"But Gays Can't Have Children"

I've heard this up and down so many times that it makes me sick. It comes from the mouths of supporters and bigots alike. When someone references a gay person having children or wanting children, eventually the response comes, "Two wo/men can't have kids."

It isn't always meant cruelly. Sometimes, these individuals assume that because someone who is gay "can't" have kids, that means they don't want them. Or if they can have kids, that they aren't biological.

I actually got thanked profusely for asking a lesbian couple if their children were biological, rather than assuming they were adopted. Shocker (sarcasm)-at least two of the three really were biological.

When I was in a University 101 class at my college, we were given a team-building exercise. In it, you were given an apocalypse-like scenario: 28 individuals have taken refuge in a nuclear bomb bunker only to find that you have enough for 10 to survive the fall-out period. Who do you choose to survive?

The individuals ranged from any age -including an infant -and could be any ethnicity or background. Some examples included a priest, a prostitute, a pregnant woman, a doctor, a mechanic, an elementary ed teacher, a university professor, and a young married couple.

The question is designed in such a way that without realizing it, you are assessing your own values. Is health more important than education? How much education is really necessary in society? If the doctor happens to be 85 and cannot procreate, does his ability to help others mean he still gets a slot, or do you assume that the others will know enough basic medicine to survive? If the pregnant woman is likely to die in childbirth, should we keep her around, or is it vital to cherish that new potential life? If we had to chose between religion and the college professor, which would it be?

Unsurprisingly, almost no one ever keeps the prostitute. Her story is one of a rape survivor who came from an impoverished neighborhood, was never able to finish high school and became a prostitute to survive. She doesn't know a trade skill and she has a basic education, so she doesn't really bring anything to the table, right? It wasn't until this same exercise came around in my sociology class that my teacher pointed out that she's a Survivor. Of anyone to come out of Armageddon alive, it's the survivor who's already seen everything there is to see who'll come out of it to the other side through sheer force of will.

Obviously, there is merit in everyone and this exercise is really challenging for most people. But what I couldn't believe was the readiness for people to throw the gay man under the bus.

His character profile was a middle-aged man, around 40 or 50, university educated and quite successful before the apocalypse. Essentially his only down-side was that he was gay (if you could call it that). And when I would tell this to people, the response I got was literally "but he's gay, so he can't have children."

In an apocalypse scenario, procreation becomes the most important thing. It is in this one scenario that an otherwise harmless identity -gay -becomes an actual inhibition.

But what strikes me about this the most is not the fact that there is a dialog about desirability but the fact that he "can't." It's as though straight people believe that gays lose all reproductive ability when they come out. I still bleed from my vagina once a month -I can personally attest that it didn't stop magically working when I came out. If it did, I think we'd have a lot more converts ;-)


So I brought up this point. Yeah, he's gay, but his dick didn't fall off when he came out. He's still fully capable of reproduction; so what's the issue?

I was then informed that a gay male wouldn't be able to have sex with a woman -it would be repulsive.

Just gonna throw it out there -no one assumed that of any of the other participants. Maybe one of these others was asexual and we didn't know it. Maybe two people were NOT each other's types to the point where is was repulsive. Maybe two people had grown up together and thought of each other as brother and sister. And yet because they were straight, they could buck up and reproduce for the cause -sexuality had nothing to do with it. So why suddenly does sexuality have to do with it when we're talking about a gay man and a straight woman?

It is not unheard of for gay individuals to have sex with straight friends in the desperate desire to have children. In fact, there was even commentary on it in the lesbian drama, "The L Word." So it's not unheard of for a gay male or lesbian to get over their lack of desire for the other sex in order to have children.

Why not then can we not assume that in a survival setting, a gay male would bite the bullet and have sex with someone they had no desire to have sex with?

Suppose, in a survival situation, something happens, and there only ends up being one or two procreative females. Eventually, someone will end up having sex with a relative. It's just basic genetics. No one is arguing that this would be something to be desired, but when we're talking about the propagation of the human race, individuals will do whatever it takes to continue the species.

No one is arguing that a man or woman would be forced to have sex with someone they had absolutely no desire for solely in an effort to continue the human race. And yet there's such a block when it comes to gay men and women that the layman believes it isn't even possible for a gay male or female to have children.

