Due to the large and touching reception I received in my comments about homophobic comments here by Koskateers. I consider myself one also. A Koskateer. An of course a homophobe. All those nasty comments about “most” people in the closet are monsters and need to be outed. This is a huge diary that will show you the strength of ignorance. Mine mostly, yet? I have another diary I am working on but now I have had to rush this diary in to Print before I wanted to. Primping and Pimping I am I am. Reading further down you will get what Primping and Pimping mean.
This first article I’m posting is just back round on bullies and how I have adjusted to them. It is a long Diary. This diary has many many leaps of faith in English and run on sentences that you might want to just blow off. I’m not the easiest person to understand. It isn’t what the diary is about but this article shows motive and motivation. Or whatever I say. It is my diary and I’m sticking to it. The next articles are about the heart of my ideas about shouting at bullies and ignorant people. I shout at myself everyday after reading everyday after hitting my favorite website. No that isn’t false praise
How Being Bullied Affects Your Adulthood One researcher who has interviewed hundreds of adults who were bullied as teens posits an interesting new theory.
June 20, 20169:00 AM
In American schools, bullying is like the dark cousin to prom, student elections, or football practice: Maybe you weren’t involved, but you knew that someone, somewhere was. Five years ago, President Obama spoke against this inevitability at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention. “With big ears and the name that I have, I wasn’t immune. I didn’t emerge unscathed,” he said. “But because it’s something that happens a lot, and it’s something that’s always been around, sometimes we’ve turned a blind eye to the problem.”
We know that we shouldn’t turn a blind eye: Research shows that bullying is corrosive to children’s mental health and well-being, with consequences ranging from trouble sleeping and skipping school to psychiatric problems, such as depression or psychosis, self-harm, and suicide.
But the damage doesn’t stop there. You can’t just close the door on these experiences, says Ellen Walser deLara, a family therapist and professor of social work at Syracuse University, who has interviewed more than 800 people age 18 to 65 about the lasting effects of bullying. Over the years, deLara has seen a distinctive pattern emerge in adults who were intensely bullied. In her new book, Bullying Scars, she introduces a name for the set of symptoms she often encounters: adult post-bullying syndrome, or APBS.
DeLara estimates that more than a third of the adults she’s spoken to who were bullied have this syndrome. She stresses that APBS is a description, not a diagnosis—she isn’t seeking to have APBS classified as a psychiatric disorder. “It needs considerably more research and other researchers to look at it to make sure that this is what we’re seeing,” deLara says.
Roughly 1 in 3 students in the United States are bullied at school (figures on cyberbullying are less certain, because it is newer than other forms of bullying and the technology kids use to carry it out is constantly in flux). This abuse can span exclusion, rumors, name-calling, or physical harm. Some victims are isolated loners while others are bedeviled by their own friends or social rivals.
Years after being mistreated, people with adult post-bullying syndrome commonly struggle with trust and self-esteem, and develop psychiatric problems, deLara’s research found. Some become people-pleasers, or rely on food, alcohol, or drugs to cope.
In some respects, APBS is similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD,
To people who have have partials Bios. Part of my online bonerFidies is “releasing” to the sky who I am. Bio. Bio: means of life or living things. An example of bio is biography which is the story of a person’s life. Koskteers use the Bio the same way “most” people have used most social media. Primping and pimping ones better-self. Primping = fluffing up the image. Pimping = whoring yourself in-order to obtain a place on the ladder that your ego requires you to “think” you belong at. Or just a simple Howdy. Some Pimping is attaching oneself to celebrity's in-order to pump ones own ego. Or to put oneself in a place to obtain??? Some material gain. I mostly use my Bios to excuse my failing’s as a human being. Lack of education. Lack of self-control. But the one thing of all the multi-facets of my usage or manipulations of my usage of the BIO is to tell the story that arises when one or two or or or arises. This time I felt it was time to point out what “others” I have respect for think about the subject at hand. The subject being me labeling Koskatters as homophobic.
For all those Koskatters that I haven’t gotten back to yet with their replies to my comments. I will get back to you soon. I’ve been very busy thinking. Wrestling with my scattered thought processes and anger at having to marshal my thoughts into the shoe horn that Koskatters will be able to follow. I’m guessing I’m wasting my time. It hasn’t seemed to work before. Why should it now. Then of course. Since the fact that the overwhelming tide here have “proved” me wrong. I’m just manic again and that's that for KOS. I’ll apologize ahead of time. OK?
