Tag Archives: transgender

People have gone down this spiral of cancel culture and the idea that everything is offensive. — Bianca Del Rio

Jason and I are good friends and hunting buddies.

Here is a photo of my friend and hunting buddy Jason and me. Jason is a family man and a man’s man; he is happily married and has a six-year-old daughter. Not long after we became hunting buddies some years ago, I told him I am gay. His response was, “and that will affect our hunting how?” Since then, our friendship and hunting partnership flourished. It was under Jason’s guidance I took up whitetail deer hunting. Hitherto, I was first and foremost a gamebird hunter. Upon taking up deer hunting with Jason as my mentor, I took four deer to date, starting in the 2012 season with a nice doe, a nine-point buck in 2016, a spike horn buck in 2017, and an eight-point buck in 2020. As a result, I have a presence online as a gay hunter. I publish a blog, Geoffrey’s Hunting Diary, subtitled “memoirs of a gay huntsman.” In addition, I have a YouTube channel called The Gay Huntsman. Those who view my videos and read my blog posts find the emphasis on hunting and not that I am gay. Yes, Jason gets it; my sexual orientation is irrelevant–it has no bearing on our shared passion for hunting and our friendship. Continue reading →

Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination. — Christian Nestell Bovee

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Though I always knew I am gay, it was not until the spring of 1989 that I accepted the reality. It was after a weekend visit with my friend and confessor, Father Basil Zion, a Russian Orthodox priest on the faculty of Religious Studies at Queen’s University, my alma mater. It was Father Basil who convinced me I should be true to myself. With newfound confidence, I took my first tentative steps out of the closet. I did not declare my homosexuality to the world at large. I made my first visit to the GO Centre, the gay community centre in Ottawa at the time. I started reading the local gay newspaper. Things were off to a good start, but my confidence took a hit when I read an article in the newspaper on a murder trial in Texas that sent a chill down my spine. In December 1988, Richard Lee Bednarski, an 18-year-old college student, was convicted of the murder of two gay men, Tommy Lee Trimble, 34, and Lloyd Griffin, 27. Berdanski was sentenced to thirty years in prison for his crime. It looked as though justice was seen to be done at face value–even though his crime merited a life sentence. However, in handing down his judgement, District Judge Jack Hampton openly expressed his disdain for the victims as they were gay.

In Hampton’s view, the fact that the victims were gay made it a lesser degree of murder. That and their killer was a good boy, a college student with no criminal record–it was only his first murder after all. He reached his conclusion despite the evidence that “he (Bednarski) and a group of North Mesquite High School students drove to Dallas’ Oak Lawn area to harass homosexuals the night of May 15.” The motive for his crime was the harassment of gay men. (AP News) As Hampton mused following the trial,

″These two guys that got killed wouldn’t have been killed if they hadn’t been cruising the streets picking up teen-age boys. […] I don’t much care for queers cruising the streets picking up teen-age boys […] I’ve got a teen-age boy. […] These homosexuals, by running around on weekends picking up teen-age boys, they’re asking for trouble. […] They really are.” (AP News)

The news report was a grim reminder that many still view gay men as predators who target adolescent boys for sex. As I said in previous posts, growing up gay, the onus on gay men my age was to prove to the broader society we are not perverts. Yes, the stigma of being a gay man lingered well into the 1980s. In fact, in 1980, when I served as a Reservist in the Canadian Army, I remember a fellow Reservist who spoke openly about going with friends to “roll the faggots” at Majors Hill Park in Ottawa. Also, in the spring and summer of 1989, several men were murdered in Ottawa. Their attackers killed them because they thought they were gay. At least one of the murdered men was not gay, not that it matters. The police investigated the murders, and charges were laid against the assailants who went to prison.

Looking back, I was not comfortable accepting my homosexuality as living with the stigma of being a gay man remained a heavy burden. Over time, however, through the hard work of brave gay individuals and the gay rights and human rights groups who supported them, gay men threw off the stigma. Life is good for gay men these days, but they should not forget their troubled history. As free and equal citizens, we must focus on our issues as gay men and not allow our movement to become diluted with causes, notably feminism and transgenderism, that have no bearing on our history and the present. As we exercise our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, certainly we can sympathize with those around us but not at the expense of our interest in the consolidation of the gains of the gay rights movement.

