(Part 2) Top products from r/lgbt

Definitely also ask in /r/ftm.

I transitioned in high school too. :) This is a more general resource dump, but I hope it helps!

The books The Transgender Child and The Transgender Teen by Stephanie Brill are the two halves of your new bible, seriously. Read them, then give them to your parents. There's also a new book out for Trans teens and their families, called Where's MY Book? by Linda Gromko, MD. I haven't read it yet, but it looks well worth a look.

Check out http://t-vox.org/ and http://camparanutiq.org/ . You'd love Camp Aranu'tiq.

Watch this great video too. It's about Trans kids and it's really good. (Ignore the line from one mom about how blockers are "brand new". They aren't. They've been used for decades. The books I mentioned above explain a lot more about all that.)

Your parents should run, not walk, to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tyfa_talk/ and join it when they're ready. It's a wonderful parents-only group specifically for parents of Trans and gender-questioning kids who are 18 and under. There's a lot more to it than "you should support your kid". There's lots for them there, even if they think they're already supportive. On Facebook, they can join these great groups for parents of Trans and gender-expansive kids: here and here. And here on Reddit, they can check out /r/cisparenttranskid.

Trans Youth Family Allies, Gender Spectrum (and their fantastic conference), and the Trans Health conference, among other resources, will help your whole family a lot.

To find a therapist who gets Trans issues (most don't, and are unhelpful at best and actively harmful at worst), see http://t-vox.org/medical and http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/ . For the second link, enter your location and then select Transgender from the Issues list on the left.

The nice folks at the Genecis clinic at Children's Medical Center Dallas, the Gender Development clinic at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, the Gender Management Services (GeMS) clinic at Boston Children's Hospital, The Center for Trans Youth Health and Development at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, the gender clinic at Seattle Children's Hospital, BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver, and/or the Trans youth clinic at SickKids in Toronto can help your family connect with more providers and support networks in your area for Trans children and their families, including the ones that aren't near you. They do a lot of networking with groups and providers across North America and around the world.

> What?

My point was that by holding First Nations to treaties that were signed under duress, you are upholding the actions of colonialists as legitimate and the consequences of these treaties disproportionately affect First Nation people in negative ways. It's an old problem but it has never really been "solved," the burden has simply been moved onto First Nation people.

>But boy are they loud, and naturally don't consider themselves fringe feminists.

Thankfully TERFs have been written off by most feminists as a hate group. They are loud and their views are deplorable, but they also have no power nowadays.

>Who maintains the structure of the Patriarchy?

Not who, but what. Economic inequality between men and women is at the historical root of patriarchy. Hunter-gatherer societies were gender-egalitarian and some times included 3 or more genders. All food, tools and land were held in common, with all having an equal share regardless of gender. Women were gatherers and tended home, men were hunters and tended livestock and small farms (generally), and these roles balanced in power because women and men created the same amount of food, clothing, etc. for the community. This changed with the rise of larger-scale agriculture, when livestock and farming became increasingly important economically. This meant that suddenly men's work role put them in control of the vast majority of production and surplus in society, thus edging women out of social and political life and confining them to the domestic sphere. This power differential created patriarchy and continues to perpetuate it to this day, with women as a group having less wealth and therefore having less power in society.

(I know there are a lot of claims here and they aren't cited, but all of the information is from the book Men's Lives. It goes into the issue in greater detail than I presented here and of course with lots of handy citations. It's a great book and it deals extensively with the relationship between men and feminism if that topic interests you.)

>If privilege is invisible to the people who have it, who is distributing this privilege?

The short answer is that privilege and power are not "handed out" in a conscious way, but that existing structures of power are reproduced automatically by people who see these structures as natural, good or inevitable. For example, almost all countries have longer maternity leave than paternity leave. Men are expected to get back to work and women are expected to take care of the baby on their own. These laws are based on preconceptions of what men's role in society is and what women's role is. The people who passed these laws didn't create patriarchy or privilege, they are merely reproducing a power differential that they grew up learning was the right and just way to organize a society. And it's not just politicians, everyday people act in ways that privilege some and not others. People watching men and women do the same job tend to rate the man more favorably even when performance is the exact same. They are not consciously "distributing" privilege to the men, they simply have a more positive attitude to seeing men in a work role because that is the default outlook in our society.

>What explains the high number of homeless men?

Not 100% knowledgeable on this topic but I'll try to give an answer to my best knowledge. Many homeless folks are combat veterans and/or have disabilities. By and large most veterans are men. Two of the most common disabilities among the homeless are schizophrenia and addiction, both of which disproportionately affect men over women. This could be at least a partial explanation of why men are more likely to be homeless.

