I only learned of you recently, via Lisa Selin Davis, and I am so glad I did. I know this is an older post, but it is absolutely current. I so identify with the issue of tempering one’s words. I do what I need to do, as best I can, keeping my eye on the star of getting the message across. But I really do resent it, particularly with those friends/acquaintances who feel free to offer their opinions without having taken the least effort to learn the facts. Meanwhile, people are being harmed by this misguided gender identity discourse every single day. Thank you speaking out.
thank you for this! as a lesbian zionist with heterodox opinions and a woman-i find myself completely ostracized for simply stating biological or historical facts
I have that paranoia every day at work (brought on by my own attempt at speaking up, via my blog post about Disney). And nothing has really happened to me either! But that's not to say I've been supported--the only people who have supported me have done so in private messages. The topic doesn't come up unless i bring it up...and I don't bring it up unless I have to. People are busy and (being low-payed Disney employees) struggling, so they have other things to worry about than 'Gary's issue'. Of the gay coworkers I have, they are all Pronoun People. My boss is a gay man my age who told me the weekend after I posted my first blog piece, "I know you're going through something and I can't really say I understand but you have the right to say it." I just said thank you, but later I thought, 'I'm not GOING THROUGH something; I'm AWARE of something.'
I pretty much wrote off the 'gay community' years ago. The majority of gay men are ignorant, or ill-informed, or just can't be bothered with thinking about anything deeper than the last episode of Real Housewives. People ask me why I am single and I ask them to let me know where the gay men are. Not 'queer,' not 'non-binary', not women cosplaying as gay men or men identifying as women...just actual same-sex-loving men.
I think you were brave to visit Fire Island! I'm glad you were able to have a good time. I went on a vacation recently too. One stop was in San Diego to visit my brother and sister-in-law and niece, who is 12 and (naturally) has a couple friends who identify as trans. My brother and sister-in-law think I've spent too much time in Florida amongst Conservatives, which I find annoying/funny. Apparently the view that there are only two sexes is 'Conservative'. My mention that gender ideology is like a religion was met with horror. They said something I also recently saw Andrew Sullivan tweet: the idea that 'trans people are not lying; they must really feel like the opposite sex or else why would they go through this?!' I don't think trans people are LYING--I believe they really believe it. The same way I believe that Christians really believe in God. But I'm an atheist, 100%. I don't believe in God OR an internal 'gendered soul'. I don't have to believe what other people believe.
I do think there are a lot of people who are 'going along to get along' but I also think that a lot of people really believe they are supporting the correct 'side'. I discovered through our conversations that there were a great many things my Liberal Californian relatives were unaware of, due to them wanting to be supportive of the LGBTQIAetc. and also living in their bubble. (Primarily, their naive belief that they would have control of the situation as parents if my tomboy niece came home one day and announced she was trans. In California!? Please. One conversation with a guidance counselor at school about how her parents wouldn't use her new pronouns, and she'd be removed from that house.)
I appreciate you and it's writers like you who keep me hopeful and motivated. ['Flashing Green' = 'Keep Going'] I will also keep speaking up...but it sure is lonely, exhausting, and frustrating.
Great piece. New subscriber now. I’ve been wanting to scream from the rooftop for years now after I researched the issue and understood what was happening. I was on tumblr 10 years ago when I saw young kids being indoctrinated in real time with the gender ideology. The baseless idea from academia that we all have a gender identity becoming popular in the wider culture at the same time that the affirmative model of care was adopted created the perfect storm for this sociogenic and iatrogenic condition of our time. I have started to speak up more, though it has led to being iced out by friends. It has always bothered me that so few people have the ability to think critically, historically, and to see the cultural influences underlying gender dysphoria. We treat problems of the mind and culture as problems of the body. Backwards.
Thank you, Hanna! I think people turn off their brains about this stuff because the forces that promote it are so strong and influential. It’s much easier for people to have complex moral issues--because this is a moral issue--decided for them than have to figure it out for themselves. It’s scary to question dogma!
My best friend is a gay man (he's on Fire Island right now) and we discuss now and then the Trans issue, and I think he just feels that as a sexual minority he should always be "on the side of" every and any sexual minority, regardless of the bizarre and nonsensical demands and ideas of the activist class.
