This essay first appeared on Cliterati on March 31st; I have modified it slightly for time references and to fit the format of this blog.
One of the best things about country life is being able to have as many animals as one likes, and for me that includes chickens because I absolutely love having a steady supply of fresh eggs. I most emphatically do not love chickens, however, and if I had to do much more than give them food and water, collect the eggs and clean out the henhouse every once in a while, I probably wouldn’t bother. Those who have never kept chickens generally think of them as comical (if they think of them at all), but in reality they are stupid, filthy, cruel beasts. The expression “pecking order” is a reference to that cruelty; they establish their dominance hierarchy by pecking one another, and if they collectively decide for some unaccountable reason that there is something wrong with one of their number, that pecking is both merciless and, often, terminal.
Late last month I lost one of my white leghorns to this horrid behavior; she had always been a nervous, timid bird even by the low standards of poultry, and though I knew she was at the bottom of the pecking order I had no inkling that I would go out to close the henhouse that evening and find that she had been killed by the others sometime earlier in the day. She wasn’t pecked to death exactly; her physical injuries were not fatal in and of themselves, but hens are extremely susceptible to stress and she had essentially died of ill-treatment. My friend Grace (a great lover of animals) was very angry at the others, but as I pointed out they were only acting according to instinct, rejecting a member of the flock whom they had decided did not belong. Chickens have extremely tiny brains and can’t exceed their programming, but humans have no such excuse; that makes this story (which broke earlier that week) all the more disgusting:
A transgender teacher…is believed to have committed suicide after her case appeared in the national media…in an email…sent to a supporter before her death, Lucy Meadows describes how she had to dodge waiting reporters and photographers as she went to work…Her decision to undergo gender reassignment in December was reported in a number of national newspapers and was the subject of a controversial comment piece by…Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn, who accused the popular teacher of “putting his (sic) own selfish needs ahead of the wellbeing of the children”…
Those who persecute sexual minorities just love to pretend that they’re acting “for the children”; I reckon they can’t admit that their behavior is actually on the same moral level as that of barnyard fowl. Even worse, they imagine that encouraging those same “children” to participate in this kind of barbarism is totally acceptable:
…Destin Holmes, a 16-year-old lesbian, said that…students and teachers…[at Magnolia Junior High School in Mississippi referred to her] as an “it,” “queer,” “freak,” “alien,” “dyke,” and “he-she.” Holmes was also denied access to the girls’ bathroom. In one of the most shocking incidents, Holmes’ teacher degraded her in front of the entire class when she divided it up into boys vs. girls for a trivia game, but left Holmes in the middle. “She told me since she didn’t know what I was, I should be on a team of my own,” Holmes said…when she went to the principal to complain about the harassment, the principal allegedly replied, “I don’t want a dyke in this school.” Ultimately, Holmes left the junior high after one semester last year and is now being home-schooled…
Though it is now socially unacceptable to openly express hatred for others because of race, religion, disability and a number of other factors, it’s still “open season” on a few sexual minorities, including sex workers and transgender people. But while it’s become fashionable to cloak anti-whore rhetoric in the pretense of wanting to “save” women, anti-trans sentiments are right out in the open. Legislators and judges openly persecute them; one Tennessee representative defended his bigotry with, “Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk.” Reporters make up for their lack of legal weaponry by humiliating them in the media instead, and the vitriol hurled at them by radical feminists is little short of nauseating. Hateful people think of their targets as monsters, subhuman beings to be hated and ostracized, and want the rest of us to feel the same way. But the true monsters in these situations aren’t the targets but rather the perpetrators, people who are no better than chickens mindlessly attempting to peck others to death for the offense of being different.
