Tag: Adult

Posted on

So which is it?

Armed protesters stand guard outside a drag show at Anderson Distillery & Grill in Roanoke, Texas. (Kelly Neidert)

Antifa is looking a LOT more like the Fascists than the “Enemy” they’re supposed to be worried about.

Anti Drag Shows for Kids protestors

Of the two groups which looks more like a paramilitary group?

Are guns only bad when they’re in the hands of conservative leaning people? Is the take away that ANTIFA is protecting decency, which is arguable at best?

Was it ANTIFA that attacked the Federal Building in Portland or not? Weren’t they the folks blinding officers and throwing fire bombs trying to kill folks assigned to protect the Federal Building?

Who was it that beat Andy Ngo damn near to death? Oddly it wasn’t normal law abiding folks. But apparently that’s to be swept under the rug.

This is all about a drag show for children in Texas.

I never thought I’d be writing a sentence that contained the words Drag Show and Children in it.

WTF?

I remember being in a gay bar late one night in Laguna Beach where a child came up to the 6’5” tall, muscular as all hell, ex military demolition specialist, doorman, asking for help.

The doorman scooped this frightened child up off the ground, walked into the bar told the bartender to stop selling booze, the Saturday Night Crowd made a path to the bar. The whole downstairs bar emptied out and this scary giant of a man, tended ever so gently to the child’s scrapes.

In his deep baritone he asked what had happened.

When he and several others nearby who were providing wet clean towels, who’d grabbed the first aid kit, and an unimpaired RN, heard;

“Daddy and Mommy are fighting bad”

The doorman very gently asked, “Can you tell me where they are?”

“We’re on vacation. The hotel is across the street. I came over here because it sounded happy.”

“Are they still fighting?”

“I guess so, they fight a lot.”

“Okay little one, I’ll go check on them.”

He and several other men went to the door. Over his shoulder he called to a bartender, “Get some juice for her, don’t sell any booze while she’s here, and call the police.”

There are a lot of things that made me proud of the community that night. The short list is this.

The men that followed the doorman out all knew how to handle themselves. They were either military, ex military, bikers or fighters of various stripes.
All the men in the bar stopped drinking
They all put their glasses on the upper Bar
They changed the music to something happy but not blaring.
The patrons adopted proper decorum and spoke quietly among themselves.

After 10 minutes, the doorman came back with bloodied knuckles, carrying a small boy who’d obviously been smacked around, followed by a dazed battered woman.

Without question the RN moved on to address the bruises and scrapes on the woman and little boy. The doorman, with easy familiarity grabbed a clean bar towel, filled it with ice from behind the bar and wrapped his right fist.

The little boy was watching the doorman closely, obviously curious about the towel and ice.

The doorman, smiled. He got up and made a smaller towel with a little bit of ice. He handed it to the little boy, “Hold this against your eye. It might hurt at first but the cold will make it feel better.”

The doorman rewrapped his fist and sat quietly watching the RN taking care of his patients. Eventually the RN got to the doorman’s scrapes & cuts.

The doorman tried to wave the RN away.

“Thad, let me do my job!”

The doorman sighed, “Okay, but I’m fine.”

The police arrived. They were obviously a little stunned. Usually, when they came into the bar it was rowdy and they were enforcing a noise complaint. Yet this time, the lights were on full and everyone was quiet and respectful.

The doorman, spoke briefly to them. A few minutes later an ambulance pulled up in front of the hotel.

Statements were taken and the woman and her children left with the police. Before they left, the children ran back to the table where the doorman was sitting and climbed onto him. They hugged him tight and he hugged them back with tears brimming.

“You’re going to be alright children. Take care of your mommy.”

Their mom said, “Thank you so much,” then collected her kids and left.

That is the gay community I remember. Yes, hated by many, but good men and women.

We at the time, were fighting for our equal place in society. We knew that equality would only come when we demonstrated in all other respects, except who we peopled our bed with, we were just like everyone else.

Drag shows are not the place for children. Gay bars are not the place for children. The LGB community knew that instinctively without question. The story above illustrates that simple fact.

What the fuck has happened to this community? Just because we were outliers then doesn’t mean we have to keep being outliers.

