#no one culture is right or wrong on this because the genetic basis of gender identity is a fucking mess anyways!

[ruthlesslistener]

do you ever think about how the western perspective of gender and gender identity is held up as the universal experience, to the point where queer people from completely different cultures are judged based on it? idk as a trans poc i was thinking about that recently and it made me sad cause you cant stop someone from imposing their belief systems onto you, but that also means your own belief system and conception of your gender might be warped too

Honestly anon I think about this shit a lot and every single goddamn time some shitty truscum or terf or transphobic asshole smugly brings up the western perspective of gender as if it’s some fucking gender bible, it raises my hackles. Because gender is a social construct, entirely a social construct; there is no right or wrong way to be trans and transphobia can come in all forms. For example, I’m half Iranian; I tried to come out as trans a couple years ago and instead of the big blowout fight I was expecting (like what’s depicted in the media), I just got calmly told that that was alright, but that I needed to come to terms with being female because ‘girls are better to have in families than boys’. I don’t get a choice in the matter; girls are more valued, and such I just ‘have to come to terms’ with what my father wants, because he is my parent and knows everything and tells me how to live, end of story. And I can’t speak for how your family treats you because I don’t know your own culture, but I think I can say that’s different than a good chunk of western transmasc experiences. Because in western gender perspectives, anything that is feminine is a bad thing, and people are expected to be independent and choose their own paths, so usually that affects how people treat trans folk. It leans more towards beating the ‘mental illness’ out of them with a bible than just shutting them down and forcing them to comply, and that leads to a different view of the Trans Experience and transphobia and dysphoria than others.

And I’m rambling a bit here but basically? Yeah everytime I see some white western person bitch about what it means to be trans, I get angry about it. Everytime someone implies that my perception on gender and what it means to be trans is wrong, I get even angrier about it. Because gender is a social construct and is tied intrinsically to your culture. Your perspective isn’t warped on it, my perspective on it isn’t warped, hell, their perspective isn’t really warped either, just their opinion on what they’re supposed to do about it. And it’s really, really shitty that that ‘real trans experience’ syndrome is a thing bc then it leeches into every aspect of mainstream trans identity and makes people less receptive to different cultural views on gender. Oh, you use pronouns different than he/him, she/her, and they/them? You must be mogai scum. Oh, you’re from a different culture and that’s part of your heritage that you’re reclaiming after white colonizers literally fucking tortured it out of your family? Not an excuse, it’s still ~different and therefore ~not valid. Different perspectives on gender are literally no more valid than the shitty broken male-female with a side dash of ‘weird folk’ binary that western folk like to use in their trans activism, and anyone who tells you otherwise aren’t just fucking racist, they’re also willfully ignorant about the nature of gender and gender identity

[geshertzarmeod]

Favorite Books of 2020

I wanted to put together a list! I read 74 new books this year, and I keep track of that on Goodreads - feel free to add or follow me if you want to see everything! I’m going to focus on the highlights, and the books that stuck with me personally in one way or another, in approximate order. Also, all but two of them (#5 and #7 on the honorable mention list) are queer/trans in some way. Links are to Goodreads, but if you’re looking to get the books, I suggest your library, the Libby app using your library, your local bookstore, or Bookshop.

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell, illus. by Ned Asta (originally published 1977). I had a hard beginning of the year and was in a work environment where my queerness was just not welcomed or wanted. I read this in the middle of all of that, and it helped me so much. I took this book with me everywhere. I read it on planes. I read it on the bus, and on trains, and at shul. I showed it to friends... sometimes at shul, or professional development conferences. It healed my soul. Now I can’t find it and might get a new copy. When I reviewed it, in February, I wrote: “I think we all need this book right now, but I really needed this book right now. Wow. This book is magic, and brings back a sense of magic and beauty to my relationship with the world.” Also I bought my copy last July, in a gay bookstore on Castro St. in SF, and that in itself is just beautiful to me. (Here’s a post I made with some excerpts)

Once & Future duology, especially the sequel, Sword in the Stars, by A.R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy. Cis pansexual female King Arthur Ari Helix (she's the 42nd reincarnation and the first female one) in futuristic space with Arab ancestry (but like, from a planet where people from that area of earth migrated to because, futuristic space) works to end Future Evil Amazon.com Space Empire with her found family with a token straight cis man and token white person. Merlin is backwards-aging so he's a gay teenager with a crush and thousands of years of baggage. The book’s entire basis is found family, and it's got King Arthur in space. And the sequel hijacks the original myth and says “fuck you pop culture, it was whitewashed and straightwashed, there were queer and trans people of color and strong women there the whole time.” Which is like, my favorite thing to find in media, and a big part of why I love Xena so much. It’s like revisionist history to make it better except it’s actually probably true in ways. Anyway please read these books but also be prepared for an absolutely absurd and wild ride. Full disclosure though, I didn’t love the first book so much, it’s worth it for the sequel!

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum. This book hurt. It still hurts. But it was so good. It took me on a whole journey, and brought me to my destination just like it intended the whole time. The author’s note at the end made me cry! The sheer NEED from this book, the way the main relationship develops and shifts, and how you PERCEIVE the main relationship develops and shifts. I’m in awe of Ancrum’s writing. If you like your ships feral and needy and desperate and wanting and D/S vibes and lowkey super unhealthy but with the potential, with work, to become healthy and beautiful and right, read this book. This might be another one to check trigger warnings for though.

The Entirety of The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty. I hadn’t heard of this series until this year, when a good friend recommended it to me. It filled the black hole in me left by Harry Potter. The political and mystical/fantasy world building is just *chef’s kiss* - the complexity! The morally grey, everyone’s-done-awful-things-but-some-people-are-still-trying-to-do-good tapestry! The ROMANCE oh my GOD the romance. If I’m absolutely fully invested in a heterosexual romance you know a book is good, but also this book had background (and then later less background) queer characters! And the DRAMA!!! The third book went in a direction that felt a little out of nowhere but honestly I loved the ride. I stayed up until 6am multiple times reading this series and I’d do it again.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I loved this book so much that it’s the only book I reviewed on my basically abandoned attempt at a book blog. This book is haunting, horrifying, disturbing, dark, but so, so good. The character's voices were so specific and clear, the relationships so clearly affected by circumstance and yet loving in the ways they could be. This is my favorite portrayal of gender maybe ever, it’s just... I don’t even have the words but I saw a post @audible-smiles​ made about it that’s been rattling in my head since. And, “you gender-malcontent. You otherling,” as tender pillow talk??? Be still my heart. Be ready, though, this book has all the triggers.. it’s a .

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender. This book called me out on my perspective on love. Also, it made me cry a lot. And it has two different interesting well-written romance storylines. And a realistic coming-into-identity narrative about a Black trans demiboy. And a nuanced discussion of college plans and what one might do after college. And some big beautiful romcom moments. I wish I had it in high school. I’m so glad I have it now! (trigger warning for transphobia & outing, but the people responsible are held accountable by the end, always treated as not okay by the narrative, and the MC’s friends, and like... this is ownvoices and it’s GOOD.)

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. My Goodreads review says, “I have no idea what happened, and I loved it.” That’s not wrong, but to delve deeper, this book has an ethereal feeling that you get wrapped up in while reading. Nothing makes sense but that’s just as it should be. You’re hooked. It is so atmospheric, so meta, so fascinating. I’ve seen so many people say they interpreted this character or that part or the ending in all different ways and it all makes sense. And it’s all of this with a gay main character and romance and the central theme, the central pillar being a love of and devotion to stories. Of course I was going to love it.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom. “Because maybe what really matters isn’t whether something is true, or false. Maybe what matters is the story itself; what kinds of doors it opens, what kinds of dreams it brings.” This book was so good and paradigm shifting. It reminded me of #1 on this list in the way it turns real life experience and hard, tragic ones at that (in this case, of being a trans girl of color who leaves home and tries to make a life for herself in the city, with its violence), into a beautiful, haunting fable. Once upon a time.

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver. I need to reread this book, as I read it during my most tranceful time of 2020 and didn’t write a review, so I forgot a lot. What I do remember is beautiful and important nonbinary representation, a really cute romance, an interesting parental and familial/sibling dynamic that was both heartbreaking and hopeful, and an on-page therapy storyline. Also Mason Deaver just left twitter but was an absolutely hilarious troll on it before leaving and I appreciate that (and they just published a Christmas novella that I have but haven’t read yet!)

The Truth Is by NoNieqa Ramos. It took a long time to trust this book but I’m so glad I did. It’s raw and real and full of grief and trauma (trigger warnings, that I remember, for grief, death (before beginning of book), and gun violence). The protagonist is flawed and gets to grow over the course of the book, and find her own place, and learn from the people around her, while they also learn to understand her and where she’s coming from. It’s got a gritty, harsh, and important portrayal of found family, messy queerness, and some breathtaking quotes. When I was 82% through this book I posted this update: “This book has addressed almost all of my initial hesitations, and managed to complicate itself beautifully.”

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro.  I wasn’t actually in the best mental health place to read this book when I did (didn’t quite understand what it was) but it definitely reminded me of what there is to fight against and to fight for, and broke my heart, and nudged me a bit closer to hope. The naturally diverse cast of characters was one of the best parts of this book. The romance is so sweet and tender and then so painful. This book is important and well-written but read it with caution and trigger warnings - it’s about grief and trauma and racism and police brutality, but also about love and community.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden.  This is a sci-fi/fantasy/specfic mashup that takes place in near-future South Africa and has world-building myths with gods and demigoddesses and a trip to the world of the dead but also a genetically altered hallucinogenic drug that turns people into giant animals and a robot uprising and a political campaign and a transgender pop star and a m/m couple and all of them are connected. It’s bonkers. Like, so, so absolutely mind-breaking weird. And I loved it.

Crier’s War and Iron Heart by Nina Varela.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED the amount of folktales they told each other with queer romances as integral to those stories, especially in Iron Heart. A conversation between the two leads where Crier says she wants to read Ayla like a book, and Ayla says she’s not a book, and Crier explains all the different ways she wants to know Ayla, like a person, and wants to deserve to know her like a person, made me weak. It lives in my head rent-free.

Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston @ekjohnston . I listened to this book on Libby and then immediately listened to it at least one more time, maybe twice, before my borrow time ran out. I love Padmé, and just always wish that female Star Wars characters got more focus and attention and this book gave me that!! And queer handmaidens! And the implication that Sabé is in love with Padmé and that’s just something that will always be true and she will always be devoted and also will make her own life anyway. And the Star Wars audiobooks being recorded the way they are with background sounds and music means it feels like watching a really long detailed beautiful Star Wars movie just about Padmé and her handmaidens.

Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story by Jacob Tobia. I needed to read this. The way Tobia talks about their experience of gender within the contexts of college, college leadership, and career, hit home. I kept trying to highlight several pages in a row on my kindle so I could go back and read them after it got returned to the library (sadly it didn’t work - it cuts off highlights after a certain number of characters). The way they talk about TOKENISM they way they talk about the responsibilities of the interviewer when an interviewee holds marginalized identities especially when no one else in the room does!!! Ahhhh!!!

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie. Disclaimer for this one that the author was rightfully criticized for writing a Black main character as a white author (and how the story ended up playing into some fucked up stuff that I can’t really unpack without spoiling). But also, the author has been working to move forward knowing she can’t change the past, has donated her proceeds, and this book is really good? It has all the fanfic tropes, so much delicious tension, a totally unexpected plot twist that had me immediately rereading the book. This book was super fun and also kind of just really really good Star Wars fanfiction.

How To Be a Normal Person by T.J. Klune. This book was so sweet, and cute, and hopeful, and both ridiculous and so real. I had some trouble getting used to Gus’ voice and internal monologue, but I got into it and then loved every bit after. The ace rep is something I’ve never seen like this before (and have barely read any ace books but still this was so fleshed out and well rounded and not just like, ‘they’re obsessed with swords not sex’ - looking at you, Once & Future - and leaving it there.) This all felt like a slice of life and I feel like I learned about people while reading it. Some of the moments are so, so funny, some are vaguely devastating. I have been personally victimized by TJ Klune for how he ends this book (a joke, you will know once you read it) but it also reminds me of the end of the “You Are There” episode of Xena and we all know what the answer to that question was.... and I choose to believe the answer here was similar.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. I wish I had this book when I was in high school. I honestly have complicated feelings about prom and haven’t really been seeking out contemporary YA so I was hesitant to read this but it was so good and so well-written, and had a lot of depth to it. The movie (and Broadway show) “The Prom” wants what this book has.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth. I never read horror books, so this was a new thing for me. I loved the feeling of this book, the way I felt fully immersed. I loved how entirely queer it was. I was interested in the characters and the relationships, even though we didn’t have a full chance to go super deep into any one person but rather saw the connections between everyone and the way the stories matched up with each other. I just wanted a bit of a more satisfying ending.

Honorable Mention: reread in 2020 but read for the first time pre-2020

Red White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I couldn’t make this post without mentioning this book. It got me through this year. I love this book so much; I think of this book all the time. This book made me want to find love for myself. You’ve all heard about it enough but if you haven’t read this book what are you DOING.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan @sarahreesbrennan​ . I reread this one over and over too, both as text and as an audiobook. I went for walks when I had lost my earbuds and had Elliott screaming about an elf brothel loudly playing and got weird looks from someone walking their dog. I love this book so much. It’s just so fun, and so healing to read a book reminiscent of all the fantasies I read as a kid, but with a bi main character and a deconstruction of patriarchy and making fun of the genre a bit. Also, idiots to lovers is a great trope and it’s definitely in this book.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book is forever so important to me. I am always drawn in by how tenderly Sáenz portrays his characters. These boys. These boys and their parents. I love them. I love them so much. This is another one where I don’t even know what to say. I have more than 30 pages in my tag for this book. I have “arda” set as a keyboard shortcut on my phone and laptop to turn into the full title. This book saved my life.

Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book hurts to read - it’s a story about trauma, about working through that trauma, healing enough to be ready to hold the worst memories, healing enough to move through the pain and start to make a life. It’s about found family and love and pain and I love it. It’s cathartic. And it’s a little bit quietly queer in a beautiful way, but that’s not the focus. Look up trigger warnings (they kind of are spoilery so I won’t say them here but if you have the potential to be triggered please look them up or ask me before reading)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.  When asked what my all time favorite book is, it’s usually this one. Gail Carson Levine has been doing live readings at 11am since the beginning of the pandemic shut down in the US, and the first book she read was Ella Enchanted. I’ve been slowly reading it to @mssarahpearl and am just so glad still that it has the ability to draw me in and calm me down and feels like home after all this time. This book is about agency. I love it.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman @chronicintrovert . I’ve had this on my all-time-faves list since I read it a few years ago and ended up rereading it this year before sending a gift copy to a friend, so I could write little notes in it. It felt a little different reading it this time - as I get further away from being a teenager myself, the character voice this book is written in takes a little longer to get used to, but it’s so authentic and earnest and I love it. I absolutely adore this book about platonic love and found family and fandom and mental illness and abuse and ace identity and queerness and self-determination, especially around college and career choices. Ahhh. Thank you Alice Oseman!!!

Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray @claudiagray​ . I have this one on audible and reread it several times this year. I love the fleshing out of Leia’s story before the original trilogy, I love her having had a relationship before Han, and the way it would have affected her perspective. I also am intrigued by the way it analyses the choices the early rebellion had to make... I just, I love all the female focused new Star Wars content and the complexity being brought to the rebellion.

[hundtoth]

while this should not have to be said aloud - heathenry is not a racist faith! unfortunately, such a statement is necessary to voice... unless you’re a chauvinistic and/or a xenophobic heathen, that’s what this post pertains to: sure, it’s not untold that in the modern world heathenry has been pockmarked by the allotment of symbols seized by hate groups alongside the adulteration of our religious ‘brethren’, with hateful individuals that warp our teachings to portray their hateful demands. our much beloved germanic neopaganism has become a justification for racist behaviour, from the propaganda of the nazi party which applied many of our symbols (such as the fylfot), to the germanic people pointing with pride as the pinnacle of the aryan race. a big problem that faces the heathen practice, while it is innocuous at heart, are the attempts to bear on labels to various heathen sub-groups as ‘racist’ and ‘not racist’. it has become favoured by heathens to cleave up heathenry into splinter groups; universalism, tribalism, and folkism (as the dominant ones), which are often viewed as ‘not racist’, ‘racist?’ and ‘racist!’ respectively. let me be the one to unburden that and say that these terms are not key definitions to those three groups, and that this is the root of the problem. the issue is that these terms are neither here nor there and cannot be applied in whole to the groups that they are supposed to attain to. this is because there exists no foundation within the religion for racist beliefs, which means that those who venture into the ancient praxis could fall under the folkish bracket and may not be and are often not racist. albeit, it’s commonplace for people to label themselves such things to be closer to those who share their views on racism, but that causes some to abandon a title tailored to their practice in favor of one that doesn’t, simply to avoid the bleak implications of said title. in my mind, i believe that we should not be giving monikers to those within the faith with racist tendencies as they simply are not deserving of them. they do not deserve to ornament themselves with the title of a specific group as this just causes a continuation upon the idea that their beliefs around that area of the faith are valid, altering its meaning entirely. to clarify the true to life meanings behind these groups, as they are applied to the preferences of method of practice by each heathen, we have;

universalism - a belief that anyone, irregardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, may practice under the heathen umbrella. the universalism belief structure has been criticized often for failing to motivate its followers to the same depth as others, and allowing the prevalence of contrary philosophies to those present within heathenry. universalists reproduce declaration 127, also known as havamal-stanza 127, which can be cherished by anyone for its simple utterance of: recognize evil, speak out against it, and give no truces to your enemies. however, declaration 127 is denounced commonly due to its poor efforts (similar to the criticism of social media campaigns for ‘likes’ with no physical backing) and it’s false sense of security within heathenry.

tribalism - considered to be ‘in the middle’ by many heathens. tribalists try to vindicate the old and new methods through moderate reconstructionalism, and have a tendency to conceptualise ethnic heritage without maintaining boundaries within practice. the purest way to describe a tribalist is a practicing heathen that integrates the ‘old ways’ into their lifestyle, and they often assert that one must earn the title of heathen - that it doesn’t matter who you are, you must put in the effort and study, which may span years.

folkism - folkist beliefs carry the most stigma, in which racist beliefs are widespread, claiming that germanic paganism is an ethnic right. while this is not always the case, it gives the impression that germanic paganism is only open to those with a connection to the germanic peoples, in a ‘heretic’ kind of way. within folkism, there exists a cross-section as to how this should be enforced, though it is unclouded that it has become a seedbed for racism within the overarching faith that is often under-fire for being contradictory to itself with no substantive evidence that the nordic peoples were racist.