The UK story isn’t quite that simple. For some reason either the individual and/or the PC arseholes at the local education authority insisted on the teacher returning to the same school as a woman she had previously been a man at. The kids underwent lecture instruction that they must never refer to her having previously been him etc etc. Lots of people objected to that and even regardless of such objection, the fact is that, for kids, it was a red rag to a bull. Kids are every bit as cruel as chickens even if it doesn’t usually go as far as in the henhouse. The Press soon got wind of the commotion. It was a silly thing to do. If the teacher had shifted to a school outside the area (and outside the area in the UK is a very short distance by American standards) and started teaching as a women very probably no-one would have been any the wiser.
This is a complete misrepresentation of the facts. She worked for a Church school, so your reference to the LEA shows just how little you know about the story. She wished to stay at the school, the school wished to keep a dedicated teacher. This has nothing to do with being PC. (Which by the way is simply what my Grandma used to call good manners) and about a Head Teacher and board of Governors making a decision about their staff. (BTW in all British schools church or otherwise it is the governors who employ staff not the LEA)
There was no bullying, and only one complaint from a parent, who instead of going to the school went to the press…wonder how much he got paid for the story? The children and staff were reported as being devastaed by her death, and no one has ever suggested their was any difficulty with her teaching at the school
Next time you comment on something finding out the facts might help.
>one Tennessee representative defended his bigotry with, “Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk.”
At risk of what? What risk does a lesbian, gay, or transgendered person pose to a family? I’d love to see media do their jobs, and question statements like this. They ought be demanding to know where all the trafficked women that can’t be found are, too.
And Maggie, I agree with you on chickens.
A threat to his values, to his sense of right and wrong. Which is to say, not an actual threat. It’s the same kind of psychological ‘threat’ progressives experience when someone mentions austerity (real or imagined); it’s Orwell’s crimethink made manifest.
That’s an odd comparison.
Austerity is an actual policy that alters how public funds are spent. And as such every taxpayer is impacted by the decisions one way or another.
How some individual dresses, has sex, or refers to themselves doesn’t have an impact on the public at large.
‘Austerity’ as allegedly practiced in the West (I don’t think it has, to any meaningful extent) is so small so as to be imperceptible to the taxpayers at large. People aren’t reacting to the austerity that is, but to the austerity they imagine.
Yes, particularly when gross expenditures continue to rise, just not at the hoped for percentages. To call that ‘austerity’ is at once ludicrous and an abuse of the language. I’d also say that it insults the intelligence of the citizenry but by their general response, it apparently does not.
Well I’ll assume from this exchange that you won’t feel threatened by wide embrace of anti austerity policies.
After all austerity (or lack thereof) are no more your concern than individuals having sex (or lack thereof).
It’s a silly position to say that policies on spending or taxation are the same type of imaginary threat as other peoples sexuality.
But if that’s the position you want to take, my community organization has some spending plans you won’t be interested in hearing about, because even if they are adopted it will make a huge difference to my finances but not much difference to yours.
Not at all the same.
Dave,
I was leveraging off of Kevin’s Orwellian reference and his followup of “People aren’t reacting to the austerity that is, but to the austerity they imagine.”
That the supposed austerity is not even in shouting distance of the budget realities in much the same fashion that another’s sexual morality is a threat to your own. Absent forcing themselves on you sexually, their choices do not obviate yours – and given the political realities in the 2 major parties the prospect of so called austerity turning into draconian budget cuts smacks of the same kind of hysteria that the anti-sex types indulge in but with OPM as its focus rather than sex.
As far as budgets at governmental levels go, I’m of the mind that it will take a financial meltdown of Greek, Cyprian, or Weimarian proportions before any fiscal reality will be allowed to intrude upon the fantasy world that is DC.
This might make it more clear. Progressives react to the idea that someone might want to keep their money to spend for their own purposes with the same horror that Robert Bork looked upon those whose sexual practices did not accord with his own. They should be morally condemned for their non-conformity and that constraining them to “proper” behavior is a legitimate use of government force.
