Straight pride

So, it’s the month of June and that means is LGBT pride month.  A little history lesson, June became pride month as a result of the stonewall riots that took place at the end of June 1969.  So 50^th anniversary of the time when the LGBT community in New York had had enough of discrimination and their bars being raided by the police and responded with a riot lead primarily by the Trans women from a black and Latino Communities (TeRFS please take note of this fact and store in your memory banks when you are sprouting your Trans phobic nonsense)

Anyway, there seems to be a growing movement of straight people bemoaning  the fact that June is gay pride month.  They howl and complain, why isn’t there a straight pride?  Why do GAYS have to be special?

• Well, when a straight person can look me in the eyes and tell me how many countries in the world that imprison, torture and in some cases execute people purely because they are heterosexual.?
• If you can tell me how many countries in the world prohibit straight people from marrying purely because they a straight or prohibit them from fostering. children or even having children purely because I a straight.?
• Or they can tell me how many countries can you be fired from your job, evicted from your house, the discriminated against or refuse services purely because you’re straight.?
• Or they can tell me how many young people have been kicked out of their homes when they’re told her parents that they are straight.?
• Or they can tell me and how many heterosexuals have been set upon and beaten up by LGBT people because they’re straight?

Then you can have your straight pride!

I’m sure that they would be hard pressed to come up with any country or place where this have happened.

Even in countries where we have further or partial LGBT equality, or where we have largely mainstream acceptance from society, coming out can be a very difficult thing for people,  Also, BAME representation up is thin on the ground as is people with disabilities.

Pride is a chance for all of us in the LGBT community to come together on the particular day that your city or town hold his pride event, for us on that day to being a majority rather the minority.  For us to celebrate our journey and celebrate the struggles we had to reach the point where we are now.

We also use it to pur pressure on the countless  countries that continue to persecute and discriminate against LGBT people and show them that they are not forgotten and that we are on their side.

Also, to remember we are still not safe just a few weeks ago a lesbian couple was badly beaten on public transport in London, purely because they wouldn’t titillate a group of Heterosexual men by kissing each other.  Homophobic a crime since Brexit has increased year on year, we of people protesting that primary schoolchildren are being taught that we exist and we are politicians, even politicians standing to be our next prime minister agreeing with these parents.  We can’t be complacent.

So straight people whining and complaining that there isn’t a straight pride, be grateful you don’t need one be grateful that everything about you is widely promoted and celebrated every second of every minute of every day.  Don’t beg the is the triggers a up has left you last begrudge us a month is representative of our community as we are is most LGBT charities would agree about 1 in 12 of the population or so actually were only getting our fair share of the limelight.

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Murdering the masculine

 

Toxic masculinity, this is a term being used a lot these days and for good reason yes I do believe this is for good reason before people attack me for what I will say in this blog.

Toxic masculinity for me isn’t an exclusive heterosexual attribute however it is more commonly found amongst straight men and its not necessarily just a working-class straight men either.  It’s men to believe that their gender is better and more worthy than anyone else’s, its men who use his power over people to abuse them and or subjugate them.  It’s men in the upper classes in the ruling classes that collectively screw us over everybody else.  Using their class and the old boys’ network to maintain power and control.

Amongst the working classes it that racist, homophobic, transphobic and misogynist attitude compounded usually we’ve arrogance and ignorance and stubbornness.  A stubbornness that can’t be reasoned with and when presented with facts and concrete facts that counter to the of bigotry and prejudice they remain steadfast in that belief, in some ways this brought about Brexit in the UK and trump in America.

In regards to the gay community the term is used these days to basically describe any masculine gay man that does not fit the stereotype of what a gay man should be, more so to the guys who express the desire for an attraction into other masculine gay men.  The nineties term that was used a lot was “straight acting” to me up this did know someone who will deny their sexual orientation in many situations i.e. be closeted.  Or they mean guys who are masculine in orientation in terms of what you would classically describe as masculine, butch, confident, self assured, strong etc…

Now lying seem to be much more blurred in terms of what masculine is and what masculinity is.  I for one of getting tired of the bashing of masculine gay men who are attractive to other masculine gay men and the assumption being we a homophobic, we’re femmephobic, we are arseholes, we toxic, won’t an eye of a sexual orientation.

Now if someone is femmephobic the man is bad and that is wrong and no one was in the gay male community should be attacking or demonising one on another, surely our primary focus should be on promoting brotherly love and an awareness within our community and challenging for discrimination and prejudice by he’s still somewhat prevalent in society.

