[quote=@Rica] [@Buddha] You've never been in a Spencer's have you? I've been seeing stuff like this since I was 13 and old enough to go into the mall by myself without adult supervision. [/quote] We don't have Spencer's. I wouldn't like to go to one, if bondage equipment and public indecency is a part of it. I'm sorry. [quote=@Rica]It's a party. You go to the party. You deal with the party. You don't go to the hosts throwing the party for themselves and say 'Hey I don't like this.' even though the party isn't even for you.[/quote] Oh no. It's not a party. I think you're finally understanding what I am saying. [b]If it was a private party, where like you said, I go to the party and there's a host of sorts throwing it for themselves,[/b] then I would be okay with it. But it's not. It's not a private party, it's a public event, so if I have to walk through the street where it takes place to get to [b]my[/b] home and this event takes place [b]outside of my home[/b] (which it does in the Netherlands, and I assume in America too) then I have to look at it all day without any form of consent being asked from me. The party is not private, it's a public event, and therefore the argument 'the host is throwing it for themselves and you can't complain' is rather stupid. If I start playing real fucking loud music outside of your home throughout the day, you'd get a little agitated too right? [quote=@Rica]Gender isn't a binary. It's not. It's not one or the other. Gender is horribly complex and people shouldn't just decide 'the brain works like THIS' when we [i]don't know[/i]. [url=http://www.medicaldaily.com/challenging-gender-identity-biologists-say-gender-expands-across-spectrum-rather-323956]We also have proof that gender is far more complex than boy or girl.[/url][/quote] I don't wanna say you're right or wrong. I believe you are wrong, but that doesn't matter for what I am about to say. Changing the definitions of things like gender and sexuality is something that takes time and effort (and above all a majority support), neither of which has passed and the majority support currently isn't in favor of changing these definitions. Therefore your claim that we should understand is completely untrue, mostly because a) your cited theory hasn't been proven or disproven, or given any kind of scientific credibility, and b) people accept what they want to accept. You can't force them to agree with you, and therefore in the real world you will just be unable to convince them otherwise. It's not a win-lose game, it's just that people in the real world (and I'm speaking specifically in America) are so rooted in their convictions that you're just gonna have to wait for the next generation to roll around, who does agree with these things. It's a generational process. That goes for literally every ideology or idea. [quote=@Rica]More than that Sex, Gender, and Gender Presentation are very different. I can dress as much as a man as I like. I'm still a woman. Changing my clothes or hair doesn't suddenly change that I'm a cisgendered woman. My roommate wearing a dress doesn't suddenly make him not a transgendered man. Those are still very true things.[/quote] No, changing your hair and clothes might mean people will mistake you for a cisgendered man. Your roommate wearing a dress might make people think he is a woman (and that might be what he wants). Actually I don't know, you're saying it's a woman that became a man? In that case, wearing a dress might be a little odd but frankly I don't have a problem with it. You know straight people can wear a dress too right? I mean, I wouldn't, mostly because I don't feel like it, but we can and some of us do. There's no need to relate dresses and clothing or hair to gender. Gender has less to do with physical appearance and more with behavior. It's about social, cultural and behavioral factors that decide gender. For instance, one culture (say western culture) says that women should have long hair. That's therefore a stereotype thing that people with a female gender have (t'is the reason boys with long hair are often teased about being a girl). In Africa, girls are not told to have long hair, because their hair grows short and nappy. Therefore this stereotype about the female gender does not hold true there. They are just traits that are commonly associated with one or the other sex, but they can be applied to the sex that they're not part of. I.e. a man can have long hair and still be a man. Their gender could be either. [quote=@Rica]There's also a theory that gender might just be a social construct (which is entirely possible because we don't very well understand the brain still.).[/quote] The truth to this is that yes, gender is a social construct (TO A DEGREE) because it depends on culture and therefore the social environment of a given location can be a large factor. Like I said, western world vs. African ideas on femininity. However there are also just some biological factors, for example child-birthing is a trait of the feminine gender, and it's something men can't do. Wish we could, so we could show the women that we're just as capable of withstanding that pain, but ya. There are just a few factors that weigh into gender. And the thing is, I see a lot of people saying that gender is this and that, where as that's simply not true. Gender in China is different from Africa is different from America is different from Czechia. They are different everywhere. It's important to remember that. [quote=@Rica]You're not unique in this. Most people [b]in general [/b]are either outright hateful, don't care (like you do), or try to be 'allies' and end up making it all about themselves and how 'wonderful' they are for being supportive.