If it's so rare for lesbian women to have sex with men, why is "gold star" and "silver star" lesbian a thing? In fact, it's so common for a lesbian female to have had sex with a man before her coming out experience that we have terms for the degrees to which a lesbian has experimented with men.


All of this doesn't even broach the subject that gay men or lesbian women CAN have biological children in gay or lesbian relationships.

Suppose, for example, that you are a transgender female in a lesbian relationship. It is entirely possible for this couple to have children without any third party help. And, vice versa, it is entirely possible for a child to be born from a gay relationship if one of the men is transgender. This doesn't even count the fact that gender is so fluid at this point that "gay" and "lesbian" become arbitrary terms and the idea that only a "straight" couple can bear biological children is absurd. I'm skipping over that entirely valid point because -disappointing though it is, very few would claim that someone who is bisexual cannot have children. After all, they do have some attraction to male/female sex. I'm only touching on gay and lesbian individuals only, as this is where I hear most often the dispute that it is simply not possible for these individuals to procreate.

And of course, I haven't even touched on the fact yet that children do not need to be biological. In the case of a survival situation, there is nothing stopping a gay male or female to couple with someone of the opposite sex, and there are instances where a gay male or female will have undesired sex with an opposite sex partner in order to birth children; however, it is true that by and large, gay men and women would rather not have sex with the opposite sex.

I suppose as this is the case, it is extremely rare for gays and lesbians to have children. After all, the only way to acquire a child is to be genetically connected to it, right? So it would be impossible for anyone to have a child they were not directly related to. R-right? Hello?

In case you didn't realize, that sort of thinking is completely unintelligible. Even for straight people, you can have step children and foster children and adopted children and children from a surrogate mother, and children raised by relatives and even children raised by friends! There are so many other ways to have children other than biology that I genuinely don't understand how anyone claims that gays "can't" have children solely on the basis that they wouldn't normally have sex with someone of the opposite sex.

From a personal experience, I have three siblings. Two of those siblings are only related from my father's side, making them half-siblings. My half sister had a son, and then later married someone else and had two more children, meaning that those two children have a half brother. She later divorced and started dating someone else who had a son, meaning that all three of her children now had a step brother.

That's my half sister's children. My half brother has two children too. Neither one is biologically related to him -they're from an ex-girlfriend who lost a custody battle. So in my own immediate family, from my father down, there are 6 people at minimum who came out of an atypical family arrangement. That's my family only. My roommate has his own share of atypical family dynamics. I have a friend who is dating someone who has two children.I knew someone in college whose mother was raising this individual's daughter.

If 50% of relationships end in divorce, then there has to be a significant portion of children who are in some sort of "non-traditional" family arrangement. In fact, I would even argue that a traditional family arrangement where there is a mother and a father who have a child together without any offshoots is almost impossible.

And yet for some reason there are a lot of people who are entirely convinced that gay people cannot possibly have children.

What on earth kind of perspective do you have on where children come from?! Is there a homophobic stork out there that I don't know about? Honestly if you do all the math and go through all the permutations, it's not likely for anyone to have biological children only. So where does this utterly absurd idea that gay men and women can't have children come from? It's nonsensical.

Social training or Romanticism: A Brave Analysis

Over the weekend I sat down and finally watched Brave. I'd heard so many good things about it from gender queer friends and feminist friends and advocate friends that I decided that even though I had very little hope for "Disney Princess" movies, I might as well see what it was about.

My immediate reaction upon finishing the film was disappointment. I expected her journey with magic to uncover a handsome prince who had gotten greedy -to fall in love and redeem him through the power of forgiveness. Where was the romance? Where was the "and they lived happily ever after?" Where was the kiss at the end that the entire movie was leading up to?




And then I realized what I was doing.

Does a woman need a man to have a happily ever after? Does she need a prince to have a good ending? Does the prince need to be handsome? Maybe she can blaze her own trail and lead a tribe with her own power without having to marry someone and be delegated to second place by virtue of a vagina. After all, she won the archery contest.