This time I used others words this time to assist me. I have tried to do it the right way. The KOS way. If I didn’t it isn’t because I’m fucking ignorant not a thief. “Ignorance means you get another chance. Stupid means you don’t” UnkBobSays. Yes as the many fragments of me dance to the tune of Mu. I watch and live through life only as me. Joined through toil and trouble. But also success and love and. This article about people that survive extensive bullying by:::
One of the methods I was taught to surround the beast that has tried to divide me into the fragments that C-PTSDs person devolve into. Is write it out. So I tell the BIO story. The one that tells the story about how I got here and why?
Warning This Diary is Personal. A true Bio. I have C-PTSD. Look it up. I was hit by a car when I was 4 years old. We lived in Porto Rico. Army Brat. The accident resulted in facial scarring. Approx 1/6th of my head and face on the right side was side was wiped off the map. I am 68 years and the picture I placed at the top of this diary is me. The me that for huge sections of my life I didn’t see. No pictures. When I look in the mirro I only see the left side of my face. The pretty side. The picture I took is my first selfie ever. I have scars that extends from the crown of my head down my cheek on the right side to the bottom of my right ear. The scars extend from the corner of my right eyebrow down past my right cheekbone about 2 or 3 inches. My right ear was partially torn of at the top and they had to sew that back on. I have a 4 inch X 2 inch hole on the top of my head that goes to down to the skull bone. My skull opening is covered by a tissue thin piece of grafted skin. In 1956 the US. Army had very rudimentary skin-grafting skills. They took 2 patches off my left upper thigh approx 2 and a half inches X 5 inches long. This was for the skin-grafts. This covered my head scars and facial scars. It also left those rather long and unsightly scars on my left upper thigh. I was very lucky. The accident left me with almost all of the front part of my face. That last section was a Pimping part. Bet you never heard a diary like this have ya? Are you impressed yet?
Oh did I happen to mention? What do children do to children that are different and ugly and scarred or “other”? Oh another good thing about getting hit by a car and having all that open bone and flesh over my head and right shoulder and the skin-graft scars on my left thigh that are 2 and a half wide and 5 inches long. The best part was the army dr.s in 1956 didn’t do a good job. In addition to that. The US Army wouldn’t allow me as a dependent to have plastic surgery.(I never found out why and my parents never told me)
The best thing about getting hit by a car was that water was therapy. The Gulf was there. Salt water and swimming. The officers pool and chlorine. I taught myself to swim by the age of 5. The pure pleasure of water as a relief from what was the equivalent to pure and unending physical pain. Also the psychological pain of having people openly stare at me for what would become almost all of the rest of my un-natural born life. Of course I had to have healed so no open wounds could get infected. The gentle stretching motion of swimming was good for scar tissue. It stretched to help it grow into my growing body. Having months of healing and then months of self found physical therapy then years of bullying split me away from emotional attachments to my family. That and the fact that my mom and dad were alkys. This emotional detachment caused me to become an island. To this day I do something that makes me really uncomfortable. Everything is me me me. I I I I I. My partner of 44 years Mike and mental health professionals at the VA have help us understand it isn’t I I I I me me me but just a singularity flaw in me. I emotionally for years couldn’t trust anybody but myself for my own safety. So I was an island for protection of the fractures that I had become. Don’t worry I’m Primping again now. My shrink says the acknowledgement of this fault isn’t illness but health.
I had to quit the Bio at this part of my life. I would have been here forever. I would have had to include that I took LSD while I was at Hockey practice. This was at an outdoor rink at night when I was 17. I was the #1 goalie. Primping I am I am Or I ran away from home when I was 16 to go to a rock concert in Denver and saw CCR and Johnny Winters and Zepher and got tear gassed and gassed.
This isn’t the Self-Pity me talking now. This is the fuck you I’m right about labeling Koskateers homophobic breeders for calling male closet cases by female pronouns and yadda yadda. Or calling out “all” closet cases or “most’ closet cases as the most dangerous things since sliced white bread.
