LGBT sailors reloaded

[Xntrix 0]

Funny thing about this, i once raced with a fella, and had known him and raced with him for a couple of years, when he started acting quite differently and got quite upset with our "boys banter and piss taking". He gave up racing and sold his yacht and it was a while later we found our he was on hormones undergoing a gender change type deal and is now a woman. I wish we had known at the time as we could have toned things down a little and acted as if there was a girl on board, and maybe he would have stayed racing. None of us cared at all about the gender but we all felt a bit stink when we found out.

[Dambo 44]

Yup. People tend to go by default assumptions based on the shape of their own world - in can be awkward for those of us who don't tick all the boxes or have families that are a bit diverse...

It gets boring having to keep coming out but on the other hand you end up becoming invisible and always feeling a bit compromised.

[CooperNZ 0]

Yup. People tend to go by default assumptions based on the shape of their own world - in can be awkward for those of us who don't tick all the boxes or have families that are a bit diverse...

It gets boring having to keep coming out but on the other hand you end up becoming invisible and always feeling a bit compromised.

 

Nicely put.

[Guest]

Thanks Cooper. I suspected it was something along those lines.

 

At the risk of sounding uneducated, which to be honest I possibly am as I only tend to see a person not a tag. I was under the understanding a lesbian was a female who was gay. So I've always assumed gay was a term that covered both male and female. Do I have that wrong? Just wondering that due to the way the 2 are mentioned separately in the LGBT bit.

 

If the question is out of order just say, I have no desire to upset anyone.

[Dambo 44]

Hi KM, sorry for the banter earlier and no you're not being disrespectful or upsetting at all. The opposite really, thank you for taking the time to educate yourself and maintain dialogue.

 

Re your question. It's a bit of a cultural/political thing and being a guy some would say, I'm not in a position to really comment (any girls wanna jump in?) but here's my understanding:

 

I have plenty of (female) mates who describe themselves as dykes (part of the reclamation of words) and would never describe themselves as lesbian or gay. Heaps of the girls over the ditch in the western island refer to themselves as 'gay girls'. Many of the older generation stick with Lesbian, I think because back in the day there was a need to clearly identify as Women in the midst of the whole gay rights thing because, well, patriarchy and misogyny - that is to say, they were in still very much in the middle of fighting for their rights to be treated as people without the need of a penis... and let's be honest, this is still the case, so there's still a good reason to differentiate.

 

The 'T' is for trans* Some people like to differentiate between 'trans-sexual' and 'trans-gender' the former being someone who's 'completed' gender reassignment (sex change operation etc) but increasingly the latter term is used for all given that gender is largely performative, i.e. I'm a boy because I behave and dress like a boy, and about identity i.e. I'm a boy because I say I am.

 

The younger generation are quite fond of 'Queer' (again the language reclamation thing) The reason they like queer is because it's not so narrowly labeling themselves and they may be attracted to one gender, both, or just attracted to humans.

 

Sometimes the Q or an additional Q is put in for Questioning.

 

More often then knot these days you'll also see an 'I' which stands for Intersex. We now have a much better understanding of just how common this is (let's be honest, if you met an intersex person in the street you'd never know - a bit like you'd never know that some people play golf unless they told you) The 'I's have found some level of inclusion with the alphabet soup because the alphabet soup is embracing of sexual and gender diversity.

[CooperNZ 0]

Nope the question is not out of order, in addition, sometimes many preconceived ideas are a result of people not asking questions, so you're most than welcome.

 

Dambo's previous comment on invisibility is very insightful, and his current answer summarises pretty well the topic - I was also going to propose if there was any lady who wants to chip in the conversation to offer their viewpoints on the subject.

 

About the initials, I normally tend to stick to the traditional way of LGBT because I think it's more identifiable by the general public, that's all Probably it's not a very good approach on my side but I have the feeling that the additional terms QI are still not very well cemented. As Dambo said, it's a way to include all of us who don't tick all the boxes basically.

