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Serious LGBTQ
- Thread starter Chinchou
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not very.... and im not trying to be homophobic or whatever when i say this, but there'd be little purpose for a room that just talks about the same things that already go on in this thread.
lol "not trying to be homophobic or whatever". this is an sjw-ridden forum on the internet bro, we dont have less thick skin because we're not straight :o. but totally not blaming you either, irl too i find there's this stigma entrenched in the heads of the 'allied' where they think they have to tread so carefully to avoid offending ppl. like, yes i have a dark sense of humor, yes i like men, no you're not offending me lol
im not triggered i swear
im not triggered i swear
im gay dude, i just didnt want other people to perceive it as such accidentally because you still can never be too careful
...Except for the multitudes of LGBT people that use PS and not Smogon. The tone of this thread is also way too heavy/uncomfortable for me to post in and it barely gets any replies, this page started in October.
I'm in favor of the idea. If a room like that existed it should be public though. I don't really see the point in hiding it.
While I love the idea of a LGBT room, I don't think it would work. There is really no way it could be public, it would be troll central. Even if mods were harsh on modding it, it would get to the point it would be near impossible to have a conversation without getting distracted by the constant trolls. Even as a private/hidden room there would still be a ton of issues with trolls, as you would want it to be a room that is known about and open to all, and trolls would take advantage of that. And while most of us would be able to brush off anything a troll said, there are some people who would be there for the intended purpose of the room who would be really bothered by what a troll would say. I know someone started a groupchat a while ago but it died out. While I think a LGBT room is good in theory, I just severely doubt it working in practice.
'But trolls' isn't a good enough argument by itself. If you let that kind of thing stop you from doing something you think is worthwhile, you're never going to accomplish anything. Further, there are already public rooms on the main PS! server that you could use the same logic on - THP and Scholastic come to mind.
it's not happening
I personally don't have a position on whether it should or shouldn't happen, I was merely pointing out that the argument used was insufficient.
this post is irrelevant to the current conversation, but i'm still trying to navigate my feelings and reposition myself in the community. lately i've been becoming disoriented with my queerness. after a few years of participating in spaces with fellow folx, i find myself overwhelmed by the identity of 'queer' itself. often, i find most interlocutors in queer spaces are often similarly privileged people to myself.. i, myself, am straight-passing, able-bodied, thin, white [and therefore conventionally attractive], and it seems like the term 'queer' is meant to unify a group of people that face vastly different oppressions. whenever i have dialogue with folx who face more scrutiny and stigma than myself, it seems that queerness invisiblises issues more than anything. a sense of homonormativity has been created in spaces in which we, the queer 'community' reenact patriarchal, cisheteronormative, colonising (et al.) forms of oppression. in essence, we are perpetuating the systems we are meant to dismantle in our own communities. for one example, culturally ugly folx within the queer community don't have a safe haven. often, gay bars have been set as this idyllic paradise of sexuality and bewilderment. but what about the people who aren't approached within them? for them, the space becomes downtrodden and yet another reminder of their position on the hierarchy. not only are they oppressed by the heteronormative facets of society, but the very community they are supposed to fit into is putting them on the bottom of the totem pole. masculinity is still idealised within our community. thinness is still yearned for. the very spaces which are purportedly safe are, in fact, exclusionary themselves.
like i said, this is rambling and disjointed, but i'm just wondering how we, the queer folks, can reconcile our own privilege. at this rate, the very concept of queerness seems as though it should be dismantled too in order to create equality. homonormativity seems even more impossible to deconstruct than heteronormativity as there are more actors in the community working towards the latter. and i just don't know how to handle this reality.
like i said, this is rambling and disjointed, but i'm just wondering how we, the queer folks, can reconcile our own privilege. at this rate, the very concept of queerness seems as though it should be dismantled too in order to create equality. homonormativity seems even more impossible to deconstruct than heteronormativity as there are more actors in the community working towards the latter. and i just don't know how to handle this reality.
