for gay people who need to flee their countries to escape death (I know a few) while also not supporting other Israeli policies.
It's not necessary to view things in such black and white. It's possible to celebrate that Israel is a haven in the middle east for gay people who need to flee their countries to escape death (I know a few) while also not supporting other Israeli policies.
The second. I'm not sexually attracted to boys or even really attracted much at all, but I am not sexually OR emotionally attracted to girls, which is why I'm a bit perplexed rn ;P
First paragraph: no.
Second paragraph: no I am fairly tall and muscular so it's not puberty: the rest I think you could be right.
Fourth: I suppose you're right in that I won't figure this out for a while: I suspect that I'm straight but I won't know for sure... Maybe for years lol. Thanks for the advice and for helping me piece some of my thoughts together.
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