the queer folks thread

It is a sad day we must live through.
Too bad some of the members are so self centred that they need to turn every thread about their own complaints, and every post by another as a trigger to spew them forth.

Michael P said:
The ignore feature is a wonderful tool.
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agreed.
 
leatherback said:
It is a sad day we must live through.
Too bad some of the members are so self centred that they need to turn every thread about their own complaints, and every post by another as a trigger to spew them forth.
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Are you still allowed to post things like that in Germany? Come on, insult me. Let's see who has freedom.
 
dbonsaiw said:
I will exit stage right and leave you to your little bubble. I’ll be using the ignore feature in my life for things that don’t directly concern me as well. Thanks for the advice.

Intersectionality is a farse that specifically excludes me (and you know that) but I now understand your position much clearer. Thank you for explaining my place in your eyes. As for division, you are the one that just did that.
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For the life of me, I can't understand your argument in this thread. I believe I'm at least as smart as the average bear, and yet after re-reading all of your posts in this thread, I can't see your issue.
Did I miss something?
I'm the least racist, least prejudiced person I know and so far as I can tell, it's only your arguments that affect my opinion of you.
How is "intersectionality a farce that specifically excludes [you]" ?
Please help me understand. In a DM if that's your preference.
 
NashsMan said:
How is "intersectionality a farce that specifically excludes [you]" ?
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First off, the fact that you even inquired is very much appreciated. However, it doesn't seem that my comments here are appreciated so I would suggest you simply do a Google search and see what you find for yourself. I used the following search "intersectionality jews exclude" and was quite successful in finding a wealth of literature on how the progressive movement and intersectionality in specific excludes me.
 
dbonsaiw said:
First off, the fact that you even inquired is very much appreciated. However, it doesn't seem that my comments here are appreciated so I would suggest you simply do a Google search and see what you find for yourself. I used the following search "intersectionality jews exclude" and was quite successful in finding a wealth of literature on how the progressive movement and intersectionality in specific excludes me.
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Thank you very much. Indeed the Google search was enlightening.

I have thought from the beginning that "intersectionality" was an empty concept that merely complicates the pigeonholes that too many people use to identify others. "Othering" is the underlying problem in human behavior,. "Brothering" might be a more helpful direction. (I say this although my own brother hasn't spoken to me in 35 years: not recognizing our bond.)

I grew up in a very insular small town environment with widespread racism (including my parents) and knew from an early age that I must escape. I have had lovers of all colors, nationalities, religions (or not) and serious, deeply probing conversations with men, women, trans and non-binary people.
We are all born into the same cosmic joke with a rigged hand of cards. Some hands are more difficult to play than others; some of our own identity choices will change the way we play those cards; sometimes we don't see that we have any choices.

My sister was born with a deficit of intelligence capabilities but she has found a good and fulfilling life.
My husband was born with cerebral palsy that has meant his body has betrayed him often, but he was sexy as hell when we met (while all around us hundreds of friends were dying from AIDS), and his emotional intelligence still awes me.

We all have limited time, attention and resources; and then we die.

As Dan Savage would say, "Don't forget to dance!"
 
Sorry, I know I said I wasn’t going to get involved with this, but the only thing on the internet that bothers me more than trolls is misinformation.

The claim is that Jews are explicitly excluded from intersectionality. This claim is surprising to me, so I was interested in determining the origin. What I found is that the origin of this claim is directly from the European Jewish Association, who made a resolution declaring that anti-semitism must be discussed separately from other phenomena of discrimination. So if you have issue with Judaism being excluded from discussions of intersectionality, that is an issue you should raise with the EJA and other Jewish communities, not the queer community.

European Jewish leaders from the EJA Annual Conference in Porto: Antisemitism is a unique phenomenon and must be treated separately from other forms of hate and discrimination - EJA - European Jewish Association

Date: 15 May 2023 Immediate Release EUROPEAN JEWISH LEADERS CONFERENCE IN PORTO. THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR: ANTISEMITISM IS UNIQUE AND MUST BE
ejassociation.eu ejassociation.eu

Myself, I wholly reject the claims that a group can opt out of being part of intersectionality—to say that means the word has no meaning. Consider the deeply intersectional issue of Jewish ethnic communities, such as the Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, and others. Or queer Jewish folks (and I would be remiss to neglect to mention that of all large religious groups in the West, the Jews have been by far the most accepting of queerness).