> Progressives react to the idea that someone might want to keep their money to spend for their own purposes with the same horror…
BULL SHIT
Yeah, like that. 🙂
Request for clarification: Do you mean I’m exemplifying what I’m objecting to? Because strenuously objecting to having words put into your mouth – which is what I was doing – is so different that saying the two are the same is absurd.
The only alternate explanation would be that you’re agreeing with me, but this seems to conflict with what you said up-thread.
The former.
Ohkay then. So, denying assertion A is now proof of A. Gotcha.
Emotionally rejecting a claim about an emotional rejection may not be a mathematical proof, but it certainly doesn’t help one’s case.
On the other hand, if someone emotionally rejects a position claimed to be theirs might be a hint that that position actually isn’t theirs.
And either way, it’s not an example of horror in respect to a policy position. For being the ‘not ruled by emotion’ one here, and thus presumably more accurate, your logical analogy was pretty lousy.
As always, when speaking to a libertarian: if you don’t like the idea of having a functioning government, move to Somalia.
Marking my bingo card…
The fact that it’s on the bingo card means that it gets heard a lot. After all, a Marxist could easily mark the space on the card labeled MOVE TO CHINA because I’m sure Marxists hear that a lot. Simply making a list of common objections tell us nothing about the legitimacy (or lack of same) of those objections, even if it is made into a cute little card.
My own opinion is that “love it or leave it” statements are almost always hypocritical, because the person making the statement almost always wants to make as big of changes to the country as the person he’s saying it to. If I should leave because I want national healthcare, then the guy wanting to privatize Medicare should leave too. OR, we could both stay here and fight it out.
In fact, I’m going to make some bingo cards of my own.
Except that the Somalia thing is totally bogus, since Somalia doesn’t call itself “libertarian” and isn’t anything like any libertarian’s idea of how a country should be run. China, on the other hand, is avowedly communist, and for years was held up as an example by Marxists. So the comparison is wholly invalid.
If you think my comparison is invalid, you should just move to… um… hold on…
[consults atlas]
If you think my comparison is invalid, you should just move to Oklahoma! Not Arizona. What does it matter?
I love this description:
“One of those people is the Mail’s Richard Littlejohn, a man who approaches the topic of sexuality the way a mildly horny dog investigates a lizard; fearful yet irresistibly drawn.”
And…
“He is a bloated parody of a right-wing columnist; a pantomime villain wheeled out to mutter the same faux-angry catchphrases week after week with the apathetic delivery of a Punch and Judy puppet operated by a bitter old man who secretly hates children. ”
— http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2013/03/if-richard-littlejohn-didnt-exist-youd-have-make-him
So few Americans write like that… sadly…
I have to confess that the whole transgender thing baffles me. Not that people feel that out of place in their bodies; I went through adolescence and I can at least dimly remember, though I expect that what I felt is a pale shadow. But I cannot help but feel that those who go through the surgery are victims of the surgeons. If “gender reassignment surgery” actually did transform a male body to a female one, or vice versa, that would be different. But the surgery as it stands is a lie, and (it seems to me) a cruel one.
My thoughts are exactly as yours however …
I don’t think they are victims of the surgeons – I think they are victims of their own thinking and, I don’t think it’s government’s job to rescue people from themselves.
One thing though – I’ll fully support any technology that allows any woman to transform to a man with a functioning penis. It’ll be the end of Neofeminism because all the Feminazi’s will go out and get what they really want … A DICK. 😀
I wish I thought what was wrong with the Neofemitwits was that simple.
I disagree with your assessment in this much; I think that the transgendered are given unrealistic expectations by the prevailing subculture they live in and by the surgeons they deal with. I think there is plenty of evidence walking around that too many plastic surgeons have the morals of a rabid weasel on crack. I don’t think this is the government’s business. I’m not even sure it’s anybody’s business. But I think that the Gay/Lesbian/Transgendered community should be doing a serious examination of how this issue is talked about …. and I don’t think it’s going to happen.
