"Gay" "Choice"

The fundamental divisiveness about LGBT people and society's legal treatment of them revolves around two basic concepts. One of these is the term with which such people are referred to and the other is the concept of whether or not their group identification is a matter of "choice" or otherwise influenced by any combination of nature/nurture, that is, genetics/socialization. These two concepts are actually one, as I will attempt to argue here.

The use of the term "gay" has been criticized as a euphemism to avoid the term "homosexual". "Gay" is absolutely a euphemism. It's use is a practical compromise to avoid the inaccuracy of the term "homosexual". LBGT, Lesbian Bisexual Gay Transgender, is a much bigger umbrella for dealing with the fundamental issue of cultural attitudes toward people that do not fall into strict categories of female/male, girl/boy, real woman/real man, categories.

Let's start with an example of what many people consider the simple basics of genetics. We "know" that if someone has the chromosome combination XY, they are a male, and if someone has the chromosome combination XX, they are a female. It's simple, right? (We won't deal with those pesky XXY or XYY or etc. people, let's stick with simple for now.)

Introduce Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), a condition in which an X ovum is fertilized with a Y sperm producing an XY human organism... a little baby boy in 9 months, eh? Except the AIS condition occurs because of a gene that results in the lack of formation of cellular receptors for testosterone... THE ultimate male hormone juice! So, the developing fetus/baby produces PLENTY of testosterone, it just has no means by which it can be encorporated into the developing person. So, what happens?

Hormones of all sorts are essential and intrinsic to outright physiological sexual development. DNA, the basis of the XX/female, XY/male paradigm, is not a blueprint. It is best described as a recipe. If you don't have certain ingredients, you substitute others. If your blender malfunctions, you use a hand beater. These alterations have different effects on the finished product. In the case of AIS, an XY human develops into a woman. In the womb, testosterone being incorporated into the developing cells of the fetus is essential to the growth of male reproductive organs and genitalia. Without this in AIS people, nature reverts to the "default sex" of female. Though no female reproductive organs are formed either, the overall organism is identified female, most importantly at birth when the baby is born with all the most obvious external female genitalia. Spank... its a girl!

XY AIS women are women. Their external features epitomize the things considered most sexy in women. In utero development formed the basics, and puberty and growth into adults added icing to the cake. During puberty and adult aging, testosterone is largely responsible for extraneous body hair growth, head balding, inhibition of breast growth and acne. AIS women make great models because they do not have the burden that XX women have... we still have testosterone receptors that make all too many of us grow some facial/armpit/crotch hair, tiny breasts, thin head hair that sometimes falls out with age and lots of zits. AIS women are disproportionately characterized by unblemished skin, voluptuous breasts, thick heads of hair with a very thin or nonexistant growth of hair in secondary sex growth areas.

 Oh, they also have NO idea they are XY, until and unless they seek medical consultations about why they haven't menstruated. They are generally attracted to men in same proportion as other women are. They sometimes have surgeries to allow for intercourse with men because their condition can result in stunted vaginal development.

Then there is the case of the boy, one of a set of twins, who was the victim shortly after birth of a circumcision accident. The doctors convinced the parents to let them surgically alter the external genitalia to female and raise the boy as a girl to cover for their accident. It was an experiment in belief of nurture over nature with a very sad victim. The documentary and interviews with this person shows that "nurture" cannot overcome something so deeply embedded in the neurobiology of a person.

Then there is the situation of environmental hormones. Particularly, a fascinating study that showed that mothers with the highest level of estrogen-mimic pollutants in their systems were directly correlated with baby boys whose ano-genital distance was drastically closer to female measurements.

On this note, what about the entire concept of sexually ambiguous genitalia?...A condition at least as prevalent as Down's Syndrome. What about it? What about the fact that this conditon has at least until the very recent past been "treated", often without parental consultation, by simply surgically removing the offending clitoral protrusion in females? What about males that are seriously... um... less endowed than makes for great admiration in the locker room? And no, that doesn't make them gay... but isn't that the perception in the locker room? What about our perceptions in dismissal of what a person truly feels. What about the rejection of honest expression of feeling in favor of cultural beliefs and "norms" of understanding?

