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Interesting article on teenaged girls and queer identity.

Is the gay rights movement evolving the way the feminist movement did, so that kids today don't know why we old folks were so adamant about identity definitions?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

chipuni.livejournal.com

Wonderful article! Thanks for posting it.

From:

heron61.livejournal.com

Very cool! I see this as impressively hopeful and cool. Now all we need is something similar with teenaged boys and current definitions of gender and sexuality can begin to finally die off and give way to something more reasonable and humane.

From:

elven-wolf.livejournal.com

Finally, something that reflects what I've been saying we need all along.

From:

en-ki.livejournal.com

"Kids today?" Am I a kid?

I don't refuse to love (or play with) anybody because of their plumbing or who else I already love (or play with). I'm willing to acknowledge that this makes me "bi" and "poly" and that I prefer to hang out with people who get that, but I don't feel the need to wear a label to that effect. The friends I still have from high school generally all feel the same way. Most of us are mostly straight in practice and tend to have or want primary long-term companions, but this is habit, not doctrine, and what I have wanted in both those fields has changed a lot over time. I generally just don't worry about it.

I suspect that strong identification with a group rises from conflict. There is a whole lot less male-female oppression these days, so militant feminism loses hold in society overall, but you'll find that it comes out pretty strongly when there's something to come out strongly against, like sexual harrassment or clitorectomies. I might well want to be more "out" if I were surrounded by people constantly bitching about the gay rights movement than I am here among tolerant Cambridge liberal types.

From: (Anonymous)

You know, I've never really understood why so many people view sexuality as a black or white issue. I've never known *anything*, when dealing with human emotions, to be purely black or white.

For the record (not that it means much, as an anonymous poster) I'm a male in my late 20s, and view myself as about 70% straight and 30% gay...although that amount varies, based on mood and whatnot.

I really liked the article...up until the third to last paragraph, specifically "That's what the straights want to hear." If that statement is, in any way true, I think it's truly a sad reflection on the state of our society. Call me a dreamer if you must, but I don't think that labels, especially when used in that manner, are beneficial in _any_ way.

From:

rowyn

Actually, that statement resonated strongly with the flak I've seen the folks in

queerbychoice. Yes, people really do get pissy about it. And yes, it really is sad. :/

From:

fire-of-gold.livejournal.com

(oh, look, I got an LJ account, I'm no longer anonymous :)

I'm beginning to think the guys over at User Friendly have it right (see the series of comics starting with http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20040103 and no, their sunday cartoon doesn't fit in with the rest)

Admittedly, those are more for geeks who feel they don't fit in because they're geeks. I'm a geek, who feels he doesn't fit in for _lots_ of reasons... not the least of which, is that I actually try to be _tolerant_. It's amazing that we, as a country, have come so far... and yet, in some ways, we seem to still be stuck in the 1800s.

Or maybe I should just get more sleep, I dunno...

From:

read-alicia.livejournal.com

It seems like these kids are predominantly white and middle-class. I would be interested if someone could study the various cliques which exist within the schools/colleges and see how much cross-dating is occuring within them. I'm curious how much is expression of personal identity and how much is expression of privilige.

From:

beetiger.livejournal.com

Well, by 'kids' I meant the young folks in the article, or perhaps their peers a few years down the line. I've heard a lot of young women today minimize the value of the feminist movement circa 1970, because they can't see that it was neede in its cultural time, since things are much better now, and they haven't got a perspective on the past. The first time I heard an prolife teen say something like,"The easy availability of abortion forces young women to make bad choices about their lives", I was floored.

I'm rather noncategorical in my personal sexual identity choices -- I usually call myself pansexual, and am attracted especially to androgynous types, glitterbois, tough but sensitive women who wear corsets and no makeup, neuters, and people who can cook, and other various queers. But I can definitely see where the value in lobbying for "gay and lesbian" rights is, and the value in the culture of a decade ago through to today in standing up and saying, "Hey, I'm gay, this means something." I'm all for us getting past labels. I'm not for declaring the fight over when it isn't.