I totally agree – a lot of plastic surgeons are bottom of the barrell snake oil salesmen. But – if I’m smart enough to know that – then anyone looking for a sex change should too. Yes – the surgeons are taking advantage of their advantages – but the guys going to them have agency enough to know better.
//It’ll be the end of Neofeminism because all the Feminazi’s will go out and get what they really want … A DICK.//
😀
A lie? Not unless they expect to produce children. It’s no more a “lie” than any other plastic surgery; it allows them to look like they want to look, which means in their case to conform to their inner self-image. Statistically, most of them are quite happy with the process, and most of the ones who aren’t probably had unrealistic expectations in the first place.
I’ll readily admit that I cannot experience their position from the inside, but I just can’t shake the feeling that by rejecting sexual plumbing that they are unhappy with, but which works, for some that looks like that they wish they were born with but doesn’t function, they are getting the shorter end of a deal that is unfair all around.
Whatever. My hope is that we see, sooner rather than later, the since necessary to actually change genders. And won’t THAT cause an uproar!
Are you sure about that? I mean – doesn’t a sex change kill your sexual function? Or – can a transgendered man have a female orgasm?
I haven’t read a lot on the subject, but unless I’m mistaken the female-to-male surgery has improved dramatically in the past 20 years. In any case, some people are much more interested in simply not hating what they see in the mirror than in orgasms. I might also point out that from what I’ve read, many transsexuals are only barely functional before because their psychological issues interfere even if the plumbing is mechanically sound. Expressed another way, the printer might be in perfect condition, but because the wrong drivers are installed it simply won’t work properly.
You also seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that transgenderism is about sex (in the sense of sexual function, whom one is attracted to and all that), but it isn’t; it’s about body image, not boinking. Lots of women get boob jobs via the “keyhole” technique which tends to destroy nipple sensitivity; they simply don’t care. I assume transsexuals have similar feelings on the matter.
One of the things that sealed my opinion on this issue was listening to a trans-woman tell her transitioning story, and, in the process of deciding, her girlfriend at the time said “you’d make an ugly girl”. It was at that time she realized she would feel happier as an ugly woman than as an attractive male. Kind of blew the doors off of all aesthetic arguments in my mind.
Yes, I’ve heard that as well.
This is so horribly transphobic I hardly know where to start. You seem to not know the difference between sex and gender or between gender expression as expressed biologically, as an identity and as a form of expression.
What is a male body or a female body? There are no sexual characteristics either primary or secondary that a cis person cannot be born or live without, it does not mean they change sex, if for example a woman has a mastectomy or hysterectomy.
I suggest you read this.http://storify.com/bzzjosie/gender-identity?utm_campaign=&awesm=sfy.co_jIYo&utm_source=t.co&utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter
Trangender people have a physical body which does not match their gender identity,
Oh and surgery is not essential or even desired by many trans* people.
You might find this article interesting:
http://www.tsgirlfriend.com/date-a-pre-op-ts-article.html
I was searching for more info in response to this article, and I thought it was interesting.
the use of the term she male is so offensive i am afraid i clicked straight off
Hmm, it’s weird because it does seem to be a site promoting understanding, maybe they are using the term to take control of it (ala slutwalk?).
Still, I have no stake in the site, so I’ll take your warning under advisement.
Also, I’ve read two articles on the site that were actually written by transwomen so far, as well as a pretty scathing retort to The Jerry Springer show which asked for someone on the site to be on their show.
You didn’t get white eggs out of those RED chickens did you, Maggie?
Chickens were my specialty growing up on the farm – I got all my knowledge from my grandfather and, although I haven’t used that knowledge in 35 years – I still remember a lot of it.
One thing that helps to minimize the damage done by pecking is to crop off a small part of the chicken’s upper beak. we used to burn it off with a hot iron as it will sometimes bleed and the hot iron cauterizes the wound if it does. Don’t cut off too much or the chicken can’t eat. The beak will grow back.
