Let Meghan Murphy Speak!

Have we gone insane?
I ask that quite literally. A woman dares to identify as a woman, and dares to say that there are two genders, and people consequently brand her words as ‘hate speech’ and ‘equivalent fo physical violence’?

What is going on here?

Anyone who has actually read Meghan Murphy’s writings will tell you that her words are not hateful, and that she is not ‘transphobic’ or even homophobic. She is a thoughtful woman with an important, well-reasoned point of view.

Frankly, even if her words were homophobic, I — for one —would not demand that she be silenced or locked up.

Those who wish to ban Meghan Murphy’s ideas are effectively burning books. It is not merely ironic — but terrifying — that a library in a free society is being asked to curtail freedom of speech.

Vickery Bowles is undoubtedly Toronto’s top librarian. She should be given some sort of award for defending Meghan Murphy. She is on the right side of history, and has spoken bravely and eloquently— as a librarian should — about the importance of the unfettered circulation of ideas in a free society.

We need to stop the finger-pointing, name-calling — stop the hatred and the demonization — and start respecting each other as human beings.

Will some be driven to pain, distraction, or even suicide by ideas they hear or read? Sadly yes; this is the downside of living in a society that does not censor ideas. The alternative is much more horrifying — a world unburdened by the unfettered circulation of ideas

Words are not violence. Books are not violence. Libraries are not violence. 

In fact, they are quite the opposite.

Society has a duty to protect the weak from physical assault, but not to protect the vulnerable from offensive speech

Libraries offer ideas that may offend. It is their job to challenge our established and entrenched feelings and prejudices, and that is a good thing.

We abandon them at our peril.

You Are Erasing My Desire

With the rise of transgender washrooms comes the end of urinals. Apparently what we have to look forward in this ‘ideal world’ is rows and rows of bathroom stalls, with all genders and non-genders waiting in line to use them. There is only one problem with this model of the new washroom. 

It erases my desire.

Washroom sex is part of gay culture. And before you say — ‘What the…?”  — try and understand that yes we are a minority group, and yes we are oppressed, and yes we have developed a culture that is different than yours. Sure gay men are sometimes raped by other  men. But our rape does not make us afraid, like heterosexual women. No, in our bars, bathrooms, backrooms and bath houses we have developed a civli sexual culture in which gay men understand that they can flirt and touch other gay men — in very intimate ways - and that 'no still means no.' Sure there are rude outliers — but gay culture simply has less rules around unwanted touching. Frankly we need them less than you do.

Men’s bathrooms are sexual places. Try reading the graffiti (or maybe that will be banned now, too?) Yes, when men — all of them, straight or gay — stand at urinals, you know what? They look. They look, and sometimes they touch. Sometimes they get a message — ‘No way.’ Most men when they get that message will stop touching. It’s civil. But all men know that urinals are sexual places, whether men choose to be sexual there or not. Period.

The end of urinals means the end of all that. It means the death of an iconic gay image — the drag queen at a urinal, her dress hiked up above her ass, proudly, freeing her libido and her wee. It’s over. We will not see that image again; we are not allowed to have that desire again.

I want to ask those who believe that all washrooms should be transgender washrooms one simple question.  Why are you doing this to us? Why?

Why are you so intent on erasing my desire?

Why Are Computers Polite?

I was buying stuff at the grocery store - at one of those automated quick check-out stations? And  when I was done with my purchase, the computer chirped — in a soothing female voice — “Thank you so much for your visit, and have a nice day!”

I resented it deeply. And at first I wasn’t sure why. Then I glanced back at the real live human cashiers (remember those?). They were all indeed living beings —  some with crooked smiles, some fat and some thin, some old and some young — and each I’m sure, replete with a complex, deeply changeable temperament. They were, in other words, people. I realised that — as deeply flawed as human cashiers are — I would rather do my business with an imperfect living person than an impeccably polite machine. 

For I am human, and am deeply imperfect too. Frankly, life  — for a writer — is sometimes lonely, and I relish any human contact (that includes an argument!).

So sure, judge me. But I don’t think that I’m alone in this. I think that — not only do people need to buy things at stores that are staffed by human beings — but that it is good for them to do so.

The politeness of computers signals the real problem. The digital world is increasingly replacing the human one. But I’m not here to rail against computers; the issue is actually capitalism. More and more, governments are being run by big corporations  — that’s what ‘populist’ leaders are, ‘ordinary’ business men, just facilitating business. Computers no longer simply disseminate information, they steal your data and clock your preferences, in order to  earn lots of money for big corporations.

In a capitalist culture, everything comes down to expediency and use. New products must make things faster and easier.  Human contact, in contrast, is slow and sometimes difficult.

Nevertheless, I humbly suggest that human contact is something every single person desperately needs. Computers are great, and necessary — and so is capitalism. But we must not forget that our economy essentially has no heart.  And some things that are easy and fast, also, coincidentally, kill the soul.

People need people (to quote Barbra in that increasingly relevant song from Funny Girl). Without other people — climate change or no climate change — we will suffocate. No, not from lack of air, from lack of love.

Anorexia, Judy and Me

I went on a diet to facilitate an operation a few months ago. I lost 45 pounds. This weight loss necessitated that I wrangle once again with my personal issues around gender.

Don’t worry about me. I’m not anorexic. But, boy! — or perhaps I should say, girlfriend! —  the gender issues that had been percolating during my summer diet kinda reached the boiling point after watching Renee Zellweger in Judy. The film triggered me — in the way that art is is supposed to trigger people. (It’s always a good thing when art upsets you and challenges your fundamental world view!) 

I was a fat, effeminate little boy. Judy Garland was a fat little girl. We both struggled with eating disorders. And for Judy and me, being skinny was all wrapped up with being beautiful and feminine. As a fat little boy I struggled with shame when people noticed my effeminate mannerisms, asking ‘You talk with your hands, why?” — and suggesting “You’re a big kid, shouldn’t you try out for the football team?” Of course I never wanted to play football (in reality I dreaded the thought). For me, as for a lot of gay men, my big masculine physical body was at odds with my inner feminininity.

I am not ‘trans.’ In fact one of the reasons I am writing this is to explain that gay men and lesbians have always had lots of issues around gender — and we had them way before the notion of ‘transgender’ ever existed. 

After losing 45 pounds, I began to feel very at home in my body. Before losing the weight, I was a big guy who made people uncomfortable because of my fluttering hands. Now — on the far side of my diet —  I have long slender arms and legs, and no belly to speak of. I feel graceful and delicate.  I feel like me. Now, when I dress up in drag I look like a female porn star — though an ageing one  — (the kind of girl I’ve always been inside, really!).  Not all gay men are effeminate, but we all (due to stigma) deal with issues of gender. Lots of gay men have eating disorders for many of the same reasons women have them  —  because being skinny seems to fit with being girly in a sexist society. If you want to be a feminine sex object, you are ordered to be lithe, poised, and petite.

Hey -- it’s nice to be an effeminate gay man, comfortable in my new body. 

But I promise I won’t be losing any more weight.

Cuz now I’ve got it all figured out!