"Who was a gay man"

[noblegiraffe]

I've been reading quite a lot of responses to Rowling's post about her trans friend and this one has made me think a lot because it wasn't even something that registered when I read her post. It's 'transing away the gay' in action, and I'd not even noticed. I strongly doubt Rowling meant it that way either, so I think it is a perspective that deserves a wider audience.

"I’ve been thinking about this and I hope this reply makes sense.

Firstly - I get it. I understand that a gay man might be a friend and his desire to be called she (hence his performance which does help with that) is something a friend might do. I also understand that this doesn’t mean you think he’s “lesser” - because obviously, women aren’t lesser so that’s not in your thinking. I also get the kinship feeling that happens with men like him - and the massive “othering” that happens from our (other gay men) side.

That said, you are referring to a gay man as “she”. You also said he “was” a gay man.

He still is. You can’t make someone not gay in the same way you can’t make someone not a man - who is a man.

And the effect of “who was a gay man” immediately provokes a very strong emotional reaction in me. “Was” a gay man. Ergo isn’t any more. It’s hard to explain but seeing any gay man described as effectively “ex gay” is unavoidably alarming to me.

Also, while again, the intent is not to denigrate - I know that, because there’s nothing inherently lesser or undesirable about “female coded energy” - that energy is found much more in gay men than straight men. It is really important to me to make sure people understand gay men are as much men as any other men. Every single one.

And the effect of even one exception - within “gay man world” - is to continue the problem we have with our perceived “femininity”. Plenty of gay men already reject men they consider “feminine” (and I don’t mean camp here i mean the soft gentle men) and those men are the most vulnerable to incorrectly concluding they are “better off” as mimics of women.

This is never the case. While I would never force people to undo surgeries and hormone treatments they are now healthy on, going forward we should I think be advocating for “no one is better off as a mimic of the opposite sex”, and “disguising attributes as opposite sex” should be off the table.

And so I will never call another gay man “she” again. I won’t call a straight one she either but people who make an exception nearly always do that for soft, gentle gay men - and I know it’s not malicious, not homophobic and not because they see these men as “lesser”. It’s because they recognise kinship. I understand that.

But my reply is because this is what keeps a certain pressure on gay men, especially the soft gently younger ones to start questioning “am I also “better off” as a “she””. It’s effectively wider “social transitioning” which isn’t neutral. It’s not a zero impact choice. There is some impact.

Because you’re also not using “she her” for him - for his benefit - he’s not here? I means granted he might read it but - the effect is to tell me you don’t consider this gay man to be a gay man anymore. On account of traits and mannerisms he has - that a lot, or even most gay men have in some degree. (I have no words for this “gayness” - it’s not female like but it is… definitely a thing).

This isn’t about the you-him relationship because the language is third person. This is about the you-reader or if I’m speaking to you the you-me relationship.

It’s not the worst thing ever™️ but it matters to me to say why I don’t think it’s a good idea to make any exception - especially because it influences the gay man world to continue to “other” those who are deemed “soft and gentle” - or even “ethereal” sometimes - and for those gay men to continue to believe they are “better off” changing themselves to look like women."

https://x.com/duncanhenry78/status/2047291489294639527?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

A fuller quote is "an individual trans woman I know, who was a gay man pre-transition, and who I met for the first time post-transition"

"who was a gay man pre-transition" certainly implies that something has changed between the pre and post-transition. What's interesting to me is that it didn't register with me at all, but it did register quite strongly with a gay man. Rowling goes onto clarify that she doesn't think he has literally changed sex but there's something about the specified sexuality which is left hanging.

Why did it take a gay man to point this out to me? Clearly as women we are very vigilant about the 'not changing sex' part and this has been spelled out. Perhaps I should be more vigilant about the 'you can't change your sexuality' part too.

But 'femme' is French for 'woman'. It pre-dates gender ideology

Male gay culture has borrowed a word which means woman and applied it to men. It's used to imply that 'femme' men are like women not in the biological sense of having a body organised around the sexual reproductive strategy of producing eggs (because that's impossible) but in the cultural sense of resembling women in terms of sexist stereotypes

There are plenty of trans women who socially and culturally participated in the gay community. It's not for me to interpret their lives, or experiences, or impose identities. But they are there, and have been there since before my own transition, none the less. There were also trans men who came out of lesbian and feminist communities. I'm not going to speculate on their lives either.

Transition is a process. There was a start and an end; a before and an after. I don't believe JKR is being nefarious with her choice of words here. Venturing into speculated or ascribed sexualities is creepy, though.

The butch-femme dynamic in gay and lesbian relationships predates the invention of 'gender ideology' and the corresponding gathering of sex realist beliefs surrounding gender, identities and sex.

Radical feminists also had thoughts about the dynamic before trans people appeared on their radar. It is a thing. It exists.

What do you mean by 'venturing into speculated or ascribed sexualities is creepy'?

I certainly don't think Rowling was being nefarious with her choice of words.

I don't particularly care if she calls her trans friend 'she' either, regardless of thinking he is still a man. Sacrificing family and friends on the altar of ideology is something some people think is necessary and others don't.

I agree.

I was responding to your statement: "Perhaps I should be more vigilant about the 'you can't change your sexuality' part too."

Why would a random person's sexuality require vigilance? How does a person find themselves with the power to assign random strangers into sexualities?