Of course, these are also examples of men's issues which are generally overlooked in society. Despite the existence of patriarchy, not all men are equally privileged (Men's Lives does a great job of covering this topic). Lower income men tend to be the largest casualties of war. Men overwhelmingly die by suicide compared to women, showing the vulnerability of disabled men in our society. Men make up an overwhelming majority of the prison population, especially men of color. All of these are serious issues that can be understood and addressed by using feminism to understand men's roles in society, but also touching on the intersectional issues of class, disability, race and so on.

"Feminist advocates collude in the pain of men wounded by patriarchy when they falsely represent men as always and only powerful, as always and only gaining privileges from their blind obedience to patriarchy." -- bell hooks (famous intersectional feminist)

Patriarchy can and DOES hurt men. Any feminist who claims that all men are equally privileged by patriarchy is incorrect. Any feminist who claims that men are only empowered by patriarchy does not understand the nature of patriarchy.

>Feminism discovered the Patriarchy, but can't explain its structure, can't influence its output, and can't dissipate its effect [etc.]

The structure of patriarchy has been explained, by many different feminists. I already mentioned the historical development of patriarchy. I can get into the social-psychological aspects of patriarchy more w/ you if you want. I like this conversation but I'm tired and need to go to bed soon. But yeah, my point is that feminists can explain the structure of patriarchy. Any feminists have definitely influenced patriarchy for the better-- everything from voting rights to abortion rights reflect this.

>they can see the effect (which men cannot)

Men can see the effects if they study women's issues, listen to women's lived experiences, consider feminist theories, etc. Many women understand these issues based on their own life stories, but men have to approach it from a perspective of not knowing what it means to be a woman in this society.

>I have a substantially different theory regarding these difficulties.

What would those be?

>What about the men that like being aggressive, competitive, industrial, and stoic? Will they be welcome in this new women's paradise?

In a society that has accomplished the goals of feminism, those traits would no longer be "men's traits." Anyone could be as aggressive or competitive or stoic as long as their aggression doesn't hurt anyone. It would be a society where someone's gender is never a barrier to what they want to do or who they can be. And it's not just for women. Women and non-binary people will benefit most from the goals of feminism, but men will benefit too.

Sure. There is actually quite a bit of written historical evidence for non-hetero relationships in the past. Not as much as heterosexual ones, but its there and so many great scholars are devoting their careers to it. This isn't my general area of study but I will try to provide some recommended reading that is accessible/readable for the general public. In general, most of the academic work done in this field is on ancient Greece and Rome, both because these were very literate societies who wrote about their lives and cultures extensively, because there were institutions like pederasty in the Greek context which were widespread enough to be discussed in writing and because of the general western bias of much of the research done in the west up until just recently. Women's relationships in general are much much less discussed, if at all, both because of the uneven distribution of literacy (heavily favoring men) and because of (upper class) women were very much removed from public life in all but a few exceptional cases. I say upper-class because that is where the overwhelming breadth of historical writing comes to us from/about. The history of the pre-modern world relies on what evidence we have and what has been preserved, which skews it in many ways towards literate classes. Archaeology can fill some of those gaps, but without the detail and explicitness of written sources.

The book I would most recommend in this particular area is Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World, a collection of scholarly papers which discussed various aspects of that topic. Its unfortunately difficult to find in print/in full outside of academic libraries or for a reasonable price but there is a Google Books page which while not having the complete text does have a significant portion of the book. This also has tons of further sources which could be searched for out of that.

Also: Gay Warriors: A Documentary History from the Ancient World to the Present by B. R. Burg - looks at the history of homosexuality in soldiers. Partial text at Google Books here. Amazon here for purchase.

Bisexuality in the Ancient World by Eva Cantarella. Amazon. Partial on Google Books.

Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World edited by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz & Lisa Auanger. Google Books text <-- this one looks like Google Books has the complete text


As for Asia/Americas, I know even less on these subject areas. What comes to mind off the top of my head is Japanese Shunga woodblock prints. These are erotic art prints done from the Eto period through the Mejii Restoration in the mid-19th century. There are many that depict lesbian sex with dildos. Does this represent widespread practice or salacious fantasy? I can't say but I assume somewhere scholars have investigated, likely in Japanese. There are some books available on Amazon about Shunga and Japanese pre-modern erotic art in general but I don't know if they address homosexual sexuality.