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So, I'd like to come clean about a few things, even if just to an anonymous Pokémon forum full of people I scarcely know. I've been doing a lot of thinking recently surrounding my gender identity... and I mean a LOT of thinking, as in I haven't left the house or spoken to anyone outside of my family since Monday. And now, having reached the light at the end of the tunnel, I've come to a proud, but terrifying conclusion: I am not a cis man, but a trans woman. For the past two decades, I haven't so much taken on or embraced the roles and expectations society has of men so much as I had resigned to and passively resented them, never really going out of my way to express masculinity unless the situation demanded it: wearing boring, neutral clothes, never making that many male friends, etc. I also made little acknowledgments of my feminine "side" here and there, choosing female characters in video games, calling people honey (that's probably the biggest indulgence I ever took identifying with one gender over the others), crossing my legs like a girl, and so on. I basically just threw up my hands and said "Fuck it, I'm a man, sure," because no one told me there were other options. And even by then, I had been living as male for all my life, so anything else seemed preposterous. I recognize that none of these things, by themselves, indicate anything other than simple gender nonconformity, but in hindsight, I realize that these were all little rebellions from someone I didn't know existed -- me -- against a body and a life that she didn't want. So I'm not going to have that life. I have no goddamn clue where to start, but I thought this would be a good place. Thank you all for listening. I just wanted to get this off my chest.
It's funny, this was... kind of easy. Don't get me wrong, I'm terrified, but not nearly as much as I was when I came out as a gay man 5 odd years ago. I guess I've grown accustomed to making big reveals not so big.
It's funny, this was... kind of easy. Don't get me wrong, I'm terrified, but not nearly as much as I was when I came out as a gay man 5 odd years ago. I guess I've grown accustomed to making big reveals not so big.
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i don't understand the need for so many SJW buzzwords and the need to talk about oppression all the time, nor do i understand why people need to apply such an unreasonable amount of tact to the point of sounding like robots when discussing these things. i've noticed that pretty much every LGBT person i've talked to on smogon / PS has this ultraliberal SJW mindset similar to what you'd find on tumblr... maybe not as drastic. for a good while i had similar opinions: i was a self described feminist, and i would make a big hoopla over little "offensive" things. the main reason i acted like this was honestly because this is how the people in my "community" tended to view things.
i think it's practical to have LGBT groups for LGBT people: i personally find it's nice to not feel alone about being LGBT, and i like having people i can talk to about "LGBT specific" issues. however, most groups i've encountered aren't really like this... even the more "politically moderate" ones. i've found that there's a huge focus on just absolutely clinging to your LGBT identity and flaunting it like a trophy. it's a really weird thing to see... people aren't just talking about LGBT issues, but they're almost centering their lives around it. i've also found there's a lot of playing the victim and overexaggerating every little situation. i've seen fat gay men talking about how nobody wants them due to their weight, and then they go on about how they're being discriminated against because people don't have a preference for them. i've seen transwomen who haven't even started hrt yet complaining about not being properly gendered irl when they sadly don't pass at all. i've seen transgender lesbians and bisexuals complain about how cis lesbians are excluding and oppressing them because they don't want transgender girlfriends.
i know this is basically the main "right wing" talking point, but it just absolutely sucks how easily LGBT groups get offended over things. yeah dude i agree it fuckin sucks sometimes, but sitting there and complaining won't solve anything (neither will taking these deep introspective looks into things to figure out what the issue is when the solution is literally to just stop taking things so personally all the time). like even in this post above it just freaks me out to see this language... it sounds like talk about how we can be better cult members rather than how we can address LGBT specific issues.
this sjw stuff is why things are the way they are right now; nobody does LGBT people a favor by making us all look like this. i can't tell you how many people i hear making jokes about this bullshit "more than 2 genders" "assuming your gender" "i'm oppressed" whatever stuff. it makes us all look bad and it's only a few people doing it.
sorry to ramble and make a long post... i've just always had this stuff on my mind, and the current state of this thread made me wanna express an "alternative" opinion :P.
i think it's practical to have LGBT groups for LGBT people: i personally find it's nice to not feel alone about being LGBT, and i like having people i can talk to about "LGBT specific" issues. however, most groups i've encountered aren't really like this... even the more "politically moderate" ones. i've found that there's a huge focus on just absolutely clinging to your LGBT identity and flaunting it like a trophy. it's a really weird thing to see... people aren't just talking about LGBT issues, but they're almost centering their lives around it. i've also found there's a lot of playing the victim and overexaggerating every little situation. i've seen fat gay men talking about how nobody wants them due to their weight, and then they go on about how they're being discriminated against because people don't have a preference for them. i've seen transwomen who haven't even started hrt yet complaining about not being properly gendered irl when they sadly don't pass at all. i've seen transgender lesbians and bisexuals complain about how cis lesbians are excluding and oppressing them because they don't want transgender girlfriends.
i know this is basically the main "right wing" talking point, but it just absolutely sucks how easily LGBT groups get offended over things. yeah dude i agree it fuckin sucks sometimes, but sitting there and complaining won't solve anything (neither will taking these deep introspective looks into things to figure out what the issue is when the solution is literally to just stop taking things so personally all the time). like even in this post above it just freaks me out to see this language... it sounds like talk about how we can be better cult members rather than how we can address LGBT specific issues.