Now with that having been addressed, I hope we can put that behind us—please start another thread if you’d like to further this conversation.
 
pandacular said:
Sorry, I know I said I wasn’t going to get involved with this, but the only thing on the internet that bothers me more than trolls is misinformation.
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It is much safer to not engage. I engaged a discussion once and this is the result. We have a very angry and bitter user here who cannot accept there are different people with different perspectives on global challenges. This user take discussions only in one direction: jews are somehow globally persecuted for whatever reason, unique in their problems and the whole world is out to get them. (Where in most places of the world, people do not care one way or the other what religion or heritage you connect to. If you do not try to point out to the world how unique and special you are, nobody cares. Just one of many different lifes paths). But I digress. Stay out of you become a ball to be kicked too I am afraid.
 
Michael P said:
I hoped that I would not spend the last part of my life watching my country descend into fascism.
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I help you hope.
I think the race is running in the other direction though.

In the EU we see much of the same patterns. A lot of blaming going around, instead of finding rootcauses of problems and fixing them. 10 second sounbites work better than reasoned argumentations. Last year, the Netherlands voted an extreme-right goverment who cut spending on foreign aid, education, conservation. It is causing massive layoffs at universities and ministries all in the name of efficiency. My own faculty is hit with a 30% budget deficit; my the university has had the first round of lay-offs last week in what will be the worst reductions in its existence. My faculty will start a layoff process in spring, most likely. My only positive so far is that companies have been reaching out to me considering a switch. However, the mission of institutional strengthening using geoinformation for sustainable development is too close to my heart to leave yet. (But with one of the big collaborations partners at NASA loosing their funding and everyubody we worked with there being out of a job now means our work has become less impactfull).

Germany has elections on Sunday, and we expect much the same types of parties being voted. All promising very simple solutions to complex problems by simply blaming individual groups. Meanwhile we see the USA telling Russia they can keep whatever the cut out of the Ukraine, as long as the USA gets parts of the resources in that country. Next to this, telling palestina their rights are gone because an other aggressive act needs to be rewarded.

Bygone are the days of moderation where agreements meant something. Back to bigotry, fear mongering and religion-driven persecution. Power of guns over negotiation.
Quite sad really, and it saddens me to see that the (inter)national political mood extends to one-on-one relations and discussions.

Wishing all strength and safety facing bullies and bigots like the one posting here.
 
The persistent use of this astronomically small space, created with the intent to bolster marginalized communities within the art of bonsai, as a background for entirely unrelated grandstands has really indicated to me how much work we have to do to create equitable and welcoming organizations for blossoming artists. I grow fatigued of leading women professionals in the field being spoken over or disrespected in workshops they direct. Bonsai is not about our identities, but the trees we develop assimilate our identities and philosophies into their structure.

I started HRT about half a year ago, while the current political zeitgeist is unfavorable, I am grateful for the opportunity to be in a club leadership position as a person who understands the ways in which we can actively or passively create unwelcoming or un-inclusive spaces.
 
KikurageOtomo said:
The persistent use of this astronomically small space, created with the intent to bolster marginalized communities within the art of bonsai, as a background for entirely unrelated grandstands has really indicated to me how much work we have to do to create equitable and welcoming organizations for blossoming artists. I grow fatigued of leading women professionals in the field being spoken over or disrespected in workshops they direct. Bonsai is not about our identities, but the trees we develop assimilate our identities and philosophies into their structure.

I started HRT about half a year ago, while the current political zeitgeist is unfavorable, I am grateful for the opportunity to be in a club leadership position as a person who understands the ways in which we can actively or passively create unwelcoming or un-inclusive spaces.
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The Milwaukee club has a lot of out LGBTQ+ members and it's been an overwhelmingly welcoming place for me. My fiancee is even helping to record and edit the club meeting videos so me being a lesbian isn't some nebulous thing they never see, my partner is right there with me.
 
What I’m reading is echoing my experience; the internet amplifies the voices of haters, but when it comes to in person interactions, there’s a great deal of acceptance and lovely people.

Honestly, there’s no small amount of this that is because the risk of getting put down for being hateful is almost nil online but very high in person.

I hear lots of good things about bonsai in Wisconsin; hopefully I get a chance to check out an event next time I visit my in-laws there.
 

Citing ‘Biological Truth,’ Kennedy Issues Guidance Recognizing Only Two Sexes​

www.nytimes.com

RFK Jr. Announces New HHS Guidance Recognizing Only Two Sexes

The new guidance follows President Trump’s demand that the Health and Human Services Department align with his executive order barring transgender athletes from women’s sports.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

You are not paranoid if they really are trying to erase you.
 
I've been thinking a bit lately about how fast the gay rights movement has moved compared to the original civil rights movement and the feminist movement. It took a century to move from slavery to integration and another half a century to move from normalizing integrated schools to normalizing interracial marriage. The beginning of feminism is a little harder to pin down, but the women's suffrage movement is an adequate benchmark for a beginning, and we're still sorting out the "Me Too" movement. It's safe to say it's been over a hundred years coming. The gay rights movement didn't really take off until the second half of the 20th century, and it's already normal to see gay couples on television. The timeline is even shorter for the trans movement. Twenty years ago, I didn't even know that transgendered people existed. Ten years ago, a man in a dress was still funny. Today, we're near a tipping point where about half of the United States is fully supportive of trans identities.