This sudden frank realization that I'd been conforming to a line of sexist thinking made me wonder why. Are we really so trained to believe in the white-picket-fence fairy-tale ending that anything else seems wrong? Has the belief in the "Disney Princess" as an iconic media trope pervaded so far into our culture that we can't imagine said princess if there's not a romance story front and center?

To be honest, I think that's giving myself too much credit though. Because regardless of the conscious knowledge that having a "Disney Princess" who doesn't have a Ken doll accessory is a positive thing, I still wasn't a huge fan of the movie. I loved Merida. But the movie itself seemed cheap and anticlimactic for me.

Maybe it's the fact that my own mother and I have had more than our fair share of nasty arguments, but I find the whole idea of a mother-daughter buddy movie to be boring. Of course they are going to make up. It was a petty teenage argument -they're a dime a dozen. It wasn't like some of the movies out there such as Hook where the distant father suddenly realizes he should spend more time with his family; it was just two strong personalities butting heads.

But more than that, I like romance. Even as a queer woman, I like romance movies. I want two couples to end up happy together; it melts my heart and makes me feel like maybe there's some hope for me after all. But the preference of my children's movies directly ranks with how believable the romances are. Mulan, Tangled, and A Princess Frog are all pretty high up there, with Aladdin, FernGully, and Anastasia floating around somewhere in the middle. After a slow dwindling of movies I will watch, we reach Swan Princess, stuck squarely in the category of 'I will watch it and I will complain but secretly I like the music.' Fox and the Hound is acknowledged as a movie and something like Pinocchio is considered a travesty. In my mind, at least.

I just like romance. I think most people do. It's why things like Twilight sell so well, even though a lot of really intelligent people considered it to be painted shit (I may be paraphrasing). Yeah Twilight would've served a better purpose if it was used for wiping your ass, but that doesn't change the fact that those two (we're told) were as in love as two people can be. We don't want to think about our entertainment; we want to feel it. And the more relatable you can make something, the more we'll be able to feel it.

So while something like Finding Nemo may be a great story, I don't have a kid and probably never will, so the single father bonding film is lost on me.

Unless you're part of the incredibly small minority of individuals who are aromantic, everyone wants to fall in love. It's the one commonality we share.

Of course, the strange thing about this is that love the way we identify it wasn't always around. Take a look at the four Greek perspectives on love: eros, agape, philia, storge. None of these things equate to romantic love. Eros comes the closest, but that was purely physical. Aristotle claimed that far greater than this was philia, which is love of a mental sense. He also didn't believe that men could have this love for women -it was only love of other men. We equate this with friendship. Storge is a relatively new concept, compared to the others, and means blood loyalty, more than anything. Agape then? Second to eros, it's the most famous. And it can be applied to spouses. That's because it can be applied to anyone. Agape is a charitable form of unconditional love closer to divine love than anything else.

So it's readily obvious that romantic love did not always exist. Why then has it become so important that not only does the vast majority of the population experience it, but it's become one of the most important things in our society?

Maybe it really is all social training. Maybe when you're that socially-ingrained, you can't divorce yourself from the things you've been taught. If romantic love is such a relatively new concept, then it should be very possible for a large minority to be aromantic. But we don't see that as being the case.

I don't really know the answer when it comes to love, but I do know that I didn't enjoy Brave as much as I should have, considering how socially progressive it is. Whether that really comes down to socialization or simply taste, I'm not really sure, but I can't like it solely on virtue no matter how hard I try.

Spoon Theory isn't yours; quit using it

I'm probably one of the few queer people who hate the spoons analogy. It was originally a mental construct an individual with lupus was using to explain why some days, she just couldn't do it. Everything we did during our day correlated with spoons, and you had spoons taken away when something taxing happened. This quickly became a flagship for LGBT minorities to explain why they felt living in a heteronormative world was so exhausting. It's entirely possible it gained popularity in other arenas as well (other than, you know, its intended audience of those living with an invisible illness), but the LGBT community is what I know, so that's what I'm going to talk about. 

I don't agree with the move to adopt this analogy. The person who wrote this blog had an invisible illness. Not a minority issue. And granted, their status as a minority plays a part; however, that is in additional to the mental/physical/neurological/etc disorder that is literally making their lives more difficult on a daily basis. 

