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Still hatin’ on Bruce Jenner, ‘cause you know what? I loathe all Kardashians, regardless of gender.
###
On the drive back from Santa Fe, Max and I got into a massive argument about an NPR story. A female student at one of the few remaining all women’s colleges had decided to come out as a male in her/his junior year and was now on the warpath because there weren’t enough men’s bathrooms on campus.
I thought this was one of the most ridiculous stories I’d ever heard.
Max railed against my ignorance and narrow mindedness.
He’s right about this much, at least: The whole transgender thing is a complete nonissue to me.
I’ve always supported the right of any individual to do whatever the hell he or she wants to do with his/her own body. Tattoos, piercings, penile implants, vaginoplasty – Go at it; you have my blessing.
I don’t see this as a political issue.
And for the most part, I don’t see gay rights as a political issue either -- at least not in this country. It is in other parts of the world, clearly. It may be in other parts of this country. But I don't live there, and I make a clear distinction in my mind between social mores and political rights. I think you can influence social mores -- and in that sense, True Blood, Modern Family, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show have done more than Christopher Street -- but you can't really force them. (Though, arguably, there wouldn't have been any True Blood, Modern Family, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show without Christopher Street, I suppose.)
I say this as someone who’s fallen in love with both men and women, and had passionate sexual relationships with both men and women.
I don't support state-sanctioned gay marriage because I don't support state-sanctioned marriage. But, yes, I believe that everyone should have access to the same set of rights so in that sense, I do support gay marriage.
I don’t like the current tendency to herd people into easily definable niches. I suspect this tendency evolved not to give people more freedom – Fly your own freak flag proudly! – but to categorize them so that Google, Facebook, and all the other social media that are rapidly becoming the equivalent of feudal overlords can serve targeted ads more successfully.
We live in an age where biological determinism is alleged to trump any kind of personal motivation, so reams have been written about how gay behaviors are not a choice but a hard-wired brain feature, which I think is (a) bullshit science and (b) actually demeaning to gay preference – See? I can’t help myself! (It’s bullshit science because so far as I know, none of the brain experiments have been done as predictive studies on infants and young children, and the brain has an exceedingly supple feedback loop, which, one assumes, affects its structural features as well as its supply of neurotransmitters.)
Apparently, believing these things makes me a dinosaur reactionary, somewhat to the right of Genghis Kahn.
So be it.
###
In the car, on the ride back to Albuquerque alongside Max, I snorted with disgust about the plight of Jace, the transgender Wellesley student, denied free restroom choice. “This is such a non-issue.”
“It is not a non-issue,” Max said, his voice struggling with emotion.
“Bathrooms? Oh, give me a fucking break, Max –“
“It’s part of a human rights struggle for an important disenfranchised faction that is finally finding its own voice –“
“Faction?” I said. “You mean like .3% of the adult population? Sorry, that’s not statistically significant. Jace could pee behind a bush. Or grow some balls – heh, heh, heh – and storm the women’s bathroom.”
“Mom, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”
“Max, you know when I’ve had to pee really, really badly, sometimes I walk straight into the men’s bathroom – right past all those guys in front of urinals – and find myself a stall! ‘Cause I’ve always thought it was fuckin’ unfair that it takes women so much longer to pee because we have to sit down and unwrap so to speak. Should I start a political movement around that? The guys peeing get really disturbed when I claim their bathroom as my own, but hey! My bladder is an equal opportunity activist!”
“Now you’re just being ludicrous as well as disrespectful!”
“I’m being ludicrous? I’ll tell you what’s ludicrous. Demanding that that school should spend thousands of dollars to build more men’s bathrooms to accommodate the needs of exactly one student who if he's really a guy should think seriously about transferring out of an all woman’s school –“
“Mom, just stop –“
“I mean, think about it for a second, Max! That money could go to scholarships –“
“He has the right to have his needs accommodated to!” Max screamed at me. “It’s a civil rights issue!”
And then we sat in complete silence for ten minutes or so, past the flashing neons of the Sandia casino, because it dawned on me that I was in danger of trespassing that invisible boundary in Max’s mind where on one side I was his eccentric but essentially lovable mother and on the other, I was Rick Santorum or that guy with the ponytail and the grizzled beard on the Duck Dynasty.
##
In other news, I started reading Wolf Hall. It is indeed wonderful. Hilary Mantel’s writing style is immensely accessible – kind of like David Mitchell or Kate Atkinson in Life After Life (which I loved beyond measure.) On that last note – Atkinson appears to have written a Life After Life sequel called A God in Ruins, which I’ll have to track down.
