Apart from "orientation" changing to "genetic encoding," nothing in that particular line has changed (though, that change is a promising one).

I think Rick Perry's not far off the truth with 'People are inclined to be homosexual' - the idea that individuals can possess a natural inclination towards homosexuality seems persuasive with the entire "Gay Uncle" hypothesis that if you have an Uncle who's homosexual you are more likely to be homosexual yourself. There's also the hypothesis that if you have many brothers each brother is more likely to be homosexual than the last. So there's potentially some genetics in play and potentially something to do with development in birth.

One of the major differences between a disorder and an orientation is that a disorder causes medically significant distress, which homosexuality does not and alcoholism does and can. I think that can put away the entire "Homosexuality is a disorder" nonsense, but there's a more pressing issue to do with teaching homosexuality as genetic. I think the majority of the LGBT+ community is intimately aware that homosexuality is not entirely genetic. There are some individuals that always show an interest in those of the same assigned sex and always will, and some who show interest in both, and some who develop an interest in one or both over time. The LGBT+ community, as I see it, has been more comfortable with the idea pithily expressed by Mae Martin "Some are born gay, some become gay and some have gayness thrust upon them" - homosexuality also has roots in social development and this is not a negative thing.

But there's more to it than that. People have rejected homosexuality as a lifestyle choice from the mid 1800's onwards, and that's acceptable to do because you can't judge someone for who they are but you can judge them for who they choose to be or what choices they make. Surely of that, even if not their genetic makeup, they are responsible. And now there is evidence that homosexuality has genetic roots people have taken hold in this, in the "It is not their choice, so you cannot hold them responsible for being gay." So now the opponents have taken this aboard and are making stances that show we can hold people responsible for their genetic makeup, hence the entire alcoholism stance.

But they're playing the wrong game from the start, because homosexuality is not purely genetic. You can also see this happening with Transsexualism, which is why I'm so annoyed about this issue personally. To summarise, Trans people either come out pre or post puberty, and the DSM/ICD diagnose this differently, where pre-puberty is the best transgender and post is the worst transgender. Despite the best/worst, 6-23% of pre-puberty trans kids end up being Trans, most of the assigned males end up being gay instead. Society will slowly accept the best trans and in about 30-40 years accept the worst trans, because we can't 'blame' people any more for their genetics.

This shouldn't be about whether people can be held responsible or not for the 'awful' decision/inclination to be gay, the debate needs to be focused instead on the fact that there is nothing shameful about being homosexual and that this argument is going in the wrong direction. The best solution for this strategy alienates a considerable amount of gay individuals and sets up the trans* community for the same shit in about 5-10 years and the worst one fails to show it is genetic and has to backtrack considerably.

To return to the main point of your article, I think the majority of the community if not all of it is against forcible outing people. You've got two big issues here:

>There's a certain satisfaction in finding someone who voted anti-homosexual bills turned out to be homosexual >The media really loves finding gay people and outing them

I don't think this is a current LGBT+ issue, I think this is currently an issue with the media who still believe that someone being gay is reason to write a headline. LGBT members are not, as far as I know,searching out closeted members and outing them currently, Jim Kolbe is a story from 1996.

Gender female, sex male, bisexual. I was assigned male sex at birth because they saw a penis and that's the identification criteria. I realised that the chemicals in my brain were not happy with testosterone because it resulted in depression from the onset of puberty and the depression stopped after I removed the testosterone and put in estrogen. I'm sexually interested in both genders and only romantically interested in women at the moment.

Gender and sex are confusing as hell in modern languages, I don't think German differentiates the two concepts by noun at all, and English common usage doesn't really differentiate too much. Sex is frequently called biological sex, although this doesn't really capture it either, and Germany/Australia using 'Third Sex' options show that really sex isn't as determinate as one might want. Preferably there would be Gender(Assigned), Gender(Identifying), Gender(Presenting/Expression) but the first use only makes sense in a medical context, the second to oneself, and the third to others.

English uses sexuality from a relative standpoint instead of an independent standpoint, and that makes life confusing if you're trans. So if I liked women only, I'd start out as heterosexual and end up homosexual? At what point was the change? Androsexual & Gynesexual seem to be more intelligible. But that doesn't take into account people who straight up don't identify with one gender more than the other, or people who are attracted to those who don't seem very masculine or feminine. Gender(Expression) Sexual? Then you have people who are asexual but still form relationships that aren't based on sexual attraction, I'm sure they have a type too. I know a few girls who are straight but are sexually bisexual, and a few guys who are romantically only into one gender but would have sex with either if they were attracted to them. Would it be beneficial to divide attraction into the Greek forms? So Lojban has "mi prami do", where "prami" communicates an idea of love and "cinmo" could communicate feeling, but neither really hit the spot for sexual interest.

