Board index ‹ LGBT: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual, Transgender, and Homosexuality

[Doodle]

This is not ALL drag shows aimed at children. These examples you show either missed the mark or you have taken them out of context. The school special performance was done by a high school student in the same school district.

Reading hours are just that. Reading. No music, no gyration or sexual content. It's no different to a clown reading a story book. And many drag queens describe themselves as clowns.

Do you know what I, as a woman, find misogynistic? Men who declare what women should find misogynistic. Gender is a construct, and people that don't stick to the heteronormative 'blue for boys' and 'pink for girls' don't want to be a cookie cutter stereotype from the 1950s. And that's OK.

Life would be a bit more tolerable if people could leave each other alone. As long as no one is being hurt and everyone is consenting, live and let live my dude. <3

[jimwalton]

hanks for your comment. I know not ALL drag shows are aimed at children. Some take place in adult contexts, and that's obviously different. But the shows that take FOR kids or knowing that children are going to be in the room is what I was talking about.

If reading hours are just reading hours, then why the "clownish" costume? It seems to me that there is a reason they specifically want to be in drag and specifically want to be in drag for children. That's my point: there is a purpose, and I don't think it's a healthy one.

As far as misogyny is concerned, I would hope we would ALL be aware of it and all try to eliminate it, no matter who we are and what we believe. Misogyny has no place in our society, so when I see it, I should feel free to identify it and censure it.

I'm not sure I agree that gender is a construct. I know this is a phrase that is common bandied around, but gender is rooted in biology, not desire. But I agree with you that we don't need to stick to traditional heteronormative stereotypes of past eras. And that's OK.

"Life would be a bit more tolerable if people could leave each other alone." I agree. It makes me wonder why transgender advocates are so aggressive in trying to make us all advocates. Why don't they just leave us alone to our perspectives? It's like they don't just want equality, and they don't just want respect, they want submission. You know: tolerate those of us who have a different view.

[Doodle]

Drag, gender stereotypes/construct, and transgender issues have little overlap. They are their own arguments, but I’ll try to answer what you’ve replied to with limited context.

Why the clownish costume? Because small children have short attention spans and it helps with engagement. Children are the biggest proponent of asking ‘why?’, and if they want to know why the disabled woman reading a story for Reading Hour is in a wheelchair, the child will ask why. It’s a form of education. Much like taking puppies to training classes or enclosed dog parks, it’s about socialisation and provides the opportunity to ask questions about people’s differences in a structured setting, rather than on the street when the different person is caught unawares by a potentially rude question.

Maybe this is just a cultural difference between yourself in the US and me in the UK, but my side have grown up with “drag” or cross dressing in society. We had Shakespeare in the 16th and 17th centuries, where it was illegal for women to be actors, and so a Juliet, Lady MacBeth or Titania role were played my men in dresses.

Pantomime is also ingrained in European and Commonwealth society, which again comes from the 16th century. Every conceivable pantomime story has a pantomime dame, which is a man (these days more often than not played by heterosexual TV actors) dresses in feminine, clown-like costume, making double entendres. This is a centuries-old tradition still holding strong to celebrate the Christmas season.

Follow it up to popular media of the past fifty years, and cross dressing is still a staple of comedy. Monty Python has been influencing comedy across the globe. They even touched on transgender issues in The Life of Brian, which was released in 1979!!

There is nothing nefarious going on when it comes to drag entertainment, because that’s all it is; entertainment. From the two clips you showed, your issue doesn’t seem to be with drag itself, but the parents’ (and in loco parentis, in the case of the teachers regarding the teenage performer in the school) choice to expose their own children to the “risqué” events they chose to go to.

Misogyny has no place in society, but cross dressing doesn’t fall under that umbrella. I know there are some fundamentalist Christian sects that don’t allow women to wear trousers, but in society today, trousers are a normal article of clothing for feminine people to wear. To do the opposite and get hateful towards men who want to wear a skirt is misandry, and it also should also not exist.

Specifically, you said in your video that women shouldn’t put up with drag taking up female spaces as it was “misogynistic”. And ironically, I find you saying that to be misogynistic, because you’re a man telling women what they should feel. That’s misogyny.

Gender is absolutely a construct. Gender is not rooted in biology, that’s sex. Sex is rooted in biology. Gender is constructed by external influences, from how our parents treat us, to the clothing tastes we develop. We should not be set in those gender boxes of “you’re a girl and you’re supposed to like dolls and dresses. When you grow up, you can work as a nurse or a receptionist until you get married and then you will become a housewife.” and “you’re a boy and you should play with toy trucks, so you can grow up to be a burly man that works in construction”. Boys shouldn’t be punished for liking flowers or showing emotion (because “those are girly things”). People should be rewarded for finding beauty wherever they can, because this world is getting darker and darker.