In the Chinese context, look at Homoeroticism in Imperial China: A Sourcebook which gives excerpts from translated texts from Imperial China. There isn't much analysis, but it gives good primary sources from a extremely large swath of Chinese history on the subject. The complete text is available on Google Books.

Another area that comes to mind is the presence of intersex, gender fluid individuals in American native tribes: so-called "Two-Spirit" individuals. Europeans that came to North America encountered non-binary gender constructions in some tribes and some wrote about this. Scroll down on this page which has a paper about this topic and also has tons of other sources that may be interesting to you in this regard. I know that there has also been some work done on the Hijra of India, a third gender orientation.

Queer studies is an up and coming field in undergraduate and graduate History departments at universities across the world and there is so much good scholarly work being done in this area. If you are looking for more reading, be sure to scan the works cited/ bibliographies/footnotes of these works which have a wealth of further reading that is done at an graduate level of scholarly rigor.\

I hope that is helpful & interesting to you! (:

When I initially came out, I was religious (Lutheran), and I actually came out with the help of my campus pastor in our Lutheran Student Community. I continued active participation in my religious community, and most of my pastors after that time were aware of my identity, so don't ever feel as if there's no place for you in religious communities. In the US, at least, mainline protestant denominations (Lutheran, Anglican/Episocopal, Presbyterian, UCC) often tend to be much more accepting than so-called "nondenominational" or Evangelical churches, but there aren't hard and fast guarantees.

(Just as full disclosure, I'm no longer religious, but it has nothing to do with my coming out, and much more to do with other philosophical changes and ideas.)

There has been a lot of good advice in this thread, so I really don't feel the need to repeat it. I do, however, want to share few resources that might be helpful:

• Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality - This book by Andrew Sullivan is probably my favorite work about homosexuality and being gay. If you have a chance to read nothing else, this would be my recommendation. It presents four arguments from four different perspectives for and against homosexuality, then addresses what Sullivan feels are their flaws and where they are misapplied. Sullivan then attempts to synthesize his own philosophy of what it is to be gay. It's something that is a bit of a cliche, but this book really did change my life. (Sullivan is a gay Catholic political conservative — the real, intellectual kind, not the reactionary kind — who is married to a man, and while I don't always agree with him, I adore his writing and value his perspective.)
  
  
• What The Bible Really Says About Homosexuality - This is a very good book covering the theological angle, looking at passages in the Bible, and analyzing the various translations and apparent meanings of the handful of passages that ever touch on homosexuality. I read this when I first came out. Eventually, when you come out to your family, this may be a helpful resource for them, as well. (As others have said, until you are financially independent, you should probably not come out to them.)
  
  
• God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships - I've not read this book by Matthew Vines, but I have heard very good things about it. It may be helpful both now and down the line.
  
  In your situation, I understand it may be hard to get these books or read them, but if you can do so privately and safely, I'd highly recommend them as avenues for exploring your identity and giving you a theological and philosophical frame to think about your identity from. I'm not sure if you're worried about disapproval or punishment from divine or human sources when you say, "I'm afraid my own religion will punish me for something that I can't control," but in either case, you may find these helpful.

Word salad? Maybe. I wrote it late at night.

Here's the thing, most people don't know that the Republican Party was created as a radical left party akin to the Green Party in its policies. After all, seeking the end of slavery and giving women the right to vote was seen as radical leftist ideals.

Lincoln was a little less radical, he wanted to legislate it out by making it economically infeasible and shrinking the pro-slavery states' powers.

But he would still be considered an antifa pink pussyhatted libtard by today's Republican standards. So would Reagan due to his policy on amnesty.

Because of this history, for many years up to Nixon & Reagan and their unholy alliance with the 'conservative' white evangelists, the Republican Party had a lot of fiscal conservative but liberal social Republicans. You can blame Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Stone, Roy Cohn, etc for that deal with the devil as well.

Liberal Republicans are why a lot of what LBJ did got passed and after Nixon & Reagan they slowly switched to Democrats. It actually wasn't until the 90s with Newt Gringrich that the full switch of the party ideolgies was completed and 2010 with the Tea Party that they became radicalized and completely intolerant of liberal policies.

(More of that here: The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062438980/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_PB53BbYVNKMXX)

There are still people within the Republican Party who do not want to give up on Lincoln's party. The Log Cabin Republicans are part of that nearly extinct feature.

That was what I was trying to explain.

However, I had never heard of right wing LGBT peeps until recently. It just seems so anathema to who they are. Socially conservative means they wish to deny human rights to themselves.