And I think his worldview (along w our other gay friends) is grounded so deeply in the shame and fear he felt growing up as gay, that his first thought and priority in re these issues is to always be seen as helping and supporting anyone who may be going through a similar painful experience.
I think Trans has been so successful because it has attached itself to the cause of gay rights (which most people support), and the Trans activist class has made it seem that any opposition to the Trans agenda is implicity anti-gay or pro-bigot.
So even if I can get my friends to agree that maybe the Gender fundamentalists have gone overboard, they still read opposition as either anti-gay bigotry or at least as being insensitive to people who are suffering because of their sexual identity.
But at the same time when we are all in private and relaxing, he and my other gay friends admit that of course Trans women aren't literal women (nor do they need to be) and that the Bluehaired Theys are mostly miserable people trying to spread their misery to the rest of us.
So maybe there's hope that someday soon we can find a compromise or equilibrium where no one is persecuted or discriminated against because of their sexual identity, but the more extreme ideas and demands of the Gender Studies dept can be repudiated.
Thanks for sharing this with me. I understand the impulse to sympathize with any sexual minority out of solidarity. That has always been by M.O., and in fact it still is. There are trans people I know whom I love and support and want them to live safe, peaceful, happy lives. It’s the gender ideology that I don’t believe in. Its a belief system. I’m a gender atheist, I guess. And at its core it is deeply, deeply homophobic. And the people appropriating the gay identity to count themselves as part of a marginalized group to earn cultural cache is offensive.
I am also a Gender atheist, and I refuse to believe there is any contradiction bw loving and supporting gay people, loving and enjoying androgyny (and realizing we are all androgynous to a certain extent, esp in the womb) and refusing to buy any of the Gender ideology.
Gender ideology is reductive, divisive, coercive, based on shoddy scholarship (as in denial of biology, natural selection, sexual selection) and all of it seems to come wrapped in the language of a blackmail note (not to mention it is all so dour and joyless and poorly written).
Great, fabulous, marvelous, hoorah, hip, hip hooray, whoohooo! You get the picture. From an old, Catholic grandmother who supports free speech and serious ideas.
As someone who takes the soft touch approach I think your friend is wrong that you should be softer. Softer works best when you’re talking to individuals - almost all my friends are trans and I’ve managed to have discussions about my concerns without anyone calling me a transphobe or a TERF, but there’s built in trust of good faith there that you don’t receive when engaging with the public. And anyway, is the point of public discourse to change minds or to make it safer for people who already agree to share their thoughts? I don’t think my conversation approach is more valuable than what you’re doing, and you shouldn’t feel bad for how you’re conducting your public dialog
I had a similar experience at NYC Pride the other weekend. I had this fear of being surrounded by reminders of this ideology that I have severe problems with, but it ended up being fairly standard as far as Prides go. Granted, I didn't really go to the parade or any major events, but the bars I went to and people I hung out with were pretty free of the dogma I've come to expect. (Granted I didn't bring it up, but still.) I am frequently worried lately that I spend far too much time thinking about this stuff to the detriment of other aspects of my life. I'm worried that it will breed resentment in spite and make me feel even more politically homeless than I already am. So it is nice to be reminded that real life is not always as dogmatic and oppressive as Twitter is.
I appreciate people like you who are willing to put yourselves out there on this issue, because I feel like it would be social and career suicide for some of us to be more public about this stuff. Maybe I'm wrong, and I do think it's getting better, but posting about this on social media is still very intimidating. That said, I have slowly been having these conversations more with people in my personal life, and while I wouldn't say I've made any full-blown converts yet, I think I have gotten people to start thinking a tiny bit more critically. Small victories, I guess.
I’ve always felt too stupid to speak on things, but I’ve found that when talking to others on a day to day basis about issues, it’s important that I speak up for what I believe is right. It’s def. not always comfortable, but I’m sick of walking away from conversations and regretting the fact that I didn’t say more. Thanks for being a constant example of how to challenge yourself! And if someone dare call me a “birthing vagina body menstrator” to my face, I might just choke them out.
I only learned of you recently, via Lisa Selin Davis, and I am so glad I did. I know this is an older post, but it is absolutely current. I so identify with the issue of tempering one’s words. I do what I need to do, as best I can, keeping my eye on the star of getting the message across. But I really do resent it, particularly with those friends/acquaintances who feel free to offer their opinions without having taken the least effort to learn the facts. Meanwhile, people are being harmed by this misguided gender identity discourse every single day. Thank you speaking out.
thank you for this! as a lesbian zionist with heterodox opinions and a woman-i find myself completely ostracized for simply stating biological or historical facts
Great article, but why do you still insist on being a filthy homosexual?