what these terms have set out to do is prognosticate the beliefs of heathens away from how they comfortably choose to practice their faith. the three groups aforementioned fell into those titles not solely due to racism but to essentially describe a heathens practice through daily life. these terms inflict uncertainty to several thought processes within heathenry where race is not a factor, thus cold-shouldering heathens who heed to such traditions when they are presumed to be mirroring the racist views held by their counterparts under the tribalist or folkish stamps which have precured their titles because of racist prospects, not because of how they adopt practice, which is the true basis of these terms. in retrospect, trying to rank the groups within heathenry with the aim of plucking out a method of practice under ‘racism’ only adds more conflict to our community as a whole. i suggest that, especially to new heathens, you should explore these groups further to better your understanding of the people that you may be dealing with and what their ideas are but, be mindful of the fact that you are not required to declare yourself as anything, as these terms tend to only exist as a guide into finding like-minded people. additionally, it would be baseless to create suppositions about anyone within heathenry for the titles that they have chosen to align under as each group is diverse, not only in its members but in its beliefs. another important concept to mention when discussing racism in heathenry are the origins of germanic paganism. germanic ancestors adored the idea of ancestry through honour and worship, and as they would of been white, such ancestors must of been white, too. this would give the impression that when one turns their hand to ancestral veneration within heathenry, while not being white, by very definition they would be inclined to practice their own ancestral faith, which would not be heathenry - because they are not white. to connect to one’s ancestors, many heathens find it essential to practice their ancestral ways through faith and culture, but when someone has no nordic ancestry, heathens may imply that other heathens should be following their own ancestry instead, which is quite paradoxical and backs many people into a corner. an argument often occurs within heathenry regarding spirituality and how it is ‘passed through the ages’, validated by claims that we assume elements of our fate and soul from our lineage and how our ancestors could be reincarnated as a factor of that. as such, it is only those with nordic ancestry who may hear the call of the old gods. they attempt to rationalize this by claiming that white people cannot feel the call of other ancestral ways and other religions, and thus is all fair and equal. however, when we are called back to the ‘old ways’, the old ways are our own individual pasts, as something ingrained into our spiritual histories. for those who are non-whites, this path would not be heathenry, at least according to those who convey this claim. withal, symbols, in my own opinion, have greater intrigue for racists undertaking heathenry above all, with many already falling victim to the racist facets of such symbols whilst being used erroneously by hate groups for many years. additionally, new symbols are often purloined and misappropriated, rather than observed as segments of a faithful movement, instead they are seen as the ideograms of ancient whites; mjolnir, runic othala, valknut and ravens, amongst many more. as mentioned in an earlier paragraph, many symbols now associated with the nazi regime (the SS and swastika) are, or were, once deep-heathen symbolism. ofcourse, the swastika is immediate throughout history but if we were to be straight-thinking, we can surmise that the nazis used it for its association to heathenry, not its association to buddhism, etc. even if these people understood the symbols that they clutched on to and their authentic meanings in a religious sense, they are still related to the previously mentioned concepts within the origins that they have already manipulated to suit themselves, for example, the othala rune, which at a very basic level relates to heritage and ancestry. with a racists obsession with white ancestry, its very easy to see why an ancestral symbol from a white culture would be appealing. within this post, i have tried to emphasise that there is no basis for racism within heathenry if one was to, with all intents and purposes, understand heathen-history and its logic. here are a select few reasons as to why i personally think that any racist who applies heathenry to validate their intolerant opinions are both wrong and uneducated:

assuming that one’s spiritual inclination was genetic, which a vast majority of pagans today discredit, it simply wouldn’t matter. conducting a shallow study on genetics would reveal that it would be almost impossible in the ever-present to have a direct gene from any ancestor who would have been pagan in the viking era. some of the most controversially racist heathens today haven’t had a directly european ancestor in the last 200 years, oops! to paraphrase wayland skallagrimsson, there have been roughly 50 generations between the end of ancient heathenry and today, which means that for most people, contributions to DNA from any heathen ancestor amount to ‘less than 1 ten-trillionth of one percent’. contributions from christian ancestors would be 25-50% of one's genes. let us entertain the concept that one had inherited the genes of their heathen ancestors, scientists largely agree that thoughts and beliefs are culturally influenced anyway. while it is understood that mental illnesses can be inherited, they hold basis not in memory but in brain development, hormonal signals and genetically encoded processes within the body. perhaps it is true, after all, there is the disorder of victim mentality where one believes themselves to be under constant attack, so perhaps racists are just merely ill? poor souls.

there exists no single indication within the eddas and sagas of racial exclusion. our ancient germanic ancestors were well travelled and would have had a large sense of worldliness, caring little about those of other ethnicity, otherwise we would have a myth expanding upon that. in point of fact, odin seeks knowledge from the jötuns who, from a mythological standpoint, represent the ‘outsiders’. despite being the adversaries to the gods on almost all occasions, they often married into the aesir and were included amongst the figureheads (see loki and skadi), and had children together that were pivtotal to the tale of the world, such as magni and modi, children to thor and the jötun named jarnsaxa, whom of which are not only divine, but so pure that they take up the role of thor, and his hammer, after ragnarok to be the defenders of all. the mixing of the ‘outsiders’ to the central gods conveys a pespective from the ancients that position of birth has no bearing on one’s own ability to be pure and welcome.

similarly, there exists no historical evidence to say that ancient germanics were inherently racist. ibn fadhlan, an arabian traveller with produced written works on the germanic people of his age, was entitled to observe and learn of the ‘northern way’, involving himself in rites, alongside slaves who were integrated into the culture and religion historically - which is how we now have accounts of such things. not only do we have have the assimilation of others into the norse culture, we also have norsemen’s graves decorated with arabic emblems, proposing that they themselves diverged from their own ‘righteous path’, to be open and embracing of other cultures and faiths. in fact, germanics have been depicted on many occasions to have participated in the religious celebrations of the cultures to which they travelled, most notably the baptism of king radbod, in honor of a christian friend. additonally, archaeologists have deliberated in many different practices that the norse learnt skills and adopted traits from other cultures, such as the filling of teeth, prior to the occurrence of those practices in nordic culture, telling us that they took back cultural idiosyncrasies of other cultures to their own homelands - our faith would not have kept body and soul together without the aid of many ancient scholars belonging to other creeds and races, and it is a disgrace to disregard them today.

my final disproof is purely opinionated, which is that racism as a whole goes against the very tenants of heathenry. to strive to bar another person from coming into your ‘territory’ shows an acknowledgement of threat from that person. a threat, of course, can only be a threat if you acknowledge that they could overtake you, should you be weak. so, in being racist and fearing the prevalence of other races, racist whites are putting themselves into a position of weakness and equality with those other races. after all, if they weren’t equal certainly it wouldn’t take any effort at all on the part of the white peoples to be dominant, right? no! racism is cowardly and shows an easily wounded ego on the part of the racist; some of the greatest insults in the old norse language are to be weak and cowardly, and thus it is impossible for any racist to truly uphold the values of heathenry.

[constablegoo]

@astralglam​​​​ filed a report .

mint: does your muse view themself as virtuous & moral? what do these words mean to them?

OHOHO. hey hi ily. this is, of course, one of odo’s deepest ongoing battles, and the moment he stops questioning it is the moment he becomes a founder.

the founders grant themselves god status.  GOD!  status. they just reach out and pluck it. Within their range of power, the founders become unquestionably Just and Virtuous and Moral, their Word becomes Law, it becomes “the way things are” and “fact” and they create their own reality stemming from thousands of years of intense xenophobia. they’re above it all. gods don’t make mistakes, right? sure, maybe changelings were hunted and feared ages ago but they still fear it, and that drive for Order and Control over the galaxy is now encoded into their genes and they place a companion structure into the genes of every other species they control, subjugating them to the founders’ own cozy position as Gods, or-- ‘gods’. the founder (i rly don’t like saying “female” founder so she’s THE Founder. she speaks for the link.) makes it quite clear on many occasions that the founders are not here to negotiate. they fully intend to control EVERYTHING at any cost. it is absolutely  chilling  when she cuts garak down with: “they’re dead. you’re dead. cardassia is dead.” and draws the line between the dominion and everyone else miles deep into the sand.

that same genetic coding is one of the first semi-concrete things odo comes to understand about himself and, horribly, he’s landed into conditions under the occupation that very easily could have taken advantage of a less meticulous or stubborn changeling. no, odo says initially (and incorrectly), i am not bajoran** and i am not cardassian and i stand apart from either side of this conflict and so i am bound to PURE Virtue and Morality because of it. he can’t be bribed or bought or won over, and he won’t allow for anything less than a kind of incorruptibility. this effectively wins him allies (and enemies) on both sides, however -- that’s just not how the universe works. the truth of it is that no matter how much he tells himself he is not a part of their regime, his working with the cardassians makes him a collaborator in that he has then recognized their authority and ultimately upheld their legitimacy, even if he never agreed with the cause, even if he was also on some level a casualty of it. at some point when he moves past ‘contract’ investigation and begins to work permanently, he falls into the trap of thinking Order is the same thing as Justice... huge yikes. in that moment he becomes a true and apathetic villain, but he’s subsequently haunted by the resulting execution of innocents. it shakes something up in him. years pass and he still wonders, what other mistakes has he made? what other less direct consequences of his ‘neutral’ arbitration exist? he (and everyone around him) has to live without really knowing, and it’s a constant reminder to him of the power he holds and it informs his understanding of what Real (and imperfect) Justice Means.

**sidenote but later in s7 he introduces himself as ‘from bajor’ and AAAAAA. its good. very good. yeah, you’re bajoran, odo. he gets it now.

Mirror odo is really the ultimate example of an odo having taken those instincts to extremes in an environment that rewarded him for them -- there is no guilt there, and even a sadistic kind of pleasure in it. i’d argue that gaia!odo is another, less extreme example of an odo who’s been alone too long and lost sight of things when he single-mindedly (and against kira’s wishes) chooses her (one person) over 8000. like holy shit? NOT ok? uhhuhhhhfff. anyway. very fortunately, neither of these are OUR odo, but act as great foils to reflect on the worst (bastard cop) qualities or potential qualities of our goo pushed to highly visible extremes, which star trek just loves to do all the time.

but regular/prime odo isnt exactly a rule-follower, either. throughout his life, he frequently takes things into his own hands, uses his abilities to his advantage, spies, wiretaps, eavesdrops, and yes, harasses [quark] sometimes -- he develops his own set of values and personal rules and follows them; even starfleet comes in wary of him and how he operates and hes on thin ice. but because of possibly his most redeeming quality, odo is able to adapt those self-ordained values toward something increasingly honest: for how rigid he can be in personality, he is HIGHLY influenced by the world around him,  listens hard  to what his friends and allies have to say and adapts that feedback; this allows him to evolve and grow and take important matters to heart. he becomes more flexible and better able to hold onto what’s really most important after locking into a decision, because above all else, he is passionately committed to doing the Right Thing. he PLEADS with himself in things past, “your job is to find the truth, not obtain convictions.” by his tendency to push back against what is laid down as ‘law’ (something he becomes more and more aware of and effective at doing) as not always being good or right, or necessarily even creating Order (the thing he’s driven genetically to want), he prepares himself to challenge the most deadly voice of authority -- that of his own people.

so... yes and no. odo’s role and persona as ‘your average security chief’ might dictate that he be virtuous and moral, but he so obviously can’t fit the same exact mold as others in his position -- he has these insane abilities and this mind-consuming nature and it requires he tread with extra care, but he also has a potential for more adaptive, more nuanced morality. he has to build up his own definitions to the words, constantly examine and tease and test them, or else he risks straying too far from what he really wants to achieve -- harmony, honest justice. he has to accept that he’s a part of the system he operates in (not, in fact, alone or isolated! something he actually wants), and know that he is not exempt from making the wrong choice, just like anybody else.

carnation: what is your muse’s relationship with their gender? how do they express or not express this relationship?

ODO AND GENDER!!! i love odo and gender. let’s take this one step at a time. he starts out as an amorphous glob -- he has no gender. there’s no basis for assignment, no culture of difference, and all the goos are goo. odo takes on the shape of the first living thing he sees / the thing he sees most frequently: dr mora. he adopts an image of masculinity from mora and he adopts the hair. that’s about it, and it’s pretty much arbitrary. (maybe the hair is simple enough for his skills, too?) the next people odo meets are also these very masculine, military, cardassian leaders, so again -- this is all he knows! this is neutrality. i imagine it takes him some time to work out what the differences in gender are, and sex, and orientation, romantic vs sexual stuff, all of that. it’s all got cultural baggage he knows nothing about and does not experience, and he’s also dealing with multiple, clashing cultures to boot. since he doesnt have any strong inherent leaning, he simply opts out. he/him becomes his default because thats where he started, thats what he’s been able to successfully present and how people know him, and, terrifyingly, under cardassian rule, it probably offered a bit of safety, too, which was obviously something he needed at the time.

way way way way way down the line in season seven, odo asks kira to (paraphrasing) look at me. what do you see? [i see you.] but this is NOT me, this is only a shape ive assumed in order to fit in. she says, yes, i know that. but this is who you have chosen to be. “a man. a good and honest man.” (i knowww shes not really talking abt gender here BUT) its hard as a trans person not to read the metaphor. he’s chosen to express SOMETHING. he’s chosen something other than what he was given (neutrality) and although he doesnt personally buy into what ‘masculinity’ “should be” (ie the ferengi, smh) / would certainly not argue he doesnt feel non-binary, this is how he has presented all his life, its how hes been treated, and it is what he has chosen to adhere to. there’s a choice in that, kira’s right, and now it reflects something about him.

parallel this, i’ll mention the “female” founder again bc of course there is no discernable reason for her to have a gender -- other than to appeal (im not talking sexually here although there’s,, obviously weird shit happening with the link... yike) to odo in the sense that until that point odo has lived with “gendered” individuals and, i think importantly, kira is with them when they first meet. i think its safe to say the founder saw her, figured she was a friend/ally to odo or at least familiar to him, and took her general representation to appeal as a friend/ally.

otherwise... why, honestly? the founder’s got NO love of humanoids lmao why would she bother.

anyway i’d like to see odo experiment a bit. because when hes safe, he can!! aside from his own doubts and insecurities about shapeshifting, at some point he really has no reason not to, at least a little bit. really, it should just be another thing to practice, much like becoming a convincing rock or a leaf, its just that there are other significances in the cultures around him. i’d just like to see him loosen up a little. have fun. grow ur hair out a bit, odo, why are u still looking like ur terrible dad.

[uncloseted]

So I've had a conversation with a friend, and he was telling me that gay people are not Born gay but become gay because of social experiences and I called that homophobic he got really offended and said he was not that he didn't care if someone is gay or not but it's a fact and a point made by many psychologists that people become gay because of their environment, I said what I found homophobic was the implication it's like a mental disease he said he didn't believe it was a disease but that if you say it's inherent it's like saying it's genetic which it's not and that the same person has different chances of becoming gay according to their family and socio cultural experiences. It did got me thinking, are you aware of such studies and their revelance?

The answer to the question “what makes people gay” is really nuanced and I think probably more complicated than you might have expected.  I’ll get into explaining those nuances the best that I can in a second, but I think the best answer to your friend’s argument is just that he has the correlation and causation backwards.  

People who are raised in environments where being LGBT+ is permissible aren’t more likely to be gay; they’re just more likely to come out of the closet because they know they’ll be accepted and that they won’t be in any danger.  In places where homophobia is rampant, of course there appear to be fewer LGBT+ people- the LGBT+ people who are out in those places are disowned, harassed, bullied, attacked, and sometimes killed.  It makes sense that more LGBT+ people would opt to stay in the closet in a situation where violence is a possibility.  This comes out in the data; although it appears that more gay men live in costal cities in the US, the percentage of internet porn searches for gay male porn are the same across all states, around 5%.

Moving on to the “causes” of homosexuality, it’s likely a lot of different things in combination, and there’s not exactly a scientific consensus just yet.  Male homosexuality may have different causes than female sexuality and bisexuality, and trans identities are also a separate set of factors.  For the purposes of this conversation, let’s focus on male homosexuality, as it’s the most studied.

First, a couple of things that it’s not: per the Royal College of Psychiatrists, there’s no evidence that parenting or early childhood experiences play a role in sexual orientation.  Per the American Academy of Pediatrics, “there is no scientific evidence that abnormal parenting, sexual abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation. Current knowledge suggests that sexual orientation is usually established during early childhood.”  Children who grow up to be non-heterosexual are, on average, substantially more gender non-conforming in childhood (even if they’re bullied for it), supporting the idea that sexuality is established early in life.  Sexual orientation is not a choice (here, here, and here).  In (old, unethical) studies where newborn and infant boys were surgically reassigned into girls and raised as girls, they did not become more feminine or male-attracted than their AMAB counterparts.  Socialization does not induce feminine behaviors in men or make them attracted to men. “Nurture” is a lot stronger than “nature” in this case.  There are no scientifically rigorous studies that support the idea that sexuality can be changed after birth, whether through surgical treatments, lobotomies, hormone treatments, electric chock treatments, aversion therapy, hypnosis, psychoanalysis, or any other type of conversion treatment.  I would love to see his sources on all of these psychologists who supposedly believe people are gay due to their social environment.

Sexual orientation appears to be a complex interplay of biological and environmental (but not social) factors. Nonsocial, biological factors have more evidence to support them than environmental factors, particularly in homosexual men.  So your friend isn’t entirely wrong, although he’s right for the wrong reasons.  Environment is a factor, and so is family (since that’s where you get your genes and epigenetics from) but homosexuality is inherent.

Let’s start with strictly biological factors that go into sexual orientation.

One of the biggest hypotheses for the cause of homosexuality is the impact of hormones on a developing fetus. I’m going to skip over a lot of biology here, but basically the core of this theory is that gay men’s brains may have been exposed to less testosterone in the womb than their heterosexual counterparts, had less receptivity to the masculinizing effects of the testosterone, or experienced fluctuations in hormones at key times in their development.  In women, it’s hypothesized that the opposite is true- lesbians may have been exposed to higher levels of testosterone.  This is supported by right hand finger digit ratios (the length of the index finger divided by the length of the ring finger), which are a marker of prenatal testosterone exposure- lesbians have a lower digit ratio than heterosexual women, while gay men have a higher digit ratio than straight men.  Gay men may have been exposed to more testosterone than their straight counterparts for a number of different reasons, including maternal immune response and fraternal birth order, genes, epigenetics, and prenatal environmental chemical exposure.  We’ll go over each of those below:

Maternal immune responses during fetal development are demonstrated as being a cause of male homosexuality.  During pregnancy of a male child, male cells enter a mother’s bloodstream.  These cells are foreign to the mother, and so her body develops antibodies to neutralize them.  Again, skipping over a lot of nitty-gritty biology here, but basically, the more pregnancies a woman has, the better her body gets at neutralizing male cells (particularly, Y-linked antigens) and the more antibodies she has against those Y-linked antigens.  

In turn, this creates what’s known as the “fraternal birth order effect”- basically, the more male sons a woman has, the more likely it is that her next son will be gay.  One study found that each additional older brother increases the odds of a man being gay by 33%.  Researchers have found that mothers with a gay son have heightened levels of antibodies to the NLGN4Y Y-protein than mothers with heterosexual sons.  The fraternal birth order effect is estimated to account for between 15 and 29% of male homosexuality.  Some studies have identified structural differences in the brains of homosexual men as opposed to heterosexual men that are due to prenatal hormonal exposure.  For example, straight men typically have right hemispheres that are 2% larger than their left, while in gay men the two hemispheres are typically the same size. 

Genes also play a role in sexual orientation.  Identical twins are more likely to share a sexual orientation than fraternal twins or adopted siblings (an estimated 80% of identical twins share a sexual orientation).  The largest study on the genetic basis of sexuality, published in Science, determined that there are at least five different genes that are correlated with homosexuality.  The genes identified do all sorts of different things, and some have functions that are yet to be determined.  An estimated 25% of sexual behavior is attributed to genetics.  Another study found that maternal female relatives of homosexual men tend to have more offspring, suggesting that genetic material that promotes fertility in women and homosexuality in men is being genetically passed down on the X chromosome.  Researchers estimated that this explains about 20% of genetic homosexuality (which is right in line with the estimate that there are four other genes involved).

Epigenetic factors also impact a person’s sexuality.  Epigenetic changes are changes in gene activity that are not caused by changes to the DNA sequence itself.  Epigenetic factors can “turn on” or “turn off” the expression of certain genes.  Per an article from The Guardian, “think of DNA as an orchestral score, the notes on the page unchanging. But the annotations on the manuscript will dictate how the music sounds, with crescendo and lento and adagio. The conductor and orchestra play their annotated manuscript, and each performance is unique, even when the original scores are identical.”  Epigenetic marks can be “turned on” or “turned off” during gestation as well as after birth.  Researchers hypothesize that epigenetic factors change how cells respond to androgen signaling, which is critical to sexual development.  Like we talked about above, fetal levels of exposure to the androgen, testosterone, seem to impact sexual orientation.  In gay men, the epigenetic marks responsible for managing the amount of testosterone the fetus is exposed to are thought to be too aggressive, blocking testosterone from reaching the fetus. This is pretty new research still, so the evidence to support it is limited, but one study found that the methylation pattern (the epigenetic change) in nine regions of the genome appeared to be linked to sexual orientation, and could use it to predict the sexual orientation of a group with 70% accuracy. 