Posted by Geoffrey

Ready! Fire! … aim?

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The Liberal reign of error under the leadership of Justin Trudeau continues. On May 1st, the Liberal government announced a new round of prohibitions of 1500 makes and models of semi-automatic rifles via an Order-in-council. The decision to prohibit these rifles is arbitrary, and like every other policy, the Liberals imposed on Canadians are rooted in divisive identity politics. Justin Trudeau made no secret of his faith in feminism–repeatedly declaring since he became Prime Minister in 2015 with a majority in parliament. He proudly formed a gender-balanced Cabinet “because it is 2015.” He would like everyone to become feminists. Rest assured, Justin Trudeau is a true believer in feminist doctrine–or so he says. Unfortunately, the Trudeau government stumbled in its zeal to promote feminist causes when it passed Bill-C-16 into law. Bill C-16 An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, added gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. Bill C-16 was passed into law by the Parliament of Canada in 2016. Continue reading →

Sing if you’re glad to be gay, sing if you’re happy that way. — the Tom Robinson Band

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Robinson

An accusation was levelled at me last year when I publicly rejected the notion that gay became “queer.” The charge, in short, is that I am a selfish gay man. Now that gay rights are secured–the removal of the stigma of being gay, the freedom to live openly, to participate fully in society, the right to marry among them–I am content to “pull the ladder up after me.” That I reject “queer theory” is true; I made no secret of that. In particular, I object to the conflation of the transgender ideology with male homosexuality–notably gay rights advocacy. In a recent essay, I discussed the emergence of a movement called the LGB Alliance–an initiative to separate the T from the LGB. The problem I found with the LGB Alliance is that it is part of a struggle among feminists–a quarrel over whether transgender women are women or not and if there is a place for transgender women in the feminist movement. I stand by what I wrote in my earlier essay: feminist causes have no bearing on gay men’s issues, no more than does the transgender ideology. The gay rights movement and transgender ideology are unrelated and neither the twain should meet. Continue reading →

Get the L out — Angela Wild (Lesbian feminist activist and researcher)

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Kimberly Nixon.

Morgane Oger.

I remember an incident from many years ago that took place as I stood in line at a fish market. I stopped by the fish market to buy some fish, sole if I remember, for my supper. As I stood in the line, an older woman walked up and tried to cut into the line. She said to the woman standing behind me that she had left the line to quickly pick up an item she forgot–that she intended to take her place back in the queue. The woman turned to me, the one who wanted to cut into the line and said, “tell her.” I said nothing as I stood there quietly, waiting to pay for the sole. I thought to myself, “leave me out of this–the dispute is between you and the other woman.” What made recall this memory is the growing controversy over transgender rights. A recent development in the debate is the emergence of a movement and groups of activists called the LGB Alliance. The LGB Alliance is a response to the ascendency of the transgender rights movement. The LGB Alliance, purportedly, is an initiative of gay, lesbian and bisexual rights activists who want to separate the movement from the transgender rights movement. I welcomed this development–the gay rights movement breaking off from the transgender movement as transgenderism has nothing to do with being gay. However, it quickly dawned on me that just as the transgender movement has nothing to do with being gay, neither does the LGB Alliance concern itself with the interests of gay men. Continue reading →

I love to be individual, to step beyond gender. — Annie Lennox

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The suicide of Joshua Alcorn on December 28, 2014, marked the tragic end of his young life. He was seventeen years old. His death attracted world wild attention as he published a suicide note on Tumblr in which he related the stress of suffering gender dysphoria. This stress was too much for him to bear, so he opted for suicide. He adopted the name Leelah in his suicide note. He leaves behind his grieving parents, younger siblings and the rest of those who knew and loved him. Details are emerging as to the stress he endured and a degree of dysfunction in his family. He came from a Christian family. His parents (Doug and Carla Alcorn) did not understand what he was experiencing and essentially told him to “pray it away.” He said in his suicide note that his parents sent him to conversion therapy for treatment. Compounding this tragedy was the lynch mob mentality that took hold. Doug and Carla Alcorn experienced harassment, even a call from activist Dan Savage that they face prosecution. Is this warranted? Continue reading →