Time to Talk About the "T" in LGBT

A recent brouhaha where a transgender patron was banned from a local Dallas gay bar called the Crews Inn and the controversy caused by organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign to exclude transgendered people from the Employment Non Discrimination Act highlight a real problem in our community. It’s not so much a problem of sexual identity, but a problem of memory. It is easy to forget that not so long ago, the straight world saw us in a different light. The stereotypes of gays and lesbians were always entangled with gender identity issues.

As little as 20 years ago, most straight people had the impression that at least one member of a gay couple played the part of “the woman” and the same was true in their images of lesbians. For straight people, any sexual coupling that didn’t involve masculine and feminine was unthinkable. I believe this is because of two issues. The first is what has been called the “tyranny of the norm”. That is the prevailing belief, albeit usually subconscious, that everyone is the same as you. In other words, when a straight man walks into a room of men, he assumes they are all straight. The second is because of the inability to understand that being the receptive partner in a sexual coupling does not equate to a loss of masculinity.

Beyond the mechanics of sexual coupling there is a prejudice in the lesbian and gay community as well. For some, transgender people are just odd. Like our straight brothers and sisters, we expect everyone to be the same as us. If you don’t believe me, next time you are out with gay friends, point to any attractive man and ask them if he is straight or gay. I guarantee at least one of your friends will say, “Oh puleeze! My gaydar went off the minute he entered the room.”

Transgender people are a problem if you cling to gender stereotypes. I have talked to many women who have real problems wrapping their head around the idea of a biological female who seeks to live life as a male, and lots of men just are not comfortable with males who transition to female. Surprisingly, these same people have no problem with a “butch” dyke or a drag queen. I suspect that is because even though these individuals may resemble the opposite sex, they maintain relationships that fit the gay and lesbian stereotype.

There is more than a little irony in the fact that a people who have faced discrimination because of their sexual identities should have a problem with gender identity, but it is there none the less. I remember clearly an incident when a friend of mine was with me at a leather event. A very cute and hunky guy caught his eye and he was doggedly pursuing him for most of the evening. About the time he got up the nerve to approach him I told my friend that the cute hunk he was after was a transman friend of mine. Since he was interested primarily in finding just how well endowed the guy was, the revelation came as a real shock. I introduced them anyway and they struck up a friendly conversation, though nothing sexual would happen between them.

The point of this story is that transpeople don’t fit our preconceived ideas and unless we are willing to get to know the person and not just the gender we will always be part of the continuing discrimination they face.

Personally, I have a lot of transgender friends and for me, they represent just another delightful color in the rainbow of human sexuality. Their sexuality and gender identity is as much an inherent part of who they are as being gay is to me. It is not a choice, but a driving force in their lives and if we fail to honor this, we fall into the same trap as the unenlightened straight world who considers being gay or lesbian a “choice”.

It took me a while to come around to this view, but it was worth the effort. If we are truly to live in a world without prejudice toward LGBT people, we need to start living without that prejudice ourselves.

Playing the Rage Card

While watching a Sarah Palin rally on television I was struck by the anger and rage she managed to whip up in her crowd. Knowing the Republican machine, I understand that people who attend GOP rallies are often hand-picked and already loyal supporters. The rage I have seen at these latest rallies is shocking even for the true believers.

People in the audience shouting out “traitor” and even “kill him” when Senator Obama’s name is brought up goes way beyond just politics. The McCain/Palin campaign seems to have a new tactic as the polls drop, one that plays to the mob mentality rather than the intellect of the voters. This may actually be a natural extension of the Karl Rove and Frank Luntz school of campaigning.

For those unfamiliar with it here is a brief overview.

The basic thinking goes that people do not make rational decisions when it comes to politics, they make emotional ones. That is most likely a true assumption considering how the brain actually works, and so they play to the emotions rather than the intellect.

The best method they have found is by use of a “narrative” about the candidate. It’s just a story that supports the cause and engages the target audience. For example, during Regan’s rise to power, he repeated the story of the “welfare queen” who drove a Cadillac, had numerous children and collected massive amounts of government money by manipulating the welfare system. It was a compelling narrative and it worked. The fact is, it was not true. It was manufactured from whole cloth and intended as an allegorical lesson in how bad big government was. The problem with that story is that Regan repeated it so many times even he believed it was true and so did America.