The TRUTH is that sexual expression, identification and attraction is not a simple notion. The FACT is that sexual expression, identification and attraction is a spectrum. Humans recognize 7 colors to a rainbow... not because physically there are 7 colors... it is in fact a blended spectrum... but because our brains function in a  way that identifies 7 basic colors. We Still see the blending of those, the fact that there are blurry areas between them, but we still come up with ROYGBIV.

Occupy Occupation

What is the basis of wealth?

The key to Life and Health?

The land we Occupy

The jobs we Occupate

Is what gives rise

to incomprehensible hate.

Why do we Hate?

Why do we Love?

These are the questions

We MUST rise above!

Unemployed on Labor Day

Labor Day Monday is a national holiday and millions of people across our country look forward to having the day off from work. For millions of others, generally people with the most tedious and low-paying jobs, they still have to go to work. For millions of others, like myself, we get to have the day off from work, but it is just a day like any other day over the past couple of years.

I am grateful for the unemployment insurance benefits that have kept my family from total devastation. I have managed to stay eligible for them due to having been able to pick up work on short term projects occasionally. But, today, as we celebrate labor and most specifically, the rights of workers to be treated fairly and justly for their fundamental contribution to sustaining our society, I am simply depressed to have the day off.

I would love to go to work today. No, I don't want to work cleaning toilets, mopping floors, making sandwiches or washing dishes. NOT because I am too proud to do those things, I actually get great personal satisfaction from janitorial and kitchen work. I don't want to do them because I HAVE done them when I was younger and didn't have children to support... when I was getting myself into a skilled profession. I advanced in that profession through hard work and its crazy that I should have to take a janitor or kitchen job from somebody else who can't work in my profession.

I will be forced soon enough to take such a job... and when a project in my profession comes up, I will have to quit the minimum wage position to go do what I am very skilled at doing. It is sad enough that wages have been dropping in my profession as well, I will also be forced to travel at my own expense for those lower wages.

This is what happens when society de-values certain types of work. How important is it for there to be janitors and kitchen workers? To me, it is very important. The minimum wage is too minimal. People should not have to work two jobs of back-breaking labor just to barely squeak by, if even that. And job creating regulation that serves to protect the public interest should be justly rewarded as well.

I used to stimulate the economy when I had a good, fairly compensated, full time, permanent job. Even unemployment benefits have allowed me to contribute to the economy through the purchase of fairly meager luxuries... like occasionally dining out. But that is only because I was paid so well at my old full time job. The wages I receive now when I find some work in my profession are actually less than my unemployment benefits... which are coming to an end very soon. The wages I would receive at a minimum wage job are almost half again of that!

The rightwing wackos are still spewing their nonsense about how unemployment benefits just coddle the unemployed, reward laziness, and keep us out of the workforce. Yeah, because there are just all those jobs out there. How is it that I HAVE taken jobs that pay less than my benefits? Its because those benefits are a safety net... an INSURANCE program that was paid into, but still runs out. Yes, the federal extensions are not paid into, but that is why they are called "emergency" funding. And don't kid yourself, rightwingnuts, I actually hurt my claim to extension benefits by taking work when I could have "free loaded" off the system until all extensions were depleted.

I WANT to work this Labor Day. I want to celebrate what we are supposed to celebrate this day... FAIR compensation for hard and necessary work! Slavery is still technically "labor", that is NOT what this day is about. I will go do some labor right now. I am refinishing my hardwood floors. I am glad to have the time to do it, but it won't help pay the bills.

Recession Depression Oppression Obsession

I am obsessed with being depressed about the recession that is now an oppression. Whenever you want to decide "it" started, "it" is apparently ended as told by statistics of corporate profit. I could've written about this many moons ago. Besides the fact that I am a total loser, I didn't write about this yet because I have not totally collected my thoughts about it... that could take decades, of course, and nobody else seems to be concerned with such things as collectings one's thoughts... or even really thinking about anything before they spew their nonsense into the ether.

I'm not talking about intrepid fools like me that use their right to free speech, I'm talking about ignorant fools that use their right to vote... but don't use their right to common sense or access their right to freedom of information. I'm just a confused 99%er. I don't know what's going on, but I do know it sucks. Ok, I actually DO know a lot about what is going on. It is the complacent 10%ers (or is that 10-1%ers) that don't seem to know what the f*ck is going on. And they VOTE. Well, at least the Republicans let them vote.