[Guest]

Thanks lads. No worries about the banter as I often ask questions and many seem to think I should know the answer. I did ponder asking the last question as to whether it's a PC thing to do but being inquisitive and not good with PC I did. Thanks for taking it in the spirit it was meant, which as you mentioned is purely educational.

 

Freddy Mercury usually referred to himself a queer but that was a ways back. Interesting to hear the younger ones bringing that term back as I regarded that as one of the more offensive for some reason, it was one used in a very negative light back in my youth, as was dyke. A quick straw poll with the Wa and D1, a 18yo Uni stu, also had both of them thinking of the word Queer in a negative fashion. Same a bit with dykes so that's interesting to see it's not so today. D1 says they tend to only use gay but sometimes also lesbian.

 

That invisibly and feeling compromised comment you made Dambo had me thinking as to why. Is it OK to expand a bit on that? I don't quite understand what you mean. Are you saying that if you don't come out, so to speak, you feel left out, sidelined, just ikky when say in a group of blokes who happen to be discussing say 'banging the hot chick with the big tits last night' sort of thing?

 

Seen the odd doco and so on about the trans gender and reassignment stuff. While a tad hard to understand personally I do think those that open themselves up for docos like that are damn brave. Takes a big set of balls, figurative or real, to go that open when there are still many who think people like that are wrong and bad things should happen to them.

 

But I think the best thing is today, unlike say 20 years ago, we can have a discussion like this without anyone, hopefully, going septic. That's got to be good for everyone I think, even those who are on the outer fringe and often a tad extreme in their views... both ways.

 

And I hate to say it but often Golfers aren't that hard to spot, they swing their arms a lot, mention handicaps way more than yachties and a lot dress funny. Actually when I think back I would have picked Freddy as a golfer long before I would him being gay Sad he left us long before he should have, he was a wonder both for his music and the gay community.

[CooperNZ 0]

Far from septic, glad in fact to be having this conversation, Knot Me. I don't feel uncomfortable with the term queer, but I have met people who are, probably because they conceive it a something negative as you pointed out. Funny thing, many times the implicit meaning comes more from who talks rather than the word used - I can make the word "clown" sound very positive or very negative depending on the context.

 

About invisibility it depends on the case I guess, but the hardest situations come when you feel invisible inside a circle of people you feel attached to. It's understandable to not want to come out or be yourself in an environment where you feel like being "attacked" most of the time - even if that "attack" is a consequence of a lack of awareness and is not meant to target you as part of the group in any way. Some people wear out and in the end just give up and switch friends, activities, and so on, while some others tackle the situation directly - you might also lose your friends and your life, but you might also discover that everybody is very supportive (and end up talking about "banging hot guys" when everybody else talks about "banging hot girls" - you'd be surprised of how many questions straight guys ask). There's also when somebody in the circle manages to read in between the lines and gives you the kick you need to gather the strength to come out, and the limit case when you feel so comfortable (or most likely so afraid) that you prefer to lead a double life instead of losing what you have and took you so long to build. There's another kind of invisibility which I think it's more toxic though, and it's about not being (properly) acknowledged - so when even after coming out everybody in your circle acts as if it had never happened, and it becomes kind of a taboo topic.

 

A lot has been walked since 20 years ago as you mention - and I feel extremely lucky nowadays because of what has been achieved, and the older LGBT generations who contributed to it have all my respect and admiration. But there's still a lot to do unfortunately. I'll never forget once I was walking in Madrid six years ago (gay marriage was already legal) hand in hand with my former partner and this 50 year old guy almost jumped on us to ask us where the gay neighbourhood was. He was shaking, definitely not from the city, completely lost, and absolutely amazed by the sight of us holding hands. And I was appalled by the thought that this man had had to wait for so long to gather the strength to live the life he longed for. As I was saying, there's still a lot to do.

 

Freddy is too much Freddy, indeed!