sundries

[rm]

Patty and I have not been having the best luck this week with feeling well, tolerating the heat, etc. But the heat has broken and today will be different. I'm working early to finish early and yesterday pretty much taxed me out on the Internet for the week, I think. So y'all get to talk amongst yourselves while we try to be productive and have quality time before we leave on our respective trips.

Did I really see an ad on my way to my morning tasks for a film called: Dogs and Cats: The Revenge of Kitty Galore????!?!?!? Yes, apparently I did. (Warning for Patty: contains creepy hairless cat).

A new high school and some oysters may be the key to saving New York's waterways.

Italy is fighting in European court a ban on crucifixes in its classrooms.

Soon same-sex partners will be eligible for bereavement leave in NYS. How depressing is it that there needs to be a law or shit won't happen?

Meanwhile, this made me cry in a good way. Repentance and reconciliation at Pride and probably not in the way you'd expect. via pecunium.

Apparently, a doctor is treating pregnant women in Florida with hormones to prevent the possibility that their daughters with be lesbian or bisexual and/or display habits and career interests that are deemed too masculine.

In case you missed that, let me say this again: pregnant women are being treated with experimental drugs to prevent birth defects such as homosexuality and non-traditional gender roles.

I feel unsafe. The steps from the desire to prevent to the desire to eradicate what's already here are very small.

As Dan Savage notes: "Gay people have been stressing out about a day arriving when scientists developed treatments to prevent homosexuality ... well, here we are—the day appears to have arrived. Now what are we going to do about it?"

Comments

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

And this is why I've been virulently opposed to the whole 'it's not a choice! It's biology!' fad going round the last decade or so.

The vast majority of studies about biologically determiend homoseuxality are shaky at best (another way to describe the example quoted in the article about lesbians and hormone levels is: "about 60% of lesbians show no elevated hormone levels and those that do, show only a moderate difference from the norm"). Written that way, it doesn't sound like hormone levels are the 'cause' of lesbianism (not to mention the fact that the study was of about 200 total women, only 24 of which were a 'control group' and there was no attempt to recruit lesbians from outside family members of the CAH study group to see what their levels were).

I understand that there seems to be some imaginary moral weight to the idea that people 'chose' to be queer, and if – instead – it can be proven that it's bioligical than the moral weight of chosing will be removed. Little attention seemed to be paid by queer folks to India or China where socially undesirable persons (girls, in both cases) were eradicated in huge numbers due to changes in technology, as if that wouldn't happen to queers.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I am so with you on this, and I feel like such a voice in the wilderness about it.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

We're so much in the middle of a biological determinism fad. I hate it in relation to queerness because it comes with an assumption that 'choosing' to be queer is a less desirable choice than 'choosing' to be straight -- and that doesn't solve the bigotry in our culture at all.

[eandh99.livejournal.com]

But "choosing" to be queer is equally problematic, and very frequently used as an excuse to deny rights and protections - if it's "just a choice" then you should just choose to stop and act "normal",and the state can continue to penalize you for making the wrong choices. Not only is what this doctor doing ethically null, it's scientific nonsense and very probably dangerous to the woman and the fetus. I notice that this doctor, like the previous one, is "treating" CAH.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

Yes, their both problematic but the biology path is an attempt at an excuse -- it's not my fault I'm queer! don't hit me! -- which, looking at human history has never been particularly succesful. Rather, IMO, the need is to remove the bigotry that says it matters, one way or the other, whether its a choice or not.

IMO, teaching people that it's not okay to bash queers -- biological or not -- is a better, more permanent solution than everyone looking for the magic, it's not my fault button.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

It doesn't actually matter. If it's a choice, well, queer people should just knock it off already and make with the het. If it's biology, then they desperately need to be cured. Either way, queerness is a terrible, terrible flaw that must be eradicated.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

The problem comes down to how to label and quantify the myriad causes of something that's entirely natural (cf Bagemihl's Biological Exuberance) and that many people feel is part of their natural "wiring." And, as others have said, "choice" is even more problematic on many levels.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I agree, that whole framing is problematic, because it implies that if being LGBT WAS a choice, then it would still be the wrong one.

I mean, there are a lot of people who report that they didn't choose their sexual orientation, and no one should deny that experience, but at the same time, there are also a lot of people who report that they DID experience choice in their sexual orientaiton, and I don't think people should deny that experience either.

Ultimately, queerness isn't wrong in any way, REGARDLESS of whether or not its a choice.