Tag: lgbt issues

Facts Matter, But So Do Feelings

How feelings matter just as much as facts.

It usually bemuses me when people volunteer the words or phrases that irritate them. Common sayings, conversational habits or filler words that annoy us. It bemuses me because, in my experience, the one way to guarantee that people will use those phrases more often is to let everyone know they irritate you. Maybe it’s the company I keep. Now of course, I’m not talking about vulgar, rude or offensive phrases, just everyday phrases such as “I was about to say” or “Going forward”. Maybe one or two of such phrases might rankle me a bit, but I don’t usually volunteer this information. There is, however, one phrase that’s been doing the rounds lately that I find to be something beyond just irritating.

“Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

It’s being thrown about quite a lot lately, usually by anonymous trolls online or certain individuals engaging in what they believe is just a debate, when really their intentions are motivated by bigotry and hatred.

It comes in a few variations, such as “facts over feelings”, or “facts > feelings”, but it is always uttered with an undercurrent of contempt for the people it is directed at. It is meant to belittle and, ultimately, to dehumanise. To put a group of people firmly in their place and dismiss their concerns as irrelevant. It is a phrase I abhor.

Let us imagine (grim though it may be) taking this phrase as a universal truth. Facts over feelings. From a writer’s perspective, taking this approach is going to make for some pretty boring novels. Do we imagine, for one moment, that the greatest writers of history were so dismissive of the importance of feeling? Poets, novelists and playwrights have plunged into the very depths of their emotions for centuries to produce works that reflect what it means to be human. More often than not, those who champion the phrase “facts don’t care about your feelings” are also proponents of “bottling it up” and “not talking about it”. A distinctly unhealthy approach to life, quite frankly, and it doesn’t exactly help produce anything beyond a rather strained bowel movement.

Our emotions, our feelings, are what make us human. They’re what make life worth living. Look an animal in the eyes and you’ll see just how it’s feeling. Yet, the proponents of this nasty little catchphrase consider themselves so above such things that they would dismiss the emotions of those they dislike so vehemently, robbing themselves and others of the essence of humanity. When they say “Facts don’t care about your feelings”, what they are really saying is “I don’t care about your feelings.” I cannot fathom living with such a lack of empathy, such callous disinterest in the lives of others.

It particularly saddens me when I see this phrase aimed at members of the LGBTQ community, particularly when it comes from cis gay men and lesbians, aimed at transgender people. The dismissal of gender because it’s “just a feeling”, whereas sexual attraction can apparently be considered a fact. Well, it wasn’t that long ago that we were being told that our attraction to those of the same sex was “just a feeling” and that “it would pass”. We were being told by a great many people in positions of power that how we felt didn’t matter, because the fact that men and women come together to produce children was considered important enough to override how we felt. A fact that mattered more than our feelings.

The dismissal of gender as just a feeling makes no sense to me. What is attraction, if not a feeling? How do we know if we’re attracted to someone? We feel it. How do I know I am a man? How do I know I am cis? I was born male, and I have never felt that I might not be. I have always felt attracted to other men. Therefore, through my instincts (another word for feelings), I know that I am a gay, cis man. I didn’t come with a manual when I was born. I had to discern who and what I am based on how I felt, and how I continue to feel. This, again, is the very essence of being alive. To dismiss transgender people and belittle their “feelings” is a repulsive thing to do. Their feelings exist, just as everyone else’s do, and that is a fact.

There will always be those who say “But I’m just stating facts!” as though the things they’re saying are just a casual contribution to an academic debate. Whatever the sphere of discussion, they’ll say “I don’t have a problem with (blank), but this is a fact”. Yes, I know sex is real. So is gender. It’s as real as sexual attraction, which is what unites the LGBTQ community. Whether cis and gay or transgender, both groups have at some time or another been told that facts override how they feel about themselves. We were told we had to conform because it was a ‘fact’ that everyone was meant to be a certain way. That was the thinking behind Section 28, and it was flawed thinking at best. Those who pipe up with certain facts as though they’re making a profound point that nobody’s ever considered before are usually just revealing their intense discomfort and sometimes outright hatred of a group that is ‘different’ to them.

As I said, sex is real. I know that. I don’t feel the need to go pointing it out to everyone because, frankly, to do so is unnecessary. Sex is real. Gender is real. Both heterosexuality and homosexuality are real, as are bisexuality, asexuality, pansexuality. Being transgender is real. Being gender fluid or non binary is real. All these things, and so many more, are real. They are facts. Those who employ my most hated of phrases wish to ignore the complexity of life and hammer through their own narrow view of what is real and valid. Those who use that phrase are almost never just looking to engage in debate. They’re looking to invalidate entire groups of people based on nothing but their own prejudice.

I can accept a great many facts and acknowledge the feelings of others, because those feelings exist. They are a fact. The dismissal of people’s feelings as invalid is not a path any of us wish to go down. Once you can invalidate one group, you can justify acts of unspeakable cruelty towards them, and they never stop at just one group.

Facts matter, but so do feelings.

The Couple In Ipswich

The identity of one person does not erase another.

There’s a couple who live in Ipswich. One is a cis man, the other is a trans man. They’ve been together for five years. They particularly enjoy going to concerts and will happily spend an evening together watching a history documentary. If anyone should ask them, they will say they are a gay couple.