I know of no folks in the LGB community who would think for an instant that a Drag show should be attended by children. It’s adult entertainment for adults. You wouldn’t take children to a strip show. You wouldn’t take children to a bar with half naked go go boys dancing on the bar.

Hell, if you’re a responsible person you wouldn’t even show a movie with such depictions to children.

It’s not even about morality or puritanical religious squeamishness.

It’s about protecting a child’s innocence!

We all find our various kinks when we’re of age, when we’re ready for it, and when we’re old enough to handle it.

Let a child be a child, for God’s sake!

Then we have in Texas, a drag show with armed ANTIFA in black out clothing forming a perimeter. What the hell kind of message does that send?

What does a child think of that?

Especially after Uvalde and all the noise about AR-15s being dangerous. ”Only bad people carry AR-15s, run and hide if you see someone with one of those”.

Then 6 weeks later that same parent is saying, “come on in here don’t worry about the rifles.”

You’ve already got a confused child, then you subject them to bad drag.

If that doesn’t cause a fear of clowns and makeup, I’ll be surprised.

Pennywise from IT

It’s long past time for the LGB community to stand up. It’s time for us to put a stop to this because we’re uniquely in a position to do so. The trans activists have hitched their wagon to the LGB community and the community has allowed it.

So now it’s our responsibility. We allowed this mess to be made it’s on us to clean it up!

Are we willing to let everything we fought so hard to gain be corrupted and stripped away by the actions of a fringe group of trans activists?

Are we willing to be shamed back into the closet by 1% of the population who simply choose to hitch their wagon to ours?

Will we allow all that we’ve accomplished to be degraded back to things like; Gays can’t marry, can’t have jobs, can’t have places to live, sodomy laws, and all that we managed to fix so that we can be thought of as equal?

I for one refuse!

I like being LGB and being treated with respect and normalcy. I like being able to get my freak on without worry of someone ratting me out to the cops for immoral behavior.

This trans activist bullshit has got to stop.

There are things that Trans folks need to have addressed. But not everyone is Trans!

How dare Trans activists imply that if someone likes the same sex they’d be happier transitioning to the opposite sex. There are little boys and little girls right now who would probably grow up CIS and LGB and be quite happy about it.

Those children deserve to discover their preferences in their own time, in their own way. How many boys and girls will have that joy of discovery ripped away from them by people deciding for them?

Isn’t that the same thing the Trans activists are saying is so wrong, when they say things like a Doctor assigns sex at birth?

Where have all the heroes gone? I’m sure as hell not a hero but if I’m all there is, then I’ll do my best.

Not Thad. But they’re cut from the same cloth

Thad – where ever you are now. 40 some odd years ago, you taught a green young man being gay or bi didn’t make you less a man, as men we still had responsibilities to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. You taught me that gay or bi didn’t have to be my whole personality, it was just a part of who I was. You gave me a memory of decency and strength. I’m eternally grateful.

Posted on

Not to beat Roe v. Wade into the ground, but…

As the media, Hollywood, and politicians continue to bang on about just how awful overturning Roe v. Wade will be and their shrill demand My Body My Choice echos through the land. I got to thinking…

If they really mean “My Body My Choice” then shouldn’t they also condone prostitution?

Would all these Neo-Feminists be so keen to preserve Roe, if the ruling also said Prostitution is legal in all 50 states?

Is it fair that a woman can be arrested for renting her body? After all, a prostitute is still exercising autonomous control over her body isn’t she?

It’s hypocritical on its face that many of the same women demanding abortion be Federal, not in the hands of the states, typically take a very dim view of prostitution.

I’m not even going to point out the hypocrisy of those same women becoming screaming “Karens” demanding everyone get a COVID vaccine.

Then there was one shrew on a show saying that all boys should be subject to mandatory vasectomies when they reach reproductive age.

Her reasoning was “It can be reversed”. But that’s not entirely true in all cases. Norplant and IUDs can be reversed too, again not in all cases. However, she wasn’t calling for mandatory Norplant or IUD implantation.

Nope, for this particular shrew, it was only men that bore the responsibility for unwanted pregnancy. She completely ignored the fact that while some rapes result in pregnancy, the vast majority of abortions are performed on women who consented to sex.