The narrative being used in this campaign is about John McCain and more recently Sarah Palin. They are “mavericks” and “reformers” who will ride into Washington and fix everything. Like the welfare queen story it’s also not true. Palin is hardly a reformer and has little experience that would qualify her to govern, but she fits the narrative well. “Hockey mom”, “Pitbull in Lipstick” and “Moose Hunter” are all part of her narrative that you have no doubt heard repeated by the campaign and the press over and over. Why? Because it’s a good story and easy to talk about. McCain has a similar one and it comes complete with the tag “POW” which, though true, is certainly no qualifier for public office. But it makes a good story.

So how do we get from these narratives to the raging mobs that are now showing up at McCain/Palin rallies? Well, they have turned to another old tried and true narrative, the one that uses a scapegoat. When you have to explain a difficult and painful reality, like the economy right now, it’s easier to just find someone to blame rather than a solution to the problem. That is what the McCain/Palin campaign is doing.

By continually trying to associate Barack Obama with “terrorists” they play into that narrative and their audience without realizing it conjures up images of “arab terrorists” and “9-11”. I would bet that most of them have never seen a picture of the 1960’s radical, Bill Ayers (a white middle class professor in Chicago) but if you asked them they would assume he is black. And by emphasizing Obama’s middle name they strengthen the narrative with images of dark skinned fanatics from the Middle East. The scapegoats for all our problems are “terrorists” .

Now, you and I know that the current financial crisis has nothing to do with race or terrorists, but still the people at these rallies lose their reason and become driven by their deepest emotions, and that is where the narratives play best. What you end up with are crowds driven by anger and fear, two sides of the same coin. They are loud and vocal and they tend to respond in ever increasing volume just like fans at a football game. They get caught up in the frenzy and energy of the crowd and the narrative of “blame the scapegoat” keeps them going.

What does this have to do with us? Well, in the past minorities have been the victims of this kind of frenzy. Look at Germany in the 1930’s or Mississippi in the 1960’s. Fear and anger make a potent cocktail and a mob, once drunk on it, becomes unmanageable. McCain and Palin are playing with fire and if they are not careful, lots of people might get burned.

Bush White House Endorsed Waterboarding In Secret Memos

Talking about the Bush administration seems so 20 minutes ago, but some things are worth discussing. Take the memo sent to the CIA from President Bush that explicitly endorsed waterboarding and other torture techniques against Al Qaeda suspects.

After all the times Bush appeared on TV and specifically said "the US doesn't torture" we find he was lying like a rug! The CIA also requested the memos to cover their ass yet some people in the intelligence community worried that these memos could cause a significant scandal and backlash if they became public. Guess what: They would have! They should still except for the fact that this info is being dumped when the press and the public are focused on the presidential race.

Obviously the CIA realized they were on shaky ground and they repeatedly requested such memos to give them a paper trail should all this come back to bite them. A Lawyer for the CIA, A. John Radsan, was even quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “The question was whether we had enough 'top cover’” in regard to the memos. Top cover?

So these guys were willing to break international law as long as they had a memo from the White House? Amazing, and yet the public will probably not hear or care about this outrage.

Unfortunately we Americans have an attention deficit and cannot concentrate on two issues at a time. You can see this reflected in the press as they move from one shiny object to another. If a story takes more than a few seconds to grasp, we have no interest in it.

That said, here's the story: Bush endorsed torture while lying to the American public and the world!

That in itself would have gotten a Democratic president impeached in a heartbeat. Why has nothing been done about the criminal we have in office? Well have you seen him lately? He understands that we are all afflicted with ADD and he is staying out of sight. Bush has become the Invisible President, emerging from the White House only to make banal statements and wave to photographers.

When was the last time you saw Dick Cheney? Same thing, hide and they will forget you, besides he has far too many documents to shred to be bothered with public appearances.

And so the crime, and it is a crime of international importance, will probably go unpunished and in fact unnoticed. So I stand here shouting for nobody to hear, and besides what's that sparkling over there? Oohh, it's so shiny!

Sexual Cleansing in Iraq

Toward the end of the Vietnam War, a lot of American’s either actively ignored the news from the front or had become numbed to it and become passively blind to it. I know because I was among them. Even though I was an active protester against the war, I had become so weary of the endless stories of death and destruction that I stopped watching the evening news.