I have that paranoia every day at work (brought on by my own attempt at speaking up, via my blog post about Disney). And nothing has really happened to me either! But that's not to say I've been supported--the only people who have supported me have done so in private messages. The topic doesn't come up unless i bring it up...and I don't bring it up unless I have to. People are busy and (being low-payed Disney employees) struggling, so they have other things to worry about than 'Gary's issue'. Of the gay coworkers I have, they are all Pronoun People. My boss is a gay man my age who told me the weekend after I posted my first blog piece, "I know you're going through something and I can't really say I understand but you have the right to say it." I just said thank you, but later I thought, 'I'm not GOING THROUGH something; I'm AWARE of something.'
I pretty much wrote off the 'gay community' years ago. The majority of gay men are ignorant, or ill-informed, or just can't be bothered with thinking about anything deeper than the last episode of Real Housewives. People ask me why I am single and I ask them to let me know where the gay men are. Not 'queer,' not 'non-binary', not women cosplaying as gay men or men identifying as women...just actual same-sex-loving men.
I think you were brave to visit Fire Island! I'm glad you were able to have a good time. I went on a vacation recently too. One stop was in San Diego to visit my brother and sister-in-law and niece, who is 12 and (naturally) has a couple friends who identify as trans. My brother and sister-in-law think I've spent too much time in Florida amongst Conservatives, which I find annoying/funny. Apparently the view that there are only two sexes is 'Conservative'. My mention that gender ideology is like a religion was met with horror. They said something I also recently saw Andrew Sullivan tweet: the idea that 'trans people are not lying; they must really feel like the opposite sex or else why would they go through this?!' I don't think trans people are LYING--I believe they really believe it. The same way I believe that Christians really believe in God. But I'm an atheist, 100%. I don't believe in God OR an internal 'gendered soul'. I don't have to believe what other people believe.
I do think there are a lot of people who are 'going along to get along' but I also think that a lot of people really believe they are supporting the correct 'side'. I discovered through our conversations that there were a great many things my Liberal Californian relatives were unaware of, due to them wanting to be supportive of the LGBTQIAetc. and also living in their bubble. (Primarily, their naive belief that they would have control of the situation as parents if my tomboy niece came home one day and announced she was trans. In California!? Please. One conversation with a guidance counselor at school about how her parents wouldn't use her new pronouns, and she'd be removed from that house.)
I appreciate you and it's writers like you who keep me hopeful and motivated. ['Flashing Green' = 'Keep Going'] I will also keep speaking up...but it sure is lonely, exhausting, and frustrating.
Thank you, Gary!
Great piece. New subscriber now. I’ve been wanting to scream from the rooftop for years now after I researched the issue and understood what was happening. I was on tumblr 10 years ago when I saw young kids being indoctrinated in real time with the gender ideology. The baseless idea from academia that we all have a gender identity becoming popular in the wider culture at the same time that the affirmative model of care was adopted created the perfect storm for this sociogenic and iatrogenic condition of our time. I have started to speak up more, though it has led to being iced out by friends. It has always bothered me that so few people have the ability to think critically, historically, and to see the cultural influences underlying gender dysphoria. We treat problems of the mind and culture as problems of the body. Backwards.
Thank you, Hanna! I think people turn off their brains about this stuff because the forces that promote it are so strong and influential. It’s much easier for people to have complex moral issues--because this is a moral issue--decided for them than have to figure it out for themselves. It’s scary to question dogma!
My best friend is a gay man (he's on Fire Island right now) and we discuss now and then the Trans issue, and I think he just feels that as a sexual minority he should always be "on the side of" every and any sexual minority, regardless of the bizarre and nonsensical demands and ideas of the activist class.
And I think his worldview (along w our other gay friends) is grounded so deeply in the shame and fear he felt growing up as gay, that his first thought and priority in re these issues is to always be seen as helping and supporting anyone who may be going through a similar painful experience.
I think Trans has been so successful because it has attached itself to the cause of gay rights (which most people support), and the Trans activist class has made it seem that any opposition to the Trans agenda is implicity anti-gay or pro-bigot.