I for one will be honest I like masculine men, I also like short well built guys.  There is a very dominant side of me they’re really gets off on the idea of being in complete control and charge of these masculine guys.  There attitude and bravado is a real turn on for me and I don’t see why should apologise for that.

I am not in any way shape or form femmephobic, however I would take issue with the narrative were only been one way to be gay in terms of how you manifests your personality and the way that you behave.  These days it seems there is only one way to be gay and that is the drag idol / queer eye for a straight guy type of gay man.  Even on the first dates recently the last three gay couples or prospective gay couples on there have been very stereotypically gay, surely the fight for equality meant acceptance for all and LGBT people to be who they truly are not feel pressurised to behave so to my to be accepted in the community.

I’m not into drag idol either absolutely no idea about fashion or fashion sense, I have my own little ecliptic style and way of dressing which is unusual.

Now there’s a bigger reason this is important, if you go on grindr especially grindr most of the profiles have no face pic because the guys  aren’t comfortable with their sexual orientation.  In part this is likely to be because they are masculine and there are not stereotypically gay in respects to their personalities, their style and the likes own interests.  So these guys are living lies and them and being excluded from the gay community, I’m sure they’re look in from time to time and see all the vitriol and hatred directed at masculine gay men, especially the ones who like other masculine gay men.  This is an helpful for these guys as in some ways they have been prevented from being who they are.  And now a be honest, I feel a lot of this is bitterness from these guys as they are attracted to these masculine gay men and he won’t be returned in some way because they’re not masculine in that way.  I’m not saying the anen’t masculine: not masculine in that way of a bravado and the  attitude.

So come on let’s just accept each other for who we are, as long as there not being arseholes or unkind to each other.

Stonewall

 

Stonewall has just turned 30 years old,

Let’s turn at the hands of o’clock back to 1988.  A book in children’s book in a library in haringey which was a “looney left” labor council.  The book called journey lives with Eric and Martin, was book about a little girl who lived with her dad and her dad’s boyfriend.  The book follows a birthday of one of the men and and is about the day to day life.  Now this book was in the education library and somehow the daily mail got hold of this and published a damning lying article that this book was being taught to primary schoolchildren.  It’s true the book was aimed at primary schoolchildren however it wasn’t being used.

As you can imagine, this was the 1980s and gay rights and had taken steps backwards thanks to the her HIV epidemic and 1500 gay men a year were dying from a virus and the government was crippled with an action about what to do.  Homophobia was rife in the media and of course this article wiped it up further.  The blue rinse brigade in the Tory heartlands wrote letters to their MP’s demanding action being taken about the promotion of being gay to children.

As a result section 28 was born, there’s a famous speech at the Tory party conference from Margaret Thatcher saying children are being taught they have the inalienable right to be gay.  Most people are supported this action, as at that time around 2/3 of the British public felt being gay was wrong.

As with  HIV, the gay community did not take this lying down and stonewall was created in order to prevent section 28 from happening by campaigning to MPs and the public at large.  At this time the labour party had already committed to enacting LGBT rights and equality once it gained power.  He of course would take another nine years for this to happen.  But sadly section 28 did happen and was part in the house of commons on the 24^th of May 1988.  This would effectively ban local authorities from talking about LGBT issues in any way shape or form.  Effectively prevented schools and colleges from a educating young people about this.  I hate to think how many LGBT people are not here today as a result of this.

Things today there are a lot different, much of this is down to the great work of stonewall, in fact I am RE watching the wonderful Ricky Beadle Blairs FIT, which is about a level students some of whom had a and the use of the word gay in education establishments.  This resource went out to every secondary school in the UK and was met with a positive response in regards to challenging the use of the word gay.  Of course since then we had the age of consent equalized, LGBT equality in the workplace, in housing, in education, hate crime laws and section 28 repealed all of this the Tories opposed or the way until their conversion to be LGBT friendly when they gained power in 2010 and gave us marriage equality.

We have a lot to thank stonewall for, weak our rest on our laurels because again and another storm is brewing, we’ve had the breaks storm any increase in anti LGBT hate crime.  We now have a coalition or religious extremists opposing the work of no outsiders who championed equality and educate primary schoolchildren are multi cultural issues.  Ironically these religious groups are included in this education however they take issue by LGBT people have the same rights as they do.  Again language similar use to section 28 is being used, terminology like promoting homosexuality to vulnerable children, educating young people specifically primary school age children that being gay is OK.  Is history repeating itself, today the prime minister has resigned and we don’t know yet who is going to take over helm of the Tory party, the Brexit Party is rising in the polls.  Could LGBT people be sacrificed to gain much needed votes in is unstable political climate?

