The Transgender Discussion [Strictly Moderated]

But the difference is you never have to deal with those other posts, even if they are a minority. We do and it's exhausting. I welcome you to enter a world where you have to defend your existence 24 hours a day. If you enjoy that, then by all means criticize me for not liking it.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had in December with the love of my life who was dying of a brain tumour in Australia. Several days after marriage finally became legal in Australia, he reminded me that roughly 40% of the people in the pub we were in voted against us possibly marrying. In a pub where 30 people were present, that means 12 people there thought we should be denied the ability to spend the rest of our lives together with the same government-issued benefits and privileges they had for their ********ing relationships (and given his terminal illness, it's not like we would have offended heterosexuals very long anyway by being together). We had no idea who those representative 12 people were. And because they were so traumatized by us being happy, they voted to deny us the right to share in their government-given benefits. Of course, we never got to share in those government-issued benefits. That's not something you deal with.

 

I was thinking 'Sean Hannity was the Third Client' but that's probably news to most people around here.

 

Holy shit! The two people I know who own(ed) a VW convertible were both assumed to be gay. One lives across the street from my mom. Good guy, but his lawn is somewhere between a fairway and a green in perfection and makes everybody else ashamed. One day, a cat made a bird kill over there, and the cat knew to clean up after himself. There were, like, three feathers on the ground.

 

Always wondered how Subarus became "lesbian cars." Here's a good article about it:

In the 1990s, Subaru’s unique selling point was that the company increasingly made all-wheel drive standard on all its cars. When the company’s marketers went searching for people willing to pay a premium for all-wheel drive, they identified four core groups who were responsible for half of the company’s American sales: teachers and educators, health-care professionals, IT professionals, and outdoorsy types.

Then they discovered a fifth: lesbians. “When we did the research, we found pockets of the country like Northampton, Massachusetts, and Portland, Oregon, where the head of the household would be a single person—and often a woman,” says Tim Bennett, who was the company’s director of advertising at the time. When marketers talked to these customers, they realized these women buying Subarus were lesbian.

“There was such an alignment of feeling, like [Subaru cars] fit with what they did,” says Paul Poux, who later conducted focus groups for Subaru. The marketers found that lesbian Subaru owners liked that the cars were good for outdoor trips, and that they were good for hauling stuff without being as large as a truck or SUV. “They felt it fit them and wasn’t too flashy,” says Poux.

Subaru’s strategy called for targeting these five core groups and creating ads based on its appeal to each. For medical professionals, it was that a Subaru with all-wheel drive could get them to the hospital in any weather conditions. For rugged individualists, it was that a Subaru could handle dirt roads and haul gear. For lesbians, it was that a Subaru fit their active, low-key lifestyle.

https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...-came-to-be-seen-as-cars-for-lesbians/488042/

 

Here, the two people who actually bought them new are unabashedly gay, and partly (I think) did so precisely because it is a meme. Whether there's some sort of marketing plan pointed at gays I cannot say, but the thought seems plausible.

One of them is a trainer at one of the gyms who also does a wicked Dolly Parton impersonation at events both public and private.

This town has a very vibrant gay scene and is very welcoming and tolerant of same-- not sure which was chicken and which was egg historically. And it had a fairly public figure who was just starting the M-F trans process when I got here, a person I had a fairly close business relationship with, a fellow employee. What I got out of the experience was that if it is so important to someone that they want to go to that much expense and through that much discomfort and through that much inconvenience,l I don't want to be the guy who is small enough to try to tell them it isn't good enough.

But flowergirl is somewhat correct also: in that you'd better be serious about it, cause it isn't for sissies. There was a five year stretch when they or she couldn't get her hormones to stay properly balanced, and she would have episodes that made "roid rage seem tame-- purple faced, spraying saliva in all directions, throwing wrenches at walls and barely missing people in the process.

Incidentally, when she still looked like a he, she was a Viet Nam era Navy vet, part of the commune era here, and had a long romantic involvement with one of the most desired and desirable women in town-- who supported her and stood by her and helped her through the whole process.

 

LGBT Subaru ad from the mid 2000s. Subtle but effective

 

This is one of my favourites. The back story is the two car drivers are husband and wife (as shown in previous commercials).

 

No, these were actual convertible Beetles from the late 60s/early 70s, not new ones.

 

Not that I know of.

 

Those were just great cars-- if you were looking at used cars and ran into one without much rust and a reasonable price tag, you bought it without asking yourself whether it would seem gay of you. Who cared? With a good VW mechanic (and there were many) you could keep them running for many hundreds of thousands of miles. My image of summer in the early 70s is of cruising dirt back roads in the Mohawk Valley in one with a couple of ex-Bunnies, a couple of waitstaff gunslingers, and their coke dealer, with It's a Beautiful Day's "Marrying Maiden" 8 track blasting to the open sky.

But when they relaunched the brand it sure seemed like every other person who bought one new was a disciple of Dorothy and a dedicated follower of fashion.

Made for a welcome break from low-riders and Camaros, tho'...

 

They were like lawn mowers to maintain. I was just saying that these were the original models, not the modern ones.

That's kind of the sunny image that comes to my mind, except it's with a VW van and surfboards.

