Queering the Schools

City Journal ^ | Spring, 2003 | Marjorie King

[Hobsonphile]

At a high school in prosperous Newton, Massachusetts, it’s “To B GLAD Day”—or, less delicately, Transgender, Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian Awareness Day. An advocacy session for students and teachers features three self-styled transgendered individuals—a member of the senior class and two recent graduates. One of the transgenders, born female, announces that “he” had been taking hormones for 16 months. “Right now I am a 14-year-old boy going through puberty and a 55-year-old woman going through menopause,” she complains. “I am probably the moodiest person in the world.” A second panelist declares herself an “androgyne in between both genders of society.” She adds, “Gender is just a bunch of stereotypes from society, but I am completely personal, and my gender is fluid.”

[Hobsonphile]

A disturbing article from my favorite publication, City Journal.

Regarding homosexuality, I tend to have what the above author might term an old style tolerant attitude. I believe gays are human beings, as we all are, and deserve to be protected from the crimes of harassment, assault, and murder. I believe the personal sexual lives of gays are none of my business. I've worked with and have befriended gays. I'm conflicted regarding the military and marriage. On the whole, I feel sympathetic towards gay individualists like Andrew Sullivan, yet maintain some reservations about aspects of the gay individualist agenda.

I am VERY suspicious of the agendas of the pseudo-intellectual queer theorists, as are many gays. Like feminism and the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement appears to have followed the same trajectory- instead of championing the dignity of the individual, queer theorists, gender feminists, and militant minority leaders champion the collective. Moreover, these radicals propose to strike down the long standing structures of society and invent new ones. My temperamental conservatism shudders at this notion.

What should freeze anyone's blood in the above article is the attempt by radical groups to socially engineer very young children. It is my assertion that children's minds are NOT YET MATURE ENOUGH to tackle this subject- this subject is very different from the subject of racial tolerance, or religious tolerance, because this subject involves the sensitive issue of SEX. Further, I consider it a usurpation of the PARENT'S authority to teach these issues in the public school. Only a PARENT can adequately judge the readiness of his or her child to discuss sexuality.

I expect (hope?) that we will not devolve into gay bashing on this thread.

[Hobsonphile]

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[HiTech RedNeck]

Nobody has a right not to face moral disapproval, much less to get attaboys. That, at bottom, is the queer rights agenda.

[nmh]

I've see you've been charmed by them as well. There is nothing good about the gay lifestyle. Nothing. And as you can see they want this queer lifestyle normalized. Friend, you've been snuckered.

[nmh]

"I expect (hope?) that we will not devolve into gay bashing on this thread."

In other words folks are allowed to be critical of gays or their lifestyle "by choice" or they are "gay bashing". Geesh, you've gone off the deep end on this issue. You're just as intolerant as gays are.

[RAT Patrol]

I'm conflicted regarding the military and marriage.

With marriage comes adoption and all the rest. If that happens, there will be no keeping it out of the government schools (not that we are keeping it out now).

Regarding the military: It's a pretty bloody profession. Gays can't even donate blood because of their unhealthy lifestyle. Why should our military risk exposure to this additional danger on the battlefield?

[DoctorMichael]

SELLING HOMOSEXUALITY....................

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/713798/posts

[nmh]

" Its aim: to stamp out “hegemonic heterosexuality”—the traditional view that heterosexuality is the norm—in favor of a new ethos that does not just tolerate homosexuality but instead actively endorses experimenting with it, as well as with a polymorphous range of bisexuality, transgenderism, and transsexuality. The educational establishment has enthusiastically signed on. What this portends for the future of the public schools and the psychic health of the nation’s children is deeply worrisome."

Isn't that lovely? Turning the tables on heterosexuality and acting as though everything else is normal!

Friend they spell it out for you and you still have sympathy for this perversion? It's sick. BTW is the real reason you are defending this because you fit into one of their categories (other than a heterosexual)? Hey, if you don't want to admit it, that's okay. It's not something to be proud of.

[HiTech RedNeck]

i.e. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/713798/posts

[hillsborofox]

"Right now I am a 14-year-old boy going through puberty and a 55-year-old woman going through menopause,” she complains. “I am probably the moodiest person in the world.” A second panelist declares herself an “androgyne in between both genders of society.”

No wonder public high school graduates can't read, write or find Chicago on a map. They have much more important things to concentrate on.

[shaggy eel]

I believe the personal sexual lives of gays are none of my business.

,,, my thoughts too. So when will they quit trying to push their personal sexual ethos on me?

[Hobsonphile]

Whee! Controversy already!

In other words folks are allowed to be critical of gays or their lifestyle "by choice" or they are "gay bashing".

You are attributing things to me that I did not say. My intent in my closing line was to ask for a mature discussion. Not to be indelicate about it, but surely we are all mature enough to discuss the nuances of these issues without fudge packing/carpet muching quips.

Friend they spell it out for you and you still have sympathy for this perversion?

You seem, Friend, to have misunderstood the thrust of this article. This article is describing the radical segment of the gay rights movement, not the attitudes of all gays. Many gays and lesbians hold attitudes similar to that of a friend of mine, who states that she is proud of her academic achievements, her writing, and her art, but not her homosexuality, because "being lesbian is not an achievement." I also urge you to read Tammy Bruce's book, The New Thought Police (particularly the chapter in which she describes the "hypocrisy of the gay establishment") in which she admits quite explicitly that "homosexuality is not the normal state of affairs." This statement I'm sure created quite a stir among some of her fellow gays and lesbians. Gay opinion is not a monolith.