We still need stonewall, I know the Trans community definitely do and much of their work is focused on this now however the LGB communities also still need stonewall because who knows what will happen in the future!

Transphobic “A”gender

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Recently there has been a huge increase in attacks on primarily the Trans women community, you may may think this has come from people who voted for Brexit, or homophobes.  No it hasn’t it has come from within the LGBT community, sadly a small minority of lesbian feminists who call themselves TeRFS, that’s Trans exclusory radical feminists.  They don’t believe Trans women to be real men, and that’s the nicest thing may say, the make comments about an people with penises, forcing themselves on lesbians, for some lesbians to have sex with people who used to have penis is, or might still have a penis.  There seem to be a lot of focus on male genitalia.

They becry that these women are forcing themselves into women only spaces, spaces are supposed to be for only women are now with Trans women who identifies lesbian or bisexual the spaces are again threatened by penises.  They highlight the odd case where an someone has come out as Trans woman and had gone to a woman only prison or space and has revealed they still have male well was considered now genitalia and therefore of course illogically known Trans women can be trusted.

They had the audacity to stop London pride last year, they stopped he for a good 45 minutes, how dare they.  The sheer audacity of doing this, I mean to there not know their history, it was Trans women and drag Queens actually more specifically Trans women and drag Queens who were of colour and Hispanic that aligned themselves kicked off the stonewall riots that will become pride.  How they can do this is beyond me, I don’t even grasp how they can be so hateful towards members of our and community and actually a line themselves with the far right and the likes of Donald trump.  They even ironically support the same view of the works misogynist in the male community are wonder if they get this.

Also currently in the media there is a witch hunt against the Trans community and lies and misinformation being propagated because increase me Trans individuals are coming out younger and younger and there have been dozens of cases of Trans kids six and seven for example coming out and being supported by the family and or carers and their school.  There are people who consider themselves to be academics and highly intelligent and friends of LGBT community who was saying that these young people are being ramraided into a trans gender way of life, when they are probably UL lesbian or gay or just boys who like playing with dolls or girls that like playing with guns and cars and that because of this the best thing is transgender and being forced by adults to be transgender when they’re not.  This is of course utter Bullshit and there are no cases there are more aware of where young kids have been forced or pressured into being Trans because they don’t want me to boys’ things when there are boy well was considered boys things.  Of course, the TeFTS love this and use it as a weapon to further bash the Trans community.

They tried to get funding removed from mermaids who were doing really good work supporting young Trans people and they went and down the safeguarding route saying they were harming young people through the advice they were giving them which for against a parents’ wishes and harmful to the young people (this was in regards to the young Trans men binding when their breasts were starting to develop) they were initially successful and the lottery temporarily halted their funding, when he is found out and that this was Bullshit it was thankfully reinstated.

Of course the right wing and Trans phobic press, loved all of this and used in as fuel in the hate filled or articles about an young people some of whom were primary school age being a indoctrinated into a trans lifestyle this was although of course part of a left wing LGBT or agenda to bring about an the end of the western world as we know it (lo)

What breaks my heart is the fact that within the LGBT community people who identifies Trans, nonbinary and gender fluid have a worse mental health outcome and up to 50 per cent of Trans people attempt suicide.  You may wonder why CIS gendered gay male is talking about this, why have many trans friends and I don’t like prejudice and I have no tolerance for ignorance.  I recall than meeting my first transgender person way back in 1992, I had just come out and knew nothing about the LGBT community.  I was part of a group that were going to Brighton pride and we were driven down by are transgender woman called Angela.  I had never met such a person in my life and are still quite innocent but then, I sat in the front of the van, and had a conversation with her, she had a female partner and a be honest I couldn’t get my head round it but it didn’t faze me at all.  She explained the story to me; I can’t quite remember exactly what happened by was like OK up whatever.  As long as she was happy for us all that mattered to me.

I met my first Trans Man back in 1995 or six in bar code in Soho, I struck up a conversation with what I considered to be cute sexy guy.  As we got talking, he told me he was a Trans man, I never met rose member for that day I knew all about Trans women community as there were loads of trans women in Soho.  Anyway, I asked him questions and he was very honest and why he told me broke my heart.  He had identified as a lesbian for a long time and struggled with his gender identity he eventually came out and was met with a lot of intolerance from is lesbian friends this really surprised me.  He said, if you do that he’ll become one of them one of the enemy and we won one anything to do with you, this bore out to be true he followed his path, is truth and lost a huge wave of his friends including his partner.

