Serious LGBTQ

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Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
fuck off or find a quote of someone saying that in this thread

so clearly now that it's legal to be gay we've finally defeated homophobia once and for all, right guys?

i mean that's what happened with racism at the end of segregation right?

...guys?
ps: one form of "homophobia" is attributing the same set of beliefs desires practices etc to all queer ppl.
 
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fuck off or find a quote of someone saying that in this thread
im pretty sure walrein wasnt saying that anyone in this thread had said that, but rather that this is only a step in the long road ahead. marriage is great and all, but homophobia is still very deeply ingrained into our culture, and marriage equality hardly helps with this. like, im bi, but i still sometimes think like "hes gay? wtf" when i find out someone's queer. i mean, with half the country hating the ever-increasing herd of homos, marriage becoming equal makes homophobes even louder and more upset (ie how racism only got "stronger" when slavery became illegal. i am not comparing the two events, im just illustrating a point). i know this is considered, "a great time period to be gay in" or whatever, but its a better time period to be straight, lol.
we won the war fellas! we defeated texas again!
alamosexual
here is the pride flag
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
Nope, this isn't even a step on the road as far as I am concerned. Marriage is not 'equal' now and it 'never' will be due to the nature of marriage and the state. If we want to talk about the outcome of the decision for queer people the trope of the 'one half of the country that is homophobic crawling out of their hole' for a backlash is a fucking joke (please find me evidence that this is occuring btw, I cant find any) which re-re-(re^n)-centralizes the experiences of white cis-gay people. 'Progress' on the 'actual' issues, facing queer people, such as trans youth homelessness, pic, etc, is threatened more by the fact that cis white gay people and allies will donate less money to organizations that combat these issues now that the facade issue of marriage equality is nominally wrapped up and the organizations can't use that issue as a front to get money for addressing other issues.

Lastly I'd be really surprised if that was what walrein was getting at. And if it was they should have said that instead of posting in a way reminiscent of the most virulent of homophobic assholes, sorry.

If you want to donate money/time to organizations that address racism and patriarchy I suggest:
  • Black and Pink
  • California Coalition of Women Prisoners
  • Families for Justice as Healing
  • LGBT Books to Prisoners
  • Justice Now
  • Prison Birth Project
  • Sylvia Rivera Law Project
  • TGI Justice Project
  • Transformative Justice Law Project
  • The Audre Lorde Project (this is pretty co-opted compared to the above orgs, but w.es)
 
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While what Walrein said was clearly meant to be a joke and attacking it isn't terribly productive, there are some points about SSM legalization drawing out more of a backlash. It's pushed some Republican candidates who were otherwise quietly hostile into being openly homophobic and trying to stir the base that way (looking at you, Scott Walker). It also means that some candidates are really playing up their homophobia and (in Huckabee's case) transphobia to get more voters. If one of them wins the primary with that strategy and somehow wins the general, things could get a lot worse before they get better. Additionally more states are seriously considering boosted RFRAs that would hurt transpeople and others with no intention of marrying anyone is bad for a fairly large swath of the community. On the other hand, the advocacy of the liberal media is shifting towards trans* issues and equal protection. While the former is its own battle that could be seriously risked by a loss of funds and attention to LGBTQ+ issues, the latter is going to be increasingly difficult to defend the status quo on, even if it would just be largely symbolic in practice.

Furthermore the reality of marriage is going to give more evangelicals and demagogues an ability to point at something concrete and scream that they are being oppressed and victimized as the fallout of stories from Oregon and Colorado show. While I'm not defending the Right in any way, they will use those stories and for those not aware of why they exist (necessity of actually enforcing anti-discrimination codes where present) it does make it seem like the victimization roles have been reversed, even if the victims are bailed out by Go Fund Me more often than not. Particularly I could see the South and other predominantly evangelical regions getting even more hostile to LGBTQ+ people for a little while before cooling back down into the South's usual semi-legal, entrenched disdain for people who couldn't vote at the nation's founding.

But, uh, in personal news I made a post back in April where I mentioned figuring out I was genderfluid. Yeah, well, I started really paying attention to that and searching for answers and things in the past and I'm virtually certain that genderfluid is a technically accurate term. But I'm somewhere between agender or female ~90% of the time so I've decided to basically just go with the transgender label and its implications for now. Not sure what to do about it. On one hand, after figuring it out my limited attempts at presenting female in private have made me much happier than almost anything else in recent years. On the other, I happen to go to school in South Carolina. You know, the state that just lowered the Confederate Flag from the statehouse today, denies racial disparities in government policy when the current governor won with ~75% of the white vote and ~5% of the minority vote, and is actually considering a bill banning public universities from having unisex bathrooms just so... I don't know? So people who decide to enter a unisex, single-stall bathroom on their own volition aren't raped by a transperson using the bathroom when they get in? This is to say nothing of the Southern Baptist majority in the state that would make coming our or transitioning very risky from almost every angle.

I told my parents about it and they were open to it in theory if unsupportive of any talk of acting on it. For now I plan on continuing vocal practice, growing out my hair, and figuring out how to apply makeup well enough that, if I wanted to come out in about a year's time or so I could be maybe passable enough to not get killed. I'm not boxing myself into any timelines or doing anything that would seriously risk outing me before I want it to happen, but even little steps forward so far have been just about the only thing since the onset of puberty that have managed to temporarily stave off depression.