Today, there are many stories that vie for our attention, and with the presidential race becoming such a circus, it is hard to find any news outlet that is still reporting on the War in Iraq. Still it rages, whether we watch or not. The “surge” may have quieted the activity for a while, but the warring militias still roam the streets.

One of the most under-reported stories from Iraq is the plight of the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered populations. The American press has little interest in them and the Iraq press actively suppresses information on a group of people it sees as degenerate. The saddest part of the story is that under Saddam Hussein, sodomy was not a crime, and even after he was pressured to criminalize it in 2001 by religious leaders, prosecutions were rare.

Today, according to Ali Hili, the coordinator of the group Iraqi LGBT, “supporters of the fundamentalist Sadr and Badr militias boast that they are cleansing Iraq of what they call ‘sexual perverts’. They are
open about terrorizing gay Iraqis to make them flee the country and murdering those who fail to leave. Their goal is a queer-free, pro-homophobic Iraq.”

Worse news came last week as the coordinator of Iraqi LGBT in Baghdad was assassinated. The 27 year old known as Bashar was killed by gunmen in a barber shop. Bashar had helped organize “safe houses” for LGBT Iraqis and was credited with saving dozens of lives.

The upswing in violence against LGBT Iraqis can be attributed to a fatwa issued by Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in 2005 which encouraged killing gays and lesbians in the “worst , most severe way possible”.

The sexual cleansing of Iraq should send a shiver down the spines of American LGBT people. The events half a world away are the direct result of an out of control fundamentalist religion that has seeped into the country’s government. Though Iraq is officially a secular country, the increasing influence of the religious militias and their cleric leader’s is palpable.

In the new democracy of Iraq, loving a person of the same sex is a death sentence. LGBT people have been forced into an underground existence. Meanwhile, according to a story in the UK Guardian, leaders of the Mahdi Army are proudly proclaiming they have eliminated "perverts and sodomites" in many of the major cities. What’s worse is they have no protection from the Iraqi Police who are heavily infiltrated by militia members.

I don’t expect that the US press will put much effort into exposing this human rights tragedy. There are too many shiny objects to go after here. McCain careens from one political stunt to another. Lindsay Lohan bounces in and out of rehab. Clay Aiken cuddles his new “gaybie” while the latest fashions parade down the catwalks of New York and Paris.

There are so many other stories that have so much more visual appeal, and flash and ratings potential. Why should America care about a few LGBT Iraqis being “roughed up” in Iraq. Where is the “local angle” in that?

As LGBT people, we need to pay close attention to Iraq. Their sad condition is indirectly a result of American policy and in this political season we need to remember that. The policy overseas could very well become a domestic policy. It wouldn’t take more than a few fundamentalists in positions of power to change our courts and laws. If we believe it can’t happen here, we should think again.

It’s time to shake off our numbness to Iraq and start paying attention. Our brothers and sisters are being tortured and killed, and we ignore them at our own peril.

Whisper Campaigns - "Is McCain A Secret Irishman?"

OK, I got another email with the same crap about Obama allegedly being Muslim. No I don't have a problem with Muslims, we have a large Muslim community here in Dallas and I know several who are really decent people. The problem is that a lot of American's who listen to too much talk radio and to them, "Muslim" = "Terrorist".

Well that may seem silly but it's true. Now the problem is first, Muslim does not equal terrorist. Secondly, Obama is Christian. To drive home their point they harp on his middle name, Hussein, a family name on his father's side. So to many Americans, "funny name" = "terrorist".

Sad state our country is in, but that's the way it is. To combat this crap I propose a whisper campaign of our own. John McCain's middle name is "Sidney". How the hell can you trust a guy named Sidney? And worse, he is Irish! He hides this fact well, but we all know how dangerous the Irish are. They cam over here in the 1800's stealing American's jobs and polluting our cities with their music and drinking. Their gangs ruled New York for a while and how can you trust a guy whose native land drinks warm beer?

See how silly that sounds? Back in the1800's it would sound pretty scary, but it was silly then too.

Now, if you want to start a real whisper campaign, what about McCain's early onset dementia, losing his way onstage, forgetting Obama's name in the debates and calling an audience "my fellow prisoners"?