So for me, this is about humanity and a person’s right to be who they are.  No one has the right to dictate what someone else’s gender is or isn’t.  So when you meet the transgender person for the first time, please just accept them or they sell you is the gender they tell you that they are and what they have in terms of genitalia is none of your fucking business.

Primary schools and LGBT lessons!

Primary schools and LGBT

There is currently a huge outcry about the fact that primary schoolchildren are being introduced to the concept that LGBT people exist in society.  This is been driven by extremists in the Christian, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim communities.  Yes, the same Muslim communities that wants primary schoolchildren to be taken and mosques and shown them their way of life, seems equality is a one way street for them!

For those of you who remember section 28, this was a law passed by the Tories in 1988. This did alot of damage and there are thousands  LGBT people who were not here as a direct result of section 28.  You may think I am being dramatic when I am not the self-harm rates and suicide rates among LGBT young people are high, reportedly four or five times currently and in the learly 2000s it was sevent times so back in the late 80s it would have been even higher (stats weren’t collated in part due to section 28) The improvement in part thanks to section 28 no longer existing.homophobia. But it thatis not a leap of imagination to ascertain that while section 28 was in force and LGBT young people in schools were denied support and education around being LGBT that many would have to took their own lives, plus the huge numbers of young gay men who were not an given access to safer sex messages because even talking about being gay in schools was banned who become HIV + and died in the days before the meds were available.

Now language similar to that that was used when section 28 was introduced in 1989 is being used, indoctrination, perverting children to a gay lifestyle, being told being gay is acceptable and that teaching about LGBT people will make them the gay.  People objecting that they’re too young know about such things yet they are  not  too young to know about heterosexual relationships, remember there not being told about gay sex.  What are they being taught I can tell you it’s simply children’s books, one features a story about two male penguins who set up a nest together and raise a chic called tango.  The other is the girl with two mum’s who goes to the Moon for the day, it’s called Space Grl Pukes.  Another one is about the prince and his mum who wants him to marry a princess so invites all these princesses to the palace and he ends up falling in love with a brother of one of the princess’s and he marries him!.  Hardly hardcore sex or porn is it.  It makes me so angry that bigoted and small-minded people have tried to make life harder for the LGBT community.  The reality of the situation is when people say they’re too young to know is quite simply utter Bullshit.

Here is a scenario, a close family friend is gay, your five-year-old son or daughter asks why isn’t Uncle Simon married?  Who is Peter that guy a he lives with, well you know how  mummy loves daddy, yes, well Uncle Simon and uncle Peter love each other like mummy and daddy love each other in that special way, The childs most likely response would be ah Cool, so are they getting married? , well actually they’re getting married, oh cool can we go buy them a present?.  That is the reaction, you ask to the thousands of people who have primary school age children, who have LGBT family members or friends.  It’s accepted by the young people,. However many do not have LGBT or out close LGBT family members, so all that this’ll do is educate them by LGBT people up our society and their families come in all shapes and sizes and at the end of the day people just want to be accepted for who they are. SOme are likely to get homophobic messsges at home, what if they are gay? Many LGBT people realise they are different pre secondary school.

The opposition from mainly religious sectors and I’m not saying that all religions or religious people are behaving this way is born out of vehement homophobia and hatred towards our community, towards my community, towards the LGBT community. This is clearly wrong and their notions and protests against this not entertained by the Government or education establishments.

There are other more and more important reasons why it’s a good idea that primary school children know about LGBT issues, if there are no mentions of this in the family environment and the little at school, primary school then when young people are questioning the sexual orientation and coming to realise they may be LGBT usually very assumption is is bad!  So being taught tolerance and acceptance at a young age or making easier for LGBT young people to come out and feel safe and accept themselves for who they are as or realise it’s not bad because we know a primary school there were told there is OK!  Than perhaps no is by no difference in the self-harm and suicide rates between LGBT young people and heterosexual young people, no one should feel so bad about themselves and who they are will I end up and self-harm in an attempted suicide, is that what the opponents of he’s really wants!

IDAHOBIT day.

 

So today is the 17^th of May, this is international day against homophobia bi phobia and Trans phobia.  It’s a again when we remember all of our LGBT brothers and sisters who have been affected by homophobia bi phobia and Trans phobia.

The vast majority of people in the LGBT Communities will have at some point in their life experienced stigma, discrimination and prejudice because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation and or gender identity.  It would be safe to say that perhaps every single person who identifies LGBT has experienced this is only used once.