So even if I can get my friends to agree that maybe the Gender fundamentalists have gone overboard, they still read opposition as either anti-gay bigotry or at least as being insensitive to people who are suffering because of their sexual identity.
But at the same time when we are all in private and relaxing, he and my other gay friends admit that of course Trans women aren't literal women (nor do they need to be) and that the Bluehaired Theys are mostly miserable people trying to spread their misery to the rest of us.
So maybe there's hope that someday soon we can find a compromise or equilibrium where no one is persecuted or discriminated against because of their sexual identity, but the more extreme ideas and demands of the Gender Studies dept can be repudiated.
Thanks for sharing this with me. I understand the impulse to sympathize with any sexual minority out of solidarity. That has always been by M.O., and in fact it still is. There are trans people I know whom I love and support and want them to live safe, peaceful, happy lives. It’s the gender ideology that I don’t believe in. Its a belief system. I’m a gender atheist, I guess. And at its core it is deeply, deeply homophobic. And the people appropriating the gay identity to count themselves as part of a marginalized group to earn cultural cache is offensive.
I am also a Gender atheist, and I refuse to believe there is any contradiction bw loving and supporting gay people, loving and enjoying androgyny (and realizing we are all androgynous to a certain extent, esp in the womb) and refusing to buy any of the Gender ideology.
Gender ideology is reductive, divisive, coercive, based on shoddy scholarship (as in denial of biology, natural selection, sexual selection) and all of it seems to come wrapped in the language of a blackmail note (not to mention it is all so dour and joyless and poorly written).
Thanks for the interesting article! Cheers!
Great, fabulous, marvelous, hoorah, hip, hip hooray, whoohooo! You get the picture. From an old, Catholic grandmother who supports free speech and serious ideas.
Thank you, Rory!
What a lovely piece. So glad to hear your voice, Ben: thank you x
Thank you, Margaret!
As someone who takes the soft touch approach I think your friend is wrong that you should be softer. Softer works best when you’re talking to individuals - almost all my friends are trans and I’ve managed to have discussions about my concerns without anyone calling me a transphobe or a TERF, but there’s built in trust of good faith there that you don’t receive when engaging with the public. And anyway, is the point of public discourse to change minds or to make it safer for people who already agree to share their thoughts? I don’t think my conversation approach is more valuable than what you’re doing, and you shouldn’t feel bad for how you’re conducting your public dialog
Thank you for sharing this with me, Tar.
So proud of you, keep it up, and stay humble 💕
:) XO
Great article Ben! When one believes an injustice has been done, one has a duty to speak out. Keep up the cause!
Thank you!
Keep writing from your soul Ban. And remember to wear a hat and sunblock at the beach. ( It’s in my nature to nag.)❤️
Will do!
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Thank you again.
Thanks for reading!
I had a similar experience at NYC Pride the other weekend. I had this fear of being surrounded by reminders of this ideology that I have severe problems with, but it ended up being fairly standard as far as Prides go. Granted, I didn't really go to the parade or any major events, but the bars I went to and people I hung out with were pretty free of the dogma I've come to expect. (Granted I didn't bring it up, but still.) I am frequently worried lately that I spend far too much time thinking about this stuff to the detriment of other aspects of my life. I'm worried that it will breed resentment in spite and make me feel even more politically homeless than I already am. So it is nice to be reminded that real life is not always as dogmatic and oppressive as Twitter is.
I appreciate people like you who are willing to put yourselves out there on this issue, because I feel like it would be social and career suicide for some of us to be more public about this stuff. Maybe I'm wrong, and I do think it's getting better, but posting about this on social media is still very intimidating. That said, I have slowly been having these conversations more with people in my personal life, and while I wouldn't say I've made any full-blown converts yet, I think I have gotten people to start thinking a tiny bit more critically. Small victories, I guess.
Thank you for sharing this with me!
I’ve always felt too stupid to speak on things, but I’ve found that when talking to others on a day to day basis about issues, it’s important that I speak up for what I believe is right. It’s def. not always comfortable, but I’m sick of walking away from conversations and regretting the fact that I didn’t say more. Thanks for being a constant example of how to challenge yourself! And if someone dare call me a “birthing vagina body menstrator” to my face, I might just choke them out.
❤️❤️❤️
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. Great read.
Thank you!
You're very welcome. Really enjoyed it.