The Lemon Fool

I know this is the Guardian - and I know the attitude of some TLF members to that paper, however...
I am being serious here. I am completely lost with some (much?) of this. It's less that I don't know what to think and more that I cannot even begin to think how to think. I know what a 'Lesbian' is, obviously - no problem. Beyond that?

I am 16 and identify as an ‘ace lesbian’ – how do I tell my parents?

The Guardian

It sounds as if your sexuality and orientation will be no surprise to them, says Annalisa Barbieri

Can anyone help (seriously)?

XFool wrote:I know this is the Guardian - and I know the attitude of some TLF members to that paper, however...
I am being serious here. I am completely lost with some (much?) of this. It's less that I don't know what to think and more that I cannot even begin to think how to think. I know what a 'Lesbian' is, obviously - no problem. Beyond that?

I am 16 and identify as an ‘ace lesbian’ – how do I tell my parents?

The Guardian

It sounds as if your sexuality and orientation will be no surprise to them, says Annalisa Barbieri

Can anyone help (seriously)?

It is part of deconstruction theory born of the Frankfurt School and pushed by Marcuse, the student of Heidegger.

By pulling apart all of the moral institutions that hold together society then you hope for its collapse, leaving you in a position to remould it into a utopia. Since the proletariat did not do what they were supposed to between 1930 to 1960, social class was abandoned as the primary fault line and identity politics of race, gender and sexuality used instead.

The result is that even the safest, wealthiest and most privileged can be made to feel that they must tear down everything that is deemed unjust.

XFool wrote:I know this is the Guardian - and I know the attitude of some TLF members to that paper, however...
I am being serious here. I am completely lost with some (much?) of this. It's less that I don't know what to think and more that I cannot even begin to think how to think. I know what a 'Lesbian' is, obviously - no problem. Beyond that?

I am 16 and identify as an ‘ace lesbian’ – how do I tell my parents?

The Guardian

It sounds as if your sexuality and orientation will be no surprise to them, says Annalisa Barbieri

Can anyone help (seriously)?

I read that and felt confused so I clicked on the link hoping for some sort of explanation:

Asexual Homoromantic or Ace Gay/Lesbian is a combination identity where someone identifies as asexual or ace-spec and as homoromantic. This is a variant of asexual alloromantic.

https://lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Asexual_Homoromantic

And now I'm more confused, maybe it's an age thing

RC

ReformedCharacter wrote:

Asexual Homoromantic or Ace Gay/Lesbian is a combination identity where someone identifies as asexual or ace-spec and as homoromantic. This is a variant of asexual alloromantic.

https://lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Asexual_Homoromantic

And now I'm more confused, maybe it's an age thing

It must be. I remember when all you had to bare in mind were one-legged, black lesbians (courtesy of Jonathon Coe). It was a simpler time...

I find it passing strange, this apparent incessant urge to reify any and every shade and quirk of individual personality into a formal 'classification' system. Where the very terminology and vocabulary seem designed as much to demarcate differences of identity and come across as a Keep Out! sign as one of inclusivity.

Perhaps in the future there will be so many cultural identities to go around that we will end up, once again, being simply able to self-identify as ourselves?

XFool wrote:It must be. I remember when all you had to bare in mind were one-legged, black lesbians (courtesy of Jonathon Coe). It was a simpler time...

I find it passing strange, this apparent incessant urge to reify any and every shade and quirk of individual personality into a formal 'classification' system. Where the very terminology and vocabulary seem designed as much to demarcate differences of identity and come across as a Keep Out! sign as one of inclusivity.

Perhaps in the future there will be so many cultural identities to go around that we will end up, once again, being simply able to self-identify as ourselves?

More seriously, gender dysphoria (mainly young women) is almost an epidemic at the moment.

I watched this Jordan Peterson interview recently and it was quite an eye-opener:

Abigail Shrier and I discuss identity, gender dysphoria, the increased rate of gender transitioning procedures among young female adolescents, details of these procedures, de-transitioning, her personal experiences writing her book “Irreversible Damage”, and more. Abigail Shrier is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSKQfATa-1I

RC

ReformedCharacter wrote:More seriously, gender dysphoria (mainly young women) is almost an epidemic at the moment.

In more robust days, we had what were termed Tomboys.
No problem with that.

As to the other stuff, if social media were turned off I bet all this nonsense would disappear.

V8

88V8 wrote:

ReformedCharacter wrote:More seriously, gender dysphoria (mainly young women) is almost an epidemic at the moment.

In more robust days, we had what were termed Tomboys.
No problem with that.