this is how i was about a year ago when i was first looking for LGBT groups to feel not weird in. what worked for me is sorta what i described above: i took a step back and looked at the things being discussed, and i asked myself, "are these things really issues?" it seems that that probably wouldn't work for you, so the only other thing i could say is to just stop getting so deep into the "community" stuff. don't overthink you're identity. if you're gay or bi or trans or whatever you do you dude. don't cling onto your "queerness" like it's some badge of honor, and you might find yourself not overwhelmed anymore.
why is it like a contest to see who has things worse in life? be thankful that things are a bit easier for you. i don't really buy into the whole privilege thing personally, but i do think some people have it easier than others. it seems like you genuinely feel bad for people who might have it worse than you, but just sitting there beating yourself up for having it somewhat easier or whatever doesn't do any good. try to focus less on the politics of these things and more on just being a good friend to those people. i'm a middle eastern transgender bisexual, but i don't sit here saying "woe is me for not being cis and white".
the "patriarchy" and colonising and other forms of oppression or whatever happened ages ago... why are you feeling bad about it? yeah, there are still some effects from that stuff today, but it isn't this major thing keeping people totally oppressed. you aren't guilty of any of that stuff for being a white guy dude. probably surprising, but i do agree that lots of gay men seem to only go after white guys, but that's pretty much just a preference thing and not usually actually racism, so who cares? there isn't a need to make all these safe havens when there could just be small LGBT communities open to all people for practical reasons; there is no point in having all these walled off groups like i described above.
people are allowed to have a preference though. i don't like black or indian guys that much. i don't like fat people. i don't like ultra skinny people. these aren't all absolute things, and i probably could go on about more. the point is, these are just personal preferences of mine and have nothing to do with a person's social status or whatever. it's just about what i personally find attractive.
there is nothing to handle. if you really think someone has it worse and that makes you sad, just focus more on being a friend than beating yourself and others up for "having it better".
this sjw stuff is why things are the way they are right now; nobody does LGBT people a favor by making us all look like this. i can't tell you how many people i hear making jokes about this bullshit "more than 2 genders" "assuming your gender" "i'm oppressed" whatever stuff. it makes us all look bad and it's only a few people doing it.
sorry to ramble and make a long post... i've just always had this stuff on my mind, and the current state of this thread made me wanna express an "alternative" opinion :P.
Not going to respond to all of this, but as a pre-everything trans lady, it is more than a little stressful when people I've requested use my new name + pronouns slip up. If remembering pronouns was hard, I'd be sympathetic, but it's not. In fact, I'm often nervous about calling people on it, because then people cry SJW and proceed to never take me seriously again. It hurts. I agree with you that oppression as a word has lot quite a bit of its lustre with wanton misuse, and isn't necessarily appropriate in any of the situations you described (unless it's intentional, which I luckily haven't faced yet), but in the case of misgendering I don't think it's fair, and when it happens every single day, it can feel a lot like no one cares, even if that's not the case.
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"I don't really buy into the whole climate change thing personally." "I don't really buy into the whole evolution thing personally." "I don't really buy into the whole 9/11 official story thing personally." "I don't really buy into the whole spherical Earth thing personally."
This will be my one and only post in this thread because I'm neutral to the subject, but:
Ad hominems and straw man posts like this are terrible. That is all. At the very least acknowledge a person has a different opinion and maybe explain why you disagree with it.
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I feel like this post kind of proves their point. Look, it's fine if you disagree with them, but don't go strawmanning them because that's kind of one of the SJW tactics that (I assume) starry blanket was referring to.
I've learned a few things from my activism elsewhere. One of them is that you're not doing your cause any favors by resorting to ad hominem attacks and strawman arguments. I'm LGBT myself, but I personally cringe when I see things like this because all it does is set us back. I've already posted about this elsewhere, but to avoid going into an unnecessary tl;dr post, SJW tactics like these are antithetical to social justice; they aren't gonna help advance our cause. If it's something you don't believe warrants a response, then don't respond to it, but once you resort to strawman arguments and ad hominem, you've given them the upper hand.
Yeah I think the point was that it didn't actually attack the person (in this case starry).
How was steel not saying that starry's view on privilege was idiotic because not believing in it is akin to being a flat earther?
Liking other posts that you agree with is not unusual. In fact, why did you even bring this up?
SJWism is idiotic and LGBT community would be indefinitely better off by abandoning it completely.
Liking other posts that you agree with is not unusual. In fact, why did you even bring this up?
SJWism is idiotic and LGBT community would be indefinitely better off by abandoning it completely.