Sacrificing family and friends on altars is very dramatic. They could at least throw a party.

You've done a spectacular job of purposefully misinterpreting what was written,
onepostwonder.

It is possible, yes. But allowing for other sex realist beliefs, it doesn't seem like a bridge too far. You're all calling me a gay man, for example.

Because in this modern world, correctly sexing someone requires vigilance as the language built around trans people deliberately obfuscates this. Rowling was careful to specify that she didn't believe that 'she' (her trans friend) had changed sex.

But it should be made equally clear that one cannot change sexuality by changing sex. A gay man doesn't become straight by becoming a trans woman: they are still a gay man. This clarification is clearly important to Duncan who is alarmed at the idea that certain gay men do not belong in the subset of gay men because they are feminine being validated by the suggestion that he was a gay man prior to transition.

Yes, the butch/femme dynamic does pre-date gender ideology. I was saying that the word 'femme' meant 'woman' in French before gender ideology and therefore originally meant female in the sense of biological sex to French people. It meant 'adult human female' when gay culture borrowed it

Gay culture has absorbed sexist stereotypes from wider society and replicated them in its own culture. That's what @noblegiraffe was talking about in their OP when they talked about some gay men being referred to as 'she', and they also said that it carries connotations of being inferior. And it's what @Hedgehogforshort was talking about when they referred to the 'femme' gay man they knew as being 'passive' and 'submissive'.

Both gender ideology and (some aspects of) gay culture have consciously or unconsciously absorbed misogyny from wider society and replicated it by using sexist stereotypes. Gay culture may have been doing this in a tongue-in-cheek way with the acknowledgement that femme men aren't actually women. TRAs have gone one step further by claiming that sexist stereotypes are what actually makes someone male or female. Both are ultimately damaging as @Pingponghavoc pointed out

Well you’re a male who has stated he likes men. Ergo you are a male homosexual. Or, in common terms, a gay man. What is wrong with being a gay man? I know lots of lovely gay men.

I assumed “used to be a gay man” was used to say “and therefore created no trans widow” but if it was, there are many other people in a transitioner’s life who their transition negatively effects. Plus gay men do still often marry women anyway.

No. Oestrogen did not “take over your pubertal development.” That is scientifically impossible. No one born male can ever go through a female puberty. You went through a male puberty then used oestrogen to artificially produce body changes which resemble some female secondary sexual characteristics. You still have, and always will have, a male sexed body.

Those are empirical scientific facts. Not beliefs.

My phenotypical sex, as observable to anyone, is female. The process was quite natural. It was directed by my own genetic makeup.

Yes, according to the One Law To Rule Them All, my sex is not female. Surprisingly, though—no one but FWR seems to care.

I'm going to guess that you're not gay or lesbian. The butch-femme dynamic wasn't how I understood its use in the OP or in the subsequently linked blog post. The dynamic was surprisingly absent, which is why I introduced it in my initial response. It's a gender topic, for certain. It was really pervasive in the 80s and 90s lesbian and gay cultures. But I don't believe it has anything to do with trans.

The men the OP was discussing are/were maligned because of something else. I never heard any gay man being dismissed out of the community as not manly enough. Men made room for all men. It sounds like the culture has changed since the 80s.

Interesting how we read things through our own lenses! I assumed 'used to be a gay man' was intended to signal that it was not someone who had a fetish.

I asked Duncan to clarify this and he says that gay men who were feminine weren't kicked out of any community, just seen as undesirable sexually.

Gay and Lesbian are far more than identities. There are cultures and sub-cultures.

Previously married women who believed themselves to be straight enter lesbian relationships all the time. The same with men. Identities and affiliations change. The relationship dynamic changes, the cultural placement and/or acknowledgment of couples remains socially (and sometimes legally) contentious. Lesbian feminist space is different than radical femiinist space.

My relationship with my husband is more than just sex. We are part of various communities. Our children have never known 'two dads.' My neices and nephews have never had 'two uncles.' When you create labels for other people, they have to make sense in the world. My husband and I would feel very unwelcome in a bathhouse. I wouldn't be allowed in the door.

We don't know the reality lived by JKR's friend. It is none of our business. We do not have to make it make sense.

Masculinity is highly valued, yes. But that doesn't automatically make femininity unvalued.

That’s hilarious, you should write fiction. You’re certainly creating plenty on this thread.

If masculinity is highly valued, does that not make femininity less valued? Or are you saying both masculinity and feminity are equally highly valued?

(Putting aside the contentious issues of what masculinity and femininity are for a moment)

There comes a point in every one of onepost's The-World-According-To-Meee derailings when you begin to wonder about his grip on reality. First he was a gay boy, then his observable sex changed , quite naturally, to female. Driven, no less, by his genetic makeup.

Or maybe it's his grip on truth.

There is a point at which you are demanding people have a level of perfection in their communications that is simply not possible, and which would be debilitating to communication at all to attempt.

Maybe if people like JKR can send along their statements to be vetted for every possible nuance of interpretation ahead of saying or writing them, they'd get closer. They can tell her how to say it so no one will think that she believes people can change sex (even though she says and has continuously said for years that she does not think people can change sex.)

What did they do to you in that clinic? Have you considered suing them? They’ve obviously caused a lot of mental damage. You can’t even remember your own backstory. You poor poor lamb .