There's hardly a better way to start a group of people arguing or giggling than to bring up homosexuality. Some people have this idea that human sexuality is binary - that you can only be male or female.
Sorry - that's not true - and this is not just my opinion.
Go look up Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.
Whether you think God Almighty™, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is in charge, thousands of people in the USA and hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are born with serious genetic differences from "normal".
You may not properly address them as "Mr." or "Miss", and this is NOT a matter of their personal preference, as we have seen in the news recently - some are without gender. They have both traits, or neither. This is not an observation of personal opinion, but of biology. It's about what ER personnel have to do with what they find coming out of an ambulance.
Do you think you have the experience and expertise to tell the whole story about this issue? I suggest that is not the case - in fact, people who have spent their entire lives practicing medicine, in the research fields, at the most prestigious hospitals on the planet still have questions, as illustrated in the following link:
Do you think you have the experience and expertise to tell the whole story about this issue? I suggest that is not the case - in fact, people who have spent their entire lives practicing medicine, in the research fields, at the most prestigious hospitals on the planet still have questions, as illustrated in the following link:
[Warning: content contains descriptions which may seriously disturb the reader]
Yes, surgeons and parents cut children.
Now, there's a funny thing: the US Constitution doesn't let anyone's life, liberty or property be stripped without due process, and you cannot show how someone born in the USA isn't automatically a citizen and remains one.
Now, the linked article shows that "how you are built" doesn't stop with external appearance. Libido and sexual orientation, two different things, are determined by genetics. Yes, some behavior is learned, but to make an analogy, it is the internal parts that make a car move. You can't see them.
You should have noticed that the "CSI"-type TV shows have shown you that detectives do not have to have genitalia present to determine the gender of the deceased...
There's a lot of fear in the straight community. The evidence is in their own words, such as "Gay marriage will devalue the concept of marriage", and so forth. Some of this fear is understandable (although such people are notoriously silent about their own misbehavior in bars). How could anyone be in doubt about the attractiveness of a healthy member of the "opposite sex"?
Go read the links. Sometimes, there is no "opposite".
But there is an awful lot of foolish noise, brought on by fear and sustained by ego. Have you heard the cry, "...but science hasn't found the 'gay gene'!" Umm, fearful fellow, there's no single "straight gene". Why would you even try that argument?
Are you on the other side of this argument, trying to make points about individual responsibility, autonomy and so forth, trying to get people to let you live the life you imagine others are having? You still have to beware of logical fallacies.
For instance, it isn't "homophobia" when a gay person is called a name. Don't believe me?
Do you think when somebody calls a black man a name that they have an unreasoning fear of blacks? No. Of course not. You're engaging in the fallacy of projection, because people who calls homosexuals a name are not afraid of gays - they are afraid of themselves. They have never, not once, had genetics or any other human behavior explained to them in a rational manner. They learned an automatic response from a loved one who cannot be challenged, sometimes cherry-picking a part of a religious text to back their, umm, mistake.
For those of you who think, "being gay is only a choice": not only should the above links show you how you are completely wrong, you should ponder the irony of insisting that it is only choice that caused you to pick Miss Pink or Mr. Black for the dance.
Gee, that means that with a simple choice, you could have porn-star sex with someone of your own gender!
Of course not.
Mechanical ability doesn't mean anything in gender determination. Some people are left-handed, some are ambidextrous, some are right-handed. Using your left hand doesn't make you left-handed. Using both doesn't make you ambidextrous. Using your right... you know.
You should know. But somehow, you're afraid to think. Maybe that's because you have been taught that sex or other intimacy is always dirty. That's completely unreasonable, so perhaps you shouldn't think that.