Oh did I happen to mention? What do children do to children that are different and ugly and scarred or “other”? Oh another good thing about getting hit by a car and having all that open bone and flesh over my head and right shoulder and the skin-graft scars on my left thigh that are 2 and a half wide and 5 inches long. The army dr.s in 1956 didn’t do a good job. In addition to that. The US Army wouldn’t allow me as a dependent to have plastic surgery.(I never found out why and my parents never told me)
The best thing was I found that water was therapy. The Gulf was there. Salt water and swimming. The officers pool and chlorine. I taught myself to swim by the age of 5. The pure pleasure of water as a relief from what was the equivalent to pure and unending physical pain. Also the psychological pain of having people openly stare at me for what would become almost all of the rest of my un-natural born life. Of course I had to have healed so no open wounds could get infected. The gentle stretching motion of swimming was good for scar tissue. It stretched to help it grow into my growing body.
I know I am harsh about this but you Koskateers are adults and “should” know better. I have the strength right now to marshal this diary. I am not of the school. you catch more flies with honey crap. In this case the flies would be you right? Flies eat shit. Now I’m just right out saying what I need to say about this from my “truth.” Yes I can be an asshole. In KOS terms a real Jerk. Not once in all the times I’ve erupted in anger about this subject and called out Koskateers for their bias did anybody here ask. Why do you think I’m using a homophobic term? Or why do you think that was a homophobic comment? It is like I don’t read or think? You as in KOSkateers are incredible as I have said before and I really mean it. This is the first place I stop to read and think. I used to try to reason with people about this subject. I have attacked an author of a diary for the first time. It was for homophobic bias. Be it unconscious or conscious. The author was joined here by ugly and shameful comments and shameful Rec’s.
I have KOS inflicted proof of what I have to say about this. The Harry Potter like power that KOS has is proof enough. The cloak of invisibility. I notice that the KOS cloak of invisibility has been drawn on some Koskatters here because of their ugly words of mis-gendering and homophobia after comments from this diary about self-hating homophobic persons in positions of power.
Now about those articles about Closet cases and Homophobia. The show must go on. Get the reference? That was a Primp and a Pimp. I just couldn’t resist.
Stop Calling Every Homophobe a Closet Case, You’re Not Helping
It's time to retire this tired, knee jerk reaction to homophobia.
by Jeff Taylor 8/9/2019
Terry Haggard. Mark Foley. Larry Craig. Aaron Schock (allegedly). The history of closeted, anti-gay politicians and religious leaders is well-documented and is oft celebrated by those who wish to see our society move beyond homophobia.
The high-profile nature of these examples has helped the meme of the closeted self-hating, anti-gay bully performing homophobia in order to cover up their own secret orientation gain traction.
ts popularity is evidenced in countless comment sections whenever another self-identified straight man makes anti-LGBTQ comments.
The charge is not without support, as evidenced by the above list, for starters. It has been further fueled by an infamous 1996 study showing self-identified homophobic men became aroused by male-on-male erotic stimuli (read: gay porn), while their fellow straight-identifying counterparts who self-reported as not being homophobic showed no signs of arousal while viewing said material.
There have been numerous other studies which I have viewed abstracts of. I’ll be happy to dig them up if anybody asks. Yes they find “some correlation to arousal and “so called breeders” getting boners. This of course makes them closet cases. Almost all these studies abstracts I read including intense studies that included the eye movements of men when observing “fag” porn. Every study included flawed methodology or subjective analysis. Small sample size or flawed subject selection. Or even the fact that people get aroused by watching sex period. Why people even get erections watching dogs and animals having sex Homophobic Koskatters here jumped on the mis-gendering and homophobic bandwagon. I called it out. Or maybe I was just over reacting again because I’m a fucking jerk.
The study was conducted out of the University of Georgia using a small sample size of just 64 men, and its authors noted the difficulty of finding subjects who ranked in the “high-grade non-homophobic range,” as well as the problematic nature of self-identification. They suggested including a behavioral element in determining the level of the subject’s homophobia in future research, such as with a “fight or flight” response measurement, and also noted they had not tested homophobia in women.
I noticed the lack of inclusion of study facts when quoting the famous “studies say” “Most” closet homophobic republicans are gay crap that falls out of the enlightened fingers of some of those Koskatters here.