Once a chicken is wounded and bleeding (even a little bit) the other chickens will continue to peck that wound because they are cannibalistic mother faxxors. I used to get a paintbrush and spread some TAR on the wound. It covers the blood and makes a “bandage” so the chicken can heal. Good luck finding tar in the U.S. – I think the tree huggers banned it. Funny – when I go to Norway the Norwegians always have copious amounts of the stuff and they slather it on any metallic part that will be exposed to sea water.
KRULAC: “Hey Geisle, what is this shit?
GEISLE: “We call it in Norway … TAR”
LMAO!!
No, brown. My only white egg producer is a white one who isn’t in that photo.
I, a Navy Captain, physician, Naval Academy grad, white guy, former college football player, tall, attractive and smarter than the average fowl was subjected to this “behavior” despite sitting near the very top of the Navy’s estimable pecking order. My transgression was and is insisting a few unfortunate fowl at the bottom of the Navy’s pecking order were entitled to due process rights before the Navy pecked them to death upon the imprimatur of a hen-like Commanding Officer. So, any bird can be chosen to be pecked to death. Marginalization and ostracizing leads to that end no matter one’s postion in the Order. And Maggie, this parable you produced is another reason why I insist you are brilliant and most holy for even the meanest, cruelest and most ignorant of the human barnyard fowl could not claim to understand the message you convey today. Here’s looking at you Krulak.
Sorry man – but a Navy Captain is NO WHERE NEAR the top of the Navy’s “pecking order”. In the Pentagon, Captains are coffee-getters. Full-birds are a dime a dozen and I’ll tell you it doesn’t even take a sharp guy to make one-star … but one star is the “on ramp” into the pecking order brother.
Still – I think this is the second time you’ve attacked me. If you had a negative experience in the Navy – why project your hatred for the Navy on me?
I highly doubt, as a physician, that you got involved in non-judicial punishment the way I did as a Command Master Chief (at three different commands). If anything – I will tell you justice is always biased in favor of the Sailor. Not at NJP – that’s a captain’s call – but there are real hard limits on what a CO can do at Captain’s Mast and … YOU KNOW THAT.
You confirm once again delusion, self-deception and the most annoying, ingratiating and “know-it-all” sort of narcissism are prerequisites for selection as CMC. I can sense it just chapped your ass you didn’t quite have the “qualities and traits” to snag the commission required to Lord your “authority” over those privileged commission officers in YOUR COMMAND. Tell the readers just exactly what the Navy allowed you to Command with that comic book title of command master chief. You do know the difference between NJP and Summary Court Martial. May be not because i’m having a difficult time accepting your senior enlisted leader authenticity when a genuinely swarthy, salty CMC would never fail to open and close their semi-contemptuous communications to an officer with the sincere salutation “with all due respect, Sir”.
Rich,
Looks like the one with ass chaps here isn’t krulac – with all due respect…
Maybe just a little projective identification here c andrew, huh? Perhaps, Krulac can now award you the title of honorary chief with access to his goat locker. Although this blog is devoted to countering authority’s abuse of sex workers, how ironic you defend the ultimate authoritarian poster on this blog with a slur aimed at sexual preference. But at least you demonstrated the primitive understanding that the rejoinder, “with all due respect” is limp dick cover for “no respect intended at all”.
One of the things I was curious about with Transgender men is how many of them have Klinefelter’s syndrome (XXY men). I did some lazy Google research on it once, but my results were inconclusive. Klinefelter’s is a fairly common genetic abnormality, and men suffering from Klinefelter’s already have some intersex traits (lower than normal testosterone, lower than average body hair, broad hips, increased breast tissue). The do have male genitalia but it doesn’t function correctly, they are often incapable of having kids and often suffer from hypogonadism.
On the one hand, I could see it if transgender people would not want this kind of research done, because if they were trans and not XXYs they might feel they would get an extra level of discrimination. However, I also wondered if the general public would be more sympathetic if they knew that at least some amount of transsexuals had actually been born in an intermediate gender condition rather than being fully male. (Of course, the flip side is that there are also going to be large numbers of Klinefelter’s men who have no interest in gender reassignment, and who are sexually attracted to women.)
