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going by the articles and the math, I may simply have been born at the exact time for phrasing to go out of style by the time I became an adult. Hm. I wonder if my grandmother felt that way about colored vs negro and later black. Then again, she was always weird...Discussion of it here, here, and here.The use of oriental in the US varies geographically. I've had a lot of white people from the western US tell me it's racist, which was news to both me and my asian friends the first time we were told that (I'm a southerner). The two words (oriental/asian) are also fairly interchangable in the Northeast. Perhaps it's a bigger issue out west since there's a larger asian-american population.I have heard much the same. When I grew up, it was the opposite (Asian is offensive, oriental is not). Not sure when or how it switched. Maybe I've just been living that long, which is...depressing. although it beats the alternative.
I went to read the comments of those articles, and I found that it seems to be a purely US thing, and more to the point, a regional US thing.
Please excuse my usage of the word Oriental in the post below, I am merely using it to try to explain, rather than slander anyone (much less myself).
The biggest irony, is I'd rather be referred to as part Oriental than Part Asian. In some parts of Europe (but not all), the term Asian is used far more derogatorily than the term Oriental. (technically though I qualify for Asian, I might not qualify as Oriental in those parts of Europe).
Of course, many of the Asians they are referring to are not from China or Japan or Korea, but more from the Arabian Peninsula and the surrounding areas as well as India and Pakistan.
In other places Asian isn't as derogatory, but the term Oriental is preferred as it is a Formal way of referring to someone or someplace (such as referring to someone as being from the West, a Westerner or Occidental rather than simply calling them Caucasian or Anglo, etc).
Oriental would be to African or Southern, rather than Negro [from the latinate of Black] (I normally don't use this term, I am ONLY using it to explain the difference between it and other terms). The word Negro (once again, I ask that you would please excuse this usage this once) would comparatively be to the word Yellow or Amarelos or Jaune(both are references to a color rather than location) when referring to those from Asia. I feel referring to someone by the color of their skin is FAR more offensive than referring to a location such as Asia or the Far East or East (Orient) or Africa or the South.
However, I think the company of Paizo falls into the region where the term Oriental is considered offensive (and yes, I was surprised as well) but ironically the term Asian is considered much better (I would normally use both terms in normal speaking).
I'll use the local colloquialisms and utilize the word Asian as that seems to be the accepted terminology here.
If I DO accidentally mess up (and I don't intend to), please don't think it's because I'm doing it on purpose (unless you really think I'm racist against myself, which is an odd thought), but PLEASE do correct me so that I am not offending others on this subject.
going by the articles and the math, I may simply have been born at the exact time for phrasing to go out of style by the time I became an adult. Hm. I wonder if my grandmother felt that way about colored vs negro and later black. Then again, she was always weird...Discussion of it here, here, and here.The use of oriental in the US varies geographically. I've had a lot of white people from the western US tell me it's racist, which was news to both me and my asian friends the first time we were told that (I'm a southerner). The two words (oriental/asian) are also fairly interchangable in the Northeast. Perhaps it's a bigger issue out west since there's a larger asian-american population.I have heard much the same. When I grew up, it was the opposite (Asian is offensive, oriental is not). Not sure when or how it switched. Maybe I've just been living that long, which is...depressing. although it beats the alternative.I went to read the comments of those articles, and I found that it seems to be a purely US thing, and more to the point, a regional US thing.
Please excuse my usage of the word Oriental in the post below, I am merely using it to try to explain, rather than slander anyone (much less myself).
The biggest irony, is I'd rather be referred to as part Oriental than Part Asian. In some parts of Europe (but not all), the term Asian is used far more derogatorily than the term Oriental. (technically though I qualify for Asian, I might not qualify as Oriental in those parts of Europe).
Of course, many of the Asians they are referring to are not from China or Japan or Korea, but more from the Arabian Peninsula and the...
Interesting. Very interesting.
All of that makes sense, and even here, there are objections to "Asian" as lumping together massive numbers of very different cultures (similar to how people talk about Africa as if it's a country rather than a continent). I try to use country/culture specific descriptors when I know them (e.g. "Japanese-American"), because we don't generally go around describing people as "European" or "European-American" as opposed to French or German or whatever, so it feels reductive to do it to people from countries in Asia.
