ol what are you talking about


but yeah, i'd say worthless is a good adjective for followers of organized religion.

That's incredibly offensive, but ok. You're down on various communities that you perceive as being prejudiced against groups, yet you're decrying every follower of an organised faith as being worthless? Are you being intentionally insulting to make a point, or are you genuinely saying that I (along with billions of others) are actually worthless?

God sounds like The Straight Male Gamer, lesbians rule but gays drool. Sodom and gomorrah? pwned bitch, lemme see some girl on girl

Sodom and Gomorrah isn't about homosexuality. In the entire Talmud (the commentary book of Judaism) the only references to the sins of Sodom is their inhospitality and criminal acts towards strangers (outsiders). In the book we use for Shabbat service there's a few pages about the "Sins of Sodom" also - nowhere in the list of crimes is anything vaguely sexual mentioned.

Of course, there's always good ol' Lev 18:22 to fall back on. Unless you're aware that even the Orthodox believe that only applies to Jews themselves and NOT gentiles (thus gentiles are fine for as much bumsex as they like AND still G-d will love them). The other branches of Judaism (making up the huge majority) see it in various ways. Conservatives has that it applies to only the act of anal sex itself, Reform has it that it applies to a Jewish man playing the passive role. Liberal Judaism has no restrictions on it at all.

None of the interpretations are against the DESIRE of homosexuality, merely against certain acts themselves. Even the Orthodox Jewish Rabbinate of the US put out a statement last year saying that homosexuals were NOT to be persecuted or shown prejudice in any way or form. The non-Orthodox Jewish faiths here are actively campaigning for gay marriage to be legal and called "marriage", alongside the Quakers.

Swordfish that is really interesting, it's always useful to get a minority's perspective concerning issues relating to them. You're totally correct about women getting paid less over a lifetime, but this itself is an issue which affects the already well-paid. Like over here, there are so many people earning minimum wage that both genders are pretty much screwed over on the bottom rung. When you get into management though, women tend to be paid a 1/5 lower, depending on the position. In the Public Sector professions we have PAY SCALES so both genders earn the same. I think there are steps being taken in the right direction on this front, but women suffer at the top due to the discrepancy of pay as WELL as the fact that so few manage to achieve the positions in comparison with men.

I can't remember whether or not I've already mentioned this idea, but in 'The Week' this week there was an article claiming that we can never claim to have true equality in society until there are just as many incompetent women in the top rungs of management as there are men. Currently the upper circle is apparently made of competent men, competent women, and incompetent men. Women have to prove themselves (that they're "as good or better") than men to get these jobs.

I've been reading a pretty good book recently called "Queer Theory and the Jewish Question". It's a series of articles about perception and representation of LGBTQ people and Jewish people. There are so many links between the two communities, and perceptions of those communities, it's pretty weird. I mean you mention the idea of gay people being "less male" than "normal" men, which is a common perception. Effeminacy is used in a derogative way, implying that it's a negative thing to have female qualities when you are male.

I love the implication that gay people are a threat too, and the idea of the "GAY AGENDA". As far as I'm aware, the gay agenda seems to be "please don't be prejudiced against any gay people", but certain groups here instead interpret it as "RECRUITING MORE GAY PEOPLE".

Can I ask (as a sidenote) are you a transman or transwoman?

I'm a transwomen, I wasn't insinuating that men are less manly because they show emotion, It's just that's what i feel as to the reason as to why there attacked by other men, personaly i think that men that can show emotion are more manly becuase to do so would mean there confident in there own masculinity to not feel threatend that showing emotion would make them less so.

Oh I didn't mean to imply that I thought that YOU meant that, just that many others do think that. It's a stereotype of gay men, being weak and flamboyant and more inclined to comment on shoes than sports.


PS: Picture? Sure!
PPS: A thread might be a good idea as I was talking with someone the other day about how you can't really understand where a minority is coming from without interacting with that minority. I mean, you can never see through each other's eyes really, but it's nice to be more clued up into things like this.

Actually Queer isn't a new term for LGBT people. Queer tends to be either an umbrella term, or alternatively a term for people who find the traditional "homo/bi/heterosexual" labels to be misleading or restrictive. Genderqueer is a newish term, implying discomfort with traditional male/female labels. Pansexual just means that it goes beyond bisexuality in that they find sexual attraction to all people regardless of genitalia. I'm a bit confused about pan-amorous (it sounds like some form of attraction to kitchenware), but I don't think mocking someone for using a term to define themselves is acceptable.

Farren, sexual organs aren't a reliable indication of gender. How would you account for people suffering with intersex conditions, of which there are dozens (conditions that is, millions of people globally). Where chromosomes are male or female, but genitalia is ambiguous or of the opposite gender? Genitalia can usually be a reliable guide to gender, but it isn't the be all and end all. I mean, if we're entirely going by physical exterior genitalia as a guide, how would you describe someone born with ovo-testicular tissue instead of ovaries/testicles, and streak gonads? They don't fit into either male or female in terms of their sexual organs - you'd have to base it on chromosomes instead.

And then, oh shit, what if they also (as is quite likely) have YXX or XYY or are "males" with XX?


As a SIDE NOTE - I've always been considered androgynous (hey remember the 2001-2003 GW meme "FAUST LOOKS LIKE A GIRL/ FAUST LOOKS LIKE AVRIL LAVIGNE LOLZ"), but it's something that's actually bugged me quite a lot. It used to bother me sometimes back at GW, but it was something overall I learned to live with. I can't grow facial hair, so I don't really have a quickfire way to change it. I just thought adding a FLIPSIDE to the coin - a man who defines himself as a man yet for the last decade has regularly had people flat out ask his gender OR make comments about it - was relevant. I imagine that my face will become more RUGGED when I get into my thirties, and I'll probably go bald, so it won't be so much of a problem then. But it's pretty fucking infuriating when it happens at the moment, especially as I usually wear a clearly male suit whenever I leave the house nowadays.

Pansexual always does and always will forever and ever just make me think of the Greek god Pan, and therefore makes me think of someone who has sex with goats.

That is fair!!

EDIT: what do you look like faust?

A total douchebag.

Actually, for ease of imagining, let me post the photo of me again.



There's no mistaking, I'm ONE HOT TOMATO ho ho ho, but I'd prefer to look like Al Pacino or some shit. He's the for real deal.

Haha yes, the perils of youthful hormones! They are confusing things!