How your own views of GLT issues have changed

[Kitsune]

I guess this fits here as being a morality issue...

What I am wondering how your own views of homosexuality have changed over time. Was anyone here once homophobic and they changed over time. In addition, what were the influences over various points of your life.

I have to be honest, I don't really remember what my values really were. Remember talking to other teenagers saying bad things about homosexuals. I don't think my heart was every really in it and I think I was trying to fit in. Might have been a slightly homophobic.

Over time, that changed until in my twenties I was basically completely neutral, not saying anything good or bad. This was actually in the Navy so a homophobic environment but I guess there was enough diversity in the navy just to see that being a bit diverse is fine.

Somewhere, not sure exactly when, I changed my views to an even more positive view toward homosexuality and to the point of arguing in there case and trying to help out in Virginia against both the law and the constitutional amendment.

[Setzer]

When I first started posting online back in 2000-2001, I was against homosexuality. It should be noted that I was raised in a small, mostly Christian town, and I'd had no real outside influences in my social life. In 2003, after a year or two on this board, I decided I could no longer call myself a Christian. I also realized that a lot of my objections to differing sexuality were solely because of a religion I was no longer a part of. I'm far more willing to live and let live nowadays.

As for transgendered issues, they'd never really been discussed growing up. I knew sex change operations existed, and that some people had them, but I never much thought about it. I'd always thought Marina was a lesbian, but I respected her regardless. When she outed herself, it was after years of routine posting. I won't deny I thought it was unusual, but hell, this wasn't a recent development. She'd been transgendered for years, and it didn't really make any difference to her contributions to the group. It really didn't change anything about her, about the person I knew. Ironically, my Christian upbringing always stressed that the body was of no importance next to the soul. What's the meat and bone of a person compared to their knowledge, their personality? Those are what really define a person to my thinking.

There were other people I knew on this board who later came out. It's one thing to deride a group you'll never see, but when you interact with a given minority for years it's difficult to buy into the prejudices surrounding them.

[The Romulan Republic]

I try to maintain a neutral attitude on the matter. As in, "its not my thing but its not my business what other consenting adults do as long as it hurts nobody." On the marriage issue, I take the view that full marriage benefits should be granted by the state, and that as far as preforming a religious marriage, that should be up to the church in question. I feel this is a logical approach that respects the separation of Church and State.

It is possible that this board has moved me towards greater support for and tolerance of gays. Its certainly increased my exposure to members of the gay community and their views, which makes it a lot harder to question their demands for greater rights. One big change this board has wrought in relation to this issue is that I've begun to question weather the state should use the term "marriage" at all, if it is in fact a term purely religious in origin. Why not just give benefits to couples, and leave marriage out of it, or rather, up to the churches? Not saying I nessissarily believe this, but I've started to think about it.

[Mayabird]

It's only changed by making me a bit more militant about it. I knew from an early age that my favorite aunt was a lesbian, and I didn't care. I didn't even realize until middle school that the inbred rednecks I was surrounded by thought that homosexuality was the eviliest thing in the entire world, worse than murder and even taking the Lord's name in vain (note: I had been told in elementary school that "taking the Lord's name in vain" is worse than murder, because murder only hurts a person and not God. Said argument was later used as to why being gay was so much worse than murder. Every time two guys make love, God gets stabbed in the face.)

But yeah, people are getting mistreated because other people are stupid assholes, and that's just not right and I won't stand for it.

[Anguirus]

I've been pretty enlightened on gay rights for as long as I understood the issues. It was several more years before I came to an understanding of what it meant to be transgender or intersex and why they've got it even worse.

[Ryan Thunder]

I guess this fits here as being a morality issue...

What I am wondering how your own views of homosexuality have changed over time. Was anyone here once homophobic and they changed over time. In addition, what were the influences over various points of your life.

I was a bigoted idiot, and now I just treat those of unfamiliar sexuality the way I'd expect them to treat me. I'll oppose laws restricting their rights, I don't particularly care about whether they can get married or not (but they want it so why not give it to them?), etc.

[Junghalli]

Was anyone here once homophobic and they changed over time.

I'm sorry to say that I was, back when I was in my fundie stage. I never hated homosexuals per se (I have a relative who's gay), but I bought the whole "it's a sin and they should fight it" line, and was opposed to marriage equality.

I honestly credit my deconversion with curing me of that attitude. It was all based on religion, so once I didn't believe in the religion anymore I realized it was a totally illogical and rather assholish attitude, and changed my position to the only thing that really made sense under my new ethical code (it's not harming anybody, so there's nothing wrong with it).

[Stark]

I have never in my life given a shit what consenting adults get up to in their spare time. I've had better things to worry about.