Transgender advocates have only become louder recently in response your politicians in the US wanting to implement laws infringing on human rights. You are free to have your perspectives, but treating ANY person as less than human is going to cause a reaction. You don’t have to be a transgender advocate to want the same right to healthcare as anybody else.

I’m a cisgender woman, and I suffer with a lot of autoimmune and hormonal problems. As a result, I take oestrogen in order to keep a regular menstrual cycle. I want the regular menstrual cycle, not because I want babies or I’m psyched to have a period every month, but want to keep my female features. An unfortunate side effect of poly cystic ovaries is an over-production of testosterone, which if I didn’t treat it, I’d start to go bald, grow a beard and my fat distribution would rearrange into a beer belly. And I. DON’T. WANT. THAT. I’m a woman, I was born a woman and I want to stay that way. That’s a frustrating enough battle, and I’m already born into a body of the correct sex. Any one born into the wrong sex body has the right to correct that internal feeling.

So, you’re wrong. There is no battle into “submission”, it’s a battle to be free to live in a way that makes one happy. You don’t have to accept that, but as long as it doesn’t have a direct effect on how you live your life, it shouldn’t matter to you. You know, as I said; they aren’t hurting anyone and they’re consenting to the changes they want in their body.

[jimwalton]

Again, thank you for the discussion. I always think reasoned dialogue is beneficial.

You say that the clownish costume is to keep their attention better. My issue with that is that it is a sexualized strategy, and as such it's not appropriate for children—just as I would not approve of a woman in a string bikini reading to children. Such sexualized sources confuses children, and it's not a healthy educational atmosphere.

Then you imply it's an educational strategy. My response is to wonder what it is that is being taught? Here's we're getting to the alleged agenda to which I referred.

You say drag is entertainment, implying it is innocent and neutral. I don't see it as such. Its sudden rise out of nowhere with intent to force everyone into acceptance betrays a different purpose. As I said in my video, to class it as "entertainment" doesn't make it OK. I don't take children to several other kinds of "entertainment": striptrease artists, R-rated moved, bawdy comedy acts. None of these are appropriate for children, even though they class themselves as entertainment.

"Gender is absolutely a construct." There are aspects of gender that are social constructs: the toys a child plays with, or the colors they wear. But there are other aspects of gender that are inextricably connect sex and gender. Gender is more than a social construct. Biology and gender are undeniably interconnected, and to pretend they are not is to ignore biological science. The simple fact that to make women into men or men into women requires such a vast amount of life-long medication, hormones, and even surgery shows what a strong hand biology has in gender. To deny that gender has nothing to do with biology (genetics, anatomy, psyche, hormones) is a denial of reality.

"...your politicians in the US wanting to implement laws infringing on human rights." I find it fascinating how any whim of a vocal subgroup inevitably finds its way into the category of "rights." What in the world makes transgenderism a "human right"? If it's a social construct, it's not a right, but a preference.

I'm sorry to hear about your physical suffering. I'm glad that science is at the level where you are able to find some relief from it. But I don't see how that is germane to our discussion.

"Any one born into the wrong sex body has the right to correct that internal feeling." You've slipped in an unconfirmed and unconfirmable assumption here—that there IS such a thing as being born into the wrong sex body. Do you have any evidence for this claim that isn't simply anecdotal? Then you've also slipped in another reference to "rights." Not only is transgenderism a right, but everyone or anyone has presumably an inalienable right to correct that "internal feeling"? To me this smacks of making genuine "rights" so fluid it becomes an embarrassment of an unending menu of "whatever I want becomes a right."

"it’s a battle to be free to live in a way that makes one happy." I have no disagreement with anyone wanting to live in a way that makes one happy, unless it involves harm to others, such as murder, rape, slavery, et al. Transgenders should be free to live as transgenders. What I object to is the intolerance that forces me to celebrate it, normalize it, and even give it honor as a superior or preferred way of living. The transgender movement right now is not seeking equal status, but instead that I am not free to disagree. That's objectionable to me.

[Doodle]

Unfortunately Sir, I believe you have missed many of the points I was trying to make in my previous comment. Drag queens don't just wear clownish costumes for the benefit of children; they dress that way for adult shows too. Drag Reading Hours can have more than one purpose.

1) Being read a story provides entertainment for children,

2) groups where children can meet the people who read from different backgrounds, and meet other children, helps a child's ability to socialise. This in itself is a form of education, as children learn social boundaries and about promoting diversity.