Both men and women bear the responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy. Birth control is readily available to both genders.

Or are we to infer that women are too emotionally weak, inflamed by their passions, or irresponsible to tell their sex partner, “No, not without a condom,” when they know they’re not using birth control themselves? Where is the concept of My Body My Choice here?

I can’t remember if the shrew was Sunny Hostin or Joy Reid nor can I find the exact quote at the moment.

(I’m looking for it. I’ve been shocked at how many threads there are demanding forced sterilization of men. One could infer that women think forced sterilization is perfectly fine as long as it’s a man, and only women have the right to “My Body, My Choice“)

I wonder how they’d feel if Roe was modified and codified into the US Constitution as All Americans have the same right, “My Body My Choice,” allowing prostitution and the right to refuse any medical treatment, regardless of the situation.

How would they behave if, in the spirit of equity, the law applied equally to Women and Men.

Then there’s another hypocrisy surrounding the issue. I’ll grant you it’s an outlier but think about this. If an unmarried couple find that they’ve created a life. The woman in the couple under current law, can have the baby aborted without the male partner’s consent.

However, if the woman carries the baby to term, the father of record, is legally obligated to provide child support and pay all the fees the court may decide to saddle him with. Regardless of his desire that the woman abort his child. He might also be denied the right to visitation. This, even if the couple has broken up and the woman has found another wealthier partner and married him.

I’m not meaning to open the can of worms about child support per se, but I do ask the question; why in this scenario does the man have absolutely no choice?

Well, he does have a choice… There’s the phenomenon of solo sexuality.

This is where normal healthy young men chose to tend to their own needs exclusively so that they don’t risk being trapped into fatherhood or anything else by a vagina owner.

This logical response by men who wish to avoid complications, or entrapment, is technically under attack with anti-pornography laws. Laws which oddly are billed as protecting women from exploitation. Is it exploitation when the woman is exercising “My Body My Choice” and she chooses to perform in a pornographic film?

The anti child pornography laws, I’m totally on board with.

Young men who have made this particular choice are often viewed as abnormal by society.

Which is it ladies? You say you’re afraid of rape, unwanted pregnancy, toxic males, and all the other bullshit. But at the same time you seek to deny other women the right to sell their services either directly, or on film, and seek to deny men a non-toxic sexual outlet.

The last I read about the solo-sexual phenomena, it seemed that it was mostly confined to large urban environments and the young men in question were educated and had decent jobs. They’re simply making a choice that does not involve risking the rest of their future for a few minutes of pleasure.

After dealing with the Neo-Feminists at work over the last 10 years or so, I understand their point.

I’m very glad that I’m partnered and that I’m more gay than bi. Don’t get me wrong, a mentally mature woman that knows herself and takes responsibility is sexy as hell. Unfortunately, they’re becoming exceedingly rare.

Generally, the women I’ve encountered in the workplace have convinced me that:

1) I will not seek a hetro relationship if my current one ends. (For that matter, I’ll probably not seek a homo relationship. Gay men are often just as nuts as Neo-Feminists.)

2) If I find that I’m jonesing for the company of a woman, I’ll fly to Vegas and rent some professional time.

3) A lot of the women I’ve encountered in urban settings, are not people I want to combine my DNA with. There are tons of drop dead gorgeous women, but intellectually they’re not up to snuff. I’d be better off importing an uneducated farm girl from some 3rd world cesspool to make babies with. At least they’d be strong, healthy, have practical comprehension of the real world, and common sense. We all have an inherent duty to make better offspring, not doom the planet to idiot children who can’t command fire.

4) Avoid at all costs any woman with a goofy dye job, weird shitty tattoos, and so many piercings they can’t get through a metal detector. Think of them like brightly colored animals or insects. Typically if a creature has some kind of wild coloration they’re toxic. Think Arrow Frogs, Lionfish, Blue Ring Octopus, Gila monsters, or Coral Snakes.

5) Spanking the monkey is a much more efficient and pleasurable use of my time. To this day, nobody does me, like I do.

The problem with solo sexuality is that it’s likely to lead us to life imitating art.