[Icehawk]

As a kid after I first learned what "gay" and "homo" actually meant from the typical homophobe bully types at school in 4th grade, I ended up basically defaulting to a somewhat homophobic viewpoint out of ignornace, (I had never actually seen any outright gay people in my life at that point and only had other peoples ignorant explanations to go on). This of course set things up so that when I was around 11 and I first saw scenes of the Gay Pride parades in Toronto on the news I was then litterally TERRIFIED at the sight of it. Living in an environment where the idea of being gay was something most people mocked on the school grounds and that it just seemed so "unnatural" and different and then seeing it in the over the top flamboyant manner as they do in the Pride parades made me a true homophobe at that point. However once puberty was in full swing and in my highschool years, things started to change abruptly when I started having the occasional "gay" dreams and becoming turned on by lesbian porn and even sometimes male gay or tranny porn, I was actually able to really question and evolve my views. I ultimately came to realize over those years that what people are attracted to sexually isn't out of conscious choice and that gays, tranny's and such have always been around and are an otherwise "normal" and harmless part of human existance that deserved all the same rights and freedoms as everyone else.

[Erik von Nein]

I never hated homosexuals nor did I ever think they deserved to have rights stripped from them, though I used to be uncomfortable around them. I was, however, raised by someone who would go on at length about how homosexuality was all in the mind and had nothing to do with biological development. He was adamant that the only reason why male homosexuals were homosexual was because they had domineering mothers and weak fathers and/or suffered abuse. Female homosexuals were, I guess, only that was due to abuse, as well.

Since starting my path down the biology career and reading articles/studies I've found that to be totally incorrect. The man still stands by his statements, though. At the very least he's not wanting to deprive anyone of rights, he just has a weird notion as to why people are homosexual.

[Patrick Degan]

In middle and high school, "gay" was an insult, and you'd laugh about the "queers" and "homos", but I don't think I ever really was afraid or hateful toward gays. Of course, I never really knew any, and my first real exposure to gay people was at Mardi Gras in 1979 when I saw the costume contest the drag queens were staging on Bourbon St. But even before leaving my Catholic school, I never could work up a bias against gays. Part of it I suppose was the time I was growing up, when the attitudes were relatively liberal and gay people were getting a somewhat positive treatment in popular media, enough that you didn't see them as aliens from Mars or slavering perverts, so I never got the negative messages. Even my Catholic school was relatively liberal —either they simply told you it was a sin of weakness or just didn't talk about the subject at all, so again, I never got that inculcation that gays were an affront to God and should be shunned, etc. Eventually, living in New Orleans, I ended up with a few GLB friends and/or acquaintances (which, living there, you're bound to at some point). For me, it was never a big deal what a person was.

[sketerpot]

Sure, my attitudes have changed: I stopped being weirded out by gay and transgendered (etc.) people. And it wasn't a sudden change, either; it took some time and a deliberate effort on my part.

The really important thing was desensitization: once I got over the weirdness of some of these strange concepts, they became a lot less freaky. I bet that if we ever have a popular TV show with a sympathetic transsexual character, the public in general will become dramatically more enlightened in a few short years just from watching.

[Covenant]

I've always been eager to defend people with different sexual orientations or gender identities than mine, but over the years I've gotten increasingly more annoyed with the community of people who make up those groups and the ever-increasing definitions of what people are. It's always irked me that there's got to be a name for every flavor of identity, and every group seems slightly annoyed with every other group, with their own wars internally. People are people, and they like what they like, and they are what they are. I'm not sure we need theory or philosophy for all this stuff, and it goes way over my head at the same time as making things needlessly complex and posing a potential minefield for people who try to be supportive and yet don't quite know the proper language.

It's lead to me washing my hands of the entire thing, and if people get a bit offended, so be it. I'll be there on the barricades to defend them if they get in trouble, but the idea of specific sub-group identity is a bit absurd anyway, and I wish people would stop looking for more ways to itemize who they are. The false outrage is also a bit annoying too, but that was just a college thing. Getting the term "breeder" thrown at me was a bit confusing, and it just made feel more strongly that obliterating these artificial distinctions is infinitely more useful than adding more letters to the GLT thing or delving into identity theory.

So I was always very okay with people, but the degree of hypersensitivity from some individuals I've known is really grating, but I really can't blame them. They live in a world where they could come under fire at any moment, but I wish they'd realize that I'm not going to do that, and would talk to me first or stop assuming I believe one thing or another.

[Count Chocula]

I'm probably one of the "silent plurality" who really don't care or think differently about another based on sexual orientation. Oh sure, if you act flamboyant I'll look at you, if you make a pass at me I'll politely turn you down, but I've never seen it as a big deal.

The only exception I have to this is a singular occurence, as seen on TV (Bawbawa Wawa IIRC), of a transgendered male who still had functioning female bits deciding to have a child! My main issues with this are 1) c'mon, make up your mind, are you a woman or a man!, and 2) that child is going to have a shit time in school if his or her classmates find out that his/her daddy was also his/her mommy. I just typed it out and I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around it.