There are a handful of statistical physiological differences between gay and straight man in addition to the difference in brain hemisphere size I mentioned above.  These are averages across populations, so they may not apply to each and every homosexual or heterosexual individual.  The suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus is larger in gay men than in non-gay men.  The INAH 3 in the brains of gay men are the same size as the INAH 3 in women; both are smaller than in heterosexual men’s brains. Homosexual and heterosexual brains respond differently to two putative sex pheromones.  The amygdala is more active in gay men than straight men when exposed to sexual material.  Gay men are more likely to be left handed or ambidextrous than straight men.  Gay men are more likely to have a counterclockwise hair whorl than the general population, which is also correlated with left handedness.  Gay men have increased ridge density in the fingerprints on their left thumbs and little fingers compared to straight men.  These are all minor, but support the idea that there is a biological basis to homosexuality.

Now that we’ve gotten through the biological factors, let’s talk environmental.  When we say, “environmental” people usually think of the environment a child is raised in- who they parents are, how their parents act, who their friends are, what kind of activities they do, etc.  But in this case, that’s not what we mean.  The impact of a person’s environment after birth seems to have a weak effect on sexual orientation at best; there is no substantial evidence to suggest that early childhood experiences influence sexual orientation at all.  So in that case, what do we mean by “environmental”?  We’re really talking about the environment the mother was in during the pregnancy, and the prenatal environment that the fetus experienced (the hormonal influences that we talked about above).  These may include things like maternal exposure to anti-androgenic chemicals and endocrine disruptors while pregnant.  However, given that homosexual people have always been present, even pre-industrialization, these factors cannot be considered central to what causes homosexuality. 

[jabbers-written-world]

Character Creation

Okay, first things first. Most people seem to think that to create a character, you need a setting first, and perhaps you even need to know the plot. The truth is, you technically don’t. Not for the very basic character skeletons. All you need for that, is this basic profile.

Name: 

Age: 

Height: 

Weight: 

Gender: 

Sexuality: 

Personality: 

Appearance: 

Motive: 

Flaws: 

Backstory: 

Looks pretty simple, doesn’t it. And it is. This is the most basic character profile skeleton, and I myself often use this, even for the most minor of background characters. Why? Because everyone is the protagonist of their own story. Even those characters that only get one line of dialogue, or maybe they don’t even get that much. But they are still there. They are still a character, and the more you know about them, the more real and believable your story will be.

Now, let’s get into this a little further, shall we?

Names

This can be literally anything you want it to be. You want to call your protagonist Mugwump Doozeldorff? Go for it. But, here’s the catch. You have to think about why. Why did you name them that? Why would they go by that name? Think about the reasoning, and the plausibility. You can name them absolutely anything, but you can’t pass it off as a simple joke, really. Are they named after a legendary hero? Do their parents just hate them? Is it a common name in their culture? Is it a respectable name where they live, while a name like Steve is considered strange?

These questions help to develop not only your character, but the world around them as well. It even helps add to your character’s backstory a little, because it lets you start thinking about their parents and their family as well. In addition to this, something I tend to enjoy doing, is I like to look into the meanings behind names and where they came from. The meaning of a name can also give insight to a character, whether it’s their role in the story, or a personality trait.

So yes, you can name your character whatever you want to name them, but name them with a purpose. Think of it like a parent naming their newborn baby. Parents choose the names of their children for a reason, and often spend time debating names before the child is born. Do the same for your characters.

Age

This is another choice that should be made with particular intent. Don’t just pick a random number and be done with it. With age, comes experience. Not necessarily wisdom or intelligence, but experience. And experience can come across as wisdom the other a character is. For example, say you create a character who is a human in their mid-70′s. They have experienced a lot in their life. They have seen decades go by, and watched the world change. And they can teach younger characters about these experience, and share what they know of the past, to help those younger characters move toward the future.

On the opposite end, the younger a character is, the less they’ve experienced, and the less they’ve been affected by the way the world has changed, if it has at all in their lifetime. A ten-year-old kid is less experienced than a 25-year-old adult. But even that 25-year-old is less experienced than that person in their mid-70′s. As well, as people age, we develop different speech patterns.

Very young children often tend to talk a lot, and at a quicker pace, and they mispronounce words, or sometimes repeat phrases they don’t know the meaning of. Older children and preteens are still often eager to share what they know, and still may talk quite openly, and may even mispronounce a few things, but they know better now. Teenagers no longer mispronounce things, and they’ve developed a more unique speech pattern specific to themselves. This may carry some heavy pauses, or a tendency to say certain words more frequently.

Adults between 20-50 are more settled into a consistent way of speaking. They speak with intention, and some are more charismatic and well-spoken than others, but there is a deliberate intent to what they say, even if they might be wrong in saying it. And adults and elders between 50-100 even have their own ways of speaking. Still with deliberate purpose, but they think more on their words, and do their best not to offend. At least, until they’re around 80-100.

At that point, any filters are thrown out the window, and elders say what they want. Doesn’t matter if anyone else shares their opinion. They have one, and that’s that. Yes, you can get those sweet and gentle elders that are still so polite and kind, but even they lose their filter and speak just as openly as a young child, just now they have more experience to go with it.

So yes, be purposeful with the age you give your characters, because you’ll have to stay consistent with it. Now, I used humans as a base reference for this, but there are of course all manner of other beings that you can play with, and they all age differently. Especially if you’re working in the realms of fantasy, or the different planets of sci-fi. Elves tend to age much slower than humans, but there may be an alien race somewhere that ages faster. Vampires don’t age at all except in particular circumstances, and there may be aliens that are effectively the same.

In the case of aliens, it’s a good idea to look at various animal species on Earth first. How do they age? Do they have longer or shorter lifespans than humans? These are all things to consider when creating aliens for a sci-fi novel, or even if you intend to create your own fantasy species. All in all, age is important. So choose carefully.

Height and Weight

Something to consider when creating a character, because the bigger they are, the more trouble they may have with doorways, or the smaller they are, the harder it may be to reach things on high shelves. And in addition, weight changes proportionally to height as well. A taller person may be heavier, while someone smaller would be lighter.

Of course, every person is an individual, and sometimes tall people are skinny or short people are chubby, and vice versa. Still, it’s a good idea to research healthy body weights, and use it as a basis for fantasy races or aliens as well. And you should always consider if their weight comes from fat or muscle. Muscle is of course denser than fat, and by all accounts weighs more. So pay attention to that as well. Even if someone is for example, 6′2″ and skinny with some nice, lean muscle, they may still weigh around 200 pounds. Why? Because they’re tall, and they have muscle.

In addition, weight certainly plays a part in whether or not a character can reasonably walk across something that may break if they’re too heavy. Like thin ice, for example, or a rickety old rope bridge. Make it believable. And I am by means telling you that your characters all have to be at healthy weights. Just think about why. If they are underweight, why is that? Do they just have a very fast metabolism, or are they malnourished? If they’re overweight, why? Is it genetic, or did something else cause them to gain weight?

Again, make it believable.

Gender

We all know this is not synonymous with a person’s physical sex. This is in regards to a gender identity, not what genitals they happen to have. And again, this should be chosen carefully. Honestly, this is one thing that should be chosen even more carefully than anything else, besides perhaps sexuality. Because having a different gender identity than your assigned sex does come with burdens and stresses.

Also, if you intend to write a character with a gender identity that differs from your own, it is always a good idea to do your research, but even that won’t give you everything you need to write that identity properly. Talk to people with that gender identity. Get to know them and understand them, but don’t just talk to one person and call it a day. Like I’ve said, every person is an individual. And individuals all have their unique views and experiences. Talk to as many people as you can.

Otherwise, you can go right ahead and write what you know! Want more good representation of your gender identity? Absolutely go ahead and write it. Drawing from your own experiences is a great way to really develop a character as a real person. Be careful making them too much like yourself, though. It can be a tough market for those sorts of stories. You can absolutely go for it if you like, just be aware that you may learn things about yourself that you realize you hate more than you thought, or ever even knew you would. Believe me, I’ve already faced that in my own writing.

And of course, if your character’s gender identity does differ from their assigned sex, you are of course free to make a note of that when creating their ‘file’, so to speak. Because that is what this is. You are creating a file detailing information about your character, like a detective with a case file, or a psychiatrist with a patient file. All their little ticks are important to make note of.

Sexuality

Yep. This is another big one. Sexuality, as in who your character’s romantic and/or sexual interests may be, definitely plays a part in your character’s opinions and actions, and their personality. It changes how they view themselves, and how they view others around them as well.

Is your character a young boy figuring out how to handle being homosexual in an environment where it’s not accepted? Or is your character a heterosexual young girl in such an environment? Is your character attracted to both males and females equally? How does this correspond to their culture and environment? Or perhaps your character doesn’t experience any sexual attraction or really have much interest in the whole thing. Or maybe they’re that type of character that.. well, is perfectly happy getting down and dirty with anyone, anywhere, any time. Doesn’t matter the species, or the gender, or the sex.

And again, like with gender identities, do your research if you’re writing something different from yourself. Talk to people, get to know them and their experiences to write something from the perspective of a character like them. As writers, we are only capable of writing from what we know and have taken the time to learn about.

Personality

This is one of the most key details of any character, regardless of gender, sex, appearance, or species. This is what decides how they act, how they think, and even how they move. Confidence can make a character walk tall with their head held high, but if your character is the shy, quiet type, they’re more likely to keep their head low, and do their best not to draw attention.

Personality traits also define how easily angered your character is, or if they’re the non-violent type. It decides if they like things clean or messy, if they cry easily or not at all. This can also be affected by your character’s backstory, because.. well, aren’t we all changed a little bit by the things we lived through? That being said, this again should be done with intention. Yes, sometimes it can be fun to put our characters through hell more than once, I know I’m guilty of being a bit of a torture master sometimes, but too much trauma, and you end up with a character who can never recover.

So it’s a good idea to choose your character’s personality with intent, and be sure that you can keep to it. Even if you need to refer back to your character’s file, try to keep things consistent. Now, I’m not saying your characters can’t grow and change like real people do, but it should be believable, just like everything else.

Appearance

Here’s where you get to have a little fun, but again, think about what you’re doing, and how your character’s appearance and physical features may affect how they get around or how people react to them. Still, extra features like wings or tails can actually be helpful tools for getting some emotion across too. These are very expressive body parts.

You are free to decide your character’s hair color, eye color, their skin tone, how their body looks, how their hands are shaped, do they have weird feet, or maybe they have an odd birthmark somewhere. And of course, height and weight play into this too. Just know that you should know how to have your character’s looks also affect their surroundings. Are they attractive? Are they not the best in the looks department? If they have a different skin tone than is common in the area, how do others react to that? Every detail plays a part.

If you’re planning to give your character wings, think about them. Do some research on different types of wings. If your character has large feathery wings like a bird, what kind of bird are they most similar to? Or are they more like bat wings, or perhaps dragonfly wings? Just remember that if your character has wings, they should be noticeable even in the small details, not just something that’s there for the sake of convenience. Wings are very expressive.

Watch a few birds for a while, make note of how they move and use their wings. Feathers can stand on end when a bird is upset, or cold, or even too hot. Your character can spread out their wings to make themselves bigger if they’re trying to be intimidating. Or if they’re happy, maybe their wings give a little flap or buzz (if they’re bug wings) in excitement. As well, how large wings are can affect how your character fits through doorways, so be mindful of that as well.

Tails too are very expressive. Dog tails wag, cat tails twitch and quirk and display all kinds of emotions, even a cow or horse’s tail will move and flick back and forth depending on their mood. When a cow or bull gets upset, they can start lashing their tail. Horses too. Even a bird’s tail fans out or gets ruffled whether they’re happy or upset.

And there is also a lot of expression to be had if your character has ears different from those of a human. Do your elves’ ears move like a cat’s with their feelings? Or maybe a half-dragon has ears that occasionally twitch and wiggle like those of a cow. Everything makes a difference, and even if your character is typically the stoic type who doesn’t express much on their face, if they have other features like wings or a tail, or even different ears, those things aren’t as easily controlled if they want to hide their feelings.

Motive

Another fun little bit here. This is your character’s goal in life, and this can change over the course of the story, especially if they achieve their goal. Motives can be as simple as a child wanting to catch a very particular bug, or as grand as a rebellion leader wanting to protect his people. Again, though, these have to have purpose, and often they may tie into your character’s personality as well.

Still, as ever, we have to ask the question of why. Why do they have that goal? Why are they struggling so hard for this? Or, why aren’t they trying harder? As well, we of course have to think about (especially for larger goals, like rebellion for the sake of the people or a world saving quest) what the character is willing to sacrifice for their goal.

That kid who wants so badly to catch that bug. What is he sacrificing? Snack time, and to a kid that can be a pretty big deal. That rebellion leader protecting his people? He’s willing to sacrifice his own life to keep them safe. Even someone who wants to be with their true love, they may have to sacrifice family ties for that.

Motives create sacrifices, and sacrifices can certainly affect your character’s experiences. Also, you have to think about, is the sacrifice worth it in the end? Say your character was trying to save their best friend from a horrible fate, and to do it, they lost their eye because it had to be used as collateral to seal the monster. Was that worth it, if they still didn’t manage to save their friend in time? Is the little kid’s sacrifice of snack time worth it if now he’s really hungry and he still hasn’t caught the bug yet? Always think about if the motive is worth the sacrifice.

Flaws

These are the great equalizers. So your character seems like the knight in shining armor type, and they’re so perfect and everything they do is for a good reason and- wait. What do you mean they’re rude and biased about another species. Should that be considered racist? Well, maybe not completely, but negative biases like that can be a problem. So you see what I did there, right?

The perfect good boy, practically a shining example, suddenly brought back down from his pedestal to be just like the rest of us humble peasants. Flaws humanize people. They balance the good traits with some bad ones. And no, I’m not saying you should make all your characters racist. Not all flaws need to be grand and life-changing.

Like the kid with the bug. Yeah, we’re back to him again. Okay, so he’s a kid. Who’s sacrificing snack time to catch the stupid bug. Let’s say this kid is a pretty polite kid, he says please and thank you like he was taught, and he’s pretty easy to handle most of the time. Except.. uh-oh. This kid drew on his mommy’s newly painted living room wall yesterday! Even though she told him not to draw on the walls! Does this suddenly make this kid a horrible little demon spawn who no one would ever like? No. He’s just doing what kids do.

People develop flaws, often based on what they were exposed to growing up. So what about that character with those ugly, negative biases toward another species? That’s the rebellion leader again. He wants to protect his people, would sacrifice his life to keep them safe, and yet.. he thinks things like that? Oh, boy, people are gonna hate this one, right? Well, maybe, but what if I told you, he has his biases because it was members of that same species that killed his parents when he was only seven? What if I told you that members of that same species were cruel overlords that took over his home city?

Flaws have reasoning, and it’s usually because of life experiences and what people are exposed to, especially from a young age. Some of them though, may just be flaws because of the character’s age. Like that kid with the bug that sacrificed snake time and drew on the wall. That’s a kid being a kid. He’ll grow out of that one.

Sometimes, flaws can be used as a jumping point for a character to change and improve. The rebellion leader with ugly biases? He’s recently met some other members of that same species, and didn’t even know it before he became good friends with one of them. He got upset when he learned what they were, but that friendship he made, it changed him. He has his biases, but they’ve been softened by a good friendship. He’s learning not to be biased towards the whole species, because it’s not all of them that are the problem. Just a few giving the rest a bad reputation.

So you see why flaws can be a good thing, even if they are something as dramatic as some.. pretty nasty biases.

Backstory

This. Decides. Everything. How your character acts, what their experiences are, where they came from, what their culture is, why they may be hiding their sexuality or not hiding it. Everything. Like I said with that rebellion leader, his flaws are because of his backstory.

He was seven years old and watched his mother and younger sister killed right in front of him. Pretty traumatic for a kid to witness. Not only that, but they dragged his father into the center of the city and killed him as an example to the rest. Yikes. And as if it couldn’t get worse, one of them nearly tore off his leg, so now he needs a brace to even walk right.

Yes, this is one of my.. tortured characters. Him, and his best friend, who was enslaved by the same people who killed the rebellion leader’s parents and sister. Captured when he was three years old and raised in that nightmare. Yeesh. You’re probably thinking I need to pull back on the depressing backstories for a while, huh. Yeah, I probably do. And by no means do you have to follow my example.

Maybe your character had a great life. A great childhood with loving parents, got to visit their cousins every summer at their grandma’s house, everything was great. But then maybe they had to move from their childhood home, and it felt like the end of their whole world. It wasn’t, because life goes on, but it sure felt like it. And they’ve moved several times since then for different reason, and maybe it’s making them worried that they’ll never have a permanent place to call home, so they don’t get attached to places.

See? Even a happy backstory with a couple small bumps can have big effects on the character’s outlook on life. Backstories don’t have to be wild and dramatic to be important, and your character certainly doesn’t have to be dragged through hell and back to be interesting. It all depends on how you work with it.

Species

Now’s where things get really interesting. Humans should never be ruled out as strong characters, especially if they live in a fantasy world, or even if they’re surrounded by big tough aliens. Humans are tough. We are resilient, and we compete for everything. Space, food, love, happiness. We toughen ourselves up and live on a planet that.. to be fair, is sort of trying to kill us. But we are survivors. The human race even in the real world has gone through a lot of pain, but we survived.

Still, if you don’t want your character to be human, that’s fine too. There are literally hundreds of species out there to choose from, and you can even create your own. Want an alien a furry lizard face, four arms and a tail with porcupine spikes? Okay, that’s cool. Want a fantasy creature that’s sort of like an elemental spirit but also like a genie? Sounds good to me.

But of course, like everything else, your character’s species comes with important questions to think about. You know where I’m going with this by now. Everyone, say it with me. WE MUST ASK WHY. Why is always going to be the most important question you ever ask as a writer. Why did you choose this species? Why is this species living where it is? If they’re the last of their kind, why? As well, you need to think about the limitations of the species, as well as what they may be able to do better than humans.

Can your character fly? That’s great! But that also means they probably have large wings that may be difficult to fit through a doorway. Do they have huge claws great for digging tunnels? Awesome, but now that may cause some trouble trying to pick up small objects. Does your character have more than two legs and run super fast? Super cool, but now they have more legs to worry about and coordinate when doing other things, like sitting or even climbing up stairs. Maybe your character is a super big and strong rock monster. Absolutely fantastic. But that sort of makes them less than comfortable to hug, and also they have trouble fitting through doors.

Every species has their strengths, and their limitations. So, like with everything, we have to be aware of the details, and think about the balance. As well, things should be fairly believable for your world to seem real enough. Well, unless realistic isn’t what you’re going for. If that’s the case, ignore me. Go nuts, my friends. But from a believability stand point, your species’ limitations should make sense. Like the big rock monster for example. He can’t fit through door too easy, but what else? You wanna make him horribly hurt by water? Eh.. That’s Pokemon logic and if you want to go with that, that’s fine. But there are other things that could work better. Metal won’t hurt him much, but acid does. He’s got a hard, impenetrable shell of stone? Oops, there’s a gap in the rocks making a weak spot.

What about a person with dragonfly wings, like a fae or something like that? Ooh, very nice. Good with magic, tend to be rather pretty, and- Oh. Oops. Their wings rip like wet paper. Ouch. Also, there is real mythology that elves and fae, and species like them, they are repelled by or even hurt by or can’t use their magic when in contact with iron. You wanna put your elf in an iron prison cell for the sake of storytelling? Great, but remember that they won’t be able to use any magic to escape, and that iron could even possibly burn them. Even if it isn’t hot.

So, keep in mind your species’ limitations, and have fun building your world now around these characters you’ve created. Creating them gave you a great starting point, so go on! Write something fantastic!