Huh, making up language words is fun, I see why you do it.

You’re right, they are bad at this. “woman-become-man for male to female transsexuals(or past-man-woman) reverse the genders for the other direction. monadic? or places for former and present names pc: This leaves out a lot of possibilities: transgendered (i.e., living as other gender without body alteration), transvestite, and, of course, homosexual and heterosexual. And this does not even get into the mass of biologically defined variant sexes: xx males (hypersensitive to testosterone), xy females (lack testosterone receptors), xyy males and overt hermaphrodites of various degrees “ They have no idea. Transgendered isn’t a word, because ‘to transgender’ doesn’t make sense. It’s like watching someone stumble at scratching the surface, to mix metaphors. Woman-become-man doesn’t make sense either; it’s conflating assigned gender and gender identity until it makes transition sound like either a choice or a cosmetic decision, like people change gender because the other one looks more fun. Variant sexes is going way too far until you can express the basics well enough. Can I guess 95%+ of Lojban speakers are male? Orgasm/Climax is JUST sexual release?

I'm not going to question the term has been thrown around poorly in arguments; it has and it shouldn't. It doesn't stop it being a useful tool that people discard far too frequently.

Privilege as a term is designed to make people aware of where their benefits might make them unlikely to notice problems. It doesn't mean they're better than everyone, and one privilege isn't the be all and end all of comparison. As so frequently pointed out, some starving African children are able bodied, but they're really not doing great. White, middle class males don't get literally everything either, but they have advantages and disadvantages in ways they're not aware of.

I can walk around and I have no issues with getting around London, and as such I don't really notice when a place doesn't have disabled access. I'm privileged because I don't need to notice this kind of thing and I don't know what it's like when someone refuses to make somewhere accessible because it's too expensive, or not structurally possible, and I don't know what it's like to have that life. This doesn't mean my opinion is invalid if I said "Hey, that building doesn't have access, but it totally should. What gives?" and it doesn't mean it's invalid when I say "It seems pointless to have disabled access there; it's unnecessary and far too expensive. Why not this instead?"

It is unlikely though that I'll ever be in a position where I can explain what's difficult about life in a wheelchair though, 'cos I don't live like that. There's gonna be a load of minor things that I never thought about, and to say "Well I know what it's like, and I think if this happened it would solve your problems" IS patronising. Sure, I might have done the research, studied it for years, and I might _genuinely_ know what would help. It's just straight out unlikely, and when people say certain things, the fact that they were privileged in this way shows.

I'm not privileged in the fact I'm transgender and that's pretty difficult some of the time. My life isn't shite because of it, actually being white and middle class has made some of it a breeze in ways that other people aren't so lucky to have. One of the key issues is that going to the bathroom is a big deal - most places have one gender or the other and going in the boys results in bad things and going in the girls also results in bad things. To me, most people are privileged in the fact that's never a thought to them. Don't make 'em better or worse people, just means that it's a bit easier for them for that particular bit of life. There's a lot of little things there that you won't think about, so when someone speaks up for me and says "The issue that Transgender people need solving is X", without asking someone living that, it's a bit weird. Yes, the NHS queues are terrible and that'd be nice to have solved, but in reality what I would prefer at the moment is a standardised manual for transgender patients so that I know if my rights are being violated when a doctor insists I have to strip down. Again, your views aren't invalid, it's just difficult for you to speak about and frustrating when my views are shouted down when it's something so personal.

Returning to gender, there are a lot of things you won't notice because you're male. That's not your fault, privilege was never meant to be about blaming people for things. It's just that it is easier for men to get onto these STEM courses, as you say, but not that it's the easiest thing ever. Rich White Men don't go out of their way to prevent women getting on the courses - no one is suggesting that for a minute. The article, and I've only glanced over it, seems to suggest that men select men for these jobs without considering that they're being sexist, it's just inherent. There's a few articles on the internet about Academic sexism where they submit two fake students for the same course, same credentials exactly, just different gender. The women are less likely to be accepted. On the streets, black men get random stop and search more than white men. We're not going out of our way to blame white men here - all we're saying is that there's a problem, and it's not obvious to you if you don't live it.

Aight, I'll bite.

What does Privilege mean to you? I've seen the word thrown around on this site and Reddit a fair few times, and for the most part it's just used as a way of making an argument seem less legitimate by association.

Watching a dull mess like Thor 2, you naturally turn to the villains for entertainment

...I went to go see it FOR Loki. Was I the only one? I saw Avengers, didn't like any of the hero side but adored the evil side and had a lot of support in doing so. If not only because Hiddleston is damn attractive. I don't think it was because the good side was that unlikeable, the watcher/observer guy was interesting and I enjoyed watching him tear down a ship by himself.