If only the dumb, or irresponsible, are reproducing then we’re going to end up like the movie Idiocracy.

If you’ve not seen the movie, give it a whirl. Call it a dark comedy. Sadly, I think the fictitious president and cabinet from the movie displays more intelligence than our current administration. That’s another story…

A Neo-Feminist reading this post will probably have her head explode and fire off some diatribe about me being misogynistic.

Before she gets completely spun up, I’d ask her to consider this… I am exactly what you have made me. You have no right to complain. Take responsibility and change. It’s not just your body your choice, it’s also your mind your choice.

I’ve been amused that a lot of the main stream press photos of young protestors demanding Roe v. Wade are people, (Male or Female,) that I personally wouldn’t ever sleep with. No matter how much alcohol was involved.

Many of the females are so visually unappealing to me, I doubt they’re likely to see the inside of an abortion clinic.

As a man who respects himself, I can’t imagine being so desperate that I would risk putting my penis in any of them. I suppose there are men who don’t have my standards for potential reproductive partners. That’s totally on them, and god help us!

Saturday 5/14/2022

So now these people are protesting in front of Supreme Court Justices homes. Oh for fucks sake! First of all that’s illegal since there is part of the legal code that says attempting to intimidate a Judge, Witness, Juror, or officer of the court is punishable by 1 year in jail.

Peacefully Protesting in front of the Supreme Court building is. one thing. Disrupting the lives of an entire neighborhood and the life of the Justice by protesting at his or her home is another thing entirely.

These people in some of the videos are calling for mandatory vasectomies for BOYS! while at the same time carrying “My Body My Choice” signs…

Can you say hypocrisy?

Oh, wait, “My body My Choice” only applies if you’re a woman. But what is a woman these days? We seem to be unable to define that!

You men marching in solidarity for Roe v Wade… The minute you hear mandatory vasectomy for boys, it’s your fucking duty to switch sides or shut that shit down.

That vasectomy bullshit isn’t about abortion rights. It’s only about beating all men into submission and if you’re supporting that, you deserve to be castrated.

On it’s face that statement says women want to be in control not only of their reproduction rights but they want to control yours as well. If you’re that stupid, you probably shouldn’t reproduce anyway.

These harridans scream about bodily autonomy and in the next fucking breath say let’s subject all boys to un-necessary surgery. It sure feels like they’re trying to treat males like dogs.

“Oh look Marilyn-Moonrock, little Johnny is coming of age, pretty soon he’ll be marking the furniture… Better get him fixed as soon at possible!”

What’s next? Wait until a boy is 12 or so, take him in to surgery snip him, and circumcise him at the same time? That would cut down on the pubescent masturbation wouldn’t it? What will they call for after that? Mandatory, yet unnecessary surgery on boys genitals WITHOUT Anesthesia, a sort of pre-punishment for any ills the male might commit?

Then these… There is no other term for them, Vile Bitches could completely control all aspects of what coming of age as a male is.

From constantly telling boys they’re testosterone poisoned and violent, drugging them into submission in schools, complaining about their poor grades because they’re drugged into submission, then denigrating them for being stronger or wanting to test themselves, to making them ashamed of their natural development.

Good plan you vicious cunts! You know, a little female genital mutilation might also go a long way toward negating the need for abortions. Just sayin…

Figure 30 years of mandatory vasectomies, and we’d have women bitching and complaining that they can’t find a man committed enough to go through the surgical procedure to reverse the sterilization process. After all a man isn’t likely to want to relive the childhood trauma a bunch of nasty women imposed on him. I could just see that, a man telling a woman who wants children, “No, My Body My Choice.”

If this is what the majority of the liberals are like… I want absolutely nothing to do with any of them!

Joy Behar suggested recently that women go on a sex strike.

Guys… here’s a thought. Stop dating, or if you date, make sure the women pays the fucking tab.

If you end up in the bedroom, Make sure you wear a condom and demand that the woman has a diaphragm and spermicide in place. You can’t trust her if she says she’s on the pill.

Oh and to top things off… When you’re done, don’t worry about her orgasm. Pull your pants up and leave, dispose of the condom after you’re out the door.