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Really Though, Not All "Black" People Give a Fuck About "White" Dreads

“And these rhymes ain’t tight, they’re terrorish

And that girl’s not white, she’s anarchist

And we float like kites to get turbulence

Born with our throats slit

Self stitched

raised to aim over it

Soldier with no king

War with the war on me

I am more than this world lets me be"

- P.O.S “Weird Friends (We Don’t Even Live Here)"

Note: In this essay I use quotations around all idenitity categories and ideologies (for example “black” people or “white supremacy”) for the purpose of calling into question their assumed legitimacy as universal truths rather than fictitious constructs that benefit social control.

1. N.W.A (Nihilists With Attitudes)

Despite being biracial, my skin tone is socially recognized as “black” (or dark brown compared to some). Some of the music I listen to is found in, and stereotypically associated with, “black culture”. The combination of words I learned to use, inspired by my environmental upbringing, are stereotypically associated with living in “the hood”. Racialized tension and state violence follows me everywhere I go. When I walk into a store, my baggy black sweat pants and pullover black hoodie leads people to assume the worst; I have a criminal past with the potential to cause trouble. But check this out, I’m not “black”. This society assigned me this “black” identity at birth and with social pressure expects me to embrace it. But I refuse. The very concept of race has no biological or genetic validation. It is nothing more than a social construct used as a tool of oppression. The complexity of my individuality can not be represented by “black” identity nor “cultural blackness”. Identities are fixed, generalized representations of people and dictated by social norms, expectations and stereotypes. They are standardized by capitalism and industrial civilization and assumed to be universal and beyond questioning. When I walk into a store I get the stares, all based on the shared concern that I just might steal some shit. But to be honest, they’re probably right. I just might. Because the social placement of my assigned identity is located near the bottom which means my access to resources is limited. So illegalism is how I create access to resources without vote-begging for equality. Under capitalism, equality can not exist. And I gotta' survive, so I’m gonna' do what I gotta do. And that doesn’t mean pushin’ poison and enabling intoxication culture. The dope game is a trap set up by the state, so I just gotta' be more creative and determined.

The socially constructed groups (“black", “man") that society identifies me as are ones assigned to me at birth by a system that benefits from my identity categorization- a system I reject all together. This is the same system that constructs “black” as inferior to “white", “female” as inferior to “male”, “animal" as inferior to “human". I will not deny the very real experiences of sexism and racism that people face, nor the reality of institutionalized racism and sexism that wages poverty and war on those of us racialized and/or gendered as “inferior”. “White supremacy”, “male supremacy”, and this capitalist society as a whole needs to be destroyed. And I refuse to embrace any of its identity mechanisms of division as personal forms of resistance.

Instead, I embrace criminality against the laws of identity, as well as the agents of identity reinforcement responsible for normalizing the rigid boundaries of identity. I reject the liberal narrative that I, as a “black man”, deserve rights in this country equal to the “white man”. “Black man” doesn’t represent me, and I refuse to assimilate into those roles. I want to see them destroyed, as well as the logic that creates them. My existence embodies the negation of social assimilation and of the prison of identity-based representation, recognizing individuality without measure as the sincerest form of anarchy. “Black man” identity ain't got shit on me.

2. Keep Your “White” Dreads. Keep Fuckin’ Shit Up.

I don’t care about your culturally inspired dreads. And I don’t care about “white” people's dreads neither. I got better shit to do than chasin’ people around with a pair of scissors tryin' to give them a free haircut. And skin tone doesn’t necessitate conformity to any particular culture, let alone culture at all. As a matter of fact, fuck culture. I never had a say in being assigned this “black” culture that I am assumed to be represented by. Is knowing my African roots gonna save me from attacks by armed, “white supremacist” militias? Or the state? And it seems that children are often coerced into cultures at birth by people who assume they know what’s best for them. That, in and of itself, constitutes a form of hierarchical authority that can also burn in a fire with socially coerced identity and assigned roles.

Like race and gender, culture is also a social construct only maintained by those willing to validate it with their own subservience to it. And some folks are never permitted to know anything outside their culture - except maybe all the problems with other cultures. This sense of nationalism seems immune to critique from leftists and most anarchists. “White supremacy” and nationalism are widely called out and confronted but since when did “black supremacy” and nationalism become acceptable? Don’t get me wrong, “black supremacy” and “black power” are not backed up by the state, and came as a legitimate response to white power and supremacy.

But reproducing more identity-based supremacy is counter-productive and reformist..“Black power” limits itself to identity-based empowerment without confronting the foundation of assigned identity to begin with. And don’t act like “black nationalist” tendencies don’t exist within some anarchist circles. I'm side eyein' y’all wack-ass identity politicians who power play “white” anarchists with guilt. Y’all got them policing others- promoting the liberal, rights-based narrative of all “black” people as victims.

I ain't tryin' to waste time reforming shit. I ain't tryin' to embrace the establishment’s prescribed identity and then demand rights for it. I demand nothing from this system- I wanna' destroy everything that gives it validation, including the identity assigned to maintain its class binary. “Black nationalism” is not a solution to eliminating racism. It reinforces racism as a cultural and institutionalized system by validating the “white” and “black” racial and class binary. And if we tryin' to all get free, why embrace the same identities that were constructed to divide and stratify us? And how we gonna' take back and determine our lives if we still stuck in the shackles of internalized victimhood?

Those who maintain cultures on a traditional basis are in positions of power which constitutes a hierarchy between those who embrace that particular culture and those who refuse. I not only refuse “American culture” and all its social constructs and values, but all cultures that govern the mind. Cultures discourage freethinking and limitless exploration of one’s individual potential in life. Rather than allowing individuals to interact with the world and develop an opinion based on their own independent experiences, a preconceived narrative of life is imposed and justified as “truth” by those in positions of manipulative power. To exist, cultures rely on the subjugation of a group of people homogenized based on socially constructed roles and characteristics. I not only find cultures and their desire for control and domination personally undesirable, but I have learned that their power drops anchor in the mind of the subservient. Those who either don’t have the courage or accessible inspiration to think for themselves, or who actively promote culture and nationalism always turn to manipulation tactics like shaming and guilting others who refuse to assimilate. These cultural-based nationalist type groups do not reflect a universal truth or reality, nor do they represent all the people they claim to.

So hey “white” reader, “white dreads” are not culturally appropriating. No culture holds a monopoly on a hairstyle. Culture is a state of mind that can only manifest materially with rigid boundaries of essentialism which are protected by the laws of identity and those who enforce them. Are your dreads out of bounds with the laws of identity? Did the identity police come and charge you with disrespecting the laws of essentialism? Did you reject their self-appointed authority? Then you might be a criminal worth knowing. In the context of capitalism, if you tryin' to sell dreaded hair as a fashion commodity, that’s not culturally appropriating. But you still might get your windows smashed for being a fucking capitalist. Capitalism aside, if your dreadlocks are smelly, dried-sweat strands of tangled and/or matted hair, rock that shit. My dreads are too. Fuck conventional beauty standards, capitalism, and those who defend both.

3. Another Word for “White Ally” is Still “Coward”.

I don’t care if you identify as/call yourself a community-approved “white ally”. But I will assume that: 1. You are incapable of thinking for yourself. 2. You are a coward. 3. You will hesitate under fire when I ask you to hand me a molotov cocktail- fearful that you will be doing “the community” a disservice. Assuming you will be beside me in the streets or somewhere where tensions are high, I don’t want you to stand behind me and ask me what you should do. I don’t want to be your leader. Leadership- isn't that the hierarchical complex we are fighting against in the first place?

As my friend, will we hang out and have discussions freely or will you spend your time hesitating and stumbling over your words trying to keep your PC terminology in check for fear of offending me? If you say something fucked up, am I incapable of being considerate of the world you live in and calmly asking you to think about what you said? Will you police my other “white” friends with your expertise on anti-racism, in hopes of gaining my applause and approval? Will you police the boundaries of identity and reduce me to a mere “marginalized voice” incapable of taking space against white supremacy? If so, then you suffer from “white guilt” and are more of a conformist with some personal work of your own to do. I don’t want what liberal social justice warriors and some wack-ass anarchists call “allies”. I want accomplices. I am fine on my own, but I would enjoy the lawless company of those with ideas and strategies that aren't always my own, and with experiences and histories that differ from mine. Do you refuse societal submission and instead embrace life as daily attack on capitalist society and everything in between? Cool. I do too. Despite socially constructed categories and assigned identities, this is our bond. This is our affinity.

4. Gettin’ With the (Anti)-Program.

There is no use in making demands. It is pointless asking those in positions of power to stop their quest for control and domination. I can’t ask liberal POC organizations, academics, and social justice warriors to stop pretending they represent me and my interests. I don’t have time to spend hours explaining to them that not all people they identify as “black” can be “saved” by the church of social justice. Some people just want money and the power to dominate others just as any “white” bank owner or corporate executive. I can’t plead with them to stop invisibilizing my existence as an individual acting out of bounds with their political programs. I can’t vote beg leftists and anarcho-leftists into realizing their plan to “organize the masses” ultimately discourages a vitality of anarchy- individuality. I can’t change or reform their system that they operate within and attempt to dominate the political terrain with. I am anti-political in that all programs derived from politics are doomed to fail because they all have one thing in common- representation. None of these people represent me, my personality, nor the anarchistic actions of my individuality. I am anti-political in that my actions of revolt do not constitute a politicized occupation separate from my daily life. Anarchy is not my activist hobby. My individual existence is a nihilistic, transformative expropriation of a life that was never intended to be my own in the first place.

So if you are “white” and are reading this, you have already defied the police in your head who tells you to never read anything critical of “black” liberalism, identity in general, and allyship or culture. Just like when you walked away after being scolded about your dreads from a “black” activist, and under your breath mumbled “go fuck yourself." Or in the streets when they called you an “outside agitator” for trying to smash a bank window- and then you did it anyways. You do you. The liberals, anarcho-liberals included, will continue to attempt to police everyone with politically correct terminology that changes every year. They will continue to guilt you for having “white” skin. They will guilt you when you stand up and act out against the authority of their studies and academic jargon. They will continue to threaten you with call out statements, ostracizing, and maybe even physical violence as long as you refuse to psychologically submit to their program. To the “black” reader, nobody can represent the totality of your individualism because despite their assumptions of you, your intellect and experiences are not fixed into place. Your existence can not be confined to a mere social position on a ladder. Do you feel the shackles on your imagination while operating within the confinement of your assigned identity? Can your identity as a “black” person ever truly liberate you or does it secure you in place with an internalized sense of victimhood that comes with that racialized assignment? Do you feel coerced to surrender yourself to “black liberation” in fear of feeling alone and isolated? That fear is legit. And that fear is what keeps one submissive. This essay was written in hopes of inspiring the criminal in you. If you recognize the prisons that “community leaders” place our imaginations in, perhaps you will escape from the liberal confines of sign holding, endless meetings, chanting, and marching for “justice”.

Fear is their weapon for “organizing the masses” and discouraging individual determination. But that’s OK. I don’t need their masses or programs to know when and how to attack. Do you? And do all the other “black” people who feel they have to join these liberal or radical identity- based groups and organizations to remain loyal to “blackness” as a cultural identity? The shared experience of being “black” under capitalism is only limited to identity. Just 'cus people share the same institutionalized form(s) of oppression don’t automatically mean they share the same visions and objectives on how to destroy it. These are important differences that shouldn’t be flattened. While these groups continue their mind-numbing attempts to create a new system of race essentialism within the shell of the old, some of us are having fun destroying all the systems. My anarchy is an existential expansion of individuality beyond the limitations of racial (and gendered) social constructs. When they say “black and brown” unity against racism and fascism, some of us have been sayin’ every body against racism and fascism, as well as the fixed identities that makes them functional. Where chaos blooms with emancipation and the limitless potential that follows, individuality becomes a weapon of war against control and categorical confinement. While they scold you “white” people and chant “Cut Your Dreads!”, I am saying really though, not all “black” people give a fuck about “white” dreads. Stay ungovernable. See you in the streets when the night is lit by fire.

[the--bot]

For GAYANDAGRYSPACEDORRITO

Like I said you would you resorted to ugly vulgar attacks rather than discussion. Nor did you read any of the truth told you. All interactions with lesbian sister was love n support. The misery and truths came from her. As I plainly stated u don't need God to tell you it is wrong, nature, your own mind, body, spirit, genetics, DNA wars against itself. Why, the truth none of you can argue n why at some point when societies and medicine falls away u will be extinct, why YOU CAN'T PROCREATE. That is nature itself, ur own bodies telling u it is wrong. This can't be argued, period, no matter how u try.

There are many false studies to support ur narrative but real science no. Genetics are genetics, period. It is choice.

Here is real study showing exactly that.....

Report refutes LGBT ‘born that way’ theoryStudy from researchers at Johns Hopkins University dispels popular myths about sexual orientationTheresa Farnan and Mary Rice Hasson OSV Newsweekly

8/22/2016

Shutterstock

According to a new report, scientific evidence fails to support the “born that way” theory of sexual orientation. In addition, there is “no evidence” that “all children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behavior should be encouraged to become transgender,” the findings state.

The report, “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” is co-authored by Dr. Lawrence Mayer and Dr. Paul McHugh, both of Johns Hopkins University, and published in The New Atlantis, a journal of technology and society. While Mayer, an epidemiologist trained in psychiatry, insists that the “report is about science and medicine, nothing more and nothing less,” it is expected that, in light of the “great chasm between much of the public discourse and what science has shown,” the findings will generate intense pushback from cultural voices that advocate for LGBT-affirming policies. Emboldened by court victories and federal executive actions following the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage, activists have depicted their efforts to further LGBT civil rights as grounded on settled science.

But, as Mayer and McHugh, a leading psychiatrist, make clear, the science is far from settled. The authors reviewed the findings of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies on gender and sexuality, and their conclusions challenge some of the popular cultural myths that surround questions of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Myth 1: Science proves that homosexuality and other forms of sexual orientation are biologically based (the “born that way” theory).

The authors reviewed several possible explanations for the “born that way” hypothesis, including genetics, exposure to prenatal hormones and neurobiological differences. They argue that science is not settled when it comes to understanding the origins of sexual attraction, sexual desires and sexual behaviors. In fact, the authors note, a scientific explanation of “sexual orientation” is problematic because the term “sexual orientation” means widely different things — sexual desire, sexual attraction, patterns of sexual behavior — to different people and therefore is hard to measure accurately.

In addition, by presuming that sexual orientation is rooted in genetics, researchers or clinicians may miss other relevant factors — including, for example, childhood physical or sexual abuse, which is experienced in disproportionately high numbers by nonheterosexuals. Moreover, if nonheterosexual desires, preferences and behavior were indeed biological, one might expect them to remain fixed throughout a person’s life. Instead, “there is now considerable scientific evidence that sexual desires, attractions, behaviors and even identities can, and sometimes do, change over time.” Adolescents especially exhibit fluidity of sexual desire, although the authors note “opposite-sex attraction and identity seem to be more stable than same-sex or bisexual attraction and identity.”

Myth 2: Social stress from stigma and discrimination is the root cause of the poor mental health of persons identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Removing social stress, by normalizing nonheterosexual behaviors, will resolve these issues.

Mental Health Statistics

Compared to members of the heterosexual population, nonheterosexual persons are:

1 1/2 times higher risk of anxiety disorders

Twice the risk of depression 

1 1/2 times the risk of substance abuse

Nearly 2 1/2 times the risk of suicide

Source: “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences."

The “social stress” model proposes that stigma and discrimination directly cause the numerous mental health issues disproportionately found in the nonheterosexual population. The report identifies several shortcomings of the social stress model: Scientific evidence for the social stress model is limited, the parameters of social stress (what it is, what it means) are vaguely defined, and the model itself “does not put forth a complete explanation for the disparities” in mental health “between nonheterosexuals and heterosexuals.” In addition, the social stress model is unable to “explain the mental health problems of a particular patient.” They conclude that, “The social stress model probably accounts for some of the poor mental health outcomes experienced by sexual minorities, though the evidence supporting the model is limited, inconsistent and incomplete.” They recommend “more high-quality longitudinal studies” to assess the model’s usefulness.

Myth 3: A transgender person’s gender identity does not match the person’s sex at birth, so the transgender person is “trapped in the wrong body.”

The new report strongly counters this transgender myth. “The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex — that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ — is not supported by scientific evidence.” A variation of this myth argues that a transgender person has, for example, a “male brain,’’ but a woman’s body. After reviewing studies of neurobiological differences in the brains of transgender persons, the report’s authors state that “all interpretations, usually in popular outlets,” suggesting that brain differences between transgender people and others are “the cause” of being transgendered are “unwarranted.”

Myth 4: Early transitioning, using medical treatments like puberty blockers, is the best way to treat transgender children.

The study’s authors emphatically reject this myth as not only unfounded in science but also potentially harmful to children. “The notion that a 2-year-old, having expressed thoughts or behaviors identified with the opposite sex, can be labeled for life as transgender has absolutely no support in science.” Moreover, Mayer and McHugh warn, “An area of particular concern involves medical interventions for gender-nonconforming youth. They are increasingly receiving therapies that affirm their felt genders and even hormone treatments or surgical modifications at young ages. But the majority of children who identify as a gender that does not conform to their biological sex will no longer do so by the time they reach adulthood. We are disturbed and alarmed by the severity and irreversibility of some interventions being publicly discussed and employed for children.” Because of the “scientific uncertainty” over treatments in children and the “lack of reliable studies on the long-term effects,” the report’s authors “strongly urge caution” toward such “premature” and “drastic” interventions.

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The report by Mayer and McHugh challenges current cultural myths surrounding gender and human sexuality, but their primary purpose in writing the report is concern for the well-being of transgender and nonheterosexual individuals. Many of these individuals have been promised — by cultural narratives if not physicians — that social affirmation of their chosen gender or sexual orientation will improve their lives and even resolve their psychological issues. The data, however, proves that this is not true. Mental health statistics paint a sobering picture of the mental and physical health challenges facing transgender and nonheterosexual persons. According to the report, members of the nonheterosexual population, compared to members of the heterosexual population, have approximately:

— 1 1/2 times higher risk of anxiety disorders.

— Twice the risk of depression

— 1 1/2 times the risk of substance abuse.

— Nearly 2 1/2 times the risk of suicide.

Transgender individuals fare worst of all, with lifetime suicide rates estimated at 41 percent; those who underwent sex-reassignment were about five times more likely to attempt suicide and about 19 times more likely to die by suicide.

Mayer and McHugh’s report contradicts the conventional, highly politicized narrative that “transitioning” and “coming out” will solve the problems of nonheterosexuals or gender-dysphoric children. In fact, these experts argue, nonheterosexual and gender-dysphoric persons deserve better than being steered into life-changing decisions and radical treatments on the basis of faulty science. They deserve compassionate care rooted in sound scientific evidence.

Theresa Farnan, PhD, is an adjunct professor at Franciscan University in Ohio. Mary Rice Hasson is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

U can find psuedo science to make u feel better but it won't. Sorry, truth is truth.

[trans-is-here]

There are not too many trans people

A response in relation to how transmedicalists view the rise in trans visibility and access to care. 

Saying there are too many trans people quickly leads to there shouldn’t be any trans people at all. Trans people who think there may be too many trans people may rather believe that there are fit trans people who are the real trans people an unfit trans people who are not legitimate, and those who are unfit should be mocked and push out of their community, even soliciting that we should be preventing their access to medical and psychiatric care and revoking their right to identity. (which is they’re really trans is gonna kill some people)

We have seen this sort of rhetoric and belief used against the poor, people of color, Jewish people, the mentally ill, homosexuals, and pretty much anyone who wasn’t the quote-unquote example of fit for the society in a given place and time. I’m saying that this falls in line with eugenic frameworks of thought because it stems from an idea that only a few should be allowed to live an prosper while others should not, based on “science” as it’s justification. And while the effective aim may not be genocide, the efforts are to suppress them so that the people who are fit to rule may prosper because that is what is proven as fact.

The recent rise of transmedicalist thinking actually stems from cis-sexist medical practitioners in the 20th century, who developed frameworks for deciding who was fit to be trans, and who could then transition. These frameworks to transition account essentialist ideas about gender, denying some on the basis that they may be ugly, homosexual, or not a perfect example of the roles of the gender. Thus gatekeeping real trans people from their right to transition on account for what's best for society to see and not them.