As to the other stuff, if social media were turned off I bet all this nonsense would disappear.

V8

Yes, I agree - but social media isn't going to be turned off, it's here to stay in whatever form. I'd like to think that the good from SM outweighs the bad but I think the judge is still out on that. SM does seem to create a great deal of mental illness, or so it seems.

RC

Abigail Shrier wrote a book on the topic, it proved very controversial:

Irreversible Damage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters is a 2020 book by Abigail Shrier, published by Regnery Publishing.

I do wonder about all this and what is actually going on, from a psychological point of view. Remember the 1980s? Allergies were in 'fashion', you were nobody if you didn't have an allergy, or a child with an allergy. The highpoint of this was a woman in America who had so many "allergies" she was described as being "Allergic to the 20th century".

I read up about her once. She had people who accompanied her everywhere as helpers who went ahead to check out any situation she was going into, for anything that could trigger any of her manifold allergies. One such situation was a stay at an apartment or somewhere, which the helpers rejected as she would be allergic to the ceramic floor tiles. I baulked: "Ceramic tiles? Nobody is allergic to ceramic tiles - it's impossible!"

I thought then this isn't about allergies it's about something else. Thinking of her and her 'helpers' I speculated if what was going on was some kind of folie à deux.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_à_deux

Much later on I read somewhere there was an acrimonious breakup with her helpers.

I have found this about her online (didn't realise she was British):

SHEILA ROSSALL – THE WOMAN WHO WAS ALLERGIC TO THE 20TH CENTURY

https://sjhstrangetales.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/new-on-strangeblog-the-woman-who-was-allergic-to-the-20th-century/

Obviously there was something seriously wrong with her and equally allergies do exist but, as above, it can all get a bit complicated.

I wonder if something similar is happening now with these gender/sexuality matters; a mixture or real issues, fads & fashion, group dynamics, personal psychological problems, plus gender politics and the culture wars.

Good luck picking the bones out of that!

XFool wrote:I wonder if something similar is happening now with these gender/sexuality matters; a mixture or real issues, fads & fashion, group dynamics, personal psychological problems, plus gender politics and the culture wars.

Somebody who is asexual doesn't feel sexual attraction, somebody who is aromantic doesn't feel romantic attraction. It's nothing close to a new classification, just far less offensive terminology.

Its about changing the language in order to promote acceptance and inclusivity.

In the era leading up to the 80's being queer was something that could bring shame upon your family. Now they are not 'queer' in the literal sense pf the word nor deemed odd with any other form of label. If it seems like there's more people that are identifying as something other than what we assumed they were, it because we now have a society that permits and accepts that. It was always there, just suppressed before because of shame and societal conditioning that being something other than what was expected was in some way wrong, or a reflection on bad parenting, or something.

Everyone using these labels are still just people, same as they always were, but now they can identify themselves more easily and have no need to feel ashamed about being who they are. On the whole this is a good thing.

Bink333 wrote:Its about changing the language in order to promote acceptance and inclusivity.

In the era leading up to the 80's being queer was something that could bring shame upon your family. Now they are not 'queer' in the literal sense pf the word nor deemed odd with any other form of label.

Well yes they are "queer". That is the broad label used, by my understanding, (word has been reclaimed) to simply mean 'not straight'. Exact details are from more precise labels.

But then, that is about sexuality. There is also, at least, sex (objective - disputed?) and then gender (subjective?). I was more thinking of these labels and then their subdivisions - asexual, aromantic. In particular the puzzle of dual/fluid/non gender.

Obviously, not having experience of this it is impossible to really imagine it. It just occurs to me: How DO you think about your gender? How important can it be and why? In all my time alive I can only think of one occasion when my "gender" definitely came to mind - and I reckon I was about 3 years old.

Broad labels seem to have some solid resonance: male/female; straight/gay. But finer and finer categories and divisions by label seem a bit weird to me. After all, carry it to the limit and surely you just arrive at the categories: Me/You? Which is certainly real enough, but why isn't that enough? Whence this need(?) for more and more categorisation (divisions?) of humans?

We all have different characteristics and aspects to ourselves - but do we need to categorise all of them as different 'types' of people? This is what I was really wondering about with some of these self classifiers, are they making a mistake: Because they feel this way or that way, does it really always mean a need for a classification or a 'type' ?