Trust me a few months of that, and all the nice women, the good women, the kind women, the women you’d want to make a family with… They’ll hunt down and rip these liberal bitches limb from limb.

The liberals are very quick to call a man a misogynist…

I suggest to them, if you wonder why men seem more misogynistic…

LOOK IN THE FUCKING MIRROR!

I’d sooner get my jollies with rancid road kill than be intimate with most liberals

I know I sound pretty pissed off, and I am. The blatant hypocrisy these Neo-nazi, Neo feminists are displaying really fires up serious anger.

How about teaching fucking responsibility? Hey, there’s a concept. Oh right, no-one is ever. responsible for their own actions.

Yeah, I call bullshit!

I’m thinking it might be time for me to shift some of my retirement account into lifelike sex dolls… I think I see a ready to boom, business opportunity.

Posted on

At the risk of being labeled Transphobic…

I think it’s time for the trans community to separate from the LGB community.

LGB has become pretty accepted. There are still issues to address and probably will be for the next 20 years or so.

The problem I see rising is that the Trans community has become so conflated with the LGB community at large, that Trans issues are damaging the LGB community and their hard won gains.

Comments in various online publications which were once about 50/50, pro/against LGB issues. Have become increasingly hateful and vicious about just “normal” LGB folks with the addition of the Trans communities never ending strident yelling.

While I agree that everyone should be teated kindly and equally. I don’t think that Trans issues as presented belong in the LGB spectrum. I also think that the way the Trans community is behaving has drawn the LGB part of the community needlessly into an agenda that is not representative of the average LGB person.

Comments in recent articles about Lia Thomas, and Rachel Levine demonstrate in my opinion that America is growing very tired of the Trans community and by extension the LGB community.

Many of the comments paint Trans people as gay or lesbian. Moreover, comments paint the entirety of the LGBT community as deranged, mentally unfit, sick, disgusting, evil, or perpetrating some kind of con on various institutions (Lia Thomas, I’m looking at you).

The Trans people that I have personally known may start out being homosexuals, but that appears to be a transitional phase. The person is homosexual because they believe with all their heart and soul, they were born in the wrong body. They’re intimate with the gender they find attractive but they still feel that their body isn’t right. Several of the Trans folks I’ve known, have entered into loving straight relationships after they’ve transitioned.

A former man, completes the required surgeries, and then marries as a woman to another man. They aren’t homosexual at that point.

The full transitions I’ve known, left the LGB community and went off to live in suburbia with their husbands and most have adopted children.

The LGB folks don’t believe they were born wrong. Typically they believe they were born a bit different but they’re content being whatever gender they were born. They don’t feel alien in their own bodies, they’re comfortable in preferring intimacy with members of the same gender.

I know for some, this is a difficult distinction, but it’s an important one.

My personal experience is very different from the strident demands of today.

What passes for the Trans community these days doesn’t seem to have the same appreciation for the gravity of the decision Transgender people had in years past.

It’s not just about pumping hormones into your body. Yes, that is part of it, but it’s about where your head is at. A transgendered friend told me that before the surgery when she looked in the mirror she perceived her male body as a suit she was trapped in. She said that she’d felt this way for her entire male life. When she woke up from surgery, during the months of healing she anticipated seeing her true self.

She said that the first time she saw herself in a mirror after healing, she cried with joy because she felt like she’d awakened from a terrible dream. For the first time in her life, she saw herself as the person she had always been.

As a male, she’d been somewhat androgynous. As a female, she was beautiful. You had to really look closely to see minimal telltales left by her time as a male.

As a male, he’d had a slight physique very little body hair and an average sized penis and testicles. His personality was sparkling, witty, and intelligent. He was a lot of fun to be around, a great entertainer, classy, with a sense of understated style. He was a great date, and knew how to please a man.

Post Surgery, as a woman, she had beautiful breasts. they were not ostentatious or out sized. The hormones added a little padding to her hips accentuating a femininity that I’d never noticed. She was still all the other things. Sparkling, witty, intelligent, classy, stylish, a great date, and she still knew how to please a man. She was different from any other woman I’d been with, in that she was always 100% engaged in sex. Her vagina was beautiful, and visually indistinguishable from any woman I’d been with.