3) It's also about promoting a love of reading and developing creativity. Promoting an interest in reading books pries children away from screens connected to apps such as YouTube Kids, which has been found to have ties to child pronography. Please don't forget Reading Hour groups are run by local councils, child development professionals, parents, who vet the various potential readers for what they can contribute to the development of a child. If a politically moderate, 80-year old lady councillor felt anyone had a shady agenda, she'd no doubt veto that reader. If anyone else threatened to push an agenda, censure groups connected to councils can recommend withdrawal of funding, so no more reading for anyone.

Drag queens have a wide range of costumes and outfits, and surprisingly, know how to dress appropriately for daytime drag, and according to age groups. I so wish I could post links to show you that drag queens in libraries often wear blouses with a knee-length skirt or trousers. Drag is not all about dressing in a sexual way. Clothing is an art form in a drag act.

Drag is entertainment, and of course you wouldn't take a child to an 18+ movie, just as you wouldn't take a child to see a drag show in a bar or theatre during night-time hours. You'd take them to see a U-rated film, or an afternoon theatre matinée because creators are capable of making entertainment for different audiences. Just as a day-time drag show can be about singing songs from Disney movies or plays based on fairytales.

Which, by the by, the original fairytales were all sorts of f***ed up. Did you know Pinocchio originally kills Jiminy Cricket with a hammer, and that Sleeping Beauty was actually woken by giving birth to twins because the "charming" prince raped her in her sleep? Messed up, right?

Anyway, I digress. I reiterate, if you see parents taking their children to adult drag shows, that should be an issue you take up with the parents and not the drag artists. Also, drag hasn't just popped up out of no where. Rupaul's Drag Race has been an internationally-viewed television programme that has been on the air for 14 years, won 24 Emmys, and has international franchise series in 16 countries. It has been prevalent and a point of reference in other media for at least the past decade. If drag has crept up on you, you've obviously been paying attention to other things you were into. It's OK, aspects of culture pass me by too!

That's it for the portion on drag. Now let's move on to gender. And again, the Oxford English Dictionary definition of GENDER:- "The male sex or the female sex, especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones, or one of a range of other identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female." And SEX:- "Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and many other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions; (hence) the members of these categories viewed as a group; the males or females of a particular species, esp. the human race, considered collectively." There is a difference of context between the words SEX and GENDER.

They can be interconnected, but they can also diverge significantly. I'm a medical person myself, so I'll go with the World Health Organisation definition of GENDER as well:- "Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time."

I brought up my hormonal problems, because oestrogen is an essential medicine, which can be prescribed to patients of either sex for a number of reasons. If politicians can be persuaded to ban abortion meds and transgender surgery, what's to stop them banning hormonal medications completely. Hormones include oral contraceptives, but also drugs such as cortisol, insulin and thyroxine. A person has the right to alter or maintain their sexual characteristics with hormones, as much as a straight cis middle-aged woman (or man!) has the right to alter their appearance with a face lift or a boob job.

This also applies to being born in the wrong body. Body dysmorphia is a real mental condition that affects anyone. Transgender people, generally, despise the way their genitals look or feel. Their bodies can feel so alien about themselves. That feeling is absolutely no different to the way someone may feel about their nose. Have you ever disliked something about your appearance so much that it physically hurts you to look at it? Even a haircut? Perhaps you haven't, but I hate the way I look, and if I had the money for liposuction I would go for it. Changing at amount of fat I have would absolutely change the way I view myself. It would stop me from holding myself back socially and give me confidence. If you start making laws saying this person is allowed to make changes to their body, but this person isn't, where is the line drawn? Or perhaps it doesn't stop there and it's banned for everyone.

And everyone in the western world has the absolute right to freedom of speech. You are absolutely free to live your life away from celebrating trans- or gay- pride, and in no way is anyone forcing you to get on board. However, when you publish a video that popped up on my YouTube feed about something I disagreed with, I felt I had to respond. I haven't come at you with threats, or told you "to get on board or else". Hate only breeds hate, and it gets people no where. I've shared some of my views with you, just as I listened to yours on these topics. Neither of us are going to change each other's minds . I just hope I've got you to see at least one other perspective, even if you don't agree with them. Everyone holds at least one unpopular opinion. For example, I can't stand Phil Collins. Anyone I meet seem to adore him, and they think I'm the dick for not liking him. It seems to be a hot button topic when I meet new people and talk turns to music. A boyfriend even dumped me once for not liking Phil Collins! My choice, if that situation comes up again, is to change the subject and talk about Peter Gabriel instead!!

Please, let me leave you with this. Nobody is coming to take your rights away or force you into celebrating things you don't agree with. I promise you. Life will go on as normal for you, even if you don't think so. I wish you all the best with your channel. Peace