Much of these same ideas carry over to the ideas that transmedicalist believe about the so-called “not really trans people”. They deny the gender nonconforming, differing ideas of gender, based on culture or community, a lot of time nonbinary people, and those who do not directly benefit from the current medical frameworks like non-dysphoric trans people.

A lot of their own conception of themselves have foundational roots in this notion of superiority for being fit for the society in their given time and place. They often have binary identities with conceptions of their gender following Judeo-Christian western culture, and conform very strictly to the roles society has laid out for their gender. They also are benefiting from the system, and feel change or shift in the benefits is a threat to their own identity.

When it is actually a threat to an idea that they are the superior form of trans people because they conform and therefore are best fit to be transgender in our society. A society that to begin with kinda just wants to believe there shouldn’t be any trans people at all. If you believe that simply changing the face of the community to be the peak of what is accepted would end transphobia in our society you’re wrong,  you’re only feeding it what it wants. Proof and justification for transphobia.

Now I can not say the ideas of eugenics specifically are 100 percent applied here, I don’t think “genetic disposition” is being used to deny some trans people. However, the notion is that some people are more legitimate than other people based on science, and clearly, science can be misused and I believe gatekeeping is a very big form of that. I think it is most apparent in something like eugenics that led to both a justification for jim crow and a justification for the Holocaust. I think in a way denying the diversity of experiences based on science, in this case, gender essentialism theory and gender dysphoria is a justification with the motif of having oneself appear socially acceptable therefore saved from transgender denialism. Which as I’ve suggested on one end is speculation about trans people, and on the other is genocide. So my usage of this is only as it pertains to the similarities, as both I feel are used as misapplied science for social gain. 

[iamronvalron]

The Leftist Case for Nationalism – The Scottish Dilemma

When one mentions nationalism, it’s almost exclusively in a right wing, and negative context. Rightly so, might I add. Especially when we’re speaking of race based nationalism or nationalism rooted in imperialism, but nationalism can and often does take on another and more progressive and positive form.

 The issue is, is that for a large part of the 19th and 20th Century (and continuing to a lesser degree to the modern day), nationalist tendencies were used by powerful groups to exert dominance over less powerful ones. The First World War was, in the most simplified sense, a clash of Empires all attempting to overlap and overtake each other and the Second World War began as an Aryan nationalist movement. Since the fall of the British Empire, the phrase “Rule Britannia” is still used by knuckle dragging Neanderthals as a rallying cry to excuse any kind of abhorrent behaviour and America has declared themselves the World Police, purely on the basis that they can. In these forms, Nationalism is hideous, vile, often violent and rightly maligned.

 However, there is another form of nationalism, one that is positive and productive (Or at least, productive in the short term). It exists whenever oppressed people band together under a single banner, whenever they stand up and say “no more”. This form of nationalism isn’t about saying that one group is superior to any other, but saying that one group is equal to all others. The Scottish National Party calls it civic nationalism. That is; nationalism based on a shared culture or (preferably) a constitution, rather than a racial identity.

 It is, altogether, a much more modern form of nationalism. In the past, countries and social groups were largely defined by genetics, and although it’s true that the genetic lottery plays the largest role in what nation we live in, in the modern world most people can move relatively freely. A country is defined by the laws and ideals it sets for it’s people to live under. Anyone, at any time, can choose to move to a country that more closely fits their beliefs. That is what makes civic nationalism different to racial nationalism; it’s primary concern is freedom. From oppression, from persecution, from desperation.

 Of course, as a Marxist whose ultimate goal is a classless, stateless, moneyless society it might seem odd for me to have any internal conflict regarding any kind of nationalist sentiment should be bizarre to say the least.

 But I do. Because while I take no misattributed pride in the achievements of other Scots, and while I do have an interest in Scottish history, that interest is fuelled by genuine curiosity; not some futile attempt at finding origin. Further, I don’t feel an immediate kinship with all other Scots. I would sooner break bread with an English waiter than a Scottish banker. I’m certainly no jingoist, who believes in “my country; right or wrong” and I’m far from a racial purist, looking to breed a race of “pure blooded” Celtic supermen.

 And yet…this is my home. I can’t deny that I have a fully illogical, emotional attachment to this place, this landscape, this culture. I could try and claim, that what I feel is gratitude, because I have been afforded opportunities simply by winning the cosmic lottery and being born here that I would not have been afforded anywhere else. And to an extent that is true…and while those opportunities, in education, in health care, in social mobility have been removed from England, they were completely available at the time I would have needed them. Besides which, I’ve spent extended periods in England and it just...isn’t home. It doesn’t offer me the same, warm, comforting feeling that I get living here, north of the border. Ultimately, I am indeed a nationalist.

 But is that a bad thing? Must nationalism always be aggressive and abhorrent? Is there not a left wing, or even Marxist approach to nationalism?

 I’d argue that yes, there is.

 What’s worth noting, is that during the run up to the 2014 Scottish Referendum the Scottish political sphere of the internet was awash with articles justifying (or denying) our freedom, or weighing up the pros and cons of liberation against the pros and cons of servitude. That isn’t what this post is. Not exactly. While the entirety of my experience will be influenced by my Scottish background, what I’m aiming for here is how nationalism can apply to Leftist thought as a whole, rather than Scotland specifically.

 Firstly, the Bourgoisie is a ravenous creature, constantly looking to expand its power and influence, trying to dominate the working class all across the globe. A worker’s state with a clear, national identity can draw a clear line in the sand and say; “No further.”

 No, Brussels you may not outlaw socialism in Scotland.

 No, Westminster you will not park your nuclear weapons in our water.

 No, U.S. medical insurance companies you will not purchase our National Health Service out from under us.

 Simply put, a strong sense of community can curtail Bourgeois expansion.

 In a motion that was passed to the 2016 Solidarity Party Conference last October I made the case that strong, close knit communities are the purest form of democracy. The idea was simply that if an issue cannot affect the people outside of a given community, then no one outside that community should be able to make a decision on it. This would empower local councils and community organizations, and you could almost call it micro-nationalism.

 Crucially, with this form of national reinforcement, you would eventually render the top layers of government (at a national, an global level) obsolete. They’d exist purely as an administrative procedure and would be swept away eventually. This would be the first functional step into anarchism.

 Certainly more functional than kicking a bin, anyway. Because if anarchy is to be achieved, it will be a gradual transformation, not a rapid transformation.

 What one must never lose sight of when advocating for leftwing nationalism, is that the rightwing is always looming. Leftist national identity must be one of equality, not superiority. For such a movement to be legitimate it must be inter-sectional; it must embrace all people regardless of racial, sexual or gender identity. The “Nation” as it were, must be one that it constitutional rather than geographical, with citizenship being bestowed on anyone with a shared ideal of freedom, prosperity, equality and democracy.

[bronsonthurman]

Google Employee’s Viral Letter: More Noise in a Cacophony of Echoes

(Text of the letter here.) Let’s get one, self-evident fact out of the way: we know there are real issues facing women in tech because women in tech say so. No one wants to be the squeaky wheel at work and there is no gain to be had by doing so; when there isn’t a problem, we will hear few complaints. While the same may not quite hold true for leadership, men can not claim any history of being any better at it. As women move into more positions of leadership we see the same variety of solid competence and flailing fakery as we have always seen in men; the Angela Merkels versus the Debbie Wassermans, for example, are no more or less prevalent than the George Washingtons versus the James Buchanans. People aren’t very good at leadership, period. Come to think of it, people aren’t very good at code either.

Another thing people aren’t really that good at is solid critique. Making and refuting claims with actual evidence is a ton of grueling work. Its much easier to make presumptions and let those you agree validate them, while dismissing those who don’t. All sides of every debate are guilty of this. Sure, someone could present an actual case of feminist participation in typical human fuzzy-think and self-service. But why do that when you can just respond in kind? Hell you can even pat yourself on the back because someone sent you a message of support--wow, you must be right, because someone else agrees!

Any vitriol you hear in this statement is as much self-loathing as anything else. I get it, sometimes you just have to speak up and unless your job is academic you won’t really have time to write a solid research paper. I’m proving that point with every word. I certainly experience dismay when I encounter sloppy feminist diatribes. But if I am going to embarrass myself by ranting, I’m not going to do so protecting a status quo that I can damn well see is wrong. I will go off half-cocked only for other men making me look bad by their sloppy chauvinist diatribes. Call it one bad turn deserves another if you like.

In his letter anonymous google employee cites the (presumably left leaning) echo chamber twice by the third paragraph. At the same time the letter sits firmly in its own (presumably right leaning) echo chamber. It asserts status quo cultural conditions as irrefutable biological facts. On that rocky foundation it posits efforts to change these conditions are artificial impositions on the natural. It decries a lack of evidence for what it opposes, but sees no need to provide evidence for what it supports. This does not mean every claim made is false, any more than the claims of the opposing echo chamber. It does mean the letter is just adding more noise to the cacophony of echoes.

That there are some biological differences between men and women is apparent, but any conclusions to draw from that are highly disputed. I have seen evidence both for and against genetic determinism, all of it well removed from the source and casually reported, just like whatever information the author drew on for his letter--which we can safely assume since he didn’t think his evidence worthy enough to share. The only conclusion worth drawing is that biology may or may not contribute to gender gaps and the debate demands a more solid body of evidence either way. Yet this Google employee blithely asserts that differences between men an women are “universal across human cultures.” This is a laughably indefensible claim just at home in sloppy feminist work as it is in this sloppy chauvinist work. History and geopolitics certainly offers considerable variation in gender formulation once corrected for the homogenizing influence of Western dominance. Are there certain trends across a wide range of cultures, like male dominance in politics and female dominance in family? Sure. Does that make the a case for biological causes that explain and justify female under representation in programming and leadership, even as women vocally clamor for these roles? No, no it doesn’t, at all, just as it fails to proves maleness to be the eternal source of all villainy.

The letter goes on to associate women with feelings, aesthetics, sociability, artistry, gregariousness, and agreeableness, and to deny them ideas and assertiveness. This shows a remarkable lack of historical knowledge. Indeed women’s capacity for all those attributes was once refuted by patriarchal artists and leaders, just as the author today refutes their capacity for “rational” attributes. Over time culture--yes culture--shifts in what it allows for different genders. The assignment of those attributes to women is no less specious and bigoted than the denial of the same to men.

The text swerves from biological determinism to political bias, u-turns back to restatement of its gender difference claims threaded through non-evidence based suggestions, detours complaints about Google’s bias and non-evidence based decisions, to “I am not sexist” disclaimers, and makes the occasional pit stop for a meaningful statement taken, incorrectly, as proof of the whole irrational rant. Surprise, lefties have bias! It might even affect the decision making around inclusivity policy. Whoah, not all differences are socially constructed? Surely then Google’s diversity programs must be wrong. Mr. Anonymous would have done better to confine himself to discussing the specifics of those programs and offer “concrete suggestions” that were in fact concrete, actionable proposals shown to contribute to “non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap.” Instead we get “stop alienating conservatives” and some points about why we should do that. I fully support not alienating everyone, but how do you do that when conservatives are only comfortable if disadvantaged groups stop trying to better their lots in life and instead just know their place? They alienate themselves by claiming an exclusive right to wield power in their own self-interest. Other even less concrete suggestions include “de-emphasize empathy” and “prioritize intention.” Some effort is made in the bullet points to add specifics, which in these cases amount to some dubious claims about the effects of empathy and a call to stop micro-aggression training. At least that last bit was specific, if not supported.

The purpose of the letter is not obvious, but it boils down to opposing diversity programs and training. It visits the reverse discrimination argument several times and makes reference to widely covered issues of college admission and hate speech. This conservative rationale is what gets my dander up, not least because it has a specious logic that requires some thought to see through. If we won’t discriminate against anyone on the basis of gender or race we shouldn’t discriminate against men or white, should we? This line of thinking discards a significant issue, that our culture at large already discriminates for men and whites, in particular at the level of Google. That this is a generalized truth with many specific deviations does not detract from it. The best anecdote I have involves a woman who hired a whole department of employees who shared her gender, race, hair color, hair length, and hair style. That this manager needed to examine her unconscious biases was particularly obvious; that this example points out a female does nothing to refute the need for white male dominated corporate America to affirmatively ensure they don’t unconsciously prefer people like themselves. From the top tier of candidates for a competitive position the final decision is going to be highly subjective. It’s not about unqualified minorities cheating to win; it’s about perfectly qualified minorities getting a shot they deserve as much as anyone else.

Throughout the letter a series of footnotes is included, not to cite sources or evidence, but to make additional room for more of the same, only even less focused, plus an occasional disclaimer or clarification. When the text mentions “veiled left ideology” it directs to a footnote expounding the failure of communism, as if disadvantaged groups trying to increase their presence in a temple of capitalism are secretly communist agents. There is one perfectly good, unattributed quote on rigid male gender roles; on its heels comes a straw man definition of political correctness presented as prove of authoritarianism. Here the author slips out of language carefully couched in appeals to openness and objectivity and we glimpse the most troubling aspect of this letter.

Somewhere, lost in the echoes of his own chamber, there is a human being struggling with sincere fears and alienation, as deserving of voice and sympathy as anyone else. Fear is rarely fully justified, but it is just as rarely baseless. I have sought legitimate men’s rights criticism and so far come up only with muddled alt-right nonsense like this, with the occasional fair point drowned out by unmerited conclusions, intransigent defenses of the status quo peppered with--but not supported by--the occasional just claim. There is a case to be made of male struggles: their gender is stuck in stereotypes and double-standards just as women liberate their own from the same. Affirmative action could well swing towards bigoted discrimination, though I wouldn’t claim that it has. Individuals of any class deserve equal opportunity regardless of the general state of equality, so the woman manager of a small non-profit shouldn’t prefer employees like herself any more than a male executive at a massive multinational conglomerate should. That some women inflict occasional injustices against men is not a surprising or revolutionary claim; women are human beings, people as perfectly capable of self-serving bigotry as anyone else. That their opportunity to do so rests on the shoulders of a movement to reject sexism does nothing to refute that movement. For too many years too many men used their opportunity in reprehensible manner; a rush to decry equal-opportunity bigotry would be premature, to say the least.

Maybe someday soon I will do the serious work and research needed to make this case, much as pioneering women did for their movement. Until then I will reserve my rants for sloppy, fuzzy-logic, alt-right nonsense like this Google employee offers.

Seriously men, just cut this bullshit. It’s embarrassing.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

10 Ways Of Overcoming The Social Justice Stranglehold

It’s no mistake that cultural Marxists in the form of social justice warriors and feminists tend to create artificial divisions between people and “classes” while attacking and homogenizing very real and natural divisions between individuals based on biological reality and inherent genetic and psychological ability.

They do this most commonly by designated arbitrary “victim status” to various classes, dividing them from each other based on how “oppressed” they supposedly are. The less statistically prominent a particular group is (less represented in a job field, media, education, population, etc) in any western society based on their color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, etc, generally the more victim group status is handed to them by social justice gatekeepers. Whites and males (straight males) are of course far at the very bottom of their list of people who have reason to complain and are repeatedly targeted and attacked by SJW organizations and web mobs as purveyors of some absurd theory called “The Patriarchy”.

It is not enough anymore to simply continue pointing out the insanity of political correctness, we must also take useful steps toward reversing the destruction already done.

Do you have leftist leaning friends or family members? It doesn’t matter. Are you employed in a workplace crawling with social justice ideologues? Stop seeing them as part of the equation because they do not matter. Worried about losing a relationship if you make a stand? Say good riddance. This is what must be done by free thinkers if they are to counter and reverse the collectivist nightmare of cultural Marxism. Here’s some solutions, which must be enacted by individuals in their daily lives regardless of the potential backlash:

1. Feel no shame

Social justice relies on shaming tactics, usually by slandering an opponent with a label that does not really apply to them in order to control the person’s arguments and behavior. If you don’t care about being called a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a misogynist, a homophobe, etc, because you know you aren’t, then there is not really much that they can do to you. They have overused these attacks to the point of having no meaning.

2. Do not self-censor

This does not mean you should go too far out of your way to act like an asshole, but the thought police have power only if you give power to them. Say what you want to say when you want to say it, and do it with a smile. Let them froth and scream until they have an aneurism. Cultural Marxists are generally piss-weak, anxiety-riddled children. They avoid physical confrontation like they avoid logic, so why fear them?

3. Realize there is no such thing as white privilege or male privilege

In reality, there is only institutionalized “privilege” for victim-status groups. There is no privilege for whites, males, white males or straight white males. When confronted with such claims, demand to see proof of such privilege. Invariably, you will get a long list of first world problems and complaints backed by nothing but easily debunked talking points and misrepresented statistics. People should not feel guilty for being born the way they are, and this includes those “darn white male devils”…

4. Demand facts to back claims

Cultural Marxists tend to argue on the basis of opinion and emotion rather than fact. Present facts to counter their claims, and demand facts and evidence in return. Opinions are irrelevant if the person is not willing to present supporting facts when asked. 9.5/10 you’re going to win the argument so don’t be afraid to confront their obvious exaggerations and fabrications.

5. Do not play the game of “unconscious bias”

If social justice cultists can’t counter your position with facts or logic, they will invariably turn to the old standby that you are limited in your insight because you have not lived in the shoes of a - (insert victim group here). I agree. In fact, I would point out that this reality of limited perception also applies to THEM as well. They have not lived in your shoes, therefore they are in no position to claim you enjoy “privilege” while they do not. They love to pretend that they know everything about everybody and therefore have the right to judge and position us all in the victim rankings. This is why facts and evidence are so important, and why anecdotal evidence and personal feelings are irrelevant where cultural Marxism is concerned.

6. Let them know their fears and feelings do not matter

No one is entitled to have their feelings coddled and normalized by others. Whether the issue is the nonexistent “boogeyman rape culture” or “racist white cops are going on purge-like killing sprees of young innocent black people”, their irrational and delusional fears are not our concern, it’s not society’s job to alleviate their phobia of men, straight people or white people, that is what psychotherapists are for. Why should any individual relinquish their liberties in the name of placating frightened nobodies?

7. Maintain your rights, they do not hurt other people

PC cultists will invariably argue that a certain group of people (we all know who that is), whether they know it or not, is indirectly harming others by essentially breathing and it’s up to them to recognize, apologize and change their oppressive ways. "We live in a society”, they say, “and everything we do affects everyone else…”. Don’t take such accusations seriously; these people do not understand how freedom works.

For instance, hypothetically as I don’t hold these views, that I refuse to bake a gay wedding cake for a couple. I would be accused of violating their rights but in reality I would only be preserving my own. I would have every right to not bake that cake if I didn’t want to, not a single person could make me. Also, I would point out that the gay couple in question has every right in a free society to bake their own cake or open their own cake shop to compete with mine. This is how freedom works. It is not based on collective entitlement; it is based on personal responsibility.

8. Refuse to deny the scientific fact of biological sex

Sexes are first and foremost genetic imperatives. Society does not determine gender roles; nature does. A man who gets his genitals removed and takes hormone pills is not and will never be a woman. A woman who tapes down her breasts and shaves her hair will never be a man. No amount of social justice, denial of biology and science or wishful thinking will ever allow them to reverse their genetic proclivities. Their psychological and sexual leanings do not change their inborn biological reality. I’m not saying we should attack or hate these people by any means, we should treat people equally, but the moment they begin to go bananas and call you cis scum over getting their pronoun wrong or assuming one of their 200 genders, it’s time to refuse to play along with this nonsense.

9. Deny the illusion of Utopian equality

There is no such thing as pure equality. Society is not a homogeneous entity, it is an abstraction built around a group of unique individuals. Individuals can be naturally gifted, or naturally challenged. But there will always be some people who are more apt towards success than others.

I have no problem whatsoever with the idea of equality of opportunity, which is exactly what we have in this country. I do have a problem however with the lie of universal equality through engineered means.