All of that makes sense, and even here, there are objections to "Asian" as lumping together massive numbers of very different cultures (similar to how people talk about Africa as if it's a country rather than a continent). I try to use country/culture specific descriptors when I know them (e.g. "Japanese-American"), because we don't generally go around describing people as "European" or "European-American" as opposed to French or German or whatever, so it feels reductive to do it to people from countries in Asia.
for some reason, this all reminds me of the problem my grandmother (and rarely, my mother)had with Indian folks, as well as Carib-descended folks. Apparently there was a very real rivalry between these peoples and black people as well as between people descended from intermingling with these cultures in Panama and much of the Caribbean. It was not shown often(not many Indian folks in my neighborhood growing up, although there were a mixed folks here and there), but my mom and my grandmother were the first to say that such people will consider themselves white before anything else and that they could not be trusted as a result. I wonder what things are like now.
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Which is interesting as I have all three as part of my genetic make up. Among other things.
In the UK, "Asian" is shorthand for Indian, Pakistani, Kashmiri or Bangladeshi (I may be forgetting a couple), presumably on the basis that there's no early way of knowing which it is is without prior knowledge and it would be far more offensive to get it wrong than to simply elide the issue.
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All of that makes sense, and even here, there are objections to "Asian" as lumping together massive numbers of very different cultures (similar to how people talk about Africa as if it's a country rather than a continent). I try to use country/culture specific descriptors when I know them (e.g. "Japanese-American"), because we don't generally go around describing people as "European" or "European-American" as opposed to French or German or whatever, so it feels reductive to do it to people from countries in Asia.
Here in Europe we do describe people as "European", often as short-hand for "of European ancestry".
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Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night has an interesting discussion of relations between black and Indian-descended people in the Caribbean (mostly in the first few chapters). Probably basic history for anyone with ancestors from there but as a white Euro-American it was super eye-opening. Imperialism had some really complex impacts there.
Most of the time, and this is problematic, someone who is American of European descent won't be referred to as European American, but simply as American. While someone whose ancestors were from Asia or Africa will be, even if their family has been here as long.
“My people were in Texas a hundred years before Sam Houston, that wetback from Tennessee.”
Note that mister Garcia would be conversationally hyphenated to "Mexican-American," whereas I am not described as "European-American," "Anglo-American," "German-American," or what have you.
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Wow! :) This Thursday the 28th, Sarah McBride will be the first openly transgender woman to speak on the stage at the Democratic National Committee. (McBride is national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and a member of the steering committee for Trans United for Hillary.) Yay!
If you missed it, here's her speech. :D
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Good news from the great state of Washington:
12 States Will Support Obama’s Transgender Policies In Court, Bucking Texas And Others
Washington is leading a group of 11 other states in filing an amicus brief in the case that Texas and other states have launched against the guidance about transgender students issues by the Department of Education back in May.
The other states are: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont, along with Washington, D.C.
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Surprise of surprises. Digging through all my stuff getting ready for Gen Con I find I still have a hand full of Gaymer and Ally ribbons from last year. Because the Gaymer group was sponsored last year (and this year I hear) we had so many ribbons I reached the point where I couldn't give them away.
So if you want a Gaymer or Ally ribbon right out the gate, look for me in the Sagamore on Wednesday afternoon when I'm there to pick up my GM package. I will have them with me then. Otherwise, they'll be giving them out in all the same places this year as last year.
In the UK, "Asian" is shorthand for Indian, Pakistani, Kashmiri or Bangladeshi (I may be forgetting a couple), presumably on the basis that there's no early way of knowing which it is is without prior knowledge and it would be far more offensive to get it wrong than to simply elide the issue.
And I don't believe we use Hispanic at all.
