People sometimes assume religious traditions’ ideas about gender have always been conservative and unchanging.
In many cases, “conservative” views are actually new! Conservatisms always claim to stand for the values of the past, but they quite often make up a past that didn’t actually occur.
“The past” - you know, back when they were much younger and didn’t know how the world worked, so they made up a bunch of assumptions in their head and got mad whenever anyone told them they were wrong because it was obvious they were right since they’re brilliant and they came up with it.
Besides being ‘surprised’ or not I wonder how many ancient people would care much about atypical gender expressions even if they were ‘surprised’.
A small tribe might recognize someone was different but unless there was some cultural taboo against certain behaviors the tribe would probably be very utilitarian and recognize another healthy human is an asset to the tribe and nothing matters more than that.
Kind of ironic that the comforts afforded us by modern society give us so much free time and energy that we can waste human resources by being bigoted assholes about shit that our most primitive ancestors knew to be irrelevant to their survival.
You're right, and both Aboriginal and Indigenous American (many) cultures are testament to that. In some case they weren't simply accepted but seen as gifted, too.
And there are so many more examples of this from cultures all over the globe (Indian Hijra's come to mind).
This is a pearl in the ocean of debate on gender and sexuality. A lot of people can’t fathom the fact non-binary genders exist and are accepted in other cultures because they have been socialised by their own heteronormative culture. It’s understandable why a lot of people can’t make heads or tails about the lgbt community for said reason, but if people get out of their information bubble and read expansively (or even better travel) outside of their worldview, then they will gain better understanding just how complex the world is, and that people of non-binary genders are actually just normal people who deserves respect like everyone else.
A lot of people can’t fathom the fact non-binary genders exist and are accepted in other cultures because they have been socialised by their own heteronormative culture.
True
It’s understandable why a lot of people can’t make heads or tails about the lgbt community for said reason....
... then they will gain better understanding just how complex the world is, and that people of non-binary genders are actually just normal people who deserves respect like everyone else.
False. You don't need to understand a persons' relationship with their gender, or their sexual orientation, to respect them. And you definitely don't need to be well travelled or well read to understand that different kinds of people exist.
You might not mean it to be, but this argument is coddling the bigots and acting like ignorance excuses bigotry, when it doesn't.
And more so, as OP and mine and other replies here have clearly shown, probably most cultures on earth have had knowledge of the gender spectrum for hundreds if not tens of thousands of years (because it's part of nature and easily observable without the social constructs), so really there is no justification for that ignorance in the first place, yet it exists, and instead of trying to explain the ignorance you should be asking why it exists and to whose benefit.
My experience talking to people who can’t fathom the fact that there are more than one gender-- and insist there are only two-- is because that’s how they have been taught by their society. So, to me, that is driven by ignorance because they’re not aware that other cultures accept and even glorify non-binary genders. And what is bigotry though if it is not largely driven by ignorance? Fear of the unknown? It doesn’t always happen to everyone but Mark Twain did say that “traveling is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness”. Reading about the lgbt acceptance and treatment in other countries is because someone traveled, observed, studied them and published the studies internationally. My last point sounds facetious but that’s an extra ammunition to undermine the bigoted point that homosexuality supposedly “is not normal” and not universal, when in reality some cultures already accept them and all people in those cultures got on with their lives normally.
When you talk about LGBTQ+ people like objects that need studying and understanding and "acceptance", instead of fellow human beings just like you, or pander to those who think that, as if it's a legitimate position that deserves fair consideration (it isn't, we are people, just like everyone else, and exist literally everywhere and have done for all of human history), you're feeding their ignorance and their bigotry and confirming their opinion to them as a legitimate one instead of explaining why it isn't and never was, no matte how much they "don't understand".
When you talk about LGBTQ+ people like objects that need studying and understanding and “acceptance”, instead of fellow human beings just like you
Ever heard of the the term “anthropology”? “Sociology”? “Gender studies?” Various disciplines that study humanity broadly? The entire academic discipline called “Humanities”? I don’t know why you’re so uppity. You might as well accuse the entire scholarly field for “studying” human lives and aspects. What is life if one doesn’t study it and all its components?
you’re feeding their ignorance and their bigotry and confirming their opinion to them as a legitimate one
No! You completely misunderstand. What I’m saying is use the decades of research on human sexuality and gender against bigotry on lgbt! If someone say there is only two gender-- man and woman-- tell them gender and sex are not the same. Male and female are biological sex (there are actually more than one but explaining this requires an entirely different discussion), whereas gender is an abstract concept in which a person is placed social expectations based on the sex he/she is born with. Tell the bigots there are cultures that recognise more than one genders so their conflation of sex and gender is moot!
Whatever, I'm done here, you clearly don't comprehend how treating LGBTQ+ people as a separate type of human that one needs to study in order to "understand" before we can be treated as fellow humans instead of some curiosity (again - there are literally LGBTQ+ people EVERYWHERE, and there have been throughout ALL of human history. We are not "unusual" to the degree you are pretending we are), is being part of the problem, no matter your intentions.
You are affirming the bigotry.
If you actually want to fight it, I suggest challenging your own biases first, and then trying to listen to others who perhaps have more relevant experience than you do.