Now, if this angers you, let me start by saying the problem is entirely of your own making, not theirs. They’re living their life, harming no one, while you are twisting yours into knots.

I am unlikely to ever meet the couple from Ipswich. Firstly, it’s a fair old trek from Bristol to Ipswich, but even so it’s just plain unlikely that this couple and I will ever cross paths. My boyfriend and I occasionally double date with some friends of ours, another gay couple. They live their lives, we live ours, and the couple all the way in Ipswich continue to live theirs. Yet, there are some who believe that the couple from Ipswich effectively erase me and my boyfriend, and presumably the couple we double date with. Strange how they can do that from so far away.

The truth is, that the existence of the couple from Ipswich does not affect me or any other couple one iota. Their being together, and their being precisely who they are does not impact me or anyone else, and frankly I’m more than a little tired of being told that they are somehow a threat. Last time I checked, I have not been erased. The existence of one person cannot erase another.

I am a gay man. I am cis. I am in a relationship with another cis gay man. That is me, and that is us. We are, as Stonewall says, free to be. Those are powerful words that must and do apply to everyone. So long as an individual is harming no one, they must be free to be themselves regardless of what others think.

“But they have no right to say they’re a gay couple! One of them is female!”

Words carry a great deal of power, especially the ones we employ when talking about ourselves. If we are all free to be, then we must be free to describe ourselves in the manner that befits us most. Let’s take a little look at why this belief that a trans person cannot refer to themselves as gay is not only ludicrous, but futile.

Let us say that I did actually meet the couple from Ipswich, and they mention the fact that they’re a gay couple upon our meeting. If I were inclined to take exception to this, what options are available to me? I can insist that they are nothing of the kind, and openly state that because one of them was born female, they must be a straight couple. Alternatively, I could continue chatting with them and manage to avoid stamping my own view of the world on a couple I’ve only just met. As I say, this is if I were inclined to take exception to how they describe their relationship. I am not. Who they are, together or individually, does not change one thing about who I am. It is none of my concern.

Apply to this a wider setting. Imagine the effort it would take to ensure that all such couples do not refer to themselves as a gay couple, or indeed that transgender individuals only use certain words when talking about themselves. It would be exhausting and costly, not to mention a complete waste of time. If a trans man says he is a gay man, he is a gay man. This does not make me any less a gay man too. Frankly, I don’t have the time or energy for such gatekeeping. If he says he is bisexual, then he is bisexual. If he says he is straight, he is straight.

There is a marvellously rich array of words we in the modern era can use to describe ourselves. As I say, I am a gay man in a relationship with another gay man. I know people who are bisexual, and you certainly won’t see me trying to suggest that they are ‘confused’ or should ‘pick a side’. If someone tells me they are bisexual, they are bisexual. I respect self determination, and trust me it isn’t all that hard to do so,

“Ah, but if the man is in a relationship with a trans man, he must be bisexual!”

Not necessarily. Again, I go by what people tell me about themselves. To some people, being gay means being attracted to someone on the basis of sex. To some people, it means being attracted to someone on the basis of gender. Both of these are valid and neither cancels out the other. If we truly live and let live, then there is truly enough room for everyone to get along.

Of course, the term ‘pansexual’ exists, which is being attracted to someone regardless of sex, gender or gender identity. Am I therefore going to go up to the couple from Ipswich and insist that they tell me they’re a pansexual couple? No. I still don’t have the time for that level of gatekeeping. If any couple or individual tells me they’re pansexual, they are pansexual. I can accept that with greater ease than once again trying to stamp another word more to my liking on them. I am still not inclined to do that anyway. People are what they say they are.

“But you can’t even say you’re same sex attracted anymore! You’ll be called a bigot!”

Here’s the thing though, a relationship takes at least two to tango. If you do not wish to date someone because they’re transgender, nobody can force you to. Consent is very much a thing, and the efforts by some to paint transgender people as roving predators who will insist on you dating them is reprehensible. The gross generalisations being thrown about are sickening. The subjects of attraction and relationships are immensely complex, and the vast majority of people, regardless of sexuality or gender identity, value the importance of consent. I have found trans men of my acquaintance attractive. Does this make me any less a gay man? No. I know who and what I am.

We do not do ourselves any favours by engaging in petty squabbling. There are those who would genuinely like to see LGBT people across the world crushed underfoot, and they figure the best way to do it is to get us fighting amongst ourselves. Divide and conquer. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community are united because we have all, at one time or another, faced those who dub us ‘abnormal’. We are not abnormal, and we never have been. If we continue to argue over what people get to call themselves, we open the door to some powerful groups who would like to dictate what we all call ourselves, and for the most part they’d like us to identify as ‘dead’.

You have the right to be attracted to someone on the basis of sex. You have the right to be attracted to someone on the basis of gender. You have the right to be attracted to someone regardless of sex or gender, and you have the right to self determination, to stand up and say who you are in your own words. Nobody can dictate who you are attracted to, no more than we should be dictating how people identify. We are free to be. All of us.

Oh, and in case you hadn’t clocked it already, the couple from Ipswich are hypothetical, yet they represent a great many real couples. Real people. Some are far too inclined to lose sight of the fact that when we discuss LGBT issues, we are talking about people. Not ‘ideologies’, but people, and their lived experiences. We could all do with a reminder of that from time to time.