Sailor's Argument Corner

Just because there is no scientific proof of something just now doesn’t completely erease its very existence. It only means that this something is yet to be discovered and/or properly studied. Science doesn’t disprove the existence of non-binary brains and atypical dysphoria. Just think about it; how can we have a good understanding of atypical dysphoria and non-binary identities when scientists still don’t even FULLY understand the regular, typical dysphoria and BINARY genders? The research is ongoing. This means that most of what we know about gender might as well be temporary.

I hate to do this but I really don’t have the money to properly take care of myself at the moment. I have less than a dollar in my checking account, I owe my school $300, and I am likely to need even more money in order to have a place to stay and food to eat over the winter break.

I am trans and I ran away from my parents so I really can’t ask them for any money. I am autistic and vision impaired. The dining commons where I work is going to be closed over the winter break so I won’t have a job for a little over a month. I’m going through a very bad depressive episode and have already been in the ER. I can’t afford my medication. I can’t afford anything I need right now. And I keep having to either skip work or leave work early because I work in a kitchen and knives are a trigger for me when my mental health is this bad.

I don’t have food stamps at the moment, but I intend to apply for them once I am okay enough to leave my dorm. If I get them I’ll probably get a cheaper meal plan next semester too.

If anybody could please help, that would be appreciated. If you can’t donate, please at least spread this around.

My PayPal email is [email protected] or you can use my link.

Like at least be discreet about it? Like how do you think homeless shelters work? Do you think they just keep pulling beds and rooms out of their asses until nobody wants a bed? Do you not realize they get full? Do you not realize they have to turn people away?

Do you not realize that therapy is in fact a limited source? That many people do not have access to therapy, or have such limited access that they may only have a couple therapists to choose from, if they have a choice at all?

Do you not know how low-income/pro-bono healthcare works, in the US at least? Do you think anybody who needs an HIV test can just walk into any old clinic they fancy at any time and have no wait and get a free discreet test done with a health professional who will respect their humanity and biology? Do you not realize how understaffed and overcrowded low-income health clinics work? Do you think that low-cost healthcare clinics have enough money to treat anyone and everyone who decides they dont want to pay their copays? Do you have any idea how they are funded or what pay-what-you-can means in that context?

And sure let’s get into the gay clubs and gay bars! Do you realize why they are specifically gay clubs and bars? Do you understand that they are bars because the only places gay people could gather without getting arrested and brutalized were places owned by the fucking mob aka speakeasies aka illegal bars? Do you know that gay bars originated as one of the ONLY places gay people could go to meet each other and be themselves, often still at very high personal risk in terms of physical and reputational safety? Do you know why drag culture was only embraced in bars? Do you even fucking know what stonewall is? And do you know why gay bars are disappearing? Because the main source of money in a gay bar is the gay patrons, and when a gay bar is filled up with straight people who go there “because it’s so nice and safe to not get hit on by creepy guys I dont want a dyke to look at me though ew” then the gays stop fucking showing up because any gay person looking to go to a gay bar to meet gay people isnt going to go to the bar filled with straight girls having bachelorette parties, then it loses its gay customers and straights dont get to go see their zoo animals at the freaky freaky ell gee bee tee freakshow bar, and then the bars run out of business! The reason why we dont want cishets at our fucking bars is because they are spaces for us to meet each other, and cishets lining up to watch us do our freaky freaky gay shit dampens our desires to go there!

Do you understand how any of this fucking works? Do you understand that LGBT scholarships legally cant deny straight people from applying but are obviously meant for LGBT people? Do you understand that money doesnt fucking grow on trees and there is a limited number of scholarship dollars out there, specifically ones for LGBT people?

Do you understand that group therapy safe spaces for LGBT people are only safe because of the lack of cishets? That allowing a cishet into that group destroys the dynamic and eliminates it as a safe space? Do you understand that there are seat limits to group therapies, and that they often are aimed at people with similar traumas and issues, and that a cishet who decides to show up to a therapy session for gay men or bi women or trans people of color or HIV positive LGBT people will automatically take that seat away from someone who will actually benefit from it and also destroy the sanctity of the space?

Like why is this funny to you guys? Is it because you see LGBT suffering as fun jokes you can use to enhance your Queer Cred? Is it because you dont realize this is real for some people? Is it because you cant conceptualize someones oppression putting them in a life or death situation? Is it because you genuinely believe that a gay couple and a cishet ace couple will receive identicle treatment at a Salvation Army, and that if the straight ace couple has good reason to ignore their access to the salvation army and opt to take up limited real world beds that cannot be pulled out of an ass at an LGBT shelter instead? Is it because the thought of your oppression fantasy being someone elses reality fills you with tingles?