In Thor 2 I liked Frigga; Thor & Loki's mother a lot too, so I felt quite conflicted over sides. Seeing as my interest in the film could be summed up as "Tom Hiddleston is in it and I want to see if he did win post-Avengers", I felt quite happy watching it. There were enough female characters for quite a male-dominated genre, the secondary relationship of Darcy & Intern was pleasantly reversed from the traditional boy girl power relationship, so my feminist side was fine.

What was really missed in the review was how funny the film was. It didn't take itself seriously in the slightest, it was happy to have two or three jokes in each scene and they weren't bad. There was a portal-esque reference earlier on, there's a lot of wackiness and it felt like a solid move from comic book humour to film humour. Is it a masterpiece of film? Nope. But it didn't bill itself as anything higher, and I don't think it criticised as such.

I've only ever heard manky said, but that looks right to me! English has some lovely words. We use SO many american-isms though, couch and trash and basically adopted into our language now. (Sofa and rubbish are the proper words, of course)

I always get quite annoyed that Americans don't have kettles. WHAT IF YOU WANT TEA.

I assumed other people were unaware. I'm not sure how far the word has spread. One of my favourite English-y words is mardy, which is an adjective for grumpy or bad tempered.

Mostly when talking about biscuits. It's when something is very easy to keep eating, but isn't actually addictive.

*Display Picture. Close eightbitsamurai, but not quite.

I'm so British. If you'd looked longer you'd notice I talk about the NHS occasionally.

@msn.co.uk was the late adopter email. It started out @hotmail.com and then @hotmail.co.uk for MSN based email addresses afaik. AIM was a thing, but it wasn't that popular in my teenage years. I think MSN was being used around me from about 01 to maybe 09?

Snapchat is really integral just because of that impermanence. I think the world needs more outlets where you're not judged.

One of the main reasons Facebook 'won' was because it managed to beat MSN.

MySpace had a chat feature. Bebo had a chat feature. But MSN still reigned supreme as the way to talk to people online. MySpace and Bebo had bulky inboxes like an email client and MSN was quick and fun. MSN is still slightly better for the user than Facebook ever was; it did webcam chat without issue much earlier, you could appear offline to 'friends', you could add people you barely knew and satisfactorily block them forever.

So then Facebook comes onto the scene and has integrated chat. You've added all your friends, like on Myspace and Bebo, and suddenly you don't _need_ MSN up to talk to them. You still do for the few friends you have that don't have Facebook, but slowly it becomes easier to just open Facebook and open MSN when you want to talk to those friends. Eventually MSN just remains closed. And as it was suffering from the iTunes style of updating anyway, that wasn't the worst of things. Even if it was slightly better, the extra effort isn't worth it.

Facebook damn well knows this. They've got you talking on their website, now they've got you on their apps. They are an important part of life because they've also beaten texting in how we communicate.

So Snapchat comes along, and Facebook don't like it. There's another way to communicate, and this one is even more low effort than before. It's seamless, it's easy to do and to understand. They know that one of the reasons they're so dominant is that the price to communicate is being on Facebook.

So why is Snapchat so dominant, aside from ease of use and tumblr-esque simplicity in communication? You're right that it captures attention and demands you look at every pixel for those 3-10 seconds. You've probably also heard that it's used for porn, but it's a method of communication so that's a given.

Taking a DP on Facebook, for me, may take up to 2 hours. I'm not actually kidding. I'm not an expert photographer, and I'm damn well not that ugly or attractive to merit it, but I like taking pictures of myself for Facebook that make me look okay. I feel compared to everyone else I know and people I don't know. Snapchat, if you trust it, takes your photo and then removes it forever. Okay fine it's not foolproof, but the idea is that you send it to your friends and assume they probably aren't horrible people. People share things with someone because they can, and in this system they can't. You get a sense of impermanence that means you don't worry as much.

If I upload a random photo of my day on Facebook, maybe 1-3 of my friends will give a shit, so I wouldn't put it on FB, but I also can't be bothered uploading it to send to them in a message. So Facebook photos are now where you put the highlights of yourself to show off. Snapchat is where you can fuck around with friends.

Whole community's in mourning today.

Spent a few hours with my LGBT+ group talking to people on campus today about it. Main goal was raising awareness, I didn't really realise quite how little awareness there was. The few people who really listened thought of it as a terrible event, some thought the 'small' numbers meant that it wasn't that important, especially so close to Remembrance Sunday.

It's prompted me to go and do more awareness campaigns this year, so that next year hopefully there'll be less reason to reach out for support and more people in the community to turn to. Today of all days I'd rather just be close to my friends.