A Message to Everyone: Don’t Out People. Ever.
By Jules Sherred
Posted on October 10, 2014
In honor of tomorrow’s National Coming Out Day, I have a message to everyone: Don’t out someone. Ever. It’s not your job, regardless of where you may be in the various spectrum's, to decide for someone else how and when they will disclose their status.
That’s the TL;DR version.
For today’s message, I’m going to ignore the issues I have with the term “coming out,” and simply focus on a very important and simple rule.
Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day, a day where some people feel empowered and supported in their decision to finally disclose their LGBTQ+ status. If that is the case, that is fantastic! I’m happy you feel personally empowered. For others, it’s a day where they feel an enormous amount of extra pressure to come out in a way that is not of their choosing.
No-one should ever feel pressure to come out. It is their lives; their sexuality; their identity, whatever the case be. It is their autonomy. No-one has the right to violate that, gay or straight, cis or trans, or anywhere in the spectrum of sexuality and gender identity and expression.
I am coming from a position of the deeply hardcore on this. I was raped at the age of 14 by a Closeted gay professor from the Uni of Eau Claire Wi. I am age 68. I have never outed anyone and never say never but I probably never will. Outing someone in anger is about your anger and internal homophobia not the productivity of outing anyone. What would I have gained by outing him. It would have caused breeders to hate gays more. Gays can by so fucking queer can’t they? They can hide anywhere. Can you prove to me the improvement in homosexual rights or lives by outing? Can you prove to me the change in political climate by outing?
About the usage of the “slur” breeders. You feel free to use the word gay yes? It is used to separate me from you. I’m not gay. I’m a human-being. I have had to use the word gay as a buffer or label or scalpel. The same goes for breeder or breeders. I use it when confronted with labels. Tit for tat isn’t mature. I’m way too old to be teaching lessons on maturity and morality.
The dangerous stereotype of the self-hating homophobeThe assumption that homophobic attackers are themselves secretly gay lets straight society off the hook.
articcle is a preview from the Autumn 2016 edition of New Humanist. You can find out more and subscribe here.
Less than 24 hours after committing the worst mass shooting in US history, Omar Mateen’s narrative was crystallising along two contradictory but familiar lines. On the one hand, the man who murdered 49 people at Orlando LGBT club Pulse was seen as a typical radical Islamist terrorist – despite the secular American life he had apparently led, and the absence of any links to ISIS beyond his own declaration of “allegiance”. In parallel, and despite this ostensibly cancelling out the first narrative, Mateen was also stereotyped as a self-hating closet case.
One of the first proponents of this idea was Mateen’s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy. “If you know anything about psychology, you know that people that have a really, really strong resentment or above-average hate toward something, it’s because deep inside that’s what they truly are,” she told the New York Times the day after the massacre at Pulse. Neither this speculation nor the cod-psychological, faux-expert terms in which it was relayed was a surprise, nor was Yusufiy’s admission in the same interview that she had no concrete evidence of Mateen’s supposed homosexuality. The suggestion that the worst perpetrators of homophobia are secretly gay themselves is inevitable and intertwined with the acts themselves; a slur routinely aimed at conservative politicians, fundamentalist preachers and macho posturers, and a punchline – to the extent that “Top five homophobes who turned out to be gay” has become a popular listicle formula online. This is sometimes presented as a defence of LGBT rights, but it’s a mistaken tactic that ultimately nourishes homophobia itself.
Homophobia Isn't Repressed Homosexuality
And there's no good reason to suspect it would be, either.
Posted Aug 13, 2016
www.psychologytoday.com/...
In the wake of the Orlando shooting at the Pulse nightclub, there were quite a number of speculations floating around my social media that the shooter himself had been harboring homosexual urges that he had been trying to repress. Repression—being the odd thing that it apparently is—in this case involved his visiting gay nightclubs and using gay dating apps to communicate—and presumably have sex—with other gay men; he might have even been doing all those things while telling himself he had no interest in such activities, that they were morally wrong, or at the very least while trying to keep it secret from other people in his life. The shooting resulted, then, at least in part from this unsuccessful repression of his homosexual urges; an inward loathing directed outwards at others. Or so the story went, anyway. Subsequent official investigations into Omar Mateen's life revealed no evidence of such behavior: no gay dating apps, no credible homosexual partners, and no gay pornography. Perhaps he was just very good at covering his tracks, but a more parsimonious explanation jumps out at me: he probably wasn't grappling with homosexual urges.