E: lmfao, this has nothing to do with "academia", and everything to do with you treating LGBTQ+ people as an oddity like/in order to "connect" with bigots, because you think confirming their bigotry will somehow get them to listen to you, while all it does is achieve the opposite.
But hey, whatever keeps you from taking any personal responsibility for your own actions and shit (or perhaps just insistently uninformed?) attitude, eh?
No regret on this block job.
And to the other person who thinks asking to be treated equally is "putting on a pedestal" - thanks for proving my point: that we aren't treated equally, and that when we ask to be we get accused of seeking "special treatment" and compared to a motherfucking disease. Do you people even hear yourselves???
Whether you mean to or not, actually no, it doesn't matter if you mean it or not, you are both queerphobic assholes perpetuating classic queerphobia. There is simply no debate here, and trying to invoke "academia" isn't going to get you anywhere since it is the same "academia" that once framed as as perverts and paedophiles. But yeah, I'm the one ignoring reality. Sure.
It seems like you’re the one who is putting LGBTQ+ people on a pedestal, by refusing the same level of anthropological, cultural, or mental study that any other group of people might experience.
Is it racist to say that sickle-cell disease is more common in people of African descent? Or to study why that is?
I thought Christianity is like that because it was based on Judaism, and Judaism is like that because the Hebrews kept getting killed. Hard to keep a people if they don't reproduce and you are constantly enslaved or at war.
The King James Bible actually gives advice on how to abort a baby if it was conceived out of wedlock. Not to mention all the time it said life begins at the first breath. It seems to be more about controlling women than anything else.
The idea about breath is common in the old testament, Adam for example was given the “breath of life” and that was the moment he was considered alive. Just like the phrase “know in your heart” indicated that they believed human consciousness resided in the chest, they also thought breath was the indicator of life.
The Numbers text was supposedly a test from God to see if a wife had been unfaithful, and that’s what Christians will no doubt claim about it, but in reality it’s instructions on how to create a poison that WILL cause a miscarriage and then claim that it’s God telling them she was unfaithful.
The one verse they use to support pro life isn’t even an actual doctrinal idea. It’s a poem from the book of Proverbs where the prophet Jeremiah was singing about how God had a plan for his life from the very beginning. Nothing about it is intended to be used as a medical interpretation about where and how life starts.
Though you might have fun talking with someone, I promise you won’t change minds with these verses.
I learned long ago that people don’t care what the Bible says. They only care what their spirituals leaders say.
“I git what yer sayin’ but I just thank it is wrong to keeuhl a bay bee. If god didn’t want tat bay bee the mom wouldn’t uh gawt pregnant. Brother Dave is a great man and he reads uh Bible ever day. He said life begins at conception.”
That’s what you’re going to get every single time. I promise.
If only they were intelligent enough to recognize the protestant reformation literally happened because a bunch of people went “Hey! I don’t think we should just accept whatever some dude behind a pulpit has to say about our religion! We should just read the bible for ourselves and figure out what it says!”
Fast forward and here we are, with a bunch of people who can’t even get their act together long enough to read their holy book just swallowing whatever some dude on stage tells them to believe and how to vote based on it.
Cults couldn’t exist at all if that wasn’t part of our nature though. “I’m an idiot. Someone has to know the way. This mystical lookin’ motherfucker HAS to know the answers. Oh, he said he does. I’m all in.”
I always interpreted the “don’t be gay” Bible thing to mean “if you’re not gay, don’t pretend to be” kinda thing. So I’ve always thought what the Bible says is wrong is to not accept your sexuality & try to change it.
I grew up an Orthodox Jew (I’m not as an adult). The way I learned it was that existing as a gay person, as in, that’s simply who you are, isn’t problematic. The issue is the act of gay sex itself, which is what the verse in the Torah refers to.
That is to say, your understanding is correct.
Disclaimer: I don’t care about it myself. Just explaining it how I was taught in Orthodox schools.
It was the same for us lutherans here in northern europe, it was the act itself that used to be disallowed. They’ve since allowed practicing gay and lesbian priests though.
Probably says something else too, I’ve been seeing interpretations based on the Hebrew texts, and, unsurprisingly, the versions people know tend to get it wrong & just use the text to reinforce preexisting beliefs.
Poo-poo wee-wee. Bored of it. So very bored of it. I promise not to genocide anybody, now shut up forever, because I don’t care and it isn’t interesting.
It's great you don't want to genocide anybody! But various governments and people do want to genocide us. Don't worry, it literally won't affect you if you just scroll past content you don't want to look at.
You can’t reject my goodwill; it has multiply-redundant guidance systems and is on its way to you right now. Better brace for impact, you’re going to feel so unconditionally respected. Now I’m going for a run.
I respect your rights as an autonomous being; I don’t have to find every aspect of your personality interesting. I don’t expect that from anybody, either!
This is my favorite comment on Lemmy so far. Someone thinks your being dismissive of gender issues and your defense is: No-no, I was talking about the Jews.
I always say if it’s in nature it’s totally fine. And we see this in nature, Godzilla also swapped his gender mid-movie so what is the freaking problem with some people to acknowledge this?
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