d

I don’t get it either, unless the people who are lashing out think non-traditional sexuality or gender is like a disease they (or someone important to them) might catch.

I wasn’t trying to imply that people choose their sexuality or gender on a whim. I hope it didn’t sound that way. I know it’s not a trivial thing to come to terms with, realizing you’re not who you thought (or were told) you were. But it’s not something most people talk about casually. So when one does come to accept it and speaks about it, it can come as a shock to the others around them. They don’t see how many brain cycles went into reaching the conclusion, so they may conclude (or perhaps hope) that it’s a whim or “just a phase.”

You’re right that a person doesn’t identify as bi/homo/trans casually. A person may experiment without accepting it as “this is who I am.”

Dave

And yeah…I think too many people think transgender folk “choose” their gender “on a whim.” This is such a tragic misunderstanding. It mirrors in part how my folks assumed for a while that my sexuality was a phase (or put another way, my succumbing to a fad of some sort).

I do not understand why anyone would identify as bisexual or homosexual or transsexual “on a whim.” If people would just think about it, they’d realize how stupid that really is. These are things that will still get you beaten to death in our society, and if not that, ostracized, tossed from your home, fired from jobs, ejected from apartments, and so forth. Yet people think this is still a “whim” somehow. It boggles the imagination.

I still don’t get how it threatens others. I’ll try to explain further: hatred and anger come from fear of some sort. Fear arises from some sense of threat. I see so much anger regarding this issue that I can’t help but wonder what, exactly–at the bottom of it all–is so threatening to them.

The world isn’t the way you always thought it was. OK. But how does this threaten you? I still don’t get it.

d

I agree that Caitlyn’s coming forward took a lot of courage. Like you say, she’ll have to live with the social consequences of that for a long time. But, I hope, having been a public figure, she’s better prepared for it than some average Joe-turned-Joanne.

I can’t say why people are threatened by it though. I’m not. I’m glad for her that she’s found a groove that she fits into. If I had known her personally before, it might have been more of a shock, but I’ve been shocked before and it didn’t leave any scars. I had a lot of help learning how to let people be themselves, that they weren’t put on this planet for my convenience. As long as they’re happy and not hurting anyone else, I figure I don’t have any say in the matter.

I can take a guess at why some people might lash out though. Many of us were raised to believe that what you were born with determines who you are. Or even if we weren’t taught that, we at least assumed it as we were growing up. But the past few years have shaken those assumptions and the world views many people built on them. Having same-sex marriage declared legal rocks those assumptions, and now hearing that one can choose a gender seemingly on a whim pushes them ever further. People don’t like change, especially when it affects something they thought wasn’t changeable.

Dave