A Platform of Ideas

The early reports from people in the LGBT media hinted that the Democratic Platform had left gays and lesbians out of the document entirely.

There was much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth for a few days until the final document was released.

Now all that seems a bit silly, and I have to wonder if it wasn’t a red herring being foisted on the gay media by someone on the right.

The Democratic Platform that has emerged will look about as LGBT-friendly as any in history. Though the words “gay” and “lesbian” are absent, the legal terminology that would be used in any law protecting LGBT rights is present in abundance.

The document talks about specifics like a national HIV/AIDS strategy, comprehensive employment non-discrimination legislation and repealing the “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy in the military.

Additionally, same-sex couples are specifically included in a passage on protections and equality for all families, and there is a groundbreaking addition of a pledge to fight discrimination based on “gender identity.”

When you add this to the strong language opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, the platform looks pretty good from a LGBT perspective.

LGBT leaders across the country who were involved in the process or who have been privy to the discussions leading up to the Platform Committee meetings agree that though the words, “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender” don’t appear in the platform their equivalents make it very strongly on the side of LGBT rights.

Personally, I think using more general terms like “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” make the platform stronger. These terms really have a much broader scope than LGBT, and would even include the emerging new group we often call “questioning.”

Additionally, it leaves fewer hot buttons for the religious right to jump on.

Remember: Most fundamentalist extremists have a problem grasping big ideas. They bury themselves in minutia. By nature they look for specific language in everything.

One only has to look at the online news site of that most fundamentalist of organizations — the American Family Association — OneNewsNow, where they began substituting the word “homosexual” for “gay.” That became a pretty embarrassing policy when Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay’s name was changed in a news blurb to “Mr. Tyson Homosexual.”

It’s just as well we don’t fall into the semantic traps that these kinds of groups set to snare any mention of gays or lesbians. Sadly, it’s a trap we often set for ourselves.

When we start trying to analyze a policy or document by the number of times key words are used, we become little more than “bean counters,” and we lose perspective.

I applaud the Democratic Party for diligently working to create a document that looks a lot more like a mission statement than one of the platforms of the past with lots of details but few big ideas.

This change I believe reflects the influence of Barack Obama’s campaign on the party.

Far too often, Democrats have been a party of policy points and not a party of ideas. In the past we have become lost in the minutia and failed to see the big picture.

The details of policy are things that will come from legislation. To become bogged down in them at this stage will only serve to make any kind of coalition building more difficult.

It will also give the Republicans easier targets for their negative sniping. They will do enough of that anyway without any help.

It will be refreshing to see a Democratic Platform that is intended to inspire the party to do great things rather than a laundry list of details that make even lawmakers’ eyes glaze over.

I haven’t seen the final platform yet, but an earlier draft of the platform, including the revisions that have been noted, gives a clearer view of what that vision will look like:

“Democrats will fight to end discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age and disability in every corner of our country, because that’s the America we believe in.”

That’s the America I believe in as well.


This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition August 15, 2008.


© Copyright by DallasVoice.com

Sarah Palin - Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man.

Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Sarah Palin is a post turtle.'

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.'

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. 'You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.'

Where Are the Queer Think Tanks?

A few months ago I was reading the a diatribe from the Family Research Council I realized that even though this group, founded by James Dobson, is blatantly fundamentalist and far right, they continue to get lots of press both in print and broadcast. Early on in the primary season, on MSNBC, arguably not the most liberal news source, I listened to a discussion between Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, political analyst Lawrence O'Donnell and MSNBC host Dan Abrams. They were discussing Mike Huckabee’s stump speech and specifically the part where he says, “But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other, and how we treat their families."


The political analyst and host were cautious with this claim. Tony Perkins, however, barged in with a ringing endorsement backed up by the old lie, “America…a Judeo-Christian nation, ought to bring its founding document in line with what he says is God's word, particularly on matters of a woman's right to choose and a couple's right to marry.”

I won’t belabor the rest of the conversation, but anyone who knows Dobson, Perkins and their organization knows where it was going. They dominated the conversation guiding the discussion toward their favorite topics, gay marriage and abortion. It’s not surprising, as that is their whole reason for existence. The Family Research Council, with its scientific sounding name is nothing more than a far right think tank, and as such its job is to disseminate information supporting its causes.