[/quote] Fixed it. People are assholes, not just heterosexuals, and there are a lot of LGBT people that ruin the community of LGBT people for the other LGBT's. [quote=@Rica]There are some that do the right thing and things are improving overall but it's a simple fact that 'I don't care' or 'You deserve it' is the general response to horrible treatment of LGBTQ+ people. See: The response to the Pulse incident was overall either anti-Muslim (Don't care and 'allies') or how sinful we were and that God was just enacting his wrath on us sinful fags.[/quote] American problems, Christians here don't hate LGBT's unless you're in the bible belt, and everyone here thinks those people are stupid idiots for not vaccinating their kids anyway, so there's more general disdain for the bible belt than the LGBT people. There are a lot of programs to help LGBT people in that area, actually. Furthermore, I want to elaborate on 'I don't care'. I don't care because in my country this is not a problem. I'd dare say in the entirety of Western Europe this is not a problem. I also don't care because frankly I have my own issues. And I do support the LGBT movement in general, but I am nothing if I am not contrarian and critical. I think a large part of the American LGBT community has the wrong idea about how to fix their issues. They're idealistic at best and naïve at worst. For example, they distance themselves from heterosexuals, where as in a realistic view they'd realize that heterosexuals are the norm, the majority, and that without the help of 'god damn cishet whites' you can't get anything done because fact of the matter is, in America, cishet's run the country, and therefore you need their help to fix anything at all. And also I really don't care mostly because I find it really hard to care about something I am not invested in. I am not LGBT. I have never seen violence against LGBT people, because I'm Dutch. The one time we saw it in the news, there was public outrage and we called for the murder, yes the murder, of those that committed the crime (I believe a gay guy was killed by two Moroccan youths. It was accidental because they beat him up and then left him behind, but they beat him up so bad he died later). I hope you can understand, therefore, that I find it also really hard to care about people complaining about how much they struggle, because I'm an asshole. I'm sure you've noticed that by now, but really, I'm just having a critical debate here with you and I've seen numerous points of yours (for example the bisexual thing, that was pretty interesting, but it seems to be once again an American only thing.) that were quite good. [quote=@Rica]I don't fucking know. It's just an assumption that bisexuals will cheat because they 'can't be satisfied by one gender' and it's fucking stupid. I hate it so much.[/quote] Hey man, people are stupid, what can we say. I've never heard of this phenomena but it seems rather stupid. [quote=@Rica]You hit the nail on the head here. Yes Heterosexual people suffer too and yes they consider suicide too. They've never had to deal with the feeling of wanting to die just for something you can't help or control. For something that shouldn't even be a problem.[/quote] I mean.. Work. Depression. Divorce. Court settlements. Being bullied for being ugly. Being bullied for having braces/glasses. Having problems at home (parents fight). There's a lot of things. Being gay is just one of the things on that list. [quote=@Rica]Because our country is so mixed and complex with so many different heritages and cultures to pull from. So people want to cling to their personal traditions so they don't get lost.[/quote] Stupid. To a European it's funny because I noticed that they just follow trends. I'm Germanic and pagan, and my only way of showing 'pride' about this is wearing a '⊕' necklace. That's it. There were so few American pagans, and most of them were just pagan to be edgy. Ever since that series Vikings came out, suddenly every American white man has become a pagan and their ancestors were suddenly Vikings. It just seems like they're doing it because it's hot. In 20 years, when a movie about Crusaders comes out and becomes the next hot thing, suddenly you'll see guys running around with longswords and shields with crosses on them. That's my main issue with this. [quote=@Rica]The US is very unique. Our country isn't 'One' heritage like many others are. Ours is such a mix that everyone is free to express their culture openly. (Legally anyway. Culturally however is another story.)[/quote] Us too. We have a long history of accepting anyone into our country. Carribeans come here to study, because we colonized them and they're still a special province of ours (because the lands we colonized were never inhabited, we didn't really 'brutally colonize' them so to speak. So, they kinda like us.) On the other hand those from Indonesia were also colonies, and they disliked us. So we gave them freedom after World War 2 and now we help them out (white mans burden... :lol I kid. We help them because we officially still have good ties. The Indonesians themselves love us, but the government doesn't.) Hm, let's see. Following world war 2 we had a lack of labor so we invited Turks and Morrocans to come work here as cheap labor, and they never left. The Turks are integrating really well. We have a large Chinatown where I love. Lovely people. Also we have a lot of Poles and other Slavs living here now. Putins daughter lived in the Netherlands before she was brought back to Russia following the MH17 thing. In short; what America has isn't so special. The difference is we don't care. People celebrate their culture behind closed doors. And when they don't, it's usually an inclusive 'culture festival' where everyone from every culture participates. I like these festivals, mostly because everyone just cooks their food and you can go around eating the best food from all countries. We don't really give spotlight attention to any one given culture.