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I think what's being pointed out here is that there is a difference between calling out unjustified personal subjectivities, and character assasination. While agreed that there might have been a more measured substantive way to call it out, it is not completely surprising given privilege is such a fractious issue. A response levelling a charge of ad hominem doesn't do anyone any good. I'll have to agree with elcheeso here.
However what is truly extraordinary that this has been extended to a random attack on "SJWism" and some fuckall blanket judgment on whatever the fuck that term is supposed to imply. That's hypocritical given the context of this response.
However what is truly extraordinary that this has been extended to a random attack on "SJWism" and some fuckall blanket judgment on whatever the fuck that term is supposed to imply. That's hypocritical given the context of this response.
Question: Why are people getting on my case for snarking at an intensely snarkable statement and not on Starry Blanket's case for denying nonbinary gender identities and whining about the spooky scary SJWs hiding under their bed in the LGBT+ thread?
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The point was (and still is) that the post was unnecessary and, quite frankly, really stupid to read because it was a straw man. I know it didn't quite qualify as an ad hominem, but I bundled the two terms together because they (usually) are the worst things to read in a serious thread like this and in terms of disagreement on an opinion.
Frankly the post was unnecessary - even if you qualify starry's post as "snarky" it wasn't some post full of rhetorical one-liner responses and could have been handled a lot better.
I'll cool off from here on out - I just wanted to get my point across so people didn't assume I was using ad hominem as THE reason behind going after the post when it was more, in general, how a straw man like this and a potential ad hominem post are not effective ways to communicate in a serious thread. That's really all I have to say on the matter.
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The point has been made that strawmen are bad for the forum. I don't think this aspect of the argument needs to be expanded upon further.
sjw is a pejorative that has been used to dismiss liberal and/or radical actors pushing towards progressive change. to employ it is far more of a strawman steelwithit's post. in fact, the usage of sjw shows that you don't want to even have discourse about issues and instead wish to silence the opposition.
for many folx in the lgbtq+ community, our queerness is integral to our identity. consequently, it is important to discuss the conceptualization of queerness in these spaces.
i think that the relationship i have to my queerness is heavily affected by the interconnection of my queerness and environment. regardless of my proximity to others, my queerness is often a defining marker of my identity in many contexts. in spite of my initial push towards obfuscating my sexuality, it often come to the forefront of my life and, in turn, this pushes me towards a community of other ppl who have dealt with similar experiences.
accepting your queerness is accepting marginalisation. you're embracing a historical baggage of being systematically pathologised by western medicine, sterilised, discriminated in work life and otherwise, being killed etc. our experiences and current context are affected by the history of those who have created this environment. that's why i'm trying to unpack my privileges and oppression. my own experiences in relation to those in the community still matter.
throughout history, the lack of intersectionality in marginalised communities has led to a systematic invisiblisation of folx. if you've ever had even cursory engagement with academic feminist literature, you would be aware of audre lorde's speech 'the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house'. in it, she condemns the erasure of black women [and in doing so, the 'master' is the white women who are extracting labor (metaphor is indeed slavemaster)] in the second wave movement. black power + civil rights activism was geared towards men while feminism was geared towards white women. this left black women (don't get me wrong, others too e.g. gnc folx, genderqueer...) without a vehicle to attach themselves to.
so why am i saying this? because my post was describing how i feel that these very systems of erasure are enacting themselves again in the queer community. why is it that queer spaces are predominately white? predominately thin? as someone who benefits in many of these axes of privilege, i am cognizant of how my life and experiences are drastically different from someone else's.
wrt your dismissal of certain privilege: the dominant ideology that is so pervasive in our culture is to frame beauty as natural and abiding. your post exemplifies this: it's colonialistic by nature. beauty is a power dynamic. what we deem beautiful is mutable: just look at the shifts in beauty standards throughout history. what determines what is beautiful? power. imperialism. white folx have always been seen as the epitome of beauty because they have dominated most societies. oppressive constructs which play into our conceptualisation of beauty such as the golden standard and bmi were drafted through and for white ppl (predominately male, too). our view of eurocentrism as the most beautiful and most represented phenotype is part and parcel to our own internalised and socialised biases.
in part, this plays into fat ppl, poc, etc. being systemically less appealing (both romantically and interpersonally... there is a lot of unpack here that would take up too much space). we live in a society in which these intersections of our identity are not given the time of day in more marginalised spaces. queerness as an umbrella tends to invisiblise more margnalised identities underneath it because of conventionally less oppressed folx having the power in these communities. this is the homonormativity that i described: and this is dangerous.