Nobody is saying cishet aces dont deserve beds at homeless shelters. What we are saying is cishet aces will not experience homophobic or transphobic violence at non LGBT friendly shelters, and that its homophobic and transphobic for them to choose to take a bed at a shelter that could have gone to an LGBT person instead of at a homophobic shelter where they will experience no homophobia.

The point of this whole discourse is that the reason so many LGBT people arent comfortable with cishet aces being lumped together with us is that they do not share our oppression and often contribute to it.

I hate to do this but I really don’t have the money to properly take care of myself at the moment. I have less than a dollar in my checking account, I owe my school $300, and I am likely to need even more money in order to have a place to stay and food to eat over the winter break.

I am trans and I ran away from my parents so I really can’t ask them for any money. I am autistic and vision impaired. The dining commons where I work is going to be closed over the winter break so I won’t have a job for a little over a month. I’m going through a very bad depressive episode and have already been in the ER. I can’t afford my medication. I can’t afford anything I need right now. And I keep having to either skip work or leave work early because I work in a kitchen and knives are a trigger for me when my mental health is this bad.

I don’t have food stamps at the moment, but I intend to apply for them once I am okay enough to leave my dorm. If I get them I’ll probably get a cheaper meal plan next semester too.

If anybody could please help, that would be appreciated. If you can’t donate, please at least spread this around.

My PayPal email is [email protected] or you can use my link.

I hate to do this but I really don’t have the money to properly take care of myself at the moment. I have less than a dollar in my checking account, I owe my school $300, and I am likely to need even more money in order to have a place to stay and food to eat over the winter break.

I am trans and I ran away from my parents so I really can’t ask them for any money. I am autistic and vision impaired. The dining commons where I work is going to be closed over the winter break so I won’t have a job for a little over a month. I’m going through a very bad depressive episode and have already been in the ER. I can’t afford my medication. I can’t afford anything I need right now. And I keep having to either skip work or leave work early because I work in a kitchen and knives are a trigger for me when my mental health is this bad.

I don’t have food stamps at the moment, but I intend to apply for them once I am okay enough to leave my dorm. If I get them I’ll probably get a cheaper meal plan next semester too.

If anybody could please help, that would be appreciated. If you can’t donate, please at least spread this around.

My PayPal email is [email protected] or you can use my link.

if you think ppl who are too poor to attend a four year university for all four years, or that ppl who are too poor to/don’t want to get their bachelor’s/master’s/doctorate are “stupid” then i have news for you:

it’s defined by medical sources as distress or impairment caused by a disconnect

it’s common sense that for something to be a medical condition it has to impair you in some way. you get diagnosed with an anxiety disorder because your anxiety is disrupting your day to day life. same goes for dysphoria

It mostly has to do with the lesbians I’ve known and spoken to, honestly. And usually I see nonbinary and he/him lesbians bringing up culture as major factor in their identity. And while I wouldn’t consider the AFAB ones to be trans because they still consider themselves women, I can respect such reasoning.

iirc, your argument against this concept is the fact that “no woman would want to go through male puberty.” and that just makes me wonder why the hell your definition of gender is apparently so based in the physical? what about trans men and women who dont want to medically transition? do they need to reevaluate their identities because they dare to be comfortable with the “wrong puberty”?? like, you realize the hormones in your body don’t dictate how you present or identify right?

And here is the thing. If your dysphoria is such that you want to not be perceived as a woman (and yes - changes on T mean you'll likely be perceived as not being a woman), then you should be questioning whether or not you are actually a woman. If you feel like you would be genuinely happier with a body that will not be perceived as female, you should be questioning whether or not you are actually female. And while there are some effects of T that you can pick and choose, that doesn't change that for a lot of the changes, you don't get a say. It also doesn't change that depending on what effects you actually want, you may have to stay on it your whole life, regardless of if you like the other effects or not.

http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/

http://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/for-the-cure/

http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/132728/susan_g_komen_foundation_has

that’s right fracking you know, a process using chemicals known to cause cancer that leech into the water supply

http://www.triplepundit.com/2014/10/baker-hughes-fights-breast-cancer-pink-fracking-drill-bits/