I don't have to worry about if my fibro is going to act up when I try to tie my shoes, if my dyslexia is going to make it take three times longer to do the same homework that my peers are doing, if my deafness is going to mean that every conversation I have with someone who can hear is going to be arduous, or if my bipolar disorder is going to destroy my emotional ties to friends and family through no control of my own. 

I don't have to worry about that, because I am well within the acceptable norms of sound mind and body. The struggle that LGBT individuals go through is a significant one, and I'm not denying that. But you know what that substance is called, that propels LGBT individuals to continue on regardless of hardships? It's called energy. When I've had a bad day and just can't deal anymore, I don't call that "running out of spoons" I call that "running out of energy." Because that's what it is. If the lack of energy for people with invisible illnesses could be explained as a lack of energy, she wouldn't have needed the profound "spoons" analogy. She could have just said energy. Or patience. Or motivation. But she said spoons. Which suggests to me something far more tangible than energy. 

When I was in high school, I had pretty serious problems with social anxiety. It caused sleep paralysis and hypnogogic hallucinations, which only made the anxiety worse, as it induced insomnia. I would avoid speaking to people I considered my friends for months at a time. I would hyperventilate if I had to talk in public or sit in a crowded room. I would flinch at any sudden movement I didn't expect. My friends knew this about me. They said I had "social month"s. It wasn't a "social month" so it was okay that no one saw Lynn for the entire month of March.

I talked to some of my friends during one of these non-social months and they were actually shocked enough to comment on it. "I'm suprised," they said "This isn't one of your social months, so I didn't expect to see you for another couple of weeks."

That's not energy. That's something deeper and more ingrained -something that has nothing to do with energy and everything to do with an invisible, unstoppable limit that won't change even when you want it to. That's spoons. Because when I run out of spoons, I don't say goodnight for the day and then feel better tomorrow. I avoid everyone I know for a month.

So talking about energy for dealing with ignorance in the same way as the pain of an invisible illness or physical disorder is, itself, ignorant. It is not the same thing. And I think, to respect those who do deal with invisible illness on a daily basis, we should respect that.

What Are Your Qualifications For Making That Statement?

This is something that minorities have been doing for ages, and it drives me 'round the bend. Granted, there are some cases where someone should have certain qualifications before speaking on a topic. But I think the pervading qualification here should be knowledge.

Instead, we seem to insist that the person who is speaking about a minority subject be, themselves, a minority. I'm going to mention a recent topic, which I know very little about, mind, as a point of reference.

An individual was posting about how frequently disabled children get murdered by their own family and how the media representation is terrible and portrays the family as having had extenuating circumstances (the disability of the child) that makes it okay. Now, this is not a subject I can speak on. It's something I know little about. But this person (The pronouns this individual uses are ou by the way) had Google alarms set to alert ou whenever a news article popped up about a disabled person who had been killed by their family. Ou had clearly done an extensive amount of research into this topic, and there's reason to believe based on the comments and what this person wrote ouself that the reason ou felt so strongly about it is because ou had a disability.

However, the comments seemed to believe that because this person could be considered high functioning, this disability was not strong enough for ou to be speaking on behalf of the individuals ou was referencing.

... Are... you FUCKING KIDDING ME.

I should really know better by now. Never read the comments. It's a rule. And what did I do? I read the comments. And now I feel worse about humanity.

You see, individuals in minority groups get spoken for a lot. And they get sick of it. Because a lot of the time, it's an individual who is not qualified and is making a sweeping, inaccurate, generalization. As a member of the LGBT community, I do understand. There are definitely times that I feel over-generalized by people who should have kept their fucking mouth shut. However, I'm thinking of, for example, someone like Westboro Baptist Church. I'm thinking of my old Southern Baptist church, who said things like, it wasn't gay people's fault they were on the road to Hell, because the Devil was working in their lives and they just needed to be Saved (clearly gay people couldn't be Christians). I'm thinking of the people that think that lesbians just haven't been fucked by the right man yet. I'm thinking of the people who say that gay men might well as be women. I'm thinking of all the awful people who aren't trying to help.