The underlying idea in that case—that some degree of homophobia is actually explained by the homophobes in question trying to deny their own homosexual urges—remains a somewhat popular speculation. It has roots as far back as Freud, and I've already discussed one piece of more modern research on the idea from the mid-90s. This homosexuality repression hypothesis is also even a subplot in one of my favorite movies, American Beauty. For an idea with such a long history, it does seem rather peculiar that more empirical research on the topic doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps the most obvious guess as to why such research doesn't exist is that it's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to measure someone's implicit sexual attraction (provided such a thing can even be said to exist at all). If the subjects themselves aren't even aware of it, a failure to uncover any evidence of its existence might not mean it's not there; it might just mean that you don't know how to uncover it. Designing the proper experiments and accurately interpreting the data resulting from them thus becomes troublesome.
Before considering some new research on the hypothesis, then, I wanted to take a step back and consider why, on a theoretical level, we shouldn't expect implicit or repressed homosexual urges to predict homophobic attitudes particularly well. The first starting point is to note that explicit homosexuality is rare in humans (about 1-3%). This should be expected, as homosexuality does not appear to be adaptive; same-sex attraction just isn't a good way to reproduce ones' genes directly or indirectly (whether through kin or alliance formation). Further, open homosexuals don't tend to be particularly homophobic; at least not as far as I know. Given that rarity, then, if something around even 20% of the population is homophobic, then there is either a lot of homophobia unrelated to homosexuality, or repressed homosexuality is very, very common. In other words, one of two statements follow, neither of which bode well for the homophobia-as-repressed-attraction hypothesis: (a) lots of people who are homophobic harbor no homosexual urges or (b) many of those who are homophobic harbor such urges.
If the first idea is true, then very little homophobia could even be explained in principle by homosexual urges. Most people who were homophobic just wouldn't have homosexual urges, and an absent variable can't explain a present trait.
If the second idea is true, however, then the repression-via-homophobia strategy would be fairly ineffective. In order to understand why, we need to start with the following point: people are only repressing homosexual urges to convince others that they are not gay. From an adaptive point of view, an organism does not need to deceive itself about its desires. False beliefs, in that sense, just don't do anything functionally useful, and there is no "self" to be deceived in the first place, given the modular nature of the mind. Taking that as a given for the moment, if you're trying to convince others that you don't have a desire, you will only be successful to the extent you engage in behaviors that someone with that desire would usually not. Placed into a simple example, if you're trying to convince others that you're not hungry, you turn down food. Eating a lot isn't a particularly good way to do that, as people who aren't hungry don't normally eat a lot. So, if lots of people who do have homosexual urges were homophobic, then adopting a homophobic stance should actually be expected to positively signal that one is a homosexual, as being homophobic is something lots of (closeted) homosexual people actually do.
Again this is something I read years ago. I would have expected the “enlightened” Koskatters here might at least think about why someone is shouting at them in anger. Oh wait it is just UnkBob ranting in anger. He’s an asshole jerk. I’ll just backhand him with my superior whatever. Why do I have to connect the dots to your lack of compassion or understanding.
Why You Need To Quit Calling Homophobes Closet Cases.
comment over at The Journal:
the-orbit.net/…
.
Homophobia is often a symptom of latent homosexuality. Homophobes need to be encouraged to accept their orientation.
I quote it because it’s so common. We hear this all the time. Someone expresses wildly homophobic views, and the response is that they must be closeted themselves. They’ve got some issues to deal with, amirite? Some personal stuff they need to work out. Wink. Nudge. Know what I mean?
Yeah. I know what you mean.
Sometimes you’re right. Lots of people do respond to internal conflicts by acting out. Loads of vehemently homophobic people are closeted. But I’ve got a few issues with ‘homophobes are all queers’ being our go-to explanation.
It’s homophobic.