And I had thought it would be akin to gay Nazis promoting Nazi agendas...until I recalled that they do exist as The Proud Boys.

And I just broke it down to cultish behavior. They have been radicalized and indoctrinated to this fantasy ideal of conservativism and how they think they are immune to the policies they believe in...sort of like the Wives in the Handmaid's Tale and how they actively worked achieved this religious society and thought they would be the exception and they weren't.

If they weren't so far down the rabbit hole of this cult they would realize they aren't sitting at the table, they are on the menu and they actively aiding in their own persecution.

My favorite is the one I linked, and another by the same author called Rosaline, but they're only available in Kindle format. I want hardcovers, darnit! >:(. They're also available as adorable short videos on Hulu, but only if you have Hulu Plus.

For books you can actually pick up and hold, I like The Different Dragon, because the fact that the main character has two moms isn't the focus of the story, it's just a "oh by the way" sort of thing that normalizes it, and one of his moms is important in the story.

I just got my board book copy of And Tango Makes Three in the mail. It's the story about the two male penguins who hatched an egg, and since it's a board book, my little one won't destroy it by chewing on it :P

I'm working off lists from The Advocate and Autostraddle to find more books. I don't want to recommend ones I haven't actually read through yet, so hopefully that helps.

>a) marriage is a religious matter; this is at the forefront,

Not in the US. Not in many places. Many people get married without any religious elements at all. You would be coorrect only if you said "marriage is a religious matter for many people.

>b) marriage is a social matter; we like monogamy. Much as there are people out there who say other wise, it's true. We "slut shame" because the idea of people fucking freely is wrong to us as people.

Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence. Cf.


>It's evolution, both social and biological, we like to settle down. It's why so many of us are quick to marry young, and why mothers judge you on "why aren't you married yet?"

Do you really want to bring in the ridiculous social Darwinism bullshit? Please trust me, you do NOT want to. Mothers do that because they have evolved biologically to be driven by perpetuation of their genes.

>c) and most importantly for these arguments, marriage is a political matter; marriage is the binding of two families that has, through the ages, itself evolved into an important legal venture of combined assets, power of attorney, and especially in the case of gay marriage versus domestic partnership, the ability to actually be in the hospital room with your spouse.

Well, yes. Up until recently in the west and to this day in the east a dowry is essential to marry off a daughter. Until very recently a married woman could not get a credit card in her own name. She was legally subservient to her husband, she was chattel.

Don't get me wrong - I am in favor of marriage equality. What I object to is overly simplistic, under-informed argument about it.

Add some reading to your thinking about sexuality!

Check out "A Billion Wicked Thoughts" by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam. Basically, two Harvard neuroscientists analyze porn as a reflection of human sexuality.


"The Guide to Getting It On! (The Universe's Coolest and Most Informative Book About Sex)" by Paul Joannides
This book is a comprehensive and fun textbook on everything about sexuality, especially the sociological, psychological, biological and anatomical aspects of it:

Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback) by Véronique Mottier
This book is about the social and cultural aspect of human sexuality.

These three are good to start out with, in any order. I don't want to overwhelm you too much.

Edit: jut to clarify, these are science books, not self-help books! These are legit, written by scientists who study human sexuality! The title, "The Guide to Getting It On" may throw you off, but it's actually used as a college text book in Sexuality 101 classes. This ain't the shitty Sex Ed propaganda they shove down your throats in high school, this is actually awesome science about sex, sexuality, and gender!

That sucks. I can understand why you feel angry and sad. Anytime someone who is important in our lives isn't able to see who we really are, it hurts and drives a wedge in the relationship. For your dad to not get what your experience is, what it's like to be in your skin, and it sounds like not to understand something that's been your focus (probably for a long time) is totally invalidating. I'm glad you're continuing with working on your transition!

See if you can get your hands on The Transgender Child by Rachel Pepper and Stephanie Brill. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/1573443182/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
It has chapters addressing what your dad is going through, which sucks but can be normal and he may get over it (especially with help). Also a family counsellor may help too. Your dad needs to get used to having a son, but you don't have to be the only one who gets him there. Good luck.

I hope you don't mind OP, but I looked it up and wanted to post the link here for anyone who's interested (:

Academic research would agree with you. A good book called Not Under My Roof is a good study of it.

edit: a word.

My first boyfriend and I taught ourselves how to go about having sex with an earlier edition of "The Joy of Gay Sex." It seems to be in a third edition now, here's a link to it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Joy-Gay-Sex-Revised-Expanded/dp/0060012730

We were from a very rural place, and I ran across one copy in paperback at the tiny Waldenbooks at the mall in a town 20 miles away from where we lived. I waited till no one else was in the store before carrying it to the counter and buying it. We found it to be very informative!