My question is this, why was there no one from a GLBT think tank on that panel? More specifically, as we head into the general election, why are there so few GLBT think tanks?

The answer I suspect lies in the same thinking that dominates most liberal and progressive thinking. That is, money spent on policy groups, think tanks and infrastructure could better be spent on good works, good causes and political support. That thinking is the Achilles heel of the liberal and progressive movement and the GLBT movement as well. Yes, there are a few groups like the Center for American Progress and Brookings Institution who regularly provide talking points and research papers for use by liberal and progressive policymakers, but they pale in light of their many right-wing counterparts.

Yes, there is the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, but they are not represented in every discussion of marriage and GLBT rights in the media. One organization cannot do it alone. We need a number of very aggressive and quite frankly stealthy groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Institute for Policy Analysis to carry our cause forward. We need our own version of the Family Research Council to provide lawmakers and the press with research and well-crafted policy statements that can affect the lawmaking process.


Now before I am accused of using the same dirty tricks that the right-wingnuts use, let me clarify a little. My point is about a subject near and dear to my heart and that is framing. As George Lakhoff makes abundantly clear in his book, Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, the real secret of changing public perception is to change the way the issue is discussed. Allowing the right to frame the debate immediately puts us liberals on the defensive. Even our name, “liberal” has been so successfully demonized by the right, that many call themselves “progressives” instead.

Having a few GLBT issue think tanks that can successfully frame the issues without sounding like GLBT activists could really make a difference in our cause. If you don’t believe framing makes a difference, look at the issue of “gay marriage”. Had we pushed the issue of equal rights under law, rather than the right to marry, we might already have it. When we use the term “marriage” it is charged with a lot of issues, and for many heterosexuals it implies sex. Face it, a lot of people are homophobic, they do not like to think about what we do in the bedroom, and pushing the issue of marriage makes the bedroom front and center.

Those same people might very well be swayed with an issue of human rights, and the right to marry would follow as a natural legal embodiment of those rights, but they would not have to think about it. After all Human Rights is the real issue. Marriage is just a legal construct that reflects the inequality just as serving n the military. Framing the issues as a human rights issues avoids the “ick” factor for many people and is much harder to argue against. Consider if the civil rights movement had made interracial marriage their key issue? We would still be drinking from separate water fountains, at least in the South.

Now who is going to step forward and come up with the funding to create some of these think tanks? Well I suspect there are not a lot of GLBT billionaires that would come forward, but you never know. It will probably take the work and funds of a whole lot of people to make that idea a reality, still why not give it a try?

The Age Thing

I have never dyed my hair. That in itself is quite a bold statement from a gay man, but it’s true. I can add it to the list of other things to disguise the aging process that I have never done, like moisturizers, collagens, Botox and cosmetic surgery. Though it may be just cause for demanding that I turn in my Gay Card, I figure growing older is inevitable and trying to cover it up is really an undignified thing to do.

I remember a friend of mine telling me years before I got into the leather community, that I should start wearing leather because, “it looks good on you as you age.” That was good advice.

In a culture that values youth and beauty over almost anything else, the real anomaly is the image of the leather “daddy”. He is a person who is valued for not only his look, but his experience and wisdom. At least that is the story I keep telling myself.

So far on my life journey the only drawback from aging, other than the continual battle with gravity is a discrimination I find in the job market. In the field of communications and advertising, having grey hair is akin to having smallpox. For some reason marketers and agencies feel that only someone who is fresh out of college can connect with the mind of the youth market. It is as though advertisers feel that the youth of today are from another planet and only “their kind” can reach them, much less understand them.

The truth is that young people today are pretty much the same as they were in my generation. Oh they have new technology and different style clothes, but they are still motivated by the same thing I was at their age. In the business of advertising that boils down to two key ingredients, sex and acceptance. If those weren’t the key motivating factors ads wouldn’t feature claims that using (insert product here) would get you laid or get you friends.

So why the bias against anyone who is older? I don’t know, unless it’s because a more experienced and seasoned professional can see through the smokescreen of jargon and bull being spewed by management and that is threatening. For some, especially in marketing and advertising jargon is power. Like the fields of Medicine and Law, if you put things in everyday terms instead of using Latin, your clients and patients wouldn’t feel your services were worth so much money.