to frame my experiences as some sort of 'guilt' is offensive and a complete misconception of my feelings. i don't give a fuck about guilt. guilt doesn't solve anything and is more of an impediment than anything. if you don't care about systems of oppression in our society which leave people disadvantaged, then i cannot force you to care. however, i personally wish to look towards a society and a community in which there is a plurality of discussion and viewpoints. i want an lgbtq community (and society as a whole) which is accepting of others and is able to unpack their privilege. i want people to stop dismissing issues of oppression as "unimportant" and making them seem like they "don't matter" because you personally don't feel that way.
my queerness isn't a badge of honor, but another part of my identity which has serious implications of how i relate to others. my queerness is, in fact, important. my queerness is ever evolving. and so are many others in this community who are often ignored by us. the aftermath and continuation of colonialisation, patriarchy, etc. isn't just a long-forgotten history, but is an ongoing struggle which affects people of this community too. telling others ignore issues you deem 'not serious' because you've accepted the notion that things are just meant to be like this is just fucked up.
for many folx in the lgbtq+ community, our queerness is integral to our identity. consequently, it is important to discuss the conceptualization of queerness in these spaces.
i think that the relationship i have to my queerness is heavily affected by the interconnection of my queerness and environment. regardless of my proximity to others, my queerness is often a defining marker of my identity in many contexts. in spite of my initial push towards obfuscating my sexuality, it often come to the forefront of my life and, in turn, this pushes me towards a community of other ppl who have dealt with similar experiences.
accepting your queerness is accepting marginalisation. you're embracing a historical baggage of being systematically pathologised by western medicine, sterilised, discriminated in work life and otherwise, being killed etc. our experiences and current context are affected by the history of those who have created this environment. that's why i'm trying to unpack my privileges and oppression. my own experiences in relation to those in the community still matter.
throughout history, the lack of intersectionality in marginalised communities has led to a systematic invisiblisation of folx. if you've ever had even cursory engagement with academic feminist literature, you would be aware of audre lorde's speech 'the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house'. in it, she condemns the erasure of black women [and in doing so, the 'master' is the white women who are extracting labor (metaphor is indeed slavemaster)] in the second wave movement. black power + civil rights activism was geared towards men while feminism was geared towards white women. this left black women (don't get me wrong, others too e.g. gnc folx, genderqueer...) without a vehicle to attach themselves to.
so why am i saying this? because my post was describing how i feel that these very systems of erasure are enacting themselves again in the queer community. why is it that queer spaces are predominately white? predominately thin? as someone who benefits in many of these axes of privilege, i am cognizant of how my life and experiences are drastically different from someone else's.
wrt your dismissal of certain privilege: the dominant ideology that is so pervasive in our culture is to frame beauty as natural and abiding. your post exemplifies this: it's colonialistic by nature. beauty is a power dynamic. what we deem beautiful is mutable: just look at the shifts in beauty standards throughout history. what determines what is beautiful? power. imperialism. white folx have always been seen as the epitome of beauty because they have dominated most societies. oppressive constructs which play into our conceptualisation of beauty such as the golden standard and bmi were drafted through and for white ppl (predominately male, too). our view of eurocentrism as the most beautiful and most represented phenotype is part and parcel to our own internalised and socialised biases.
in part, this plays into fat ppl, poc, etc. being systemically less appealing (both romantically and interpersonally... there is a lot of unpack here that would take up too much space). we live in a society in which these intersections of our identity are not given the time of day in more marginalised spaces. queerness as an umbrella tends to invisiblise more margnalised identities underneath it because of conventionally less oppressed folx having the power in these communities. this is the homonormativity that i described: and this is dangerous.
to frame my experiences as some sort of 'guilt' is offensive and a complete misconception of my feelings. i don't give a fuck about guilt. guilt doesn't solve anything and is more of an impediment than anything. if you don't care about systems of oppression in our society which leave people disadvantaged, then i cannot force you to care. however, i personally wish to look towards a society and a community in which there is a plurality of discussion and viewpoints. i want an lgbtq community (and society as a whole) which is accepting of others and is able to unpack their privilege. i want people to stop dismissing issues of oppression as "unimportant" and making them seem like they "don't matter" because you personally don't feel that way.
my queerness isn't a badge of honor, but another part of my identity which has serious implications of how i relate to others. my queerness is, in fact, important. my queerness is ever evolving. and so are many others in this community who are often ignored by us. the aftermath and continuation of colonialisation, patriarchy, etc. isn't just a long-forgotten history, but is an ongoing struggle which affects people of this community too. telling others ignore issues you deem 'not serious' because you've accepted the notion that things are just meant to be like this is just fucked up.
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