Standards of success should not be lowered in order to accommodate the least skilled people to facilitate artificial parity. For example, I constantly hear the argument that more people with victim group status should be given greater representation in positions of influence and regard within our culture, from science and engineering, to media, to business CEO’s, to politics, etc. The key word here is “given”, rather than “earned”. There is nothing wrong with one group of people excelling in a field more than another group, and there is nothing wrong with inequality when it comes to individual achievement. We must begin refusing to reward people for mediocrity and punishing success simply because the winners are not part of a designated victim group.

10. If you are a man, embrace your role

Men in particular have a considerable task ahead in terms of their personal endeavors if they hope to repair the destruction of social justice.

For thousands of years, men have been the industrial force behind all human progress and achievement. Today, they are told to be relegated to cubicles and customer service and to stay out of the way of badass, strong and independent women because their presence around a female is scary and oppressive… If we have any chance of undoing the damage of cultural Marxism, modern men must be men again.

You don’t have to prove to anyone you do “manly things”, just go out and do them. Most importantly, embrace your masculinity. Men are meant to be strong, hard working, competitive, protective and brave. Yes, women can be too but we are telling men that these qualities are toxic, only for feminists to use them for their own empowerment. They’re either toxic or they’re empowering. Make your mind up, ladies.

Men, you also need to be a threat again. That does not mean a threat against women, your family or anyone around you, but our men are supposed to be threatening to those who would threaten us. Modern society has not removed the need for masculinity and this will become more obvious the more our culture sinks into economic despair and the more our country’s values become overtaken. Just take a peep into Europe, their men are being raped by Somalian refugees and they apologize and feel guilty that his poor, victimized rapist faces deportation.

[networkingdefinition]

Affiliation Quotes

Official Website: Affiliation Quotes

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• A lack of affiliation may mean a lack of accountability, and forming a sense of commitment can be hard without a sense of community. Displacement can encourage the wrong kinds of distance, and if the nationalism we see sparking up around the globe arises from too narrow and fixed a sense of loyalty, the internationalism that’s coming to birth may reflect too roaming and undefined a sense of belonging. – Pico Iyer • A recent Pew Study revealed that 70% of Americans with a religious affiliation say that many religions lead to eternal life. Some people might think that “surely the statistics among evangelical Christians is different.” Not by much. – Robert Jeffress • According to current research, in the determination of a person’s level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances, such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation, and religious affiliation, account for about 10 to 20 percent; and the remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts. – Gretchen Rubin • All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment. So merely changing formal religious affiliations will often not help much. On the other hand, in pluralistic, democratic societies, there is the freedom to adopt the religion of your choice. This is good. This lets curious people like you run around on the loose! – Dalai Lama • All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens. – Ernest Hemingway • Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles. – Paul Fussell • Anyone with a gun can go out and commit an act of terrorism, even without a political affiliation. – Aaron McGruder • As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism. – Angela Davis • As an elected official who comes from the African-American community, there are some similarities. You are always trying to reconcile your own personal biography and affiliations with the demands of the broader democracy. And you need to make sure you are representing everybody. – Barack Obama

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Affiliat', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '4', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_affiliat').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_affiliat img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Biophilia, if it exists, and I believe it exists, is the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. – E. O. Wilson • Certain kinds of people become Republicans and certain kinds of people become Democrats, and … it’s more than a matter of party affiliation. It’s a way of thinking and being. – Marya Mannes • Companies in the East put a lot more emphasis on human relationships, while those from the West focus on the product, the bottom line. Westerners appear to have more of a need for achievement, while in the East there’s more need for affiliation. – Daniel Goleman • Crimea has always been and remains Russian, as well as Ukrainian, Crimean-Tatar, Greek (after all, there are Greeks living there) and German – and it will be home to all of those peoples. As for state affiliation, the people living in Crimea made their choice; it should be treated with respect, and Russia cannot do otherwise. I hope that our neighbouring and distant partners will ultimately treat this the same way, since in this case, the highest criteria used to establish the truth can only be the opinion of the people themselves. – Vladimir Putin

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Disease does not recognize congressional districts or party affiliation. – Steve Kagen • Everybody seems to be imprisoned in their own sectarian or political affiliations. They don’t seem to be able to rise above these things. – Adnan Pachachi • For people who must fear for their lives because of their religion or political convictions, the protection provided by Article 16a of the German constitution, the right to asylum, applies. Nobody is questioning that. Irrespective of that, there is immigration that must be regulated, to bring skilled personnel to Germany, for example. We have to establish criteria for that. Their affiliation with the Christian-Western culture should be one of them. – Horst Seehofer • History will not judge our endeavors–and a government cannot be selected–merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. – John F. Kennedy • Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I’ve eaten my share. That’s lesson one. Lesson number two: among the topics about which a husband is most likely to lie are money, drink, black eyes, political affiliation, and women who squatted on his lap before and after your sweet self. – Catherynne M. Valente • I don’t consider myself ever joining. But I have affiliations, for sure. – Ice Cube • I have been unable to live an uncommitted or suspended life. I have not hesitated to declare my affiliation with an extremely unpopular cause. – Edward Said • I have never belonged to a party. I don’t have party affiliation. – William Eldridge Odom • I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant. – John F. Kennedy • I love being able to be political without any political affiliation. – Lady Gaga • I promised to have no partisan affiliation and no subsidy except advertising. – Benjamin Day • I think you get some attention and some hype from the marijuana affiliation but I think also there’s obviously problems still. My mother is not very excited about it. Understandably, I suppose. – Doug Walters • I will be a president of all Bulgarians, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or political affiliations. – Georgi Parvanov • I will never say, ‘support the troops.’ I don’t believe in the validity of that statement. People say, ‘I don’t support the war, I support the troops’ as though you can actually separate the two. You cannot; the troops are a part of the war, they have become the war and there is no valid dissection of the two. Other people shout with glaring eyes that we should give up our politics, give up our political affiliations in favor of ‘just supporting the troops.’ I wish everything were that easy. – Thomas Naughton • I would describe my spirituality as exactly the opposite of having a religious affiliation. – Bill Maher • If the media isnt slanted toward the Left, why is everyone so worried about my affiliation with Glenn Beck but not with Alec Baldwin? – Adam Carolla • If you are constantly making judgments based on superficial affiliations, your world gets to be pretty small. – Larry Brilliant • I’m 100 percent Jewish by blood, but by education I’m nothing. By affiliation I’m nothing. – Joseph Brodsky • In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life. – J. M. Coetzee • In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin colour and hence the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility. – Cheikh Anta Diop • It is certainly true that conservative Christians are much more likely to doubt the reality of climate change than mainline Christians or the unaffiliated. But when we control for political affiliation and for the important role of thought leaders in determining our opinions on social issues such as climate change, most of the faith-related bias disappears. – Katharine Hayhoe • It is different [to perform in Israel] because it arises from very deep wells of affiliation. – Leonard Cohen • It’s comprised of both Republicans and Democrats and their membership in this club known as the establishment, party affiliation is second or third in terms of your qualifications to be in the club. – Rush Limbaugh • I’ve always been a big fan of the Yeti, simply because I have an affiliation to Everest – who was the New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy that conquered it. – Rhys Darby • I’ve always been a big fan of the Yeti, simply because I have an affiliation to Everest – who was the New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy that conquered it. He actually went on an expedition after the Everest climb to look for the Yeti, and they didn’t find it, but they found a footprint and some hair samples that turned out to be a goat or something. – Rhys Darby • I’ve always had a natural affiliation with nature. If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be some sort of biologist working in the field in Africa or something. – Callan McAuliffe • I’ve been married too many times. How terrible to change children’s affiliations, their affections – to give them the insecurity of placing their trust in someone when maybe that someone won’t be there next year. – Elizabeth Taylor • Let them be reassured, it has never been one of our intentions to ban religion in society, but solely to protect the national education system from any conspicuous display of religious affiliation. – Jean-Pierre Raffarin • Lyndon Baines Johnson technique in negotiation would be that he’d lean into you and take away your personal space, it didn’t matter your party affiliation when he was trying to convince you of something. – Jay Roach • Many people who say they have no religion are simply saying they have no official religious affiliation. They may actually have strong personal beliefs. – Rodney Stark • Men seem more bound to the wheel of success than women do. That women are trained to get satisfaction from affiliation rather thanachievement has tended to keep them from great achievement. But it has also freed them from unreasonable expectations about the satisfactions that professional achievement brings. – Phyllis Rose • Meyer [sic] Amschel Rothschild, who founded the great international banking house of Rothschild which, through its affiliation with the European Central Banks, still dominates the financial policies of practically every country in the world, said: ‘Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.’ – Mayer Amschel Rothschild • Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience. – Erma Bombeck • My affiliation with England is borne out by the fact that I do come back for periodic visits. – George Shearing • My goal has been to encourage jointness, to push people to think of affiliations rather than to operate as solo entrepreneurs. – A. Bartlett Giamatti • No one can deny that a network (a world network) of economic and psychic affiliations is being woven at ever increasing speed which envelops and constantly penetrates more deeply within each of us. With every day that passes it becomes a little more impossible for us to act or think otherwise than collectively. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin • Of course, peer pressure has a strong positive component. It provides the social cohesion that allows the very development of communal affiliation. But peer power as an extrinsic force is a lot like radiation: a little goes a long way. – Charles D. Hayes • On a day when all Americans, regardless of party affiliation, are celebrating the growth of freedom and honoring the sacrifices of American and Iraqi troops with elections in Iraq, it’s sad that John Kerry has chosen once again to offer vacillation and defeatism. Even after the first free elections in Iraq in more than 50 years John Kerry still believes Iraq is more of terrorist threat than when the brutal tyrant Saddam Hussein was in power and even more remarkably Kerry is now once again for funding our troops, after being for the funding before he was against it. – Ken Mehlman • One’s head is finite. You pour more and more things into it – surnames, chronologies, affiliations – and it packs them away in its tunnels, and eventually you find that you have a book about something that you publish. – Nicholson Baker • Our predecessors understood that the ties that bind America are far stronger than disagreements over any particular policy and far more durable and profound than any party affiliation. – Madeleine Albright

• Peace cannot come by legislation or through affiliation with any political philosophy…Peace, joy, and happiness can come only through an acceptance of God’s revealed plan of life. – Theodore M. Burton • Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority. – Tavis Smiley • Right now if this preacher died he would go to heaven. Not because I spent years in the jungles and the Andes Mountains of Peru. Not because of piety, devotion or bible study. Not because of denominational affiliation, baptism, or participation in the Lord’s supper. If I died right now, I would go to heaven because two thousand years ago the Son of God shed His blood for this wretched man. And that is my hope. – Paul Washer • Safety lies in catering to the in-group. We are not all brave. All I would ask of writers who find it hard to question the universal validity of their personal opinions and affiliations is that they consider this: Every group we belong to – by gender, sex, race, religion, age – is an in-group, surrounded by an immense out-group, living next door and all over the world, who will be alive as far into the future as humanity has a future. That out-group is called other people. It is for them that we write. – Ursula K. Le Guin • Since the moment of the United Nations’ inception, untold energies have been expended by governments not only toward the exclusion of persons of principle and distinction from the organization’s leading positions, but toward the installation of men whose character and affiliations would as far as possible preclude any serious challenge to governmental sovereignty. – Shirley Hazzard • That’s what running does to lives. It’s not just exercise. It’s not just achievement. It’s a daily discipline that has nothing to do with speed, weight, social status, sexual orientation, political affiliation, where you live, what car you drive, or whether anyone anywhere loves you. It’s about the slow and painful process of being the best you can be. – Martin Dugard • The affiliation clause in our Constitution is a privilege: a courtesy to a sympathetic body. Were you not a Mason, or Co-Mason, you would have to be proposed and seconded, and then examined by savage Inquisitors, and then-probably-thrown out on the garbage heap. Well, no, it’s not as bad as that; but we certainly don’t want anybody who chooses to apply. Would you do it yourself, if you were on the Committee of a Club? The O.T.O. is a serious body, engaged on a work of Cosmic scope. You should question yourself: what can I contribute? – Aleister Crowley • The behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment. – Franz Boas • The best hope for peace in the world lies in the simple but far-reaching recognition that we all have many different associations and affiliations, and we need not see ourselves as being rigidly divided by a single categorization of hardened groups, which confront each other. – Amartya Sen • The day will never come when any Palestinian would be arrested because of his political affiliation or because of resisting the occupation. The file of political detention must be closed. – Said Seyam • The definition of terrorism is killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation. – Caleb Carr • The development of a kind heart, or feeling of closeness for all human beings, does not involve any of the kind of religiosity we normally associate with it…It is for everyone, irrespective of race, religion or any political affiliation. – Dalai Lama • The Empathic Civilization is emerging. A younger generation is fast extending its empathic embrace beyond religious affiliations and national identification to include the whole of humanity and the vast project of life that envelops the Earth. – Jeremy Rifkin • The fact that there are now many entities that may have some loose affiliation with a former core Al Qaeda – or who have decided to fashion themselves as an affiliate or follower in the Al Qaeda jihadist tradition – as well as groups that are just inspired by the concept that they could also be the perpetrators of mass killing, means that there is a spectrum of threats. – Graham T. Allison • The Night Manager doesn’t exist in the post-Cold war universe, it exists much more in the modern world, I think. There is more action. The bad guys don’t have particularly political or national-political affiliations. – Tom Hiddleston • The public library is where those without money, power, access, university affiliation, or advanced degrees can get information for free. – Siva Vaidhyanathan • The question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades and my argument is that cultural identities and cultural antagonisms and affiliations will play not the only role but a major role. – Samuel P. Huntington • The time has come to make the protection of children – all our children – a common cause that can unite us across the boundaries of our political orientation, religious affiliation and cultural traditions. We must reclaim our lost taboos, and make the abuse and brutalization of children simply unaccepetable. – Olara Otunnu • The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence. – Don DeLillo • There are people hell-bent on the idea that we’re a Christian band in disguise, and that we have some secret message. We have no spiritual affiliation with this music. It’s simply about life experience. – Amy Lee • There is a duty in refusing to cooperate in any undertaking that violates the Constitutional rights of the individual. This holds in particular for all inquisitions that are concerned with the private life and the political affiliations of the citizens. – Albert Einstein • Those of us who don’t have a party affiliation ought to be able to register under the heading “Confused. – Andy Rooney • To be motivated to sit at home and study, instead of going out and playing, children need a sense of themselves over time–they need to be able to picture themselves in the future…. If they can’t, then they’re simply reacting to daily events, responding to the needs of the moment–for pleasure, for affiliation, for acceptance. – Stanley Greenspan • We are all born free from all religious affiliations and only come to believe in such things after being introduced to it ― so, atheism is the default position. Although some children are not indoctrinated with a specific religion before the age of reason, there are many more who are. – David G. McAfee • We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: the idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another’s pain, sharing one another’s blessings — reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race, or sex, or geography, or political affiliation. – Mario • We could come together, Democrats and Republicans, to find practical, commonsense solutions to health care, to education, to energy issues, because although I’m a proud Democrat, I’m a prouder American. And I think all of us believe, regardless of our party affiliations, that this is a critical time, where we’ve got to solve big problems. – Barack Obama • We shall say clearly that any symbol conspicuously displaying religious affiliation in school is prohibited. – Jean-Pierre Raffarin • What some now call ’emerging Christianity’ or ‘the emerging church’ is not something you join, establish, or invent. You just name it and then you see it everywhere- already in place! Such nongroup groups, the ‘two or three’ gathered in deep truth, create a whole new level of affiliation, dialogue, and friendship. – Richard Rohr • Whatever my party affiliation, I will continue to be guided by President Kennedy’s statement that sometimes party asks too much. – Arlen Specter • Whatever the political affiliation of our next President, whatever his views may be on all the issues and problems that rush in upon us, he must above all be the chief executive in every sense of the word. – John F. Kennedy • While it may not heighten our sympathy, wit widens our horizons by its flashes, revealing remote hidden affiliations and drawing laughter from far afield; humor, in contrast, strikes up fellow feeling, and though it does not leap so much across time and space, enriches our insight into the universal in familiar things, lending it a local habitation and a name. – Marie Taylor Collins Swabey • Women will not advance except by joining together in cooperative action…. Unlike other groups, women do not need to set affiliation and strength in opposition one against the other. We can readily integrate the two, search for more and better ways to use affiliation to enhance strength–and strength to enhance affiliation. – Jean Baker Miller • Wonder is our erotic affiliation with all of life. If we develop this, enjoy it, and follow its promptings, our wants will be fewer and our needs plainer. – Stephanie Mills • Yesterday in New York City, Donald Trump officially changed his political affiliation from Republican to Independent. And Donald’s hair has switched from pelt to carpet sample. – Jay Leno • Your race and gender don’t change, but you can choose to change your political affiliation at will. – John Podhoretz

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[equitiesstocks]

Affiliation Quotes

Official Website: Affiliation Quotes

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• A lack of affiliation may mean a lack of accountability, and forming a sense of commitment can be hard without a sense of community. Displacement can encourage the wrong kinds of distance, and if the nationalism we see sparking up around the globe arises from too narrow and fixed a sense of loyalty, the internationalism that’s coming to birth may reflect too roaming and undefined a sense of belonging. – Pico Iyer • A recent Pew Study revealed that 70% of Americans with a religious affiliation say that many religions lead to eternal life. Some people might think that “surely the statistics among evangelical Christians is different.” Not by much. – Robert Jeffress • According to current research, in the determination of a person’s level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances, such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation, and religious affiliation, account for about 10 to 20 percent; and the remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts. – Gretchen Rubin • All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment. So merely changing formal religious affiliations will often not help much. On the other hand, in pluralistic, democratic societies, there is the freedom to adopt the religion of your choice. This is good. This lets curious people like you run around on the loose! – Dalai Lama • All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens. – Ernest Hemingway • Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles. – Paul Fussell • Anyone with a gun can go out and commit an act of terrorism, even without a political affiliation. – Aaron McGruder • As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism. – Angela Davis • As an elected official who comes from the African-American community, there are some similarities. You are always trying to reconcile your own personal biography and affiliations with the demands of the broader democracy. And you need to make sure you are representing everybody. – Barack Obama

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Affiliat', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '4', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_affiliat').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_affiliat img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Biophilia, if it exists, and I believe it exists, is the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. – E. O. Wilson • Certain kinds of people become Republicans and certain kinds of people become Democrats, and … it’s more than a matter of party affiliation. It’s a way of thinking and being. – Marya Mannes • Companies in the East put a lot more emphasis on human relationships, while those from the West focus on the product, the bottom line. Westerners appear to have more of a need for achievement, while in the East there’s more need for affiliation. – Daniel Goleman • Crimea has always been and remains Russian, as well as Ukrainian, Crimean-Tatar, Greek (after all, there are Greeks living there) and German – and it will be home to all of those peoples. As for state affiliation, the people living in Crimea made their choice; it should be treated with respect, and Russia cannot do otherwise. I hope that our neighbouring and distant partners will ultimately treat this the same way, since in this case, the highest criteria used to establish the truth can only be the opinion of the people themselves. – Vladimir Putin