Certainly Spanish and Portuguese are European.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I know you guys moved past the Star Trek talk, but here's a video about the Sulu thing that I found interesting. It does sound like pretty weak representation, and personally, I think it's sort of sad that a franchise once known for its daring diversity ended up falling behind the times. Still, definitely better late than never. :)
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Rantasmo's videos make a return visit to the thread. :)
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[WaPo:] "SCOTUS stays lower court transgender bathroom ruling..." Dang it, trans kids need to pee in peace too! They can't hold it til they get home. >:(
This pretty awful. If you know anyone still on the fence about the PotUS election this November, do what you can to persuade them to vote for Clinton or vote against Trump, and to also vote for any LGBT-friendly/Dem senators (and judges, if your state elects them). If elected, Trump will appoint anti-LGBT judges to SCotUS and circuit courts; if Repubs control the Senate, they'll continue to block all LGBT-friendly judicial appointees.
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I was at Gen Con and had the pleasure to attend the "Beyond 101: Evolving Discussions Of Women In Games" with Jessica Price. I also got the chance to talk to her briefly at the Paizo booth before Katherine Cross had to take her away. :) I shared with her some of my own story about my identity and how role-playing games helped me to explore my identity. I thought I would share some of my experiences here with all of you.
I'm the "T" in LGBT. I'm a straight transgender woman. When I hit puberty I started noticing that I'm attracted towards men. I also thought that I was more feminine than most of my peers and related more with the girls my age. Yet, I thought it was just one of the common characteristics/stereotypes of being a gay man. I have thought of myself as being a girl as long as I could remember, but there was a struggle of understanding how I wish to present myself. That I wanted to be seen as a woman by society at large rather than a feminine man. Difficult questions, but RPGs have been helpful for me to understand myself.
My first experience with role-playing games was with the D&D red box in about '83. I always liked to create female characters, cisgender female characters. I did make male characters, but never really liked to play them. I liked being in the role of a female, a gender that I felt that I was. I also loved that others were in role treating me that way. I couldn't get enough of it!
After I graduated high school and entered the military, I began to gravitate away from pen-and-paper roleplaying games. Mainly because there was no one interested in playing. I hit the arcades for my gaming. There wasn't really many video games that gave me the same experience that I got from the open sandbox play of tabletop. Most (if not all) of the characters were male during the late 80s.
I played Everquest shortly after it was released. I presented myself as a woman. When people would ask if I was a "real" woman, I would say I was. It was great, until I meet a creepy guy. He was talking about wanting to marry me. I quickly quit playing. Yet, I went back to MMORPGs when Final Fantasy XI came out. It was great to be able to actually create a female character.
Video games were great for me because it was a good medium to play when I had gender dysphoria and social anxiety. It gave me some social connections with the ability to shut it off at any time when the anxiety got too high.
I began to present myself as who I truly am after seeking help with a therapist to overcome my social anxiety. I was going out to my local game shop. Even thought it was very dominantly populated with men, it was a social place to play games, my favorite past time. I was taking up Magic: The Gathering.
I noticed that there was a Pathfinder group that meet up every other week. I frankly didn't know what it was. I picked up the Core Rulebook with the humble bundle. I discovered it was based on D&D! Although it wasn't the THAC0 system that I grew up with, I picked up the rules very quickly. The group I joined were very accepting of me, a transgender woman. Even though I was the only female playing, it was still fun to be a part of a regular RPG group and creating stories together and rolling dice.
I owe much to gaming as a media that helped me explore my own identity and discover who I am. There really wasn't much about gender diversity in early days of RPGs. Mostly females were background characters or just sexualized for the male gaze. I'm so glad to see that changed! I had to throw out a lot of the rules/campaigns and create my own. Yet, know the industry already has diversity created already.
There still isn't much within the system that has transgender PCs and NPCs, but I expect that will change soon. I know about Shardra and her being transgender, but it is just flavor that you find outside of source material.
Contributor
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Welcome to the thread! ^_^
There's a few trans NPCs in the Paths - Wrath of the Righteous and Hell's Rebels, for example.
There's also an item in the Advanced Class Guide, the elixir of sex shift.
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There's a few trans NPCs in the Paths - Wrath of the Righteous and Hell's Rebels, for example.
There's also an item in the Advanced Class Guide, the elixir of sex shift. ^_^
The Iconic Shaman Shardra, a transwoman, is also in the Advanced Class Guide :3
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-_-
This is why I should not respond to posts longer than 1 paragraph while half asleep.