###
On the drive back from Santa Fe, Max and I got into a massive argument about an NPR story. A female student at one of the few remaining all women’s colleges had decided to come out as a male in her/his junior year and was now on the warpath because there weren’t enough men’s bathrooms on campus.
I thought this was one of the most ridiculous stories I’d ever heard.
Max railed against my ignorance and narrow mindedness.
He’s right about this much, at least: The whole transgender thing is a complete nonissue to me.
I’ve always supported the right of any individual to do whatever the hell he or she wants to do with his/her own body. Tattoos, piercings, penile implants, vaginoplasty – Go at it; you have my blessing.
I don’t see this as a political issue.
And for the most part, I don’t see gay rights as a political issue either -- at least not in this country. It is in other parts of the world, clearly. It may be in other parts of this country. But I don't live there, and I make a clear distinction in my mind between social mores and political rights. I think you can influence social mores -- and in that sense, True Blood, Modern Family, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show have done more than Christopher Street -- but you can't really force them. (Though, arguably, there wouldn't have been any True Blood, Modern Family, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show without Christopher Street, I suppose.)
I say this as someone who’s fallen in love with both men and women, and had passionate sexual relationships with both men and women.
I don't support state-sanctioned gay marriage because I don't support state-sanctioned marriage. But, yes, I believe that everyone should have access to the same set of rights so in that sense, I do support gay marriage.
I don’t like the current tendency to herd people into easily definable niches. I suspect this tendency evolved not to give people more freedom – Fly your own freak flag proudly! – but to categorize them so that Google, Facebook, and all the other social media that are rapidly becoming the equivalent of feudal overlords can serve targeted ads more successfully.
We live in an age where biological determinism is alleged to trump any kind of personal motivation, so reams have been written about how gay behaviors are not a choice but a hard-wired brain feature, which I think is (a) bullshit science and (b) actually demeaning to gay preference – See? I can’t help myself! (It’s bullshit science because so far as I know, none of the brain experiments have been done as predictive studies on infants and young children, and the brain has an exceedingly supple feedback loop, which, one assumes, affects its structural features as well as its supply of neurotransmitters.)
Apparently, believing these things makes me a dinosaur reactionary, somewhat to the right of Genghis Kahn.
So be it.
###
In the car, on the ride back to Albuquerque alongside Max, I snorted with disgust about the plight of Jace, the transgender Wellesley student, denied free restroom choice. “This is such a non-issue.”
“It is not a non-issue,” Max said, his voice struggling with emotion.
“Bathrooms? Oh, give me a fucking break, Max –“
“It’s part of a human rights struggle for an important disenfranchised faction that is finally finding its own voice –“
“Faction?” I said. “You mean like .3% of the adult population? Sorry, that’s not statistically significant. Jace could pee behind a bush. Or grow some balls – heh, heh, heh – and storm the women’s bathroom.”
“Mom, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”
“Max, you know when I’ve had to pee really, really badly, sometimes I walk straight into the men’s bathroom – right past all those guys in front of urinals – and find myself a stall! ‘Cause I’ve always thought it was fuckin’ unfair that it takes women so much longer to pee because we have to sit down and unwrap so to speak. Should I start a political movement around that? The guys peeing get really disturbed when I claim their bathroom as my own, but hey! My bladder is an equal opportunity activist!”
“Now you’re just being ludicrous as well as disrespectful!”
“I’m being ludicrous? I’ll tell you what’s ludicrous. Demanding that that school should spend thousands of dollars to build more men’s bathrooms to accommodate the needs of exactly one student who if he's really a guy should think seriously about transferring out of an all woman’s school –“
“Mom, just stop –“
“I mean, think about it for a second, Max! That money could go to scholarships –“
“He has the right to have his needs accommodated to!” Max screamed at me. “It’s a civil rights issue!”
And then we sat in complete silence for ten minutes or so, past the flashing neons of the Sandia casino, because it dawned on me that I was in danger of trespassing that invisible boundary in Max’s mind where on one side I was his eccentric but essentially lovable mother and on the other, I was Rick Santorum or that guy with the ponytail and the grizzled beard on the Duck Dynasty.
##
In other news, I started reading Wolf Hall. It is indeed wonderful. Hilary Mantel’s writing style is immensely accessible – kind of like David Mitchell or Kate Atkinson in Life After Life (which I loved beyond measure.) On that last note – Atkinson appears to have written a Life After Life sequel called A God in Ruins, which I’ll have to track down.