She joked about it a little one night as we were cuddling in her bed in the dark. She said she’d paid for the full top of the line package and one of the best surgeons. She felt she was worth it since she was reclaiming her real body. Then she asked if she’d gotten her moneys worth.

I kissed her and told her, “Yes,” as far as I could see.

She later told me I’d been her last sexual partner as a man, and her first sexual partner as a woman. She liked the symmetry. Later she made a comment that stuck with me through the years. She said, “The unhappy old me died on the operating table, the new me is going to live savoring each day.”

About a year later, after all the documentation was settled, she took a job on the East Coast.

Several years later, there was a Christmas card with a picture of her, her husband, and his child from a previous marriage. The note inside said simply, “Can you believe I’m the ‘evil’ stepmother! I love my husband and while my life may be shorter than it would have been otherwise, it’s been marvelous so far. This is the life I always wanted. P.S. You were right I think. When we got serious I told him everything and let him decide from there. He thought about it for a week or two, then decided he didn’t care. We were married six months later. Thank you my friend.”

We’ve lost touch over the years, the last I heard she was still married, living in upstate New York and very happy.

Perhaps the fact that I’ve known intimately and personally someone who was transgender is coloring my view. When she began her transition, she dressed as a woman, and was never concerned about using the ladies room. She’d sometimes comment ruefully that she’d miss urinals because they were just so much easier to deal with. She had a group of close supportive friends and we all just accepted.

Perhaps it was easier for her and us, because pre surgery she could easily pass as a woman. Perhaps, it was that at the time that the LGBT community was far less divided, more forgiving, and more accepting than today. Perhaps, it was that he/she was really a she trapped in the wrong body.

One thing I learned from her is that people see exactly what they want to see. Pre surgery, Miranda took me to The Magic Castle in LA for my birthday. She wasn’t fooled too often in the close up sleight of hand room. Later in the evening, we bumped into the magician she’d inadvertently made sweat. He asked how she knew his tricks and if she was a magician herself. She smiled sweetly and said, “Yes, in a way. You think I’m a woman don’t you?” She hugged the stunned magician and thanked him for an impressive show.

I wondered at the time if the knowledge that people see what they want to see, was why she was so good in business negotiations.

The difference I see now, versus then is that the Trans community today is very much in everybody’s face. They’re apparently angry and hostile and I don’t get why.

The Trans people I’ve known in years past weren’t angry, they were kind and gentle spirits. They were in intense counseling, not to make them be something they were not. But to make sure that they fully understood all the ramifications and risks. They were the people most in-touch with their feelings. They’d put in the time to understand themselves. They’d done all this work prior to beginning the hormones and transition because at the time, it was one of those things that you only got one shot at. They also had very realistic expectations about what they’d look like afterwards.

Some Trans people just aren’t that pretty or believable when they’re done. Back in the day, if the outcome wasn’t going to be a good one, a surgeon might simply refuse.

It makes no sense to take a decent looking man or woman and turn them into someone that will never be happy with the results of the transition surgery. Why modify someone that’s already lonely but has a shot at dating, perhaps love, into someone that is unattractive and has no shot at dating or happiness? Doctors used to take an oath to do no harm. Lately I’ve begun to wonder if the oath they take today is set to Pink Floyd’s Money.

I mean really, would you date Rachel Levine? It’s not necessarily about age, even Lia Thomas looks much better as a male than as a female. In Thomas’s case artful surgery might make him somewhat appealing as a woman but he’ll always have the proportions of a man.

In this time of gender fluidity or non-binary sexuality it seems that folks aren’t thinking that way. What future will an ugly, angry, old, Transgender have? What ever happened to honestly estimating/evaluating the outcome of a surgical procedure?

Why don’t surgeons say, “You’re too masculine / feminine for me to make you look like the opposite gender. Your hips are too narrow or wide, your shoulders are too broad or narrow, your face is too characteristically male or female. We can do this surgery if you insist, but my professional opinion is I don’t think you’ll be happy with the results.”

The same could be said of tattoo artists. If a tattoo is the first part of a large piece, say a tattoo sleeve, then isn’t it incumbent on the artist to tell the client a particular tattoo isn’t going to work in the sleeve?