What I have sympathy for, Friend, is not perversion, but individual human beings. I have come to realize in my travels that sexual orientation (like race, religion, ethnicity, etc.) does not determine the whole of an individual human being's identity. This is why I speak out against the radical gay establishment- because these radicals do peddle a sort of gay determinism.

Not only do you misunderstand the article, you also misinterpret my own remarks. A reasonable individual would read my comments as critical, not admiring. Re-read my second long paragraph in particular, which opens with the following statement:

I am VERY suspicious of the agendas of the pseudo-intellectual queer theorists, as are many gays.

BTW is the real reason you are defending this because you fit into one of their categories (other than a heterosexual)? Hey, if you don't want to admit it, that's okay. It's not something to be proud of.

This is ad hominem, and none of your business. Frankly, I don't care one wit if you think I'm a lesbian.

[Wilhelm Tell]

They have perverted Marxism just as badly as they have perverted sexuality. Any social norm is a form of "oppression" to these people. And it gets worse and worse. It is no longer enough to be gay any more--notice how they now use the word "transgendered" in almost every sentence. People have themselves mutilated and we are supposed to believe this is normal or even healthy. The Marxists are clever. They want a lot of confused, unhappy people who will believe they are victims of society. The communists can take the anger these people feel and direct it against society in a revolutionary movement. Fanatical mass-movements stand a better chance when there are lots of angry, dysfunctional people to draw from.

[redangus]

I used to agree with you until I had the misfortune to become involved with a number of hardcore gay men through a friend of my wife's. They were as a group the most banal, oversexed, hedonistic, all about me people I have ever met. I was at a party with my wedding ring on and had to stand in the corner to keep their hands off of me. They are like uncontrolled animals whose whole life revolves around sex, period. They are also terribly intolerant of anyone who even considers questioning their lifestyle and that is what it is.

[redangus]

I was telling anyone who would listen 15 years ago that the goal of the far left was to make the abnormal normal and the normal abnormal. Few took me seriously back then. More are listening today.

[Hobsonphile]

No wonder public high school graduates can't read, write or find Chicago on a map. They have much more important things to concentrate on.

And with this, you bring up an additional point I neglected to mention. Discussing these issues in school is a tremendous time suck. And what the blazes is "queer math"? Do they mean to suggest that gay students cannot learn math without reference to gay themes? Or that straight students cannot learn old fashioned tolerance and kindness while learning standard equations? This is silly, and even insulting.

[JoJo Gunn]

We're fed their garbage from the overpopulated Blue States, the media centers, Hollyweird, the places with evil activist judges....

____________


"Norway rats have been bred in scientific laboratories since the middle
nineteenth century. Artificial selection has elicited-partly
through unconscious choices by laboratory personnel-a strain of rats
that is calmer, tamer, less aggressive, more fertile, and with significantly
smaller brains than their wild ancestors. All this is a convenience
for those experimenting on rats.

In a now-classic experiment, the psychologist John B. Calhoun let
Norway rats reproduce in an enclosure of fixed size until the number
of occupants, and therefore the population density, was very high. He
made sure, however, to provide everyone with enough to eat. What
happened?

As the population increased, a range of unusual behavior was
noted. Nursing mothers became somehow distracted, rejecting and
abandoning their infants, who would wither away and die. Despite the
surplus of ordinary food, the bodies of the newborn would be greedily
eaten by passersby. An adult female in heat or estrus would be pursued
relentlessly, not by one, but by a pack of males. She had no hope
of escape, or even sanctuary. Obstetrical and gynecological disorders
proliferated, and many females died giving birth, or from complications
soon after. When crowded together, the rats lost their inclination
or ability to build nests for themselves and their young; their desultory
constructions were amateurish and ineffective.

Among the males Calhoun distinguished four types: the dominant,
highly aggressive ones who, although "the most normal," would occasionally
go "berserk"; the homosexuals who made sexual advances
to adults and juveniles of both sexes (but, significantly, only to non ovulating
females): their invitations were generally accepted, or at
least tolerated, but they were frequently attacked by the dominant
males; a wholly passive population that "moved through the community
like somnambulists" with nearly complete social disorientation;
and a subgroup Calhoun calls the "probers," uninvolved in the struggle
for status but hyperactive, hypersexual, bisexual, and cannibalistic.

(from Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan-Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors 1992 pages 184-185)
_________________________

http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:vjj8FGZBelYC:luna.cas.usf.edu/~miles/belchpt9.htm+%22behavioral+sink%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8



Animal study: Calhoun and the behavioral sink …. In his study rats were placed in a "perfect" environment, had adequate resources and were allowed to reproduce freely. The cage was designed so that 2 of the 4 rooms had only one entrance/exit, while the other 2 rooms had 2 entrances/exits. What happened was that in the 2 rooms with limited entrance/exit, a dominant male was able to maintain reasonable order, with limited crowding, normal feeding, socialization, and breeding. In the two rooms with multiple entrances/exits, no single male was able to maintain a normal dominance hierarchy, high density occurred, social order broke down, 4 classes of males developed (including marginally normal dominants, pansexuals, passive neutrals, and probers who were "hyperactive, hypersexual, homosexual/cannibals") and two classes of females (one abnormal in almost all manner, and the other marginally normal) occurred. Total chaos occurred in rooms 2 and 3. ….Would humans, if faced with such density levels act the same way?

[T'wit]

"...my gender is fluid."

You're about three quarts low, Sweetie.

[stands2reason]

I've always found that study fascinating...