Would you be more willing to pay your doctor in order to get a prescription for “microdose acetylsalicylic acid administered prophylacticaly” that you would for a “half a baby aspirin taken each night”? The same holds true in advertising.

Which would you find more trustworthy, a report that details the “differentiated marketing to counteract intense segment rivalry” or one that states simple “there are already a glut of similar products being sold, so we need to get specific as to which groups we try to sell to.” Confusion is power and as I age I find I just don’t have time to veil my knowledge in jargon.

So, I guess my next marketing position will be to, “personalize the retail experience through initialized direct contact communication”. Of course this job, unlike any other I have had will take a specialized wardrobe. Something in a blue vest should do. Now, I just need to review the marketing narrative, just to make sure I can optimize my interface with target markets…”Hello, and welcome to Wal-Mart”.

The ABC’s of Sexual Orientations!

Sometimes I think we could drown in the alphabet soup in which we live. First there was GL, or LG for Lesbian-Gay. Then it was expanded to LGBT, a term I often have to explain is not a sandwich, but means Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender. Then comes the whole world of leather & fetish to which I belong as well and you have BDSM, or SMBD as some folks prefer either way it stands for Bondage-Dominance-Sadomasochism, or as some prefer, Bondage Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadomasochism and Master-slave. It’s all very confusing and for an old fossil like me I just like to abbreviate it to kinky.

Now I understand that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and you can take that however you wish, but it raises an important question. What is and what is not “sexual orientation”?

For me, I believe my kink is a big part of my sexuality and as such it’s part of who I am. In fact most of the books I have written dwell at length on that issue since it is the one that always prompts the most questions when I am speaking to various groups. Now it seems that the courts in Canada are taking that question seriously and have agreed to hear a case that involved discrimination against someone because of his BDSM involvement.

Vancouver resident Peter Hayes was recently denied a chauffeur’s permit when he applied at the local courthouse. He was told that the denial stemmed from a complaint that “the department had a record of a woman in 2003 who suggested he was involved in a cult.”

Hayes, a self proclaimed pagan told the official that the complaint was filed by a former lover and that the “cult” was nothing more than the “title of a science fiction book: Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman.” Furthermore, Hayes was never contacted about the complaint.

The official went on to say the he was concerned about the “paganism, Wiccan magic as well as role-playing, master-slave sexual practices” and said he would pose a threat to passengers both from his possible attempts to recruit them into his “cult” and by his dangerous activities.

Hayes has filed for protection under a law that prevents discrimination based on sexual orientation and that’s where the controversy gets interesting. Being Canada, there is a distinctly more enlightened attitude toward sexual orientation. There are long standing rulings that “consensual bondage or sado-masochism is part of normal and acceptable adult sexual behaviour that does not offend community standards.” The big question is now if the law that was originally enacted to protect the LGBT community should extend to BDSM?

So far the courts have said they will hear the case, denying a motion by police to block the hearing “because the laws designed to protect the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians did not extend to protecting types of sexual practices.”

The whole incident raises a good question for the LGBT community to consider, especially when we are deep in the argument over including gender identity in the Employment Non Discrimination Act. It undoubtedly will bring up some soul searching as to exactly what sexual orientation really is and that’s a good thing.

The LGBT community has long argued that “sexual orientation” is a more accurate description of who we are that the old term “sexual preference” which implies a choice. The problem is it opens a potential gate to other areas that might not be so politically correct.

Some people will use this discussion to demonize the acts of people with different orientations as perverse and sick. That kind of rhetoric is what we hear from the religious fundamentalists on a daily basis. The real discussion should be something much deeper and thoughtful and is long overdue.

What I and my fellow leathermen and leatherwomen do in our BDSM life is something that happens between consenting adults and in most states is legal. It has been recognized by the scientific community as just another expression of one’s sexuality so long as it has no detrimental effects on one’s life or the lives of one’s partners.

As a member of the kink community, I detest the term “BDSM Lifestyle”. It implies that my sexual orientation is more of a fad than something to be taken seriously. The whole “style” thing is the problem. For me my BDSM is as much a part of me as my being gay. It is my life, not my lifestyle.