I’d really appreciate a tattoo artist telling me something like, “This isn’t going to work, let me see if I can redesign it so that it fits better with the whole piece. Come back in a week and I’ll show you some options,” I’d appreciate the thoughtfulness and concern.

Instead, what we seem to have is, “let me prescribe some puberty blockers or hormones for a while and let’s see how you feel.”

Having lived for a long time as a Bi man, I found that while my sexuality is non-binary, my gender very much is.

I searched for love and found it. I don’t and didn’t care what gender package that love was wrapped up in. Arguably, I’m far more comfortable with another man but I’ve never excluded the possibility that I might find an equally loving relationship with a woman.

Looking back, I loved Mark/Miranda. (She claimed she didn’t want to change the monograms on the towels. I think it was that Miranda or ‘Miri’ was an uncommon name and it’s as pretty as she was.) I wasn’t in a place where I was ready for commitment or marriage, She was. That doesn’t discount the fact that it was the person, not necessarily the gender that I cared for.

I throughly enjoyed our time together and yes, loved him/her in both genders.

The point is, you don’t just wake up one day and declare you’re a woman or man arbitrarily. Just saying you’re Trans doesn’t give you the right to play dress up just because you want to mess with people. Drs handing out hormone therapy or puberty blockers as though it’s not a big deal, to people who’ve not done the really hard work involved in counseling and therapy is, in my opinion, a very bad idea.

I’m not Trans. I can’t speak from inside a Trans person’s skin. But I’ve walked alongside a person who was. I’ll never know all the introspection and questioning that Mark did.

I do know it was years in the making and that I came on the scene only in the last few years. When I met Mark, he was content with his choice & still dressing as a man. During the time I knew him he began dressing as Miranda moving toward full transition. He was the most stable, put together, person I’ve known.

When Miranda came home from the sabbatical, during which she had the surgeries and recuperation, she was still the most stable person I knew. She was also the most serene person I’ve ever known.

The same is generally true of the other Trans people that have passed through my life. None of them were hostile, angry, or pushy. They were respected, and conformed to the social norms of the society at large. They were dressed as a specific gender, and acted accordingly. They weren’t about doing bad drag (which has its place,) they were making a very serious life decision that was theirs and theirs alone.

I’d bet Miranda would be at the forefront of demanding parents have a choice in what their children are taught, and when, regarding sexuality. I’m also pretty sure that she’d put a verbal smackdown on anyone who remotely pushed a child toward transitioning or puberty blockers before a child could understand what that really meant.

I suspect Miranda would ironically be called Transphobic by today’s standards.

I can almost hear her laughing about that label, in some activists face.

I don’t know if she’d agree with me about LGB folks distancing themselves from the current Trans community. She might not, and she’d have excellent reasons that she could defend. In the few arguments we had, it was 60% likely that she was right. 40% likely that I was. Her position was always well thought out and backed up with facts.

Even in winning, she was gracious and beautiful. She didn’t rub it in, and she’d hug me when I was crestfallen.

“You can’t be right all the time, settle for half… Do you want something to eat, or would you like to just cuddle,” she’d ask. Id always reply, “I’d feel better about it with both.” She’d just laugh.

I think that Miranda would appreciate my opinion. She might not agree, but she’d see where I was coming from. It’s about being silenced, told what I may and may not say.

It’s about being forced to accept things that I find fundamentally wrong. (Hormones, Puberty blockers, and a rush to transition without doing the work.) Today I can’t even speak that conviction without being labeled or cancelled.

Nowadays, being a part of the LGBT community implies that you agree wholeheartedly with anything and everything Trans. Which makes being a part of that community a complete non-starter for me and many others.

I’d prefer to see an LGB community and a separate Trans community. I’d prefer to see the LGB community support the real Trans community as we used to. With love, acceptance, and the knowledge that our Transitioned brothers and sisters may leave us, not in anger, but to move on with the life they’ve always dreamed of, and deserved.

Miranda… Miri, if by some weird chance you should ever read this, all my love to you and your family. You deserve all the happiness in the world, I’m very glad you’re living the dream you wanted.