I thought I was done with the “Gay-Hatin’ Gospel” series, but it seems not quite. First there are some questions and criticisms I’ll need to address, and then there are a host of other factors and considerations that I hadn’t thought of which arose in the comment threads.
In particular, Brel raised an excellent point about the way the obsession with homosexuality in evangelical churches is another manifestation (or, they would say, another “battlefront”) in those churches’ agenda of “supporting and reinforcing traditional gender roles.” E.J. Graff seconds this point in a TPM Cafe essay titled “Trannies & lezzies & gays, oh my“:
When there is discrimination against, or recoil from, lesbians and gay men, it’s not just because we fall in love with others of the same sex. It’s because we don’t neatly fit our gender identities; we’re often “genderqueer” as well. Our girls tend to be boyish; our boys tend to be girly. Not always, and not all of us. But gay men and lesbians who “pass” — who are “straight-acting,” in the terminology, who more closely fit sex stereotypes (like me, despite my short hair) — run into the least trouble on the job. It’s the fey men (and, depending on the situation, the butch women) who run into trouble. And that’s the ground on which they need the most protection: gender identity.
That deserves more attention and consideration, so I’ll try to get to that soon.
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The consensus on using Intense Debate (a program designed to enhance comment sections) seems to be that while some of the features would be neat, more bells & whistles would mainly mean more hoops to jump through, so I’ll try to err on the side of simplicity and say No, thank you, to their kind offer.
I will, however, continue to beg Typepad to upgrade the built-in comments function here. In particular, I’ll keep asking for 1) the option of editing one’s own comments after posting them; 2) the possibility of threading comments in longer discussions; and, especially, 3) the ability to close html tags in subsequent posts so that older and longer threads don’t have to gravitate toward all bold, all italic ugliness.
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Please note that the previous post is titled “Go read hilzoy.” This is something I say a lot here, and would probably say even more often if I posted more frequently.
That’s something you should probably consider if you’re wondering who to vote for in the 2007 Weblog Awards under the category of Best of the Top 1001-1750 Blogs.
It is, as they say (through clenched teeth), an honor just to be nominated. But I’m voting for Obsidian Wings. (Although Echidne of the Snakes is currently the top vote-getter, and those voters aren’t wrong either.)
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