Perhaps we should have a kind of Dewey system of classification, after all there are only 26 letters in our alphabet. C

csearle wrote:Perhaps we should have a kind of Dewey system of classification, after all there are only 26 letters in our alphabet. C

Why start with "C"?
Oh right! anyways
Time to bring back yogh!? ... teach folk how to say Menzies and Dalziel
...and bring back thorn while we're at it

- sd

XFool wrote:At last, a consensus is emerging on protecting women-only spaces
The Guardian
Compassion and common sense are prevailing in a sensitive conflict over rights

One really has to wonder why the hell it has taken so long. It's not as if the issue has been out of sight. Janice Turner in The Times has endlessly wanged on about it.
And not-women in sport, only now being addressed.
Is it just plain cowardice on the part of those in charge?

V8

88V8 wrote:

XFool wrote:At last, a consensus is emerging on protecting women-only spaces
The Guardian
Compassion and common sense are prevailing in a sensitive conflict over rights

One really has to wonder why the hell it has taken so long. It's not as if the issue has been out of sight. Janice Turner in The Times has endlessly wanged on about it.
And not-women in sport, only now being addressed.
Is it just plain cowardice on the part of those in charge?

V8

Too be fair to them, this whole thing has been weaponised in a particularly nasty and disingenuous way
- it's a issue that needs more nuance than can be easily captured in a headline

servodude wrote:

88V8 wrote:One really has to wonder why the hell it has taken so long. It's not as if the issue has been out of sight. Janice Turner in The Times has endlessly wanged on about it.
And not-women in sport, only now being addressed.
Is it just plain cowardice on the part of those in charge?

V8

Too be fair to them, this whole thing has been weaponised in a particularly nasty and disingenuous way
- it's a issue that needs more nuance than can be easily captured in a headline

The whole sex/gender thing has turned into an unbelievable mess. Hopefully people are realising that there are incredibly sound reasons for keeping things simple -- it benefits no one if there is simply chaos that nobody understands.

The original and cardinal mistake was replacing (and/or duplicating) the word sex with gender, not only because sex was already a perfectly understandable and unambiguous word in the biological sense but also because it was replaced by overloading the word gender which already had a distinct meaning and application of its own. This error was compounded by further diluting the meaning of both sex and gender: the former with ideas of "intersex" and "sex change"; the latter by claiming "gender" (not clearly defined) to be a social category and something to be self-defined -- followed closely by the whole pronoun nonsense.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

GS

GoSeigen wrote:

servodude wrote:To be fair to them, this whole thing has been weaponised in a particularly nasty and disingenuous way
- it's a issue that needs more nuance than can be easily captured in a headline

The whole sex/gender thing has turned into an unbelievable mess.

Yes. And yet it's been around a long time, just bubbling under. Not until the rise of Antisocial media did it turn into a toxic swamp.

I first encountered the weirdness around 2007: In a midlife crisis - post the Land Rover but preceding the ponytail - I had decided to buy a sports car. For some reason I settled on a TR and somehow, perhaps via the TR Register mag, I went to Saffron Walden to view a TR2, canary yellow with a white hood.
The car had an interesting backstory having been long owned by a chap who lived on a canal barge he had restored, using the TR2 as a hack to transport timber and other lumpy boat-related gubbins. He then set about restoring the car, and in the days before repro panels were available and having little money, did much of his own fabricating. The result, while worthy, was a body of the 'it fits where it touches' variety, and added to an engine that sounded like a tractor, well I decided not to spend the rather ambitious £8,000 asked for the car.
In retrospect that was probably a mistake as the TR engine was derived from a tractor and that's how they usually sounded, plus the wonky bodyshell could have been enjoyed without having to worry about it, unlike the TR6 that I subsequently bought which looked lovely but required commensurate upkeep.

Anyway.... the owner, a chap perhaps in his early 50s, was selling his beloved car because his wife had left him and wanted a divorce. He was well turned out, in a longish coat, flattish heels of the Ena Sharples variety, a respectable dress showing not too much of his heavy stockings, a Queen Motherish hat, a handbag and accurately-applied lipstick with just a touch of rouge.
We parted amicably. I did sometimes wonder what would happened to his life had he not started down the deranged path of dressing like an extra from The Railway Children. And whether he sold his car.

V8

It's not nice when people are assaulted by cretins because of their appearance. Anything that reduces that possibility is good.

88V8 wrote:I first encountered the weirdness around 2007: In a midlife crisis - post the Land Rover but preceding the ponytail - I had decided to buy a sports car. For some reason I settled on a TR and somehow, perhaps via the TR Register mag, I went to Saffron Walden to view a TR2, canary yellow with a white hood.

Blimey, a yellow TR? As driven by Lance, the balding fortysomething in Detectorists?

Yep, that's the one. You had a narrow escape there.

But Saffron Walden?

BJ