You’re a straight ally or a happy out queer. You don’t go around using homophobic slurs- except maybe with your BFFs in private, because that’s different. Until, that is, someone starts loudly proclaiming that queers are evil sodomites who’re bound to hell and should be kept far, far away from children. Against them, all bets are off, and you just know that the best way to get under their skin is to call them the thing that they hate the most. And y’know what? I’ll bet you also do it because it’s fun. We don’t get many chances to make gleeful insinuations about someone’s orientation. That’s normally considered impolite, isn’t it? But when it comes to loud homophobes, we can gleefully let out our gossipy sides and speculate to our heart’s content.
It’s a pity that by doing that, we’re throwing queers under the bus. We’re perpetuating the idea that there’s something salacious about queerness. That it’s okay- even in very particular circumstances- to mock someone’s internal struggles with a homophobic society.
Closet cases’ orientations shouldn’t matter. You advocate homophobia? I’ll come down like a ton of bricks on your views. What goes on inside your head is irrelevant to me, in all but one instance.
You see, to be honest, homophobic closet cases are one of the few kinds of homophobes I’d have genuine sympathy for. I get that coming out is terrifying. I get that internalised homophobia can mess you up. Those things damage us all, and closeted homophobes have been damaged even more than most of them. I oppose their views utterly- and at the same time I wish them the best and hope that they’ll learn to accept and love who they are. But I know that’s one hell of a tough road.
Which brings me to straight people.
Straight people are off the hook.
I was so involved in the creation of this diary I probably ran over. Give it the Axe if I did. This is from my heart and brain. These past 3 weeks my brain chemicals are stronger then the Doctors. At least they are free. Thank the VA for that.
A hell of a lot of the speculation about loud homophobes’ orientations seems to come, not from queers, but from straight people. The straight people who we know and love, who call themselves allies and love us right back. Lots of the time, it comes from straight folks who walk the ally walk as well as talking the talk- the people who march beside us, defend us even when we’re not around, listen when we tell t hem how it is, support us. I love you guys to pieces, by the way!
But when you say that the loudest homophobes are closeted LGBT folks, you erase the fact that the vast, vast majority of homophobia doesn’t come from closeted people. It comes from straight people. Casual, everyday homophobia overwhelmingly comes from straight people (and yes, by the way, I know that all of you aren’t like that). The vast majority of people who vote against marriage equality are straight. The vast majority of the people who draft gender recognition legislation that enshrines gatekeeping, divorce, diagnoses and compulsory surgery are cis. The people who think that knowing we even exist should be kept from kids, because we’re too ‘confusing’? Mostly straight and cis. The people who treat us ever-so-slightly differently, who tokenise us, who judge us by how closely we conform to stereotypes? Mostly straight and cis. And, yeah, most of the people who brainwash, reject and demonise us are straight and cis too.
But if we joke that homophobes are all homos, we let straight people rest easy. Homophobia becomes something that isn’t just targeted at LGBTQ people. It’s something perpetuated by us too. Homophobia stops being straight people’s problem.
It erases the structures that make closet cases into homophobes.
I wont apologize for my lack of skills in punctuation or English composition. Due to being an army brat I went to 13 different schools before I graduated from High School. High School was for me “High School” I have C-PTSD. I was Raped when I was 14 I lost 3 years. The only way I mark how old I was when I was raped is I was between 8 and 9 grade. I lost almost all those years. I am triggered by the thought of it. You words mean something to people. The closet to me was survival. Watching people talk about how closeted people are the worst of the worst. Well welcome to what a happens when I fight my demons and then….!!!
This last article I saved for the end. Homosexual folk told me this. This article stated at the source that I was free to share it. I was so involved in the creation of this diary I probably ran over. Give it the Axe if I did. This is from my heart and brain. These past 3 weeks my brain chemicals are stronger then the Doctors. At least they are free. Thank the VA for that.
Why Outing Can Be Deadly
By Arielle P. Schwartz, Holley Law Fellow, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Fascinated by a golf club created by Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt, writer Caleb Hannan started looking into the science and the scientist behind it. On Jan. 15, he published (posthumously) Dr. V’s Magical Putter, a personal reflection of his seven-month investigation, in the online sports blog Grantland. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force took interest in Hannan’s piece because following Dr. Vanderbilt’s story, a transgender woman committed suicide last October.