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Disease does not recognize congressional districts or party affiliation. – Steve Kagen • Everybody seems to be imprisoned in their own sectarian or political affiliations. They don’t seem to be able to rise above these things. – Adnan Pachachi • For people who must fear for their lives because of their religion or political convictions, the protection provided by Article 16a of the German constitution, the right to asylum, applies. Nobody is questioning that. Irrespective of that, there is immigration that must be regulated, to bring skilled personnel to Germany, for example. We have to establish criteria for that. Their affiliation with the Christian-Western culture should be one of them. – Horst Seehofer • History will not judge our endeavors–and a government cannot be selected–merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. – John F. Kennedy • Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I’ve eaten my share. That’s lesson one. Lesson number two: among the topics about which a husband is most likely to lie are money, drink, black eyes, political affiliation, and women who squatted on his lap before and after your sweet self. – Catherynne M. Valente • I don’t consider myself ever joining. But I have affiliations, for sure. – Ice Cube • I have been unable to live an uncommitted or suspended life. I have not hesitated to declare my affiliation with an extremely unpopular cause. – Edward Said • I have never belonged to a party. I don’t have party affiliation. – William Eldridge Odom • I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant. – John F. Kennedy • I love being able to be political without any political affiliation. – Lady Gaga • I promised to have no partisan affiliation and no subsidy except advertising. – Benjamin Day • I think you get some attention and some hype from the marijuana affiliation but I think also there’s obviously problems still. My mother is not very excited about it. Understandably, I suppose. – Doug Walters • I will be a president of all Bulgarians, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or political affiliations. – Georgi Parvanov • I will never say, ‘support the troops.’ I don’t believe in the validity of that statement. People say, ‘I don’t support the war, I support the troops’ as though you can actually separate the two. You cannot; the troops are a part of the war, they have become the war and there is no valid dissection of the two. Other people shout with glaring eyes that we should give up our politics, give up our political affiliations in favor of ‘just supporting the troops.’ I wish everything were that easy. – Thomas Naughton • I would describe my spirituality as exactly the opposite of having a religious affiliation. – Bill Maher • If the media isnt slanted toward the Left, why is everyone so worried about my affiliation with Glenn Beck but not with Alec Baldwin? – Adam Carolla • If you are constantly making judgments based on superficial affiliations, your world gets to be pretty small. – Larry Brilliant • I’m 100 percent Jewish by blood, but by education I’m nothing. By affiliation I’m nothing. – Joseph Brodsky • In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life. – J. M. Coetzee • In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin colour and hence the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility. – Cheikh Anta Diop • It is certainly true that conservative Christians are much more likely to doubt the reality of climate change than mainline Christians or the unaffiliated. But when we control for political affiliation and for the important role of thought leaders in determining our opinions on social issues such as climate change, most of the faith-related bias disappears. – Katharine Hayhoe • It is different [to perform in Israel] because it arises from very deep wells of affiliation. – Leonard Cohen • It’s comprised of both Republicans and Democrats and their membership in this club known as the establishment, party affiliation is second or third in terms of your qualifications to be in the club. – Rush Limbaugh • I’ve always been a big fan of the Yeti, simply because I have an affiliation to Everest – who was the New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy that conquered it. – Rhys Darby • I’ve always been a big fan of the Yeti, simply because I have an affiliation to Everest – who was the New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy that conquered it. He actually went on an expedition after the Everest climb to look for the Yeti, and they didn’t find it, but they found a footprint and some hair samples that turned out to be a goat or something. – Rhys Darby • I’ve always had a natural affiliation with nature. If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be some sort of biologist working in the field in Africa or something. – Callan McAuliffe • I’ve been married too many times. How terrible to change children’s affiliations, their affections – to give them the insecurity of placing their trust in someone when maybe that someone won’t be there next year. – Elizabeth Taylor • Let them be reassured, it has never been one of our intentions to ban religion in society, but solely to protect the national education system from any conspicuous display of religious affiliation. – Jean-Pierre Raffarin • Lyndon Baines Johnson technique in negotiation would be that he’d lean into you and take away your personal space, it didn’t matter your party affiliation when he was trying to convince you of something. – Jay Roach • Many people who say they have no religion are simply saying they have no official religious affiliation. They may actually have strong personal beliefs. – Rodney Stark • Men seem more bound to the wheel of success than women do. That women are trained to get satisfaction from affiliation rather thanachievement has tended to keep them from great achievement. But it has also freed them from unreasonable expectations about the satisfactions that professional achievement brings. – Phyllis Rose • Meyer [sic] Amschel Rothschild, who founded the great international banking house of Rothschild which, through its affiliation with the European Central Banks, still dominates the financial policies of practically every country in the world, said: ‘Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.’ – Mayer Amschel Rothschild • Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience. – Erma Bombeck • My affiliation with England is borne out by the fact that I do come back for periodic visits. – George Shearing • My goal has been to encourage jointness, to push people to think of affiliations rather than to operate as solo entrepreneurs. – A. Bartlett Giamatti • No one can deny that a network (a world network) of economic and psychic affiliations is being woven at ever increasing speed which envelops and constantly penetrates more deeply within each of us. With every day that passes it becomes a little more impossible for us to act or think otherwise than collectively. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin • Of course, peer pressure has a strong positive component. It provides the social cohesion that allows the very development of communal affiliation. But peer power as an extrinsic force is a lot like radiation: a little goes a long way. – Charles D. Hayes • On a day when all Americans, regardless of party affiliation, are celebrating the growth of freedom and honoring the sacrifices of American and Iraqi troops with elections in Iraq, it’s sad that John Kerry has chosen once again to offer vacillation and defeatism. Even after the first free elections in Iraq in more than 50 years John Kerry still believes Iraq is more of terrorist threat than when the brutal tyrant Saddam Hussein was in power and even more remarkably Kerry is now once again for funding our troops, after being for the funding before he was against it. – Ken Mehlman • One’s head is finite. You pour more and more things into it – surnames, chronologies, affiliations – and it packs them away in its tunnels, and eventually you find that you have a book about something that you publish. – Nicholson Baker • Our predecessors understood that the ties that bind America are far stronger than disagreements over any particular policy and far more durable and profound than any party affiliation. – Madeleine Albright

• Peace cannot come by legislation or through affiliation with any political philosophy…Peace, joy, and happiness can come only through an acceptance of God’s revealed plan of life. – Theodore M. Burton • Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority. – Tavis Smiley • Right now if this preacher died he would go to heaven. Not because I spent years in the jungles and the Andes Mountains of Peru. Not because of piety, devotion or bible study. Not because of denominational affiliation, baptism, or participation in the Lord’s supper. If I died right now, I would go to heaven because two thousand years ago the Son of God shed His blood for this wretched man. And that is my hope. – Paul Washer • Safety lies in catering to the in-group. We are not all brave. All I would ask of writers who find it hard to question the universal validity of their personal opinions and affiliations is that they consider this: Every group we belong to – by gender, sex, race, religion, age – is an in-group, surrounded by an immense out-group, living next door and all over the world, who will be alive as far into the future as humanity has a future. That out-group is called other people. It is for them that we write. – Ursula K. Le Guin • Since the moment of the United Nations’ inception, untold energies have been expended by governments not only toward the exclusion of persons of principle and distinction from the organization’s leading positions, but toward the installation of men whose character and affiliations would as far as possible preclude any serious challenge to governmental sovereignty. – Shirley Hazzard • That’s what running does to lives. It’s not just exercise. It’s not just achievement. It’s a daily discipline that has nothing to do with speed, weight, social status, sexual orientation, political affiliation, where you live, what car you drive, or whether anyone anywhere loves you. It’s about the slow and painful process of being the best you can be. – Martin Dugard • The affiliation clause in our Constitution is a privilege: a courtesy to a sympathetic body. Were you not a Mason, or Co-Mason, you would have to be proposed and seconded, and then examined by savage Inquisitors, and then-probably-thrown out on the garbage heap. Well, no, it’s not as bad as that; but we certainly don’t want anybody who chooses to apply. Would you do it yourself, if you were on the Committee of a Club? The O.T.O. is a serious body, engaged on a work of Cosmic scope. You should question yourself: what can I contribute? – Aleister Crowley • The behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment. – Franz Boas • The best hope for peace in the world lies in the simple but far-reaching recognition that we all have many different associations and affiliations, and we need not see ourselves as being rigidly divided by a single categorization of hardened groups, which confront each other. – Amartya Sen • The day will never come when any Palestinian would be arrested because of his political affiliation or because of resisting the occupation. The file of political detention must be closed. – Said Seyam • The definition of terrorism is killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation. – Caleb Carr • The development of a kind heart, or feeling of closeness for all human beings, does not involve any of the kind of religiosity we normally associate with it…It is for everyone, irrespective of race, religion or any political affiliation. – Dalai Lama • The Empathic Civilization is emerging. A younger generation is fast extending its empathic embrace beyond religious affiliations and national identification to include the whole of humanity and the vast project of life that envelops the Earth. – Jeremy Rifkin • The fact that there are now many entities that may have some loose affiliation with a former core Al Qaeda – or who have decided to fashion themselves as an affiliate or follower in the Al Qaeda jihadist tradition – as well as groups that are just inspired by the concept that they could also be the perpetrators of mass killing, means that there is a spectrum of threats. – Graham T. Allison • The Night Manager doesn’t exist in the post-Cold war universe, it exists much more in the modern world, I think. There is more action. The bad guys don’t have particularly political or national-political affiliations. – Tom Hiddleston • The public library is where those without money, power, access, university affiliation, or advanced degrees can get information for free. – Siva Vaidhyanathan • The question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades and my argument is that cultural identities and cultural antagonisms and affiliations will play not the only role but a major role. – Samuel P. Huntington • The time has come to make the protection of children – all our children – a common cause that can unite us across the boundaries of our political orientation, religious affiliation and cultural traditions. We must reclaim our lost taboos, and make the abuse and brutalization of children simply unaccepetable. – Olara Otunnu • The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence. – Don DeLillo • There are people hell-bent on the idea that we’re a Christian band in disguise, and that we have some secret message. We have no spiritual affiliation with this music. It’s simply about life experience. – Amy Lee • There is a duty in refusing to cooperate in any undertaking that violates the Constitutional rights of the individual. This holds in particular for all inquisitions that are concerned with the private life and the political affiliations of the citizens. – Albert Einstein • Those of us who don’t have a party affiliation ought to be able to register under the heading “Confused. – Andy Rooney • To be motivated to sit at home and study, instead of going out and playing, children need a sense of themselves over time–they need to be able to picture themselves in the future…. If they can’t, then they’re simply reacting to daily events, responding to the needs of the moment–for pleasure, for affiliation, for acceptance. – Stanley Greenspan • We are all born free from all religious affiliations and only come to believe in such things after being introduced to it ― so, atheism is the default position. Although some children are not indoctrinated with a specific religion before the age of reason, there are many more who are. – David G. McAfee • We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: the idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another’s pain, sharing one another’s blessings — reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race, or sex, or geography, or political affiliation. – Mario • We could come together, Democrats and Republicans, to find practical, commonsense solutions to health care, to education, to energy issues, because although I’m a proud Democrat, I’m a prouder American. And I think all of us believe, regardless of our party affiliations, that this is a critical time, where we’ve got to solve big problems. – Barack Obama • We shall say clearly that any symbol conspicuously displaying religious affiliation in school is prohibited. – Jean-Pierre Raffarin • What some now call ’emerging Christianity’ or ‘the emerging church’ is not something you join, establish, or invent. You just name it and then you see it everywhere- already in place! Such nongroup groups, the ‘two or three’ gathered in deep truth, create a whole new level of affiliation, dialogue, and friendship. – Richard Rohr • Whatever my party affiliation, I will continue to be guided by President Kennedy’s statement that sometimes party asks too much. – Arlen Specter • Whatever the political affiliation of our next President, whatever his views may be on all the issues and problems that rush in upon us, he must above all be the chief executive in every sense of the word. – John F. Kennedy • While it may not heighten our sympathy, wit widens our horizons by its flashes, revealing remote hidden affiliations and drawing laughter from far afield; humor, in contrast, strikes up fellow feeling, and though it does not leap so much across time and space, enriches our insight into the universal in familiar things, lending it a local habitation and a name. – Marie Taylor Collins Swabey • Women will not advance except by joining together in cooperative action…. Unlike other groups, women do not need to set affiliation and strength in opposition one against the other. We can readily integrate the two, search for more and better ways to use affiliation to enhance strength–and strength to enhance affiliation. – Jean Baker Miller • Wonder is our erotic affiliation with all of life. If we develop this, enjoy it, and follow its promptings, our wants will be fewer and our needs plainer. – Stephanie Mills • Yesterday in New York City, Donald Trump officially changed his political affiliation from Republican to Independent. And Donald’s hair has switched from pelt to carpet sample. – Jay Leno • Your race and gender don’t change, but you can choose to change your political affiliation at will. – John Podhoretz

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[bradleydubbs]

Feminism: A Male Anarchist’s Perspective

“I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat”

— Rebecca West, The Clarion 1913

Most people in the current anarchist milieu — female or male — would disagree, at least in principle, with most of the following statements: there are two immutable and natural categories under which all humans are classified: male and female. A male human being is a man, and a female human being is a woman. Women are inherently inferior to men. Men are smarter and stronger than women; women are more emotional and delicate. Women exist for the benefit of men. If a man demands sex from his wife, it is her duty to oblige him, whether she wants to or not. A man may force a woman to have sex with him, as long as he has a very good reason for making this demand. Humans are to be conceived of, in the universal sense, as male (“man”), and only referred to as female when one is speaking of particular individuals. Women are a form of property. To demand rights for women is tantamount to demanding rights for animals and just as absurd.

As ridiculous as most of these statements may seem, every one of them has been considered obvious and natural by most of the West at one point or another, and many are still more the rule than the exception to this day. If most of them seem a little strange, jarring, or just plain wrong, that is not because they contradict some vague notion of justice or common sense that we have all been born with. To the contrary, the change in attitude that allows most of us to claim a more enlightened, seemingly natural viewpoint, is actually the concrete result of an ongoing struggle which has claimed many reputations, relationships, and lives over the last 200 years and which, like all struggles for liberation, has been discredited, slandered, and marginalized since its inception. Although this struggle has been, and still is, strategically diverse and conceptually multifarious and hence hard to define, it is not hard to name: I am, of course, referring to feminism.

Feminism has changed our culture to the point where it is at least a common idea that women are fully human. If most people today claim to agree with this idea, this is not because society is becoming more benevolent, or evolving naturally into a more egalitarian state of affairs. Those who hold power do not simply decide to grant equal status to those who do not; rather, they only yield power when they are forced to. Women, like every other oppressed group, have had to take everything they have gotten, through an arduous process of struggle. To deny this struggle is to perpetuate a myth similar to that of the happy slave. Yet this is precisely what we do when we speak of feminism as somehow perpetuating a gender divide, or hindering our progress away from identity politics. Feminism did not create the conflict between genders: patriarchal society did. It is important not to forget that the aforementioned idea that women are fully human is not common sense but absolutely, emphatically, a feminist notion. To pay lip-service to women’s liberation while denying the historical struggle of women to achieve this for themselves is paternalistic and insulting.

Not only has Western society overtly relegated women to a subhuman role throughout its history, but, until recently, most liberatory movements have as well. This has often been partially unconscious, as a reflection of the mores of the dominant culture. Just as often, however, this has been fully conscious and intentional (cf. Stokely Charmichael’s famous quote that the “only position” for women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee [SNCC] was “prone”). Either way, people who purported to be working for the emancipation of all humans were really just working for the emancipation of “man,” which until quite recently, is exactly how it was usually phrased. Women who complained about this state of affairs were (and are) condescendingly told to wait until the more important struggle was won before they demanded their own liberation. This has been true of abolition, civil rights, the anti-war movement, the New Left, the anti-nuke movement, radical environmentalism and, obviously, anarchism. Women have been criticized for pursuing feminist aims as if these were wrong-headed, counterrevolutionary, or unimportant. Anarchists did not simply wake up one morning with more enlightened views of women, nor did patriarchy suddenly reveal itself as “just another form of domination.” Feminist theory and practice brought to light the oppression of women that often manifested itself in otherwise revolutionary milieus.

This is not to say that all feminists were/are not anarchists, or all anarchists were/are not feminists. But feminism is often criticized within the anarchist milieu, from several different angles. I will try to discuss the most common criticisms I have heard voiced, both publicly and privately, in anarchist circles. It has been suggested that feminism is essentialist. It has also been suggested that feminism, in keeping with its essentialist views, is a philosophy that asserts the superiority, in one way or another, of women to men. Finally, the charge has been made that feminism perpetuates gender categories, whereas the revolutionary task is to move beyond gender altogether. In other words, feminism is accused of being a kind of identity politics that perpetuates harmful and divisive societal roles that ultimately oppress everyone.

The one thing that all of these allegations have in common is that they posit a single, more or less univocal entity named “feminism.” However, anyone who studies feminism soon learns that there has always been a fair amount of diversity within feminist theory, and this has never been more true than it is now. No single set of ideas about sex and gender represents feminism; rather, feminism is a loose category that encompasses just about all forms of thought and action which are explicitly concerned with the liberation of women.

Although feminism has often been accused of essentialism, the critique of essentialism is particularly strong within feminism, and has been for quite some time. Essentialism is the idea that there is an unchanging substance or essence that constitutes the true identity of people and things. In this view, a woman is somehow truly, deep in her core, identifiable as a woman; being a woman is not simply the result of different attributes and behaviors. This is seen as a politically backward stance by many, because it implies that people are limited to certain capabilities and behaviors that are somehow dictated by their nature.

When we examine the range of ideas that has emerged from second wave (post-1963 or so) feminism, however, a different picture comes into focus. Probably the most famous quote from The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal 1940s work, is the following: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” The book goes on to argue that gender is a social category, which individuals can reject. The influence of The Second Sex was enormous, and Beauvoir wasn’t the only feminist to question the naturalness of the category of gender. Many feminist writers began to draw a distinction between sex and gender, asserting that the former describes the physical body, while the latter is a cultural category. For instance, having a penis pertains to sex, whereas how one dresses, and the social role one fills, pertains to gender.

This is a distinction that some feminists still make, but others have questioned the use of supposedly pre-cultural categories like sex altogether. Colette Guillamin has suggested that sex (as well as race) is an arbitrary system of “marks” that has no natural status at all, but simply serves the interests of those who hold power. Although various physical differences exist between people, it is politically determined which ones are chosen as important or definitive. Although people are divided into supposedly natural categories on the basis of these marks, there is nothing natural about any category; categories are purely conceptual.

Building on the work of Beauvoir and Guillamin, among others, Monique Wittig has argued that the feminist goal is to eliminate sex and/or gender as a category entirely. Like the proletariat in Marx’s philosophy, women are to constitute themselves as a class for the sake of overthrowing the system that allows classes to exist. One is not born a woman, except in the same sense that one is born a proletarian: being a woman denotes a social position, and certain social practices, rather than an essence or true identity. The ultimate political goal of a woman, for Wittig, is to not be one. More recently, Judith Butler has predicated an entire theory of gender based on the radical rejection of essence.

Of course, there have been a number of feminists who, disturbed by what they saw as an assimilationist tendency in feminism, asserted a more positive notion of femininity that was, at times, undoubtedly essentialist. Susan Brownmiller, in her important book Against Our Wills, suggested that men may be genetically predisposed to rape, a notion that has been echoed by Andrea Dworkin. Marxist feminists like Shulamite Firestone sought the material basis of gender oppression in the female reproductive role, and several feminist theorists — Nancy Chodorow, Sherry Ortner, and Juliet Mitchell among others — have examined the role of motherhood in creating oppressive gender roles. “Woman-identified” feminists like Mary Daly embraced certain traditional notions of femininity and sought to give them a positive spin. Although woman-identified feminists have, at times, taken essentialist positions, this brand of feminism has redressed some of the imbalances of that strain of feminist thought that rejects femininity altogether as a slave-identity. This has always been the dichotomy that has troubled feminist thinkers: either to assert a strong feminine identity and risk legitimizing traditional roles and providing fodder to those who employ the idea of a natural difference in order to oppress women, or to reject the role and the identity women have been given, and risk eliminating the very ground of a feminist critique. The task of contemporary feminism is to find a balance between viewpoints that risk, on the one hand, essentialism, and on the other the elimination of women as the subject of political struggle altogether.

The goal of feminism, then, is the liberation of women, but what that exactly means is open to dispute. For some feminists, this means that women and men will coexist equally; for others, that we will no longer see people as women and men. Feminism provides a rich panorama of views on gender problems. One thing all feminists can agree on, though, is that gender problems exist. Whether as a result of natural differences or cultural construction, people are oppressed on the basis of gender. To go beyond gender, this situation needs to be redressed; gender cannot simply be declared defunct. Feminism can perhaps be best defined as the attempt to get beyond the state of affairs where people are oppressed because of gender. Thus, it is not possible to go beyond gender without feminism; the charge that feminism itself perpetuates gender categories is patently absurd.