*head* *desk*
You just need Devoted Kitty to wake you up. Or to purr-cuddle you to sleep.
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I was at Gen Con and had the pleasure to attend the "Beyond 101: Evolving Discussions Of Women In Games" with Jessica Price. I also got the chance to talk to her briefly at the Paizo booth before Katherine Cross had to take her away. :) I shared with her some of my own story about my identity and how role-playing games helped me to explore my identity. I thought I would share some of my experiences here with all of you.
Curse that Katherine Cross! :-) (I so want to be her when I grow up.) I'm glad I got a chance to chat with you, even if it was brief, and thank you for telling me your story. It's the blessing and the curse of Gen Con: one gets to meet so many lovely people, but generally only for a few minutes. Hope to see you there next year, and I'm glad you're here on the forums. :-)
There's a few trans NPCs in the Paths - Wrath of the Righteous and Hell's Rebels, for example.
I can't really comment on what NPCs you are talking about, since you didn't mention any specifically.
Anevia Tirabade isn't transgender. Anevia disguised as a girl in order to escape the law. Late Anevia drank a potion to complete the transformation, feeling that being a woman suited him/her best. A transgender is someone who is assigned a gender at birth but feels like they are not that gender. I can't relate to Anevia. I didn't just wake up one day and say "it is kind of nice to be a women, I think I'll be one." I always knew that I was a female for as long as I can remember.
There's also an item in the Advanced Class Guide, the elixir of sex shift.
This isn't a representation of transgender characters in Pathfinder, it is just a magical way to transform from one gender to another. Not all transgender people transition for various reasons. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had a girdle of gender swapping too. If I recall it was listed as a curse item. Wasn't anything I could relate to at all. It was especially tragic that they called it a cursed item. It made me believe that feeling that I am or wanting to be a different gender was a curse.
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Curse that Katherine Cross! :-) (I so want to be her when I grow up.)
I want to be just like her when I grow up as well. :)
Hope to see you there next year, and I'm glad you're here on the forums. :-)
I'm already planning my trip for next year. I'm even thinking about being on a panel. Jeff Sorensen was suggesting that I sit in on one.
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Anevia Tirabade isn't transgender. Anevia disguised as a girl in order to escape the law. Late Anevia drank a potion to complete the transformation, feeling that being a woman suited him/her best. A transgender is someone who is assigned a gender at birth but feels like they are not that gender. I can't relate to Anevia. I didn't just wake up one day and say "it is kind of nice to be a women, I think I'll be one." I always knew that I was a female for as long as I can remember.
She's transgender. Recall this passage from her bio:
Anvenn always felt awkward in his skin and avoided making friends as a result. In art and literature, Anvenn increasingly found himself identifying with strong female figures rather than their male counterparts—and for most of his life Anvenn would carry the conviction that he had been born into the wrong body.
And:
While the disguise was intended to throw off pursuit, Anvenn (who now went by the name Anevia) discovered that she felt right in this new persona
Also, please keep in mind that there are a lot of different trans experiences. Not everyone knew at a very young age, including some trans people who participate in this thread. Some of those people are only now in the process of figuring out that they're trans, or have only just done so.
Some people figure it out later in life. I know someone who had no inkling till he was in his mid-20s. I listened to a radio interview one day with someone who didn't figure it out till her late 40s. A lot of trans people figure it out around when puberty begins. That's when I knew.
I can look at the time before that, and I can see what was going on under the surface. But if you'd asked me when I was younger than 11 if I was female, I would have said no. After that, when I was 11 going on 12, and it hit me like a freight train, yes, I knew very deeply that I wanted to be a woman, that there were problems with my body as it was, problems with being a boy. I wished I could do something about it. I went through the longing, depression, shame, and suicidal periods that some of us are familiar with. But I wouldn't have called myself female back then.
Nowadays, I'd say, yes, I've always been female. Something just went wrong with my body. But I wasn't able to say that, or even believe it, until I started learning more about transgender people in my late teens and early 20s. That was the path I took to realizing my gender identity. I think it's the path a lot of us took, particularly back in the day when there wasn't a lot of information available and no one talked about it.