According to Hannan, Vanderbilt agreed to focus on the benefits of the golf club in his writing and not on her, stating “my anonymity is my security as well as my livelihood.” In an effort to confirm Vanderbilt’s credentials as “legitimate,” Hannan discovered that Vanderbilt, the scientist behind the “scientifically superior” golf club, was also a transgender woman. What Hannan did next was reveal Vanderbilt’s gender identity to the main investor in her company—shifting the focus of his story from golf to the private life of an already fragile individual. The Washington Post has since stated, “outing a transgender person is not only a violation of privacy but also dangerous.”
Whether or not Vanderbilt was an MIT aeronautical physicist or a Wharton graduate, the golf club
worked and Vanderbilt engineered it. According to the article, the last time Hannan heard from Vanderbilt was when she warned him that he was “about to commit a hate crime.”
Grantland writer Christina Kahrl published a poignant follow-up essay recognizing the irrelevance of Vanderbilt’s gender identity, the inexcusable indulgence of Hannan’s discovery, and his careless misgendering and ambiguous pronoun usage. She wrote:
[Vanderbilt] was a member of a community for whom tragedy and loss are as regular as the sunrise, a minority for whom suicide attempts outpace the national average almost 26 times over, perhaps as high as 41 percent of all trans people. And because one of her responses to the fear of being outed as a transsexual woman to some of the people in her life — when it wasn’t even clear the story was ever going to run — was to immediately start talking and thinking about attempting suicide. Again.
Did Hannan’s investigation lead to Vanderbilt’s suicide? We do not know for sure. We do know that outing—the act of exposing an individual’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity— has been linked to suicide. Marcus Wayman committed suicide after a police officer threatened to tell his family that he was gay. Thereafter, a federal court held in Sterling v. Borough of Minersville, that the Constitution of the United States clearly protects a person’s sexual orientation from forced disclosure. In 2010, Tyler Clementi committed suicide after classmates outed him on the internet.
The act of outing someone is detrimental because it is a violation of their privacy. Often people who are outed feel blindsided and forced to reveal a deeply personal part of their identity without their consent and under someone else’s terms. Coming out is a process and can be a difficult time for someone because of discrimination, homophobia, or potential marginalization from their families and community at large. People must choose for themselves how and when to come out.
Something as simple as changing your name can reveal insurmountable consequences and threatening challenges. How bad is it to out someone? Bad enough for the Social Security Administration to end its policy of outing transgender employees to employers in 2011.
If you or anyone you know has been outed and is experiencing suicidal thoughts and tendencies, know that there are resources available to talk about suicide and suicide prevention. The Trevor Project is a national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning young people. Befrienders Worldwide is a network of 169 emotional support centers in 29 countries who encourage one another in providing essential support to people in crisis. Learn more about how to raise awareness for suicide prevention here.
Vanderbilt’s conclusion: “Nobody knows my life but me…You don’t know what the truth is.”
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The end. Oh I almost forgot this is the business We lost because I wouldn’t let homophobia and hate stop me from speaking out. All the art work and content is trademarked and owned by Robert J. Gappa. See my artist friend Michael J. Bukachek who did all the art work. He is an artist. He canuse the Pimping. Me not so much.
www.coroflot.com/...
We lost the business because I did my first civil disobedience action. I spray painted a slogan in Pink Florescent paint on the Uni of Eau Claire WI Footbridge. Fags are the New Ni--—. You get the idea. This is when young people started using the phrase. “Oh thats so gay”. A slur attached to people who did things that were different. Black people had climbed up far enough so that they no longer could be hated against in public. They then changed their hate and focus to Homosexuals.
My nephew was taking a class at the Uni at the time and my arrest was used as an example of the media using it’s power for purposes that had nothing to do with the truth. Google has been kind to me. Our antiques business has fared much better. My arrest mug and the media crap has slid down to page 2 or 4. I know you are dying to look. I was arrested and charged for 2 felony's and 4 misdemeanors. I didn’t even plea bargain. The DA and my attorney decided that in the best interest of all concerned all the charges butt 1 would be dropped. The leader telegram the EC press and the EC tv station made me look like I had killed someone. The police released the information about the charges but didn’t release the fact I was only convicted of a simple misdemeanor. It was worth it. All my disc golfing buds thought I was a fucking bad ass.