Also still asexual but romantic feelings have become a tad more... complicated? I've heard that happens for a lot of transpeople, and non-binary people in particular, when they accept their identity but I don't really want to put a label on it right now. I'll like who I like and I see no reason I need a word for that. So, yeah, tad hypocritical there. I like my gender identity label since it's actually led to a lot of self-discovery and progress and provides a rough outline of what I want to do but don't see the point in a romantic orientation one.
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
Despite another set of mad ramblings from user myzozoa, I think that national marriage equality is a huge step. This is further compounded by the white house declaring 'acceptance' to be a national belief. Of course homophobia isn't gone, but this is a huge step towards weakening it by effectively dissaproving of it.
 
Um... I don't see how a fundamental right being granted by the court system over large scale popular objection in some regions and widespread opposition by governors and Statehouses really weakens homophobia much. I mean in time it'll bring people around since people will get married and the sky won't fall but I don't think it's won over anyone who was homophobic the day before the ruling.
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
Um... I don't see how a fundamental right being granted by the court system over large scale popular objection in some regions and widespread opposition by governors and Statehouses really weakens homophobia much. I mean in time it'll bring people around since people will get married and the sky won't fall but I don't think it's won over anyone who was homophobic the day before the ruling.
Because now if you deny gay marriage, you are going against a national law (more relevantly, a national norm). Not only that, but the whole thing brought to light just how many people support gays (lots). Being in the minority shuts people up for obvious reasons (like how gay people stay closeted or discreet, because they are in the unaccepted minority). It applies a pressure to effectively 'closet' their homophobia.

Religious homophobia is another matter, but lots of religious people are fine with it (particularly the younger crowd... Which will eventually be the older crowd), and the nation has taken a clear stand on the objective importance of maintaining 'religious standards' (ie. Nobody cares).
 
It is very hard to change people's homophobia. You try to convince them and you would be bombarded with all the religious quotes and "destruction of family values" blah blah. You cannot radically change a person's belief. IMO, you just have to wait for the older generation which are less accepting of LGBT to phase out and the younger generation, which are more accepting, to take over.
 
I might be the only gay male who feels this way, but I don't necessarily think marriage equality being legallized in the way it was is such a good thing. Really, we did nit gain any traction within the culture/society of USA, seeing as it was not legallized due to the public becoming more accepting of the idea of same-sex couples. I think we are left in the same exact olace we are, as a sexual minority, but having more aggression being pointed toward us due to our... Going around the "system" of legallization. Ergo, the public did not vote in favor of same-sex couples, rather the Supreme Court is "forcing" it to be an accepted part of our society. I am not saying I am displeased with the passage, but I just wonder if it is truly the best thing that could have happened for the LGbTQ+ community, if that makes sense. However, I will not lie and say that this does not make me a little more hapy and comfortable with who I am as a person, as I can finally grow up and marry the person I want, even if we are a same-sex couple. :)

Tldr: I have to agree with what Rediamond had said previously...
 
So in other news... this happened.

While the effects are, admittedly, quite limited at present the real value could come from setting up a legal precedent that could potentially provide an avenue to get full legal protections extended to sexual orientation. The logic as I understand it is that if an employer fires a gay employee for getting married or liking men, it's sex discrimination because the employer would not fire said employee for marrying a man or liking men... if he was female. Therefore, the employer was not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation but rather sex, which is protected under Title VII in the US. While at present this only applies to federal employees who I believe have some protection under executive order, it would make it very difficult for a hypothetical President Huckabee you have no idea how painful it was to type that to come in and purge the federal workforce. The real potential future value is that if other courts accept this doctrine it could eventually mean that even if the House Republicans kill ENDA until the end of time and Alabama refuses to pass legal protections, they might still happen through the court system.

I'm struggling to think of if this could mean anything for trans* people, for whom legal protections are much more widely opposed and sex discrimination is a more superficially plausible argument, and coming to the conclusion that it still wouldn't without some legal two-steps that most trans* people might be really uncomfortable with. For instance in hard red states that absolutely refuse to change legal gender until the op (if then) maybe the sex discrimination defense could work? Like, legally she's still male and they wouldn't fire or refuse to hire a female employee for wearing a dress and asking to be referred to with female pronouns. And the BMV would let her do certain things in license pictures (and generally not be assholes to the degree they are to trans* people) if she was legally female, implying sex discrimination. While this would ordinarily grant damn near perfect legal protections to trans* people on the basis that their behavior would be fully tolerated if they were (legally) the opposite sex... ugh. I really, really, really can't see broad support in the community for pursuing red state protections by claiming that a trans woman is a man under the law and entitled to protections as such. My guess is someone, somewhere might do it once but I can't see any major civil rights organization being comfortable running with an argument that might gain temporary protections and really troll some state's obnoxious legal gender requirements, but it could probably be a long-term blow. So, yeah, another court ruling that doesn't do much for the T and Q.

Also apparently "I Am Cait" or whatever it's called isn't terrible? I still refuse to watch reality television so I can't say for certain.
 
That's one of three competing bills in Congress right now and, as such, highly unlikely to pass. If anything one of the Republican alternatives will.

The first goes full RFRA and reaffirms the religious liberty of businesses and safeguards them from discrimination under federal law if they happen to discriminate themselves. The second, and the one most likely to pass if Obama doesn't threaten a veto or Dems don't demand the Equality Act or nothing, reaffirms that businesses can discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, but just not when it comes to employment. Questions of housing and gender identity are set aside for another day. Even then, unless House leadership agrees to let a bill that will spark a Tea Party revolt through (which they seldom do unless the budget is involved) that doesn't seem likely to pass. The other alternative would die in the Senate and the Equality Act probably won't be brought to a vote in either chamber because Republican leadership.

In other words, the Courts are still somehow the best avenue for this at present. Although the equality act would be nice, Obama is no Johnson and 2015 isn't 1964. The conservatives are too organized and resistant this time around.
 
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