Even with progress in terms of equality in many of the western European countries, some Latin American countries and Australia and New Zealand.  We have to remember that there are 70 countries at least that in prison LGBT people purely because they are LGBT, sentences ranging from two years to life.  Needless to say, the societies are far from LGBT friendly so not only do they face prison they face discrimination and violence former own communities.  And a number of these countries carry the death sentence for being LGBT recently Brunei tried to introduce the death penalty for gay sex between two men.  Rightly there was an international outcry and Hollywood actors such as George Clooney were raising the profile of this situation.  Brunei eventually backtracks and said they wouldn’t stone gay men to death by having gay sex.  But they will face prison and as I said before discrimination and ostracization from their own communities and families.

Even in the UK with marriage equality, regular gay characters in all of the soap’s and now Trans characters also appearing weak our rest on our laurels we have of course the TeRFTS, Trans exclusory radical feminists who are doing all they can to whip up hatred and discrimination against Trans women.  Go as far as to interrupt gay pride Marches, obviously they forget very conveniently that these Marches were started off by the Trans community and I only that by the Latino and black Trans women and people.

In addition to this we are a climate politically of popularism and since Brexit three years ago hate crime has spiraled and this includes hate crime towards LGBT people, the people who a blaming the immigrants and people with brown faces of the country’s ills on too happy with us either.  We can’t be complacent; we can’t just carry on without at the back of our minds being aware of how under stable the political landscape is with Brexit and the likes of Nigel Forage and Tommy Robinson whipping up hatred towards minority groups.

Plus recently the work of No Outsiders an organisation that teaches primary school children about diversity and difference has seen resistence to their LGBT aspect of this with muslims and christians protesting outsode schools at what they see as indocrination of their children and language similar to that of section 28 being usedd.

So on IDAHOBIT day we need to give thanks to all those had gone before us for getting us in the position where we are today, we need to think about our brothers and sisters who were less fortunate and put international pressure on these countries to adapt am become more LGBT accepting.  There we also need to be mindful of where we’re at two and we need to ensure that straight Allies will have our backs if the political climate changes and god forbid, we get someone like the Brexit party in power.

The effects of childhood abuse and neglect

This may not seem like a rocket science, however it needs to be remembered and addressed in a more pragmatic way, well actually in a more empathetic, compassion, caring, understanding and dare I say loving way, to support people who have been affected by this.

I’m not sure if you have seen, were still face experiment.  I ask of a parent and small baby, infant two be involved.  The parent interacts is parent normally would with a small child.  You know smiling, playing, showing love, for attention and being present.  The baby/small infant is in his element happy, smiling, giggling and truly showing its joy.  They then ask the parent to turn away, then turned back again and for her face to remain still only showed no emotion whatsoever.  The child reacts almost instantly, using its little resources to elicit the attention it had a few minutes ago.  Within a minute the child gets distraught as their parent shows no emotion, the child descends utter panic and distress, despair as its strategies on to working.  This is within minutes, the distress in the child is clearly evident.  The parent then RE engages with the child and he returns almost instantly to a state of joy and happiness again.

Again, it’s not rocket science to see all understand that if this is played out dozens, hundreds, thousands of times the emotional impact on a child in the first few years of his life could be utterly devastating to its emotional wellbeing and understanding.  We know in those first 5 to 7 years the personality is being formed, the brain is being hardwired, the programme’s it runs of being set.  Would it be any wonder that this person grows up to had issues so to speak.  The jury is out on whether this would be complex post-traumatic stress disorder CPTSD or a borderline personality disorder.  There is evidence that saw the worst serial killers had this kind of our brilliant I’m not saying that all or people who have experienced this will end up as serial killers.  But I know from my own experience emotional regulation is challenging, relationships and interactions with other people I challenging.

My own self-esteem and self-worth his battered and at times very low.  I know why this is, I have awareness of perceives that were planted so long ago and the plants are grew as a result of this.  You can never change the past, you can forgive and and forgive and forgive again and again those people involved.  You can even understand if you have a context as to why they behave this way.  However, managing the effects and affects is a challenge.  One that needs to be met with understanding, compassion, empathy, love, patience, caring and positive regard by the people involved in that individual’s life.  Looking beyond their behaviour, beyond their paranoia, beyond how they are on they are treated by circumstances beyond their control.  Mental Health Services need to have awareness of this and respond in a much more person-centred way to the needs of these individuals one size does not fit all, one therapy alone isn’t the be all and end all it takes a coordinated and holistic approach, a bit like combination therapy.