Now let's get to the rightwingnut take on the economic situation. The problem is that a bunch of pot-smoking lazy-asses decided, en masse, that they could make the world a better place for themselves and our society by not getting jobs, or better yet, QUITTING their jobs, so they could suckle off that golden teet of government social services. Yum! It is SO delicious? Why didn't we think of this BEFORE spring 2008? Oh we DID... back in 1939... before all that Nanny state stuff. The hobo life was the good life... who wouldn't choose that?

I'm getting disjointed here... it is a symptom of depression. In this case, of course, depression isn't an organically caused disease... its what happens to you when some big pile of shit in life dumps down on your head. Its like being sad because a dear loved one dies. As it works, losing a job, or not being able to have steady MEANINGFUL work is a major cause of psychological sadness. Or maybe I should say that HAVING steady, productive, useful work is a mainstay of psychological health. Even pensioned retirees often feel the need do some sort of work, even if only volunteer, to be part of the community that we all live in.

So, as I get ever angrier reading the rightwing, FOX "News" idiots' take on the "Occupy" protests, I have these thoughts. The "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality is stupid on a most fundamental level that it defies the laws of physics! NOBODY can pull themselves up without something to hang on to. In my own case, my potential clinical depression has been staved off by the help of family and friends, both monetarily and socially. The "bootstraps" axom also defies the laws of our species, which is a social one... ants on a hill, bees in a hive. Nobody is successful OR unsuccessful all on their own.... NOBODY.

I'm just going to post this now... there is some other point I wanted to make and maybe I'll add it later if I think of it, but part of this post is the point of mental instability. Oh yeah... I am a VICTIM! Woohoo.. the rightwingnuts just LOOOOVE that one. Get this, fools: true victims do not proclaim it... they are too proud. Millions of people in this country qualify for food stamps (rightfully) and don't claim them. They are too proud. In the old days, I had many friends that would not apply for unemployment benefits for the same reason. Those people I know have since come to their senses.

I'm happy for the majority of people that have jobs and consider themselves to be the only ones who ever worked to get somewhere in this socio-economy. If you disparage me and others for being unemployed... f* you! That's right. Not only is this my blog, but the point of this particular post is how we tend to lose our minds under stressful circumstances. I am not crying boo hoo hoo, as the most benefitted and comfortably protected in our society are actually doing. I am just saying "f* you" if you say I am a laze-bot that made bad choices and want hand-outs... oooh... really.. FUCK YOU! That's right, I said it. And its OK because I am mentally ill.

Funny thing is I wanted to say this when I started this post and then stopped so I could collect my thoughts. I like these blog posts to be well-constructed. And now, after sober review, I decided that I wrote what I mean and feel. I'm just gonna post it now. Carry on, Wall Street. I am the 99%. (Personal professional story perhaps to be told in next post.)

Family Reunion

I have a family reunion today and I am not at it. I haven't been to one of these regularly annualized events in... um... well... 20+ years. I am in my mid-40's and being generous with the time interval. Its not that I don't want to go at all. I am just blogging about not going because this is what we do these days. I actually would LOVE to go.

But I am stuck by a circumstance where I am forced to consider a pet cat of 18 yrs that is in serious need of constant attention. Actually, it is more than one circimstance. Thanks to rightwingnutwacko socio-economic-politics, I am STILL unemployed. My husband and two young children have headed off to a close relation's wedding and I am stuck here with the cat.

Back to the reunion. These reunions don't even have my own last name on them... and I am the rare female that actually KEEPS her (father's) own last name when she gets married!

I HAD to go to these things before college. There I was, in the North Country NY, living with my freaking parents! And yet, I always loved them. Right now, I write to you (whatever fools are reading) back in my old home area after 20 years of trying desperately to escape!

I have already gotten back in touch with so many of my extensive, interesting, and diverse family that I really don't need the grand reunion. It would be fun and I miss it, but I am so much more grateful for the family I have re-connected with anyway.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE is what I feel from so many of my family. That is what is important. Because, you take the good, you take the bad... or even, for better or for worse...