[Starglider]

I have been in favor of pretty much the whole gay rights platform since I first understood the concept.

However as a teenager, everyone in my peer group used terms for homosexuality as an insult, and it wasn't until my late teens that I realised this was a bad idea.

Other than that, no real change. When I was at university there were a few gay guys after me, and one year when I'd had particularly bad luck with women I agreed to go on a couple of dates to see if maybe that could work. I don't think I could've imagined doing that in my teens. Turned out I was completely hetro anyway though.

[Lusankya]

The only exception I have to this is a singular occurence, as seen on TV (Bawbawa Wawa IIRC), of a transgendered male who still had functioning female bits deciding to have a child! My main issues with this are 1) c'mon, make up your mind, are you a woman or a man!

I believe that the reason for that was that his wife was infertile, and they wanted to have their own biological children. Also, I believe that for FtM GRS, there's no requirement to get rid of the uterus/ovaries. As it turned out, all of his sexual organs were completely functional even after years of hormone therapy. Apparently that was quite surprising. I think my transgender friend still has a pussy (and a penis! that's the best of both worlds!). It's just the way GRS works.

Speaking of my transgender friend, he was my first real exposure to transgendered folk. All of the girls in the group agreed that he was pretty cute. He also had a girlfriend (now a wife) who had no problem with him not having a penis at the time (he has one now though - lucky them!). It was interesting hearing some of his stories, sometimes. When he first enrolled at university, he was still legally female, but all of the transgender paperwork was going through the system. The university didn't want to mark him down as male when he was still legally female, so he got special permission to have a blank gender field. Then about three months later, when the paperwork was through, they changed it to "Mr *name*". It's the kind of issue that you don't really think about usually.

I also found it odd that the government would let him change his gender, but wouldn't let gay people marry somebody of the same sex. It seemed a bit unfair to the homosexuals.

[The Romulan Republic]

The only exception I have to this is a singular occurence, as seen on TV (Bawbawa Wawa IIRC), of a transgendered male who still had functioning female bits deciding to have a child! My main issues with this are 1) c'mon, make up your mind, are you a woman or a man!

I believe that the reason for that was that his wife was infertile, and they wanted to have their own biological children. Also, I believe that for FtM GRS, there's no requirement to get rid of the uterus/ovaries. As it turned out, all of his sexual organs were completely functional even after years of hormone therapy. Apparently that was quite surprising. I think my transgender friend still has a pussy (and a penis! that's the best of both worlds!). It's just the way GRS works.

No offense intended here, but how exactly does one determine that some one with both male and female parts is a member of one gender or the other? Is it simply a matter of preference, ie, which gender they say they belong to? What is the accepted scientific definition of male and female? Is there even one, given that it would probably be controversial with one group or another? I'm not really familiar with this issue from any perspective, be it religious, scientific, legal, or whatever. I guess what I'm asking is, if your biological parts don't determine your gender, what the hell does? Or is it considered a matter of which gender's parts you predominantly possess?

Also, I have no doubt I am failing to use the accepted terminology here. No offense is intended. I don't even know the accepted terminology.

I also found it odd that the government would let him change his gender, but wouldn't let gay people marry somebody of the same sex. It seemed a bit unfair to the homosexuals.

Probably because one is explicitly denounced in the Bible and the other isn't. Or because their are traditions around marriage, existing laws, while no real precidents exist for gender switches. At least that's my guess.

[Lusankya]

No offense intended here, but how exactly does one determine that some one with both male and female parts is a member of one gender or the other? Is it simply a matter of preference, ie, which gender they say they belong to? What is the accepted scientific definition of male and female? Is there even one, given that it would probably be controversial with one group or another? I'm not really familiar with this issue from any perspective, be it religious, scientific, legal, or whatever. I guess what I'm asking is, if your biological parts don't determine your gender, what the hell does? Or is it considered a matter of which gender's parts you predominantly possess?

As far as I know, your biological parts determine your sex. Gender is a lot more complicated. Gender is a bunch of things like social role, self-identification and brain structure, among other things. In the example you chose, the husband was the man because he identified as a male, he took a male social role and (presumably) had a male brain structure. It's just that his biological sex at birth happened to be female.

Someone more familiar with the whole business than I am could probably give you better information. That's more-or-less the way the queer officer at my university described it, and I'd presume he would know, since he's an MtF transsexual.

[Broomstick]

Remember that I date back to the 1960's.

When I was a child, homosexuality was spoken of about as often as pedophillia, and with similar emotions attached. A common catch phrase was "they can't reproduce so they recruit". The only homosexual I can recall hearing about in the media prior to 1980 was John Wayne Gacy, who is hardly someone you'd want to associate with in any way.