There is no single trans experience. There is a wonderful cacaphony of experiences, some paralleling each other, some not. Each of those experiences is valid.
For me, as a trans woman, Anevia rings very true. I love her and love her backstory.
I hope that someday soon, Paizo includes an NPC soon that rings true to your experiences as well.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had a girdle of gender swapping too. If I recall it was listed as a curse item. Wasn't anything I could relate to at all. It was especially tragic that they called it a cursed item. It made me believe that feeling that I am or wanting to be a different gender was a curse.
There was a discussion of the girdle and the problems with its cursed status here that might be worth a look. I'm pretty sure the official Paizo position these days is that it is not a cursed item.
Edit to add: I get what you're saying about the Elixir of Sex Shift. Last year, Kurt Busiek wrote an issue of his superhero comic, Astro City, that focused on a trans character. But she was a super science genius, and when she transitioned, she was able to do so without hormones, without surgery, and she makes a point of stating that in her narration of her origin story. It blunted the impact of the story for me.
I think it depends on how the elixir is used in the narrative. To some extent, it can represent a kind of HRT, to some extent, it can't. The story one is telling about one's character (or about an NPC), and the degree to which it depends on something like the years long experience of transition in the real world, will probably determine the degree to which something like the elixir, and the use of the elixir, can stand in as Golarion analogues.
I think if you poke around in the comments beneath Shardra's Meet the Iconics blog entry, you'll find that Crystal Frasier, who wrote her backstory, statted out the method Shardra herself used, and it's a lot closer of an analog to real world HRT.
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She's transgender. Recall this passage from her bio:
Anvenn always felt awkward in his skin and avoided making friends as a result. In art and literature, Anvenn increasingly found himself identifying with strong female figures rather than their male counterparts—and for most of his life Anvenn would carry the conviction that he had been born into the wrong body.And:
While the disguise was intended to throw off pursuit, Anvenn (who now went by the name Anevia) discovered that she felt right in this new persona
I just read what little I could about this character from doing some google searches. That top quote you cited does make it seem that the character is transgender.
Also, please keep in mind that there are a lot of different trans experiences. Not everyone knew at a very young age, including some trans people who participate in this thread. Some of those people are only now in the process of figuring out that they're trans, or have only just done so.
Absolutely! If you read what I wrote above, you'll see that I didn't identify as a female until later in my life. I identified as a feminine gay man. It wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I started to think of myself as a woman. I didn't start to transition until I was 44 years old.
Yet, I still maintain that if the character just used it as a disguise and then somehow thought it suited them (which clearly based on the quote you provided is not the case), the character is not really transgender. If anything it trivializes what it means to be a transgender person. It isn't about when you began to understand yourself or adopt that identity, but rather just making it seem like it was something you could switch on and off.
There was a discussion of the girdle and the problems with its cursed status here that might be worth a look. I'm pretty sure the official Paizo position these days is that it is not a cursed item.
I wasn't talking about the item being cursed or not from Paizo's perspective, but from how the item was presented in AD&D in the early 1980s by TSR.
I wasn't talking about the item being cursed or not from Paizo's perspective, but from how the item was presented in AD&D in the early 1980s by TSR.
A lot of water under the bridge since then. (For example, it was harder to get de-Girdled than brought back from the friggin' dead. Sheesh.)
I still recall how dumbfounded a lot of us (myself included) were when, in like 2002 or so, it turned out that Hazlik, Darklord of Hazlan was *gasp!* GAY! Always had been, the signs were there in his backstory once you figured it out, but the industry being what the industry was, they'd danced around the subject for over a decade.
Thankfully, times change.
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A lot of water under the bridge since then. (For example, it was harder to get de-Girdled than brought back from the friggin' dead. Sheesh.)
I still recall how dumbfounded a lot of us (myself included) were when, in like 2002 or so, it turned out that Hazlik, Darklord of Hazlan was *gasp!* GAY! Always had been, the signs were there in his backstory once you figured it out, but the industry being what the industry was, they'd danced around the subject for over a decade.
Thankfully, times change.
Yes, things have changed for the better over the years. Yet, they are not perfect by any means.