I think that's why the backlash from the political right wing has been so strong recently. If you try to spur on an ass too hard, it'll stop moving completely, and it may even take a few steps back.

Relatedly, I think the American political parties got their symbols backward. Elephants charge forward, whereas donkeys are stubborn and wary of change.
 
It is a classic tactic of fascism. Find a marginalized and barely tolerated group then make them a scapegoat for real or imaginary problems. The Nazis didn't come for the Jews first, they went after socialists and trade unionists beforehand. One can make the case that federal workers are in the same category now. And remember that the Nazis didn't tell everyone that they were planning to send these people to concentration camps at first--that came later.

I know the some are made uncomfortable by comparisons of Republicans to Nazis. But that is because both consolidated their power in early stages in much the same way.
 
Michael P said:
I know the some are made uncomfortable by comparisons of Republicans to Nazis.
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That would be me (although I am suspicious of Elon Musk, specifically).

It is easy to make comparisons between the Nazis and other groups because the tactics the Nazis used were not unique to the Nazis. The Nazis are merely an extreme example of certain tactics. Picking a scapegoat is certainly not unique to the Nazis. Wartime leaders have long known, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." The United States rounded up the Japanese and put them in camps during the war, but I don't think anyone would describe the U.S.A. during W.W.II. as fascist—at least not any mainstream historian. The U.S. fought against fascism.

What set the Nazis apart from other political movements were the extremes they went to. It wasn't enough to imprison perceived enemies. They needed to be enslaved and/or exterminated. It wasn't enough to establish German military dominance in the region and re-negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. They needed to build an Aryan empire.

I live in Trump country. The overwhelming majority of the people I speak to on a daily basis voted for Trump, and they just want to "keep men out of women's bathrooms" and "keep boys out of girls' sports." In other words, they don't understand the new definition of gender. Ten years ago, virtually everyone agreed that a boy has a penis, a girl has a vulva, and that's all there is to it. Now there's new definitions for boy, girl, man, and woman, and the conservatives are upset that no one consulted with them first. Ironically, the goal of most Republicans is not to hurt transgendered people. The goal of Republicans is to protect innocent children from being "mutilated" and "sterilized" by greedy plastic surgeons. In the Republican narrative, trans people are, at worst, confused people who need help, or, in the alternative, victims of an evil scheme by greedy perverts to separate them from their money and their genitals. I don't see many parallels to fascism in that narrative, misguided as it may be.
 
Sorry, but the goal of some (not all) Republicans) is to actively harm LGBTQ+ people. They actively seek to erase us from history, deny us healthcare, and prohibit accurate education about human sexuality so that young LGBTQ+ people grow up as I did: alone, afraid, hating myself. These are stated goals and happening in multiple jurisdictions across the United States. The rest of the Republicans are complicit, either from willful ignorance or complete lack of empathy.

The extreme positions of the Nazis are not a historical fluke. Modern equivalents exist in Uganda, Russia, and a number of Middle Eastern states.

I am happy that you are participating in this discussion and I respect your opinions. You must remember that for many of us this is a matter of personal survival, not ideology. I lived through the AIDS epidemic and lost my first husband to it. I remember the complete silence and inaction of the Republicans in power at that time, and the efforts of some of them to prevent AIDS research during that time.
 
Agreeing with @Michael P here:
The alignment of the Tucker Carlsons, JD Vances and the whole constellation of FOX personalities personalities with Victor Orban's Hungarian Christian Nationalism and wit Putin's Russian version makes the Republican agenda clear. Also note that the Idaho legistlature debated a resolution resolution asking the US Supreme Court to reconsider Gay marriage! The discussions about library book bans are not only about trans issues but also about all LGBTQ+ ideas and issues.
For younger people, the indifference and hatred of Republicans and conservatives during the height of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's is detailed in Randy Shilt's masterly book, "And the Band Played On".
I fear that we are seeing a returrn to those attitudes.
I grew up among Fundamentalist Republicans and my siblings and all of my cousins still belong to that camp: They are so fearful of being wronged that they are easily duped by malicious power-hungry politicians. It's the same mechanism by which poor whites were convinced that people of color were taking advantage of them from the 1870's til the 2000's while the wealthy were grabbing money from everyone.
 
I suppose one problem is that I'm discussing the Republicans as though the party is monolithic. I live in a red county in a blue state. It would make sense that the Republicans in my area could be more moderate than the Republicans in red states.
 
In Texas parents of trans children are relocating to other states because they can no longer get care for their children here.
 
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