When my sister came out of the closet I quickly realized that even if homosexuals were "perverts" by mainstream standards they were harmless (unlike pedophiles, and Mr. Gacy). Nonetheless, my sister's lesbianism was never spoken of in public by most of us for a very good reason - being related to a homosexual could put you at risk. Indeed, on one occasion where a group of kids ganged up on me to beat me up and my parents brought it to the school authorities the response was (paraphrased) "Well, what do you expect, having a pervert in the family?" So during my school years while my sister was campaigning very publically as VP of NOW in Michigan and vocal on women's, homosexual's, and other "pervert" rights I didn't talk about her and hoped no one would connect her to me for fear of my own personal safety.

Nowadays I can talk pretty openly about my sister, something I was afraid to do during her lifetime. I no longer fear being beaten up because I dare to love my sister of atypical sexual orientation.

[Eulogy]

Indeed, on one occasion where a group of kids ganged up on me to beat me up and my parents brought it to the school authorities the response was (paraphrased) "Well, what do you expect, having a pervert in the family?" So during my school years while my sister was campaigning very publically as VP of NOW in Michigan and vocal on women's, homosexual's, and other "pervert" rights I didn't talk about her and hoped no one would connect her to me for fear of my own personal safety.

That is fucking inexcusable. Those mockeries of authoriites need to be sued and fired for refusing to stop unjust violence against someone for something outside of her control! How much swearing did your parents do to the corrupt "authorites"?

[Broomstick]

How old are you?

That was the typical norm in 1970's America. It was seen as perfectly reasonable that groups of school children would beat up the relative of someone homosexual, a sort of "gay panic" defense if you will. And back then, "gay panic" was seen a justification.

Inexcusable? Back then it was seen as the right and proper thing to do. If my family wasn't willing to disown my sister that was the price society said we had to pay. My parents weren't happy their eldest was homosexual but we do not abandon our own. Ever. (My family is kinda cool that way.)

You know, there's a reason the depression and suicide rate was so fucking high among homosexuals a couple decades ago. It's not that great now, either, come to think of it, but that's another can of worms.

I posted that to make a point, you know - that things really HAVE changed a great deal over the past 30-40 years. It's still not where it should be, but we are making progress.

[Zixinus]

Well, like most Hungarians, I hated gay people simply because they're gay. The hungarian word "Buzi" is a pretty severe insult. Of course, this was the equilalent of elementary school.

Heh, I still remember my cousin who told me what the word "buzi" means. This was when we were both 12- year olds of course. I asked and she told me that they're men who constantly keep braiding their hair behind their ear. :p

As I grew older, I just became neutral to the idea. Dad told me that homosexuality is a genetic thing (or so he believed). I knew people like that existed, but I don't know where or how. Hungarians are pretty hostile to gay people, so I guess any of them here keep a low profile.

I reckoned that there are worse people in the world.

Then came the good ol' discovery of porn. The only word you need to know is "lesbian".

Afterwards, I just adopted apathy. "It's their business, its their problem, not mine."

What changed my opinion a bit more, was reading about the horrible abuse homosexual people get. There was a tread while back where a kid was shot by a fellow student because he sent the boy a valentine card.

[Rye]

I used to be pretty homophobic, not overly so, but it was weird and gross and generally seen as a detriment. By 15 or so I got the impression I was bi, but I'm still a bit fazed by the "otherness" of two guys kissing (though the bumsex doesn't bother me at all). With my blossoming contempt for religion I started to view gays as a silver bullet against the worst forms of religion out there, and for that, I love them.

Never had anything against transsexuals, weirdly.

[speaker-to-trolls]

For the longest time I've had nothing against gay people, the only bit of homophobia I once had was when I was about 10 or 11 and even then it was a half assed 'male homosexuality is gross' type of thing. However, I think this site has changed my outlook on gay/transgender/similar issues, since a few years ago, though I wouldn't have said it in so many words, I basically thought the (your acronym here, I've seen the storm that kicked up) lobby were being drama queens. I mean it's not as if being gay is something you can see, is it? It's not as if it holds you down economically, and as long as they don't let anyone know about it there's no problem, so what are they complaining about? Yes, they ought to have the same rights as anyone else, but at the end of the day there are more important issues...
Is a summary of what I used to think on the issues. I think that some of the comments made on this site made me discard that mindset, in particular Alyrium Denryle posted a piece about just how bad the standing alot of gay people have it, and just what living your life trying to blend into the crowd would entail, which made me think "O, shit, I never thought about it like that".

[Aaron]

Like a fair number of males born in the 70's I was homophobic for quite a while. I opened my eyes after a few years in the military, I served with a few and it made me realise that they weren't much different than me.

I'll second Broomie's question to Eulogy though. Blatent, public homophobia was the norm in Canadian schools right into the 90's. Hell the principal of my HS refused to allow any discussion of safe sex practices for gays/lesbians in 1996.