The group that I play Pathfinder with are very open minded, but they still do things that make me cringe. Like for example, believing that having sex with a woman under a charm spell is not the same as rape. That is no different than drugging someone and then having sex with them. (Like Bill Cosby, for example.)
There still are some of the good-ol'-boy jokes that get passed around as well. I don't know if they realize that the jokes they tell will alienate women and LGBT folk. Thankfully it doesn't happen with everyone at the table, but usually it just takes one.
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The group that I play Pathfinder with are very open minded, but they still do things that make me cringe. Like for example, believing that having sex with a woman under a charm spell is not the same as rape. That is no different than drugging someone and then having sex with them. (Like Bill Cosby, for example.)
There still are some of the good-ol'-boy jokes that get passed around as well. I don't know if they realize that the jokes they tell will alienate women and LGBT folk. Thankfully it doesn't happen with everyone at the table, but usually it just takes one.
Having left a long-running campaign where there was a strong under-current of that sort of behaviour, it was not just men, it was not just women, and what's disturbing the most is that it 'fed' on itself.
Not necessarily 'one-upmanship', but instead a rather toxic environment (that's supposed to be PG-13) that kept going darker, and ickier.
If I wanted that kind of gritty realism in my space opera, I'd open a newspaper.
By the way,
Welcome aboard to our journey into education and enlightenment. May the path ahead be as educational for you as it is for us, and may we all come out at the end of the day having learned something new.
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Yet, I still maintain that if the character just used it as a disguise and then somehow thought it suited them (which clearly based on the quote you provided is not the case), the character is not really transgender. If anything it trivializes what it means to be a transgender person. It isn't about when you began to understand yourself or adopt that identity, but rather just making it seem like it was something you could switch on and off.
Sometimes we do things which might seem odd even to ourselves at the time, but we consciously rationalize it or make excuses for it. It only later makes sense in hindsight after further self-discovery and acceptance.
I've told my anecdote before, about having "weird" feeling for girls in high school but being unable (and unconsciously unwilling) to figure out what that meant. I was so relieved when I developed an intense crush on a boy, a sweet shy willowy boy. I was really thrown for a loop when that boy came out to me as a transgender girl. Even then, I shrugged off the crit from that cluebyfour; I doggedly failed to process my feelings and what it meant about my sexual identity. It wasn't until years later that it become embarrassingly obvious.
It's possible that Anevia couldn't yet accept who she really was, and told herself it was just a disguise. It's also possible she'd never met or heard of transgender individuals before, especially in a place like Golarion that lacks modern instantaneous communication and online communities for LGBTIQ folk.
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The group that I play Pathfinder with are very open minded, but they still do things that make me cringe. Like for example, believing that having sex with a woman under a charm spell is not the same as rape. That is no different than drugging someone and then having sex with them. (Like Bill Cosby, for example.)
Yeah, I there seems to be a section of guys who will admit to considering acts of sexual assault and battery acceptable as long as they can rationalize it isn't rape. I don't think your fellow players are potential rapists (I don't even know them), but their mindset seems part of "it's not rape" narrative that doesn't get called out often enough. I wish the majority of guys who know this is wrong would openly call their friends out on this kind of thinking. I'm sorry you have to endure it.
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Also, a belated welcome!
The group that I play Pathfinder with are very open minded, but they still do things that make me cringe. Like for example, believing that having sex with a woman under a charm spell is not the same as rape. That is no different than drugging someone and then having sex with them. (Like Bill Cosby, for example.)Yeah, I there seems to be a section of guys who will admit to considering acts of sexual assault and battery acceptable as long as they can rationalize it isn't rape. I don't think your fellow players are potential rapists (I don't even know them), but their mindset seems part of "it's not rape" narrative that doesn't get called out often enough. I wish the majority of guys who know this is wrong would openly call their friends out on this kind of thinking. I'm sorry you have to endure it.
Truth of the matter is that it's Not Just Gender lines.
The WORST offenders of the 'rape rationalization' I've seen have been... women.
Whether as an effort to maintain some sort of position in that particular subset of the gaming community or some personal grudge I couldn't tell you.