The new Camaros/'Vettes/Challengers/Firebirds are pretty cool, IMO. They stayed as close to the original designs as they could without compromising safety, I guess. I'd like to see more chrome where it can be used, tho. And the 'Vette needs some kind of modern but spoked wheels. That car was in its aesthetic prime from the late 60s to early 70s.

 

My bro had a '68 Shelby Mustang in the 80s but sold it to buy his 1st house. Always wanted another one. So a few years ago for his Midlife Crisis Mobile he got a 662 HP Shelby GT 500. Kept it in the divorce too.

 

Amazing thread jacking!

From discussing the serious topic of misunderstanding transgender people to the relaunch of the Firebird amd 68 Shelby Mustangs in less than 100 posts.

Well done, ladies and gentlemen, well done.

 

The Revanchist Right weeps about Trans people in bathrooms being a threat to children. If they really want to protect children the bathrooms they keep them out of are in Churches.

I still have that Trio 'Da, Da, Da' album. (Which features the B-side - 'She got the Boom Boom')

 

@xtomx this is why I was willingly derailing the thread - I didn't want to have to deal with such ignorance and subtle homophobia/transphobia on a regular basis.

The very fact that you identify someone soliciting sex as a reason to get your ass beaten highlights the problem. It's too bad every time a man hits on or solicits sex from a woman she doesn't beat the crap out of him.

Yes, because you heterosexuals never get attacked in bathrooms they are safe places. Got it. And the request for data on anything involving crimes against LGBT+ is problematic, given so many jurisdictions don't report hate crimes.

Bathrooms are much more threatening places for us than some other location and it's not because we are soliciting ********ing sex in them. Based on my experience, the men usually doing that are married to women (while others are still in the closet). We gay men can easily find sex by using social apps if we so desire. The ones doing so out in the parks, bathrooms, etc are typically heterosexually-married. Even on the apps, when I use them most of the guys who hit on me are married to women. You people have a real problem with not getting your needs met by your wives, that's all I can say. I advise my married female students to make dummy accounts to see if their husbands are out cruising for sex. The heterosexually-married men don't view it as adultery because they aren't cheating on their wife with another woman.

Bathrooms are threatening because 1) there is no way to defend yourself if you are doing your business (and minding your own business), 2) there are typically no windows or other avenues of escape, so you are trapped, 3) many heterosexual men are incredibly paranoid about using restrooms with gays because those ********ing narcissists think that every gay man would want to have sex with them, but also think that somehow would make them less of a man, 4) so many heterosexual men think that while it's ok to cat-call women, being cat-called by a man is insulting and means they should beat up any gay person they see, 5) violence against LGBT+ is extremely common (one of the most common forms of hate-crime related violent assault), and 6) bathrooms make for a convenient location away from prying eyes and cameras, and so on that give people a second thought about attacking us.

I am out on my college campus. I have to share toilets with hormonal paranoid and fragile18 year old homophobic males. I do what I can to avoid using the toilet if there is a likelihood that someone else might be in there. You think because you are straight and toilets are safe for you that they are safe for everyone. They're not.

Now, imagine you are a transwoman. Which toilet should you use? The one with all the hormonal insecure homophobes and transphobes wanting to prove how manly they are? Good luck.

 

I’ve always wanted a convertible, but I’m not one of those men who are nuts about sports cars. I’ve been saying for a couple years now that on my way back from dropping my youngest child at college I’m going to trade in my Xterra for a VW convertible.

Does that give me associate status?

 

New or used? Classic or relaunch? And have you ever beaten anybody up in a bathroom?

 

New, relaunch, no.

 

First, not all attacks are premeditated. I don't think you understand how violence against us works. Second, given the right's obsession with transgender people raping children, where are the data that suggest that is actually a problem? They make it sound a very serious problem, enough so that laws must be passed. Third, collecting data on crimes against LGBT+ is difficult, at best. Yes, seeing data would be nice, but good luck. This article highlights the difficulties of such things.

However, we do have anecdotes and published research based on interviews and surveys.

The article referenced, which can be found here, shows 8.6% of transgender people surveyed were physically assaulted in public bathrooms, while 67.7% were verbally assaulted.

One thing is clear. Heterosexuals do violently attack LGBT+ people for no other reason than our being LGBT+. This means that our being in defenseless situations with possible attackers is not safe. That you don't concern yourself with your safety every time you enter a public toilet does not mean that we don't have to. It's telling that you will not believe us when we talk about our experiences, our lives, our fears. You don't seem to realize that most of us 1) have been harassed, beaten or attacked (verbally or physically) for being LGBT+, 2) know others who have been attacked for being LGBT+, 3) and possibly have friends or acquaintances who were murdered for being LGBT+. My guess is many, if not most, of us can relate to all three points. I know I can.

But you don't. And that's what is important because it clearly means we are making it all up. Because you are not attacked in toilets means no one is. Clearly those 8.6% of transgender people are lying just to advance the "gay agenda". What's really sad is it took me one minute or so to come up with those two articles and published research article. Instead of belittling us with your "I'm heterosexual and know better than you about your life experiences" attitude, you could have easily looked it up as well.