This person was trying to help. I don't understand what reason someone could possibly have for saying that ou's opinion was invalid. Not only was ou actually a member of this minority group, ou was trying to bring awareness to the issue.

That'd be like saying bisexuals can pass, so they don't know what it's like to have a gay relationship, so they can't speak to gay experiences. They wouldn't have to come out, so you know, they don't know how scary the coming out process is.

Do you know what that is? That's biphobia. And yes, people do make these claims.

Why are we fighting about whether someone has had enough experience to make a claim in support of our cause? What is with the fucked-up dick-measuring contest to see who's had the worst minority experience, and is therefore the most qualified?

I guarantee you someone is going to take offense to the fact that I called it a "dick-measuring contest" because that's "heteronormative" and "cisnormative." And you know what? It totally is. But why do we have to pick apart what even supporters say in an effort to prove who's the better activist? Why is it that Macklemore does so much to open people's eyes to white privilege and class privilege, and "I can't listen to his music because he's misogynistic."

And yet, on the other hand, even if he did say something in support of women, would it turn into what happened to the individual who wrote that blog? Macklemore's not part of the female minority, and therefore cannot understand the female experience, so he shouldn't talk about it? I mean this author was someone who had a disability and because ou was on the "high functioning" end, ou apparently didn't have the right to talk about individuals who were on the lower end of the scale (apparently only people on the low functioning side were at risk of being killed by their parents). So what, really, would happen if this was someone who was an activist, but straight, white, middle-class male? How much are we really going to let them say if minorities aren't even letting someone in their own minority group talk about their experiences?

It's a juxtaposition that I've never understood. If someone wants to help, let them help. And if they do something wrong, tell them. But if they do something right even though they don't have your experiences, don't get pissed off at them.

Don't get me wrong; people who have experienced an issue have more right to talk about the subject than those who have not, because they are drawing from personal experience. But does that mean that those who have not had those experiences have no right? If that's the case, then why do we teach about minority issues in college? If we are never going to be allowed to talk about a subject that is not directly relating to our own personal experiences, then why do we bother learning anything?

I just don't get it. I really don't. Because on the other hand, my schooling has taught me so many things that people assume are true that aren't. And it's also taught me that colloquialisms mean nothing. Your personal truth is your personal truth, and it will never be universally applicable. I've never gotten beaten up for being gay, so I guess no one has, right?

There comes a time when activism means holding a solid front against a common enemy, and that's never going to happen if we keep insisting that no one can speak on behalf of our cause except for people who are in our club. It's petty and insulting to the people who study these issues. Here was a person who had a running Google News feed of nothing but horrific death, who was traumatizing ouself in an effort to stay educated and to educate others. And yet a good half of the comments are nothing but people shitting on this person's qualifications. I guess since the author isn't qualified to speak on this issue, so it makes those deaths okay, right?

No, you tool. It doesn't. So why again are you complaining?

Oh too bad...

This is a pet peeve of mine. Actually I think it's a pet peeve of a lot of people. There are times where someone's orientation is revealed in a way that makes another person say, "oh too bad."

Stop it. Just stop it. They aren't gay for your benefit. So what right do you have to comment on it?

Now, I suppose this isn't that big a deal. I could let this slide. But I just find it insulting. In exactly the same fashion, it's obnoxious when men say "that's hot" in reference to lesbianism. They aren't gay for your benefit. They do not want you to be attracted to them. What, exactly, did you think would happen when you said that was hot? That she would grab the next available female and mack out with her? Or that she would screw up her face and say "Ew, gross."

Recently on a friend's page, they posted this picture:

That's John Barrowman in a pair of red high heels, ladies and gentlemen.

For some reason, this prompted someone who, as far as I can tell is a straight woman, to say,  "Mr Barrowman doesn't know it yet, but we're getting married someday. He's too fantastic to let go."


To which I responded, "Mr. Barrowman is already married."

It's kind of normal to have celebrity crushes. So I wasn't really gonna nitpick this one. I was going to point out the fact that he's married, and leave it at that. However, the response immediately after was this: "His husband is also welcome to marry me. Sharing is caring, after all."

