Misguided Ideologies: The Real Threat to Equality

This is in response to the bigoted screed, “Opposing Pride Front Royal Event and Its Ideologies,” published on July 19th.

That letter contains the typical homophobic and transphobic talking points cited by people whose lives are in no way affected by someone else’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

As a cis-hetero woman myself, in earlier decades, “unnatural use of genitals” would include using what genitals people have to determine their rights to suffrage, credit in their own name, bank accounts in their own name, owning real estate, owning investment accounts, being able to make the full range of medical decisions about my own body, as well as laws against assault also criminalizing violence committed against me by my husband.  Using genitals to assign human and civil rights is an unnatural use of genitals, but sexual activity is not.

As for gender identity, there are various biological explanations for gender incongruence, and given all of the chromosomal, biochemical, and neurological factors that need to align to even be a cis-gender person, therein lies the real miracle: the alignment of biological sex and gender identity.  Calling something a “gender ideology” as though it was something that is taught and enforced is an admission that gender is a social construct, i.e., something we all accept as collective fiction, like corporations being people under the law.  This irrationality is the rhetorical hill transphobes choose to die on.

As for drag shows, I’m less insulted by someone’s campy, burlesque portrayal of femininity than I am by people who use my choice of clothing to determine whether I was “asking” to be sexually harassed or assaulted.  I choose to look at drag queens as imitation-being-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery, as I’ve never met a drag queen who didn’t like women as people.  I can’t say the same for some chronically online straight men out there.

All homophobes and transphobes accomplish making the world less safe and accessible for vulnerable groups of people.

Laura Standley
Front Royal, VA

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