Breast Cancer Research Foundation

Cancer Research Institute

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

if you aren’t out as a trans man, do not submit any pictures to the blog fuckyeahftms

theres a blog (dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com) that frequently links to and reposts pictures of trans men from fuckyeahftms, effectively outing them, in the name of showing how “testosterone is poison to the female body,” and “transgenderism was made to fix homosexuality and is a lesbian epidemic”

this blog also gets photos of trans men from other sites like instagram, some who explicitly mention they’re living stealth

the blog mostly features young trans men, including many who are minors, and typically writes a few paragraphs misgendering them and condemning “transgenderism”

If you aren’t trans or sga you aren’t part of the LGBT community. Like, plain and simple as that.

I’m going to start by saying that when I was 14 I thought I was aroace and I came out to my mom and told her I probably wasnt ever going to want to have a relationship. She reacted bad. Like legit screaming fight and calling me a sinner bad. It was some of the most ridiculous bullshit I’d ever been exposed to. And it sucked and it hurt that she didn’t understand and even tho I’ve moved away from that identity, it still sucks to remember that moment. And this is serious shit that needs to be addressed, aroace people do have a lot of interpersonal stigma that needs to be talked about and remedied.

But see. That’s the key difference. Aroace issues are interpersonal, not societal. And the aroace community has very different goals from LGBT people as a result.

Aroace community initiatives are all about Visibility and Education. And those are noble goals, giving people access to this knowledge is great, but for LGBT people the kind of laser focus on Visibility isn’t great.

LGBT people are hypervisible. Trans women get mocked in media constantly, gay men and lesbians are stereotyped and demonized out the wazoo, everyone Knows we’re here. We don’t have a visibility issue.

We’re busy focusing on fighting the societal laws that literally restrict our freedoms. Because at the end of the day if you’re not an sga ace person, you’re not going to walk into an apartment complex with your spouse and be denied a home by a homophobic leasing agent. You’re not going to propose to the person you love and then have a baker refuse to make you a wedding cake because they believe you’re such an abomination that they think getting money from you is a sin. You’re not going to walk down the street holding your partner’s hand and have to fear for your life. You’re not going to tell your co-workers about your spouse and face social isolation, harassment, possibly being fired. You’re not going to be sent to conversion therapy specifically for your orientation and tortured until you’re too afraid to express your love anymore. You’re not going to be refused the right to donate blood.

If youre not a trans ace person, you’re not going to be stopped on your way to the bathroom and sexually harassed about your “real gender.” You’re not going to be denied work. You’re not going to be forced against your will to identify as a gender you are not.

There are no anti-ace laws. Theres no mandate to have sex or be in relationships. There are social pressures, YES, and I’m not denying that. And social pressures suck. But what you’re dealing with is fundamentally different from sga & trans experiences.

The thing about being ace is that it really is more of an interpersonal than professional disclosure. If someone irl asked me about my partners I’d have to talk about my boyfriends. I wouldn’t mention my level of sexual attraction or engagement because that’s not what was asked or what is socially appropriate to disclose. My boyfriends know I’m acespec because it’s relevant to our relationship, my boss would not.

Aromanticism is a mildly different story, because this is when you would reveal, “oh, I’m not in a relationship, I’m not really interested in them.” This could be met mostly with confusion, misunderstanding, disbelief, jokes, or “it’s a phase"s. Which all suck! They do and they’re issues that need to be addressed and dealt with, but once more they’re fundamentally different from the concerns sga people have to deal with when bringing their orientations into the professional realm.

Aro/ace people are perfectly valid, memeatic as that term has become. These are legitimate identities with definitely legitimate issues. But the facts are that the aroace community has vastly different priorities from the LGBT community and this is why they are fundamentally separate.

LGBT spaces and resources shouldn’t be expended in a direction that takes focus away from actual LGBT issues like the ones discussed above. Aroace people need to rally together and get their own resources in shape so they can create a more focused and targeted attempt to do what they want to accomplish. Because tugging at LGBT resources and insisting on including cishet aces, whose experiences are so fundamentally different from trans sga folks’, in LGBT spaces is detrimental to all of us in the long run.

And all the sitting around flinging insults at LGBT people and comparing them to bigots or their oppressors and being disgusted by LGBT people empowering themselves through displays of affection that they’re demonized for in every other circle just kinda proves the rift that exists between these communities and how much their priorities differ.