Just a final word, for clarity's sake.
We all have opinions that can be deemed offensive by *someone*, even if there's no hate behind them. You could go on television and poke holes in, say, the religious beliefs of conservative people, and how these beliefs inform their politics in a dangerous way - you'll offend these people deeply. They may feel upset or marginalized. Is this a great moral crime? Or is it about context - who you're offending and why, and whether or not you're correct in what you're saying? I'm leaning toward the latter.
Also, I'm aware of the distinction between sex and gender, I guess I'm just more interested in the grey areas of gender and how that applies to how we handle trans issues in society. I think the trans discourse has been spinning its wheels for years now, because we have failed to define the terms correctly. Speaking of, I'll just leave it at that.
EDIT: Ugh...alright. Gotta say my piece, then I'm done, promise. Just hear me out, and leave this up, please. I've earned that much.
As I mentioned in another thread a few months ago: in my thousands of interactions with friends, family, colleagues and strangers over the decades, I have yet to hear a single reason as to why homosexuality is wrong, either morally or ethically...because the reason doesn't exist.
The same applies to trans: there is nothing wrong with identifying as a different sex or gender. Period.
I've always been unapologetic about my alliance with LGBT: even as a kid surrounded by redneck, rural Montanans, and well into adulthood. Being an artist nerd musician weirdo myself, my company has always been dominated by fellow outcasts and, you guessed it, lots of gay and trans people...a few bi girlfriends, and plenty of straight folk as well. These will always be
my people...and even if they weren't, I would never deny their humanity, or hold them to a different standard. Trust me, my cred as an ally is fucking phenomenal, no one here or anywhere else can question it.
LGBT should never be conflated with other, morally despicable sexual actions. Again, obvious stuff.
That being said...does any of this make LGBT untouchable? Are they exempt from criticism or satire or scrutiny? Of course not....turns out these groups are comprised of humans. Do you know about humans? I'm gonna assume you do. They're capable of mistakes, mischief, betrayal, dishonesty, and even evil. They're prone to exaggeration and emotional nonsense. Sometimes a 'cause', no matter how righteous, can be corrupted. Doesn't matter what superficial 'identities' they assume, they're just fucked up people like the rest of us. Our similarities are far more apparent than our differences... and if we can't joke about these things, make light of them in a friendly way, then what are we left with?
Now, I wrongly assumed that Chappelle's lastest LGBT comments were in the vein of his milquetoast stuff from Sticks and Stones, and that the outrage was exaggerated, like many socio-political 'scandals' of my lifetime....I was wrong, and was swiftly corrected. I must concede that some of Dave's remarks went too far.
But you know what's a shame? This thread: right when perfectly reasonable questions were being raised, right when the terms were about to be properly outlined? What happened? A few generic, unspecific gender vs sex platitudes were thrown around and hey look, the discussion was shut down. All the sudden, the experts of the thread claimed the subject matter is out of their purview. Weird. Even after a page and a half of back and forth, after all the moral posturing, we hadn't even set the terms of the argument in a coherent way. The discussion was labeled as 'circular', when in fact it was only getting started.
And then accusations of transphobia started flying around. Wow. Go fuck yourselves, I mean that. You know nothing.
Consider this a resignation as both mod and user. Don't take it personally, this is merely a long-overdue epilogue of my divorce from the internet...personal growth and shit, right? I wish you all the best, and keep it Toho (not just kaiju, but the art films too!)