Since anarchy is opposed to all forms of domination, anarchy without feminism is not anarchy at all. Since anarchy declares itself opposed to all archy, all rulership, true anarchy is by definition opposed to patriarchy, i.e. it is, by definition, feminist. But it is not enough to declare oneself opposed to all domination; one needs to try to understand domination in order to oppose it. Feminist authors should be read by all anarchists who consider themselves opposed to patriarchy. Feminist critiques are certainly just as relevant as books about government oppression. Ward Churchill’s excellent Agents of Repression is considered essential reading by many anarchists, even though Churchill is not an anarchist. Many feminist works, on the other hand, are neglected, even by those who pay lip service to feminism. Yet, while FBI repression is a real threat to anarchists, the way we inhabit our gender-roles must be dealt with every day of our lives. Thus, feminist literature is more relevant to the daily fight against oppression than much of the literature that anarchists read regularly.

Source

[ecocore]

BRUCE BAGEMIHL’S - BIOLOGICAL EXUBERANCE

two excerpts 

The Birds and the Bees

The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.[1]

—evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane

In the dimly lit undergrowth of a Central American rain forest, jewel-like male hummingbirds flit through the vegetation, pausing briefly to mate now with a male, now with a female. A whale glides through the dark and icy waters of the Arctic, then surges toward the surface in a playful frenzy of churning water and splashing, her fins and tail caressing another female. Drifting off to sleep, two male monkeys lie gently in each other’s arms, cradled by one of the ancient jungles of Asia. A herd of deer picks its way cautiously through a semidesert scrub of Texas, each animal simultaneously male but not-quite-male, with half-developed, velvety antlers and diminutive, fine-boned proportions. In a protected New Zealand inlet, a pair of female gulls—mated for life—tend their chicks together. Tiny midges swarm above a bleak tundra of northern Europe, a whirlwind of mating activity as males couple with each other in midair. Circling and prancing around her partner, a female antelope courts another female in an ageless, elegant ritual staged on the African savanna.

Although biologist J. B. S. Haldane was not (necessarily) referring to homosexuality when he spoke of the “queerness” of the natural world, little did he know how accurate his statement would turn out to be. The world is, indeed, teeming with homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered creatures of every stripe and feather. From the Southeastern Blueberry Bee of the United States to more than 130 different bird species worldwide, the “birds and the bees,” literally, are queer.[2]

On every continent, animals of the same sex seek each other out and have probably been doing so for millions of years.[3] They court each other, using intricate and beautiful mating dances that are the result of eons of evolution. Males caress and kiss each other, showing tenderness and affection toward one another rather than just hostility and aggression. Females form long-lasting pair-bonds—or maybe just meet briefly for sex, rolling in passionate embraces or mounting one another. Animals of the same sex build nests and homes together, and many homosexual pairs raise young without members of the opposite sex. Other animals regularly have partners of both sexes, and some even live in communal groups where sexual activity is common among all members, male and female. Many creatures are “transgendered,” crossing or combining characteristics of both males and females in their appearance or behavior. Amid this incredible variety of different patterns, one thing is certain: the animal kingdom is most definitely not just heterosexual.

Homosexual behavior occurs in more than 450 different kinds of animals worldwide, and is found in every major geographic region and every major animal group.[4] It should come as no surprise, then, that animal homosexuality is not a single, uniform phenomenon. Whether one is discussing the forms it takes, its frequency, or its relationship to heterosexual activity, same-sex behavior in animals exhibits every conceivable variation. This chapter presents a broad overview of animal homosexuality and places it in the context of a number of other phenomena involving alternative genders and sexualities.

Unnatural Nature

Animals don’t do it, so why should we? Can you even imagine a queer grizzly bear? Or a lesbian owl or salmon? —from a letter written to Dean Hamer, coauthor of The Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Biology of Behavior[5]

Many people, such as the man quoted above, believe that homosexuality does not occur in nature and use this belief to justify their opinions about human homosexuality. In fact, rarely is homosexuality in animals discussed on its own: inevitably, cross-species comparisons are drawn to ascribe moral value to the behavior—both positive and negative. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the notion of “naturalness” and the entire complex of animal-human comparisons that this problematic term evokes. The prevailing view is an overly simplistic one: if homosexuality is believed to occur in animals, it is considered to be “natural” and therefore acceptable in humans; if it is thought not to occur in animals, it is considered “unnatural” and therefore unacceptable in humans. The debate seems clear and the lines of distinction inviolable.

Any careful consideration of the logic behind the equation occurs in animals = natural = acceptable in humans will show, however, that this line of reasoning is flawed. As many people have pointed out, humans engage in a wide variety of behaviors that do not occur in nature, from cooking to writing letters to wearing clothes, and yet we do not condemn these activities as “unnatural” because they are not found among animals. As author Jon Ward explains, with regard to a friend who asserted “You can’t argue with biology” (believing that homosexuality was “unnatural”):

Has he never fried an egg? The whole of human history is an “argument with biology.” The very civilization which the most homophobic ideologues are eager to defend is the antithesis of nature: law and art.[6]

We also use our biology and anatomy in ways that “nature did not intend for them to be used” without ascribing a moral value to such activities. As James Weinrich observes, the tongue’s primary biological purpose is for the act of eating, yet its use in acts of speech, bubble-gum-blowing, or kissing is not therefore considered “unnatural.” In addition, many things that do occur spontaneously in animals—diseases, birth defects, rape, and cannibalism, for example—are not considered to be “natural” or desirable conditions or behaviors in most humans. Weinrich aptly remarks, “When animals do something that we like, we call it natural. When they do something that we don’t like, we call it animalistic.”[7]

The Natural History of Homosexuality

The historical record also shows that attitudes toward homosexuality have little to do with whether people believe it occurs in animals or not, and consequently, in its “naturalness.” True, throughout much of recorded history, the charge of “unnaturalness” —including the claim that homosexuality did not occur in animals—was used to justify every imaginable form of sanction, control, and repression against homosexuality. But many other interpretations of “naturalness” were also prevalent at various times. Indeed, the very fact that homosexuality was thought to be “unnatural” —that is, not found in nature—was sometimes used to justify its superiority to heterosexuality. In ancient Greece, for example, same-sex love was thought to be purer than opposite-sex love because it did not involve procreation or “animal-like” passions. On the other hand, homosexuality was sometimes condemned precisely because it was considered closer to “nature,” reflecting the base, uncontrolled sexual instincts of the animal world. The Nazis used this reasoning (in part) to target homosexuals and other “subhumans” for the concentration camps (where homosexual men subjected to medical experiments were referred to as “test animals”), while sexual relations between women were disparagingly characterized as “animal love” in late eighteenth-century New England. The irrationality of such beliefs is highlighted in cases where charges of “unnaturalness” were combined, paradoxically, with accusations of animalistic behavior. Some early Latin texts, for instance, simultaneously condemned homosexuals for exhibiting behavior unknown in animals while also denouncing them for imitating particular species (such as the hyena or hare) that were believed to indulge in homosexuality.[8]

In our own time, the fact that a given characteristic of a minority human population is biologically determined has little to do with whether that population should be—or is-discriminated against. Racial minorities, for example, can claim a biological basis for their difference, yet this has done little to eliminate racial prejudice. Religious groups, on the other hand, can claim no such biological prerogative, and yet this does not invalidate the entitlement of such groups to freedom from discrimination. It should be clear, then, that whether homosexuality is biologically determined or not, whether one chooses to be gay or is born that way, or whether homosexuality occurs in nature or not—none of these things guarantees the renders homosexuality “valid” or “illegitimate.”

The debate about the “nature” and origin of homosexuality often invokes seemingly opposite categories: genetics versus environment, biology versus culture, nature versus nurture, essentialism versus constructionism. Indeed, the very categories “homosexual” and “heterosexual” are themselves examples of such a dichotomy. By using these categories, biologists and social scientists hope to discover what aspects of homosexuality, if any, are biologically determined. Yet by framing the debate in terms of such categories, it is easy to forget that more complex interactions between factors must be considered. For example, most research shows that both environment and biology are relevant in determining sexual orientation in people (and probably also animals). Some individuals may have an innate predisposition for homosexuality, but the right combination of environmental (including social) factors is required for this to be realized. And how meaningful is it to talk about a culture-nature distinction when, as we have just seen, some animal species have themselves developed forms of cultural behavior? Similarly, by focusing attention on the “causes” of homosexuality, the determinants of heterosexuality are considered irrelevant—or, alternatively, heterosexuality is assumed to be inevitable unless something “goes wrong.” And not all sexuality fits neatly into the categories of exclusive homosexuality or exclusive heterosexuality—the large realm of experience that involves bisexuality is easily glossed over in discussions about the origins of homosexuality/heterosexuality. So, too, with the question of whether homosexuality is “natural” and what its occurrence in animals can tell us about this: things are considerably more complicated than they initially appear.

What is remarkable about the entire debate about the naturalness of homosexuality is the frequent absence of any reference to concrete facts or accurate, comprehensive information about animal homosexuality. Those who argue against the naturalness of homosexuality assert with impunity that same-sex behavior does not occur in nature (like the man quoted above) and is therefore self-evidently abnormal. Those who argue in favor of a biological origin for homosexuality often ignore the complexities of animal behavior arising from social, protocultural, or individual life-history factors (relying on the behavior of laboratory animals injected with hormones, for example, instead of long-term studies of animals interacting in their own social groups or communities).[9] This is because naturalness is more a matter of interpretation than facts. Now that the widespread occurrence of animal homosexuality is beginning to be documented, little if anything is likely to change in this discussion. More information about same-sex activity in animals simply means more possible interpretations: the information can be used to support or refute a variety of positions on the naturalness or acceptability of homosexuality, depending (as before) on the particular outlook of whoever is drawing the conclusions.

As James Weinrich points out, the only claim about naturalness that is actually consistent with the facts is the following: homosexual behavior is as natural as heterosexual behavior.[10] What this means is that homosexuality is found in virtually all animal groups, in virtually all geographic areas and time periods, and in a wide variety of forms—as are heterosexuality, divorce, monogamy, and infanticide, among other things. Conversely, heterosexuality is as “unnatural” as homosexuality is, since it often exhibits social elaboration or cultural “embellishment,” as well as many of the “unacceptable” features stereotypically associated with same-sex relations, such as promiscuity, nonreproduction, pursuit of sexual pleasure, and interactions marked by instability, ineptitude, and even hostility.[11] But whether this means that homosexuality is “biologically determined” and/or “socially conditioned” —and by extension, (un)acceptable in humans—is largely a question of interpretation. Of course, from a scientific perspective, the sheer extent and variety of homosexual expression in the animal world reveals an aspect of nonhuman biology and social organization that is unexpected—one with far-reaching (perhaps even revolutionary) implications. It demands careful consideration and suggests a rethinking of some of our most fundamental notions of environment, culture, genetics, and evolutionary and social development. But to automatically conclude that because homosexuality occurs in animals, it must be biologically determined oversimplifies the debate and does an injustice to the facts.

For most people, animals are symbolic: their significance lies not in what they are, but in what we think they are. We ascribe meanings and values to their existence and behaviors in ways that usually have little to do with their biological and social realities, treating them as emblems of nature’s purity or bestiality in order to justify, ultimately, our views of other human beings. The animals themselves remain enigmatic, mute in the face of this seemingly endless onslaught of human interpretations of their lives. If this were merely a matter of debate among people, it could perhaps be put in its proper perspective as simply yet another human folly. Unfortunately, the interpretations applied to animal (sexual) behaviors by people are far from innocuous: they can have grave consequences, or even be a matter of life or death—for both humans and animals alike. When a gay man or lesbian is assaulted or murdered because the attacker thinks that homosexuality is “unnatural,” for example, or when politicians’ legislative and judicial decisions concerning homosexuality are coded in such terms as “crimes against nature,” much more is at stake than the scientific interpretation of animal behavior.[12]

The moral value ascribed to animal sexuality can also impact directly on the welfare of the creatures themselves. In 1995 a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service briefed Senator Jesse Helms’s staff about the value of saving an endangered bird, the red-cockaded woodpecker, which lives in the southeastern United States.[13] His presentation stressed the supposed “family values” of the species, referring to the birds’ monogamous and relatively long-lasting heterosexual pair-bonds. In other words, the right of this species to exist—as determined by legislators voting on the Endangered Species Act—was predicated not on its intrinsic value, but on how closely its behavior could be made to resemble what is currently considered acceptable conduct for humans. And this is most definitely a case of presenting an idealized “image” of the species: the red-cockaded woodpecker’s “family values” are in reality far more complex, messy, and “questionable” than what the politicians were told.

True, this species usually breeds in long-term, monogamous pairs, but its social life is replete with variations on this theme, some of which Senator Helms would have found downright horrifying.[14] Many family groups in this species are unstable: one six-year investigation found that only six out of thirteen breeding pairs remained together, while studies of the species in Helms’s home state of North Carolina revealed that nearly 20 percent of females in this population desert their mates and switch family groups. Males sometimes leave their partners as well, and the overall (species-wide) divorce rate is about 5 percent; nonmonogamous copulations also occasionally occur, with slightly more than 1 percent of nestlings being fathered by a male other than their mother’s mate. Red-cockaded woodpeckers also frequently live in “stepfamilies” or “blended families”: more than a quarter of the younger birds who live in breeding groups and help with parenting duties may be related to only one parent, and 5–11 percent are related to neither. Some of these “helper” birds engage in decidedly un-family-like activities, such as ousting a parent from its group or even committing “stepfamily incest” by mating with the remaining parent. Incest involving full or half siblings, though rare, also occurs. Other helpers forgo reproduction entirely (continuing to live with their parents as adults for several years), and there are also solitary nonbreeding birds in the population, as well as all-male groups. Some red-cockaded woodpecker groups may also be polygamous or “plural” breeding units, with two females both breeding (or trying to breed) at the same time.

Would the red-cockaded woodpecker be considered less “deserving” of protection if Senator Helms and his staff learned that these birds participate in nonreproductive sexual activity (mating during incubation, or long before egg-laying), or siblicide and starving of offspring, or infanticide and chick-tossing from the nest? All of these behaviors have been documented in this species, yet none were included in the scientific presentation to the politicians in whose hands this bird’s fate rests, for they would shatter the illusion of its “family values.” Homosexual activity has not (yet) been observed in red-cockaded woodpeckers, although it does occur in related species such as Acorn Woodpeckers and Black-rumped Flamebacks. Should such behavior come to light, one can only dread the consequences for this, or any other, endangered species whose survival depends on human assessment of its “moral conduct.”

Homosexuality has a “natural history” in every sense of the term: that is, it has both biological (“natural”) and social or cultural (“historical”) dimensions that are interconnected and inseparable. It is not a uniform phenomenon in either animals or people: it takes many forms, and it exhibits numerous variations and idiosyncrasies. The interplay of biology and environment in shaping these features—and indeed, the very definitions of what is “cultural” as opposed to “biological”—is far more complex than polarized debates would have us believe. Because the discussion is often framed in terms of misleading dichotomies such as “nature versus nurture” or “genetics versus environment,” the possibility that both are relevant (and can influence one another) is repeatedly overlooked, as is the possibility that sexual behavior in some animals has a significant sociocultural component. Yes, homosexuality occurs in nature and apparently always has. But does this make it “natural” or simply “animalistic”? The answer to this question is entirely in the eye of the beholder, rather than in any inherent quality or context of the phenomenon itself.

Haldane, J.B.S. (1928) Possible Worlds and Other Papers, p.298 (New York: Harper & Brothers). ↩

Animal names that are capitalized refer to a species or group of closely related species that is profiled in part 2, or whose references are included in the appendix. ↩

Homosexuality among primates, for example, has been traced back to at least the Oligocene epoch, 24-37 million years ago (based on its distribution among contemporary primates; Vasey 1995:195).Some scientists place its original appearance even earlier in the evolutionary line leading to mammals, at around 200 million years ago (Baker and Bellis 1995:5), and it has probably existed for much longer among other animal groups. Vaseu, P.L. (1995) “Homosexual Behavior in Primates: A Review of Evidence and Theory,” International Journal of Primatology 16:173-204; Baker, R., and M.A. Bellis (1995) Human Sperm Competition: Copulation, Masturbation, and Infidelity (London: Chapman and Hall). ↩

See note 29, as well as part 2 and the appendix, for more detailed tabulations (including discussion of species not included in this tally). ↩

Hamer, D., and P. Copeland (1994) The Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Biology of Behavior, p. 213 (New York: Simon and Schuster). ↩

Ward, J. (1987) “The Nature of Heterosexuality,” in G. E. Hanscombe and M. Humphries, eds., Heterosexuality, pp. 145-69. (London: GMP Publishers). ↩

Weinrich, J. D. (1982) “Is Homosexuality Biologically Natural?” in W. Paul, J. D. Weinrich, J. C. Gonsiorek, and M. E. Hotvedt, eds., Homosexuality: Social, Psychological, and Biological Issues, pp. 197-208 (Beverly Hills, Calif: SAGE Publications). For an early discussion of animal homosexuality in relation to the question of “naturalness,” see Gide, A. (1911/ 1950) Corydon (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Co.). ↩

Weinrich, ibid.; Plant, R. (1986) The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals, pp. 27, 185 (New York: Henry Holt); Grau, G., ed., (1995) Hidden Holocaust? Gay and Lesbian Persecution in Germany 1933— 45, p. 284 (London: Cassell); Mann, M. (1797/ 1866) The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution, p. 225 (Boston: J. K. Wiggin & W. P. Lunt) [excerpts reprinted in Katz, J. (1976) Gay American History, pp. 212— 214 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell)]. Boswell, J. (1980) Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, p. 309 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). ↩

For a summary and overview of such experimental studies (e.g., involving hormones), see Mondimore, F. M. (1996) A Natural History of Homosexuaity, pp. 111— 13, 129-30 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press). These studies, typically involving laboratory rats, also invariably overlook the fact that the homosexual behaviors “induced” by hormones and other experimental treatments occur spontaneously in the wild ancestors of the laboratory animals involved, e.g., (European) Brown Rats (cf. Barnett 1958). Concerning further pitfalls in extrapolating from laboratory animals, as well as a general discussion of the “nature versus nurture” controversy, see Byne, W. (1994) “The Biological Evidence Challenged,” Scientific American 270( 5): 50— 55; LeVay, S., and D. H. Hamer (1994) “Evidence for a Biological Influence in Male Homosexuality,” Scientific American 270( 5): 44— 49. ↩

Weinrich, “Is Homosexuality Biologically Natural?” p. 207. ↩

See chapter 5, as well as the animal profiles in part 2, for specific examples. ↩

For explicit statements by gay-bashers to the effect that homosexuality is “not natural,” see Comstock, G. D. (1991) Violence Against Lesbians and Gay Men, p. 74 (New York: Columbia University Press). ↩

Middleton, S., and D. Liittschwager (1996) “Parting Shots?” Sierra 81( 1): 40— 45. ↩

For documentation of these activities, see the following sources: Ligon, J. D. (1970) “Behavior and Breeding Biology of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker,” Auk 87: 255-78; Lennartz, M. R., R.G. Hooper, and R. F. Harlow (1987) “Sociality and Cooperative Breeding of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, Picoides borealis,” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 20: 77-88; Walters, J. R., P. D. Doerr, and J. H. Carter III (1988) “The Cooperative Breeding System of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker,” Ethology 78: 275-305; Walters, J. R. (1990) “Red-cockaded Woodpeckers: A ‘Primitive’ Cooperative Breeder,” in P. B. Stacey and W. D. Koenig, eds., Cooperative Breeding in Birds: Long-Term Studies of Ecology and Behavior, pp. 69-101 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Haig, S. M., J. R. Walters, and J. H. Plissner (1994) “Genetic Evidence for Monogamy in the Cooperatively Breeding Red-cockaded Woodpecker,” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 34: 295-303; Rossell, C. R., Jr., and J. J. Britcher (1994) “Evidence of Plural Breeding by Red-cockaded Woodpeckers,” Wilson Bulletin 106: 557-59. ↩