EVERYONE, imo, needs awareness what 'No means NO!' and not 'No means "Well, maybe in this one isolated special circumstance you're OK..." '
Without diminishing the importance of the discussion, would it be possible to shift to a slightly more pleasant topic, please?
ON something different, something rather horrific happened at the Olympics.
A reporter for the Daily Beast by the name of Nico Hines did an article on sex in Rio.
He went on Tinder, grindr, and jack'd to find hookups.
He then printed his story. In his story he OUTED ATHLETES who had NOT BEEN outed, and had not made the decision to go public.
EVEN WORSE, some of those atheletes were supposedly from nations where these activities are illegal (meaning he could have condemned some of them to jail...or in the worst case...to death).
What would his purpose be in doing this? You don't do that to people.
The Daily Beast took down the article after, but I imagine for some the damage has already been done.
Link to where I read aobut it...
It's a dumb thesis for an article dealing with the Olympics to begin with. It should have been scrapped from the beginning.
A better article would be how the athletes train in different parts of the world. A better article would focus on the athletes' upbringing. A better article would go into detail on the support given by their nations (do they have to work, which cuts into training)? A better article would have skipped the sex altogether.
If they wanted to talk about sex tgey should have discussed how the Olympics might deal with prostitution or hunan trafficking. That could have been an article focused on security.
No one needs to know anything about anyone else's sex lives.
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It is a good thing when public figures such as Olympic athletes come out as lgbt because it helps those who might be struggling or having difficulty finding relatable role models. I also don't agree that being out as gay is all about sex. It's about relationships. What that reporter did is wrong for the aforementioned reasons, but an article about gay athletes is not out of line in itself.
The group that I play Pathfinder with are very open minded, but they still do things that make me cringe. Like for example, believing that having sex with a woman under a charm spell is not the same as rape. That is no different than drugging someone and then having sex with them. (Like Bill Cosby, for example.)Yeah, I there seems to be a section of guys who will admit to considering acts of sexual assault and battery acceptable as long as they can rationalize it isn't rape. I don't think your fellow players are potential rapists (I don't even know them), but their mindset seems part of "it's not rape" narrative that doesn't get called out often enough. I wish the majority of guys who know this is wrong would openly call their friends out on this kind of thinking. I'm sorry you have to endure it.
ugh. I've been in ugly arguments(not fights, at least not yet) over charm spells and intimacy. I am very grateful to paizo for outlining what the spell does and does not do, it has kept things from going bad places in games I have been in and have run.
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It is a good thing when public figures such as Olympic athletes come out as lgbt because it helps those who might be struggling or having difficulty finding relatable role models. I also don't agree that being out as gay is all about sex. It's about relationships. What that reporter did is wrong for the aforementioned reasons, but an article about gay athletes is not out of line in itself.
It is *NOT* a good thing when the country that they are representing views such activity as (at the very least) illegal.
Especially for those countries that have mandatory re-education training/life imprisonment/DEATH.
DEFINITELY not outing on the world stage.
Now the country in question is forced to make sure the athlete gets 'home', but they will probably never be heard from again (unless they medal dramatically).
Truth-in-text: I am not gay or bi as far as I know. But people should be able to make their *own* choices at the pace they want to progress, not have it shoved at them.
Maybe that makes me too idealistic?
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I don't think that's what Belle was saying, tengu-friend. ^_^
I think her point, in response to Bob's post, was that it's important to report on LGBT athletes (and not treat it as dirty or all about sex). I didn't read her post as being pro-forced outing at all. Look more carefully at the final line of the quote in your post.
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The issue isn't that it was about openly lgbt athletes. It was about the ones who wanted to use hookup sites and apps. That's no one's business. It was about sex. Many of them were outed because a journalist wanted something provocative rather than substantial.
It would have been very different if those people were interviewed rather than stalked.
So I was on Tumblr earlier and GayWrites, an LGBT-focused blog I follow, put up this survey on the intersection of ID'ing as LGBT and atheist. Figured I'd share for anyone who's interested.
And, in other news, my long-distance boyfriend dumped me today.
The breakup was as amicable as these things ever are.
Cake had it right: "'Friend' is a four-letter word."
We return you now to your regularly-scheduled programming.