In Asia, there seems to be more acceptance of the existence of the third gender, somewhere between male and female, than in the West. Partly, this is because they have a different mythology than we do, no Adam and Eve, no Garden of Eden. Still, I’ve always thought it was interesting that the science backs them up.
This is what some appear to not understand about transgender persons; that intersexuality has always existed, and that there is a large diversity of traits, both physical and mental that make up this phenomenon.
On the other hand, transgendered people would benefit from general non-detailed awareness that there are serious biological bases to their situations. Studies of XXY folk could help with that.
Just some comments on raising chickens. Do you have a rooster? And if so do you give him special attention so the flock recognises him as the leader? If not you can take on this role yourself. Chickens much like people will descend into anarchy without a strong leader especially smaller groups.
This is brought up because of your comments about just feeding and watering. If you just take five or ten minutes morning and evening to give them some attention and stroking they will gladly let you assume the leadership (once again much like peopl). if you notice one of them being picked on give it special attention for a few days and if one gets injured it has to go into a separate cage for protection but leave this cage inside the pen or right next to it so it is still seen and communicating with the others to remain part of the group. There are even payoffs to this as once you are accepted as leader and establish order and routine they will go and lay their eggs right after the stroking so you can gather them before they get dirty.
As another benefit according to my doctor and cooperative extension if you raise your own chickens from chicks with no exposure to other birds there is no concern about salmonella so the eggs can be used in old fashioned (uncooked) eggnog.
Yes they are dirty nasty birds just like any flocking bird but with a little effort to understand and take advantage of their psychology it becomes much easier and even a pleasure to keep them.
Also hard to believe and never done by myself I have seen some that were house trained to do their business outside and would come in to lay the eggs in a dog food bowl.
Almost fifty years of keeping chickens and other animals myself.
Hope you find this to be of some help.
I definitely don’t have a rooster, because I think fertilized eggs are nasty. This incident was the first time I ever had such a thing happen to an adult hen; before it’s always been young chicks just joining the flock. And though this one was clearly submissive to the others, there was no sign that morning that they were suddenly going to descend on her like something out of a Hitchcock film.
I’ll definitely keep your suggestions in mind!
I’ve always heard this described as ‘green monkey syndrome’, from a (possibly apocryphal) study where if you dye a monkey a different shade, the rest of the tribe will drive it out, even though nothing had changed except the coloration.
We all learn as children that to be different is dangerous. Unfortunately, some people don’t get the option to blend in.
I’m a bit surprised by the attitudes here. I’d have thought Maggie’s readers would be a bit more sensible, and open minded, especially about sexual issues.
If you want the world to accept your sexuality, and desires, then you ought extend that courtesy to the rest of the world.
I’ve known well one transgendered person. He says he never felt right at all about being female, that he felt out of place in the world, that much of his energy was consumed in play acting the gender the world saw him as.
After transition (female to male) the world saw him as the man he was, and saw himself to be. It wasn’t about attractiveness. It was about being able to cope with life. After his transition, he became more social, way happier, more comfortable, went on to get an advanced degree, and is today a highly contributing member of society. Had he not been able to transition? He says likely he would be dead.
Those of you who are comfortable in your favored position in sexuality, the straight male, have no idea. I know only what I’ve experienced as a bisexual woman, who’s been very out there in the sex world, and I doubt it’s a tenth of what trans people put up with.
So if you expect the world to be fine with whatever your kink is, lighten up on what others may desire. The rest of us aren’t required to live so as to not offend your values system.
Comixchik, I have a question for you. As a bisexual I would assume that most people wouldn’t have a problem with that. I would assume that guys certainly wouldn’t, and pretty much the same(?) for women. Do you ever actually have people react negatively to you if they know you’re bisexual?