It's hard for me to explain how truly offensive this is. Granted, she probably wasn't terribly serious. But the casual nature in which we objectify people is really starting to get out of hand.

Let's imagine for a moment, this same scenario, but you were dating the person. You are dating an attractive male and some other girl comes up to you and says, "I think your boyfriend is really hot. Do you mind if I have sex with him?"

I genuinely doubt that's going to go over very well. Or maybe the scenario is this: you're dating the other girl. And she says, "man, those two gay men are crazy hot. I'm fantasizing myself having a threesome with them."

I doubt you feel very good in bed right now if your girlfriend is having a fantasy about gay men.

Plus, it reduces that individual down to a sex object. Never mind his activism, his ability as an actor, his good heart, or the fact that he's already married, you just want to fuck his brains out. Is that all anybody is? A sex object?

It really doesn't feel good to hear someone say "oh too bad" or "that's hot" in regards to someone's orientation. They are not straight or gay for your benefit. Is it too bad when someone you have a crush on finds a boyfriend? Yes. Because we are greedy, selfish people. But would you go up to the boyfriend and say, "I think it's really too bad that you two are dating because I'd rather it were me?"

No? That's mean and petty? Oh well then I don't know why it's okay to do it so long as you aren't doing it to their face, or their significant other's face.

I know there's a lot of bigger problems that I could be worrying about. In the long run, this one is not that major. But like I said, it's something that just peeves me off. I know it's not that important. I think it's just really annoying and hypocritical that we're so okay with reducing people down to sex objects. People are not objects. They are people. And we really need to stop being disappointed in someone's orientation just because that orientation isn't "madly in love with me personally."

Lost Girl

I was going to give this a little bit of time before I decided if this show was pro-gay. I'm halfway into season two and I'm quite happy with it. In fact, this may be one of my favorite shows now, both for the feminist's angle, and for the alternative sexuality angle.




This is the main character. She's so fine. Mmm baby. Her name is Bo.

Here's her fucking a chick!



Yes, the main character is romantically and sexually interested in women, and yes, she does have an established relationship with another women (who is also a recurring character). Not only that, but the sex is awesome. It's not all timid and "we're going to slather our tongues around our faces for the boys watching." There's biting, and ripping the clothes off each other, and implied eating out. It's hot. It's real. And afterwards, there's an emotional reveal that makes the sex really awkward.

Also, here's Bo fucking a dude.




Now, to be honest, I am happier with a fully-formed portrayal of bisexuality than I am with a full-on lesbian. Bisexuals do not get enough love. Bo's certainly getting enough though.

On that note, it is possible that this portrayal could swing too far into stereotype territory, and we'd wind up with someone who is a total equal opportunity slut. However, I'd say that's not the case here. They establish that the reason she is so sexually active is because she's a succubus -a supernatural creature that feeds off sexual energy. They use this to excuse why she's bi, but not explain it. We see another succubus in the series, and she definitely only likes man parts.

And cue the army of half naked men.

The only people Bo has had sex with in this series so far has been people she is romantically interested in (2) and people she's fucked to make them jealous (3). One of those three -or rather, two of those three -was a threesome.

Yep. That just happened.

So what we see established is not a bisexual slut, but an independent, confident polyamorous woman. The only downside is all the jealousy -you have no right getting jealous over someone else's girlfriend when you were banging someone else on the side. But hey, it's an edgy show -if the characters weren't a little hypocritical and damaged, it wouldn't be fun.

More importantly, the way they establish these norms is just gorgeous. No one bats an eye that Bo likes both. In fact, they draw several deliberate parallels to the scenes with Dyson and Lauren (the two main love interests) to make it look like they are on equal footing. The first-time sex for both has many of the same shots -despite lady sex being a little awkward in a hetero position. And then there's this adorable shot.



"Oh. Um hi, not the person I slept with. Uhhhhh. toothpaste?"



"Hi, half naked guy in my bathroom. It's over there."






"Toothpaste?"



"Not this again."


Both main love interests, in different seasons, have the same shot of morning-after -looking around awkwardly for the toothpaste, and being stumbled upon by the roommate. There are subtle differences, but for the most part, it's the exact same scene.