I’m not Catholic (I’m Jewish). And I’m not gay (I’m bisexual).

But this decently long essay (a touch over 7,500 words) got me to immediately buy a copy of Martel’s book.

I suspect the book will be a more important an artefact in the global civil GSM rights movement than Martel’s last book to be translated into English: Global Gay, How gay culture is changing the world.

Global Gay is an anthropologically rigorous survey of the GSM rights revolution rolling out across the world. But it is a clean and well-done survey and report of how things are on the ground now, or the now of a few years ago (that said, the English translation is also an update of the 2012 French-language original)

In the closet of the Vatican (which I’ve just started as I post this) is no less anthropologically rigorous. But it also a work of equally vigorous investigative journalism. The sort of journalism that changes things. Including enormously powerful and influential institutions.

And, even given the Catholic Church’s power and influence is not what it once was, it is is still a powerful institution.

And it’s power to harm GSM folk is, in some places, still enormous.

If Global Gay was a report from the field, In the closet of the Vatican is a vital exposition on how and why the principal institutional obstacle to LGBT rights at the worldwide level appears itself to be massively staffed by gay men.

This institution will not be able to continue being what it is. And I believe Martel’s book will be part of why that is so.

I recommend this book.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005BTQEQ4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

When I was in a similar situation (sounds like my mom was angrier, but just about as confused) I gave her a few books, including Is It a Choice? and My Child Is Gay. The first one dispels a lot of the common misconceptions (such as the molestation issue) and the second one offers stories from parents who have gone through what your mom is going through and ended up in a good place. I showed her some other literature as well, but these were the ones that really made a difference.

I found it on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/ALEXTINA-Simple-Stailess-Rainbow-Stripes/dp/B06XWC1LKM

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - this is a fantastic, deeply moving love and war story that focuses on a gay couple.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Song-Achilles-Novel-P-S/dp/0062060627

You might want to check out What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality. It's straightforward and not very long. It helped me reconcile some things back when.

You can deposit your upvote here.

https://www.amazon.com/ALEXTINA-Simple-Stailess-Rainbow-Stripes/dp/B06XWC1LKM

Here ya go

Evolution's Rainbow. even written by a trans girl.

Ever read "Sex at Dawn?"

http://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-Work/dp/0060837721

http://www.jarche.com/2012/09/first-we-shape-our-structures-and-then-the-sociopaths-take-over/

There are others of course, but I have a paper due and really need to get off reddit.

When dealing with my parents, my partner and I found this book, Toxic Inlaws, really helpful. I haven't read the prequel Toxic Parents, but I bet it'd be equally as helpful. It really helps outline the problems as being on their end, and what you can do to stop rewarding/enabling their destructive behavior. Sounds like typical manipulating-and-destroying-for-your-own-good.

Sources:

Michael Warner, gender theorist, against gay marriage for sexual liberation reasons, calls it “Trouble with Normal”http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674004412

The original “conservative” case for gay marriage on gay marriages being “virtually normal”http://www.amazon.com/Virtually-Normal-Andrew-Sullivan/dp/0679746145/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345952112&sr=1-1&keywords=virtually+normal+sullivan


A gay organization dedicated to social justicehttp://q4ej.org/
Organization that fights for “alternatives to marriage”http://www.unmarried.org/

Feminist perspective that argues against marriage, but for equalityhttp://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/08/27/equality-without-marriage/

Transgender activist Kate Bornstein on bullying, rather than gay marriage, should be a goal:http://katebornstein.typepad.com/kate_bornsteins_blog/2009/12/open-letter-to-lgbt-leaders-who-are-pushing-marriage-equality.html

Is Gay Marriage racist http://www.makezine.enoughenough.org/Is%20Gay%20Marriage%20Racist.pdf

Critics who are against gay marriage, but for social justice:http://www.amazon.com/Against-Equality-Queer-Critiques-Marriage/dp/0615392687/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345951108&sr=8-1&keywords=Against+Equality%3A+Queer+Critiques+of+Gay+Marriage

One cultural commentator who see gay marriage as a desire to conform:http://www.amazon.com/Why-Are-Faggots-Afraid-Objectification/dp/1849350884/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y

One article against gay marriage: Is the LGBT movement walking down the aisle to nowhere?http://inthesetimes.com/article/13466/beyond_gay_marriage/
Another gay activist against gay marriage:http://hivster.com/?p=6315