Perhaps I’m not the right person to answer that, though I have heard that bisexuals sometimes don’t get much respect or acceptance even by the gay/lesbian community, many of which view them as fence-sitters.
I suspect that’s the sort of thing true in some places and not true in others.
Mostly men don’t have an issue with it. Some ask if I can have a girlfriend join in. Some men have feared that I’m only with them until a woman comes along.
But the women I’ve dated do. I try to explain that if I’m dating them, I’m dating them, and no one else. A few women have the attitude that if one has ever dated a man, one isn’t a real lesbian. I’ve also gotten a lot of aggro about my time spent working in the sex industry. I had a long term girlfriend break up with me over it. She liked that I made good money, more than she made on her straight job, and that my schedule was flexible, and I could help out a lot with her daughter, but she hated the idea of me having sex with men or women on camera, or privately. I tried to explain the difference between my work, and personal life, but failed in the end.
Some of the men I’ve dated are intimidated by my past work, they fear their cocks won’t be big enough, or something like that. I try to convince them it’s not an issue.
A few women in the lesbian world get upset at me for not condemning my past work. I won’t claim to be a victim, or tell awful tales of abuse. I tell the truth, I made good money, and enjoyed my work.
The understanding with the woman I’m currently dating is that while she accepts my past, she doesn’t want to know, or hear anything about it.
That’s one thing that surprised me; I have some lesbian friends and they seem to have a bit of an aggressive stance towards bisexual women. I’ve heard one refer them as ‘crazy’ and everyone (lesbian women in the room) nodded their heads. It’s certainly not something I would have predicted, and really had no idea if it generalized beyond my own little social group.
Many lesbians dislike the reality of female sexual fluidity.
Well, I may be crazy.
But in general, sex is too fine a thing to confine it to one gender, one style, one partner.
I honestly don’t know- Had I not worked in the sex business, probably I would be a much different person. Perhaps I would have done what many did, marry young, have children. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But I’m glad of the experiences I’ve had. My first time having sex with a woman was for work, and on camera, and I decided that I liked it.
Even the things I didn’t like so much, doing them in my work got me over the fear of them.
It’s made me a much stronger, braver, more open minded person. I’ve also had the great benefit of living in two nations, and that was a great learning experience.
The whole point of life, I think, is to live it. To not be bounded by fear, or a slave to someone else’s morality.
These stories blow my mind! I genuinely didn’t think there were still places in the world quite this uncivilized. O.o I am suddenly very grateful to live where I do.
Granted expecting rational, mature adult behavior from Jr. school students on anything like a consistent basis is optimistic at best, but where I attended, for every jackass yelling “DYYYYKE” from down the hall would be another student frowning at them and slapping them in the back of the head, demanding to know what the hell was wrong with them! Not that my Jr high was any sort of glorious sanctuary for social misfits, but the worst of this story’s ostracism by the students would have been prevented if only because there wouldn’t have been a group consensus that a lesbian was such an odd thing to have around that she needed ostracizing. Rather we freely discriminated against bigots.
That would have been the students. The teacher and principal of this Mississippi school, if they worked in my Jr. High, would have lost their jobs by the end of the week, without question, and been barred from teaching impressionable children for life. The students themselves wouldn’t have tolerated that behavior from them, and would have turned on them in a second.
In fact I recall they actually DID organize petitions and such to drive out the electronics teacher who, while not horribly offensive, was simply very bad at teaching. He was apparently an excellent electrician, but though he had his degree, he had no ability TEACH.
When the usual A+ students were flunking his tests because he hasn’t taught the material properly (or at all) they pitched quite the nerd-fit. ^_^;
An abusive pecking order nonetheless, don’t you think
It won’t surprise anybody to read that I feel that people should be whichever sex they want to be, within the limits of the technology, and that technology is improving.
I don’t know what the threat to that guy’s family was, and it seems that no reporter bothered to ask.