Plus, a good half of the characters are female. The main character is female, and so is the secondary character. And they are all really well developed dramatic characters with skeletons in their closet.

Plus, throughout the show with varying minor characters, they work in a whole spectrum of alternative sexuality. This show is edgy, the characters are amazing, and the sex is tasteful. Very tasteful. Despite the sexual nature it takes on at times, the worst the nudity gets is a silhouetted side-boob nipple, but nothing more graphic than that. This show covers some great ground for sex-positive culture, especially from a feminist perspective.


So you know. There's no surprise that it's Canadian.

Understanding the Transgender Community

I'm cisgender. That means that the gender I identify with matches the one I was given at birth. (pretty much most of the planet is cisgender, but we can discuss the value of actually naming the term later) However, I get asked a lot about issues relating to gender identity. I don't mind these questions at all, and have taken pains to educate myself on the subject anyway, but for a long time, it was very hard for me to explain gender identity to people in a way that makes sense. It doesn't make sense, not unless you are part of the less than 1% of the population that is some sort of gender variant. If you're born cisgender, then understanding that anyone could be anything else is very difficult. Your gender identity is intrinsically tied to your body, and the idea that it could be different just doesn't click.

What I've especially noticed lately is a lot of people who get it to a point. They understand that there are people out there who are trans -after all, let's face it, that's simply a fact, and any rationally-minded individual is going to understand that fact. However, they don't get why you would be that way, or what that means. They know you are, but they still don't understand, and explaining it in terms of gender doesn't ever break that mental block they have.

Unfortunately, this is no way to create a good ally. All this does is silence objection; it doesn't build support. And I know my dear transgender cousins could really use a lot of support. So here it is. The one argument I have found that makes sense when explaining gender to people who are cis. More than any other way of explaining, I've seen cisgender people have an "aha" moment with this. Now, this may be a little triggering, but the reason this argument works is because  it evokes a strong emotional feeling, so I'd really encourage everyone to read it if you can.

Insecurity

Imagine, if you will, the biggest insecurity you have about your body. The one thing you wish you could change. We all have one, whether we admit it or not. It can sound insignificant, but thinking about that part of you makes you feel down on yourself, and nothing you do makes you feel better. It could be something like weight, but probably it's something more permanent like a body part that just doesn't look right, or a scar on your face, or maybe even asthma. Whatever it is, it bothers you a lot, and it's bothered you for a long time.

Now imagine that the very first thing anyone saw when they looked at you was that one thing. When they came over to greet you, they brought up your biggest insecurity. Whenever someone -maybe even a friend -introduced you to someone else, the first thing they told that other person was your biggest insecurity. Whenever you had to apply for a job, you had to disclose your biggest insecurity. In fact, every single government document wants you to share with them your biggest insecurity.

You can't hide it from anyone anywhere. It's not just something you see in the mirror -though that's true too. You can't even go to the bathroom without having your insecurity thrown in your face. 

And this doesn't just happen once. This happens every day. Every single day, someone is going to bring up your insecurity about yourself. Every single day, someone is going to judge you harshly for the very thing you hate about yourself.

What if you could make that stop? What if you could change that one piece of you? You'd be the same person afterwards right? You'd just be happier. More confident. When people called you by name, it reminded you of how much you've overcome. Things would be hard at first, but then you'd get comfortable, and the people around you would forget about your insecurities. They'd see you the way you want to be seen. Wouldn't you give anything, to have an insecurity like that erased?

This is the relationship transgender people have with their gender. It's not just about wanting to change their gender -it's something about themselves that they hate. People who are transgender feel no connection to that part of who they are -and yet with gender-specific bathrooms, male/female categories on government forms, and gendered names and pronouns, they are daily, repeatedly, being reminded of the one thing about themselves they wish to change the most.

This isn't to say that transitioning fixes everything. It doesn't. And it isn't to say that the transgender experience is completely horrible. Everyone has problems. But it certainly helps to have support on your side.

So the next time that you run into an issue relating to the transgender community, or balk at using someone's pronouns, think of this; how would you feel if someone was using your insecurities against you?