"Too Gay To Give"

“Too Gay To Give”: Are Blood Donation Restrictions Outdated?

As of late, there have been numerous blood drives taking place on IU’s campus – attempting to peak students’ interest in donating blood. The Red Cross buses have been parked outside of popular buildings on campus – with signs littered about campus and chalk on the sidewalks leading towards their location – in hopes of attracting new donors.
Yet this emergence of visibility has not just peaked the students’ interest in donating blood, it has helped raise awareness surrounding the discriminatory restrictions that the FDA has placed on gay mens‘ ability to donate.
Apparently there was a restriction made in 1983 (in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in 1977) banning homosexual men from donating blood, due to the fear that these individuals would further aid the spreading of this virus. I was rather taken back by this information; and honestly I was rather embarrassed, because I was unaware that such restrictions even existed.
Anyways, onto my point… In a recent edition of our paper our entire ‘opinion’ spread was donated to this controversy surrounding this issue (which is where the title of this post came from, the art work and headline that accompanied these pieces were rather intriguing)  and I wanted to share the articles with all of you.

One article touches on the negative connotation that these restrictions continue to place on gay men; while the other article focuses on the irony of this situation (as in, the nation desires to increase the blood supply, yet they are only hurting  their cause by creating these restrictions).
If you have the time, check out these journalists’ points of view. I thought it was pretty cool to run this information in our paper, because I’m sure many students are in the dark about this issue (just as I was). Knowledge is contagious, so what better way to spread awareness than by sticking it in an opinion column?

Does Being Gay Make You A Minority? Part 4

For the final post in this series (here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) we’ll examine the final 3 characteristics of minority groups based on a sociological list of 5 traits that minority groups tend to share. And we’ll discuss some implications for considering LGBT folks a minority group when it comes to the question of “rights.”
3) A shared sense of collective identity and common burdens: The LGBT community has bonded in order to provide community support to one another, both in cases of discrimination and intolerance described above, and to do what all social groups do for one another (celebrate life, mourn death, share their daily existence, tell stories, make art, help one another, work, gossip, raise children, and so on).
4) Socially shared rules about who belongs and who does not determine minority status: This group might be more porous than other minority groups, since many GLBT groups accept straight allies, asexual allies, and so on within their ranks. But there are still norms for membership, inclusion, and so on. Straight people don’t get to walk up and demand inclusion, just like men don’t get to demand inclusion in a women’s-only safe space. In some cases it’s appropriate to grant inclusion to outsiders, and in others it’s not, but it’s never up to the outsiders to determine that.
5) Tendency to marry within the group: Well. Duh. (not that there aren’t exceptions, like closeted gay people marrying straight people, or people getting married for reasons that don’t have anything to do with sexual desire/identity)
To sum up, if the country you’re living in is trying to make it illegal for you to be who you are, you are a member of a minority group (take the Jews, the Roma, and the differently-abled in Nazi Germany). If you have a shorter life expectancy because of who you are, you are a member of a minority group. If the mainstream culture makes it difficult for you to keep your job, or stay out of prison, you are a member of a minority group.
GLBT people are thus members of a minority group deserving of rights and protections – not “special” rights, mind you, but human rights. Like the right to get married, to live without violence and discrimination, and to not have to conceal their identities in order to get basic access to the ingredients that allow them to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

Does Being Gay Make You A Minority? Part 3

In this post series, I’m defending the idea of giving GLBT people minority status. My first post gives some background on the issue, while my second post documents the oppression they face, thus fulfilling the first of 5 sociological categories that grant minority status to a group.
Now we’ll get into the 2nd of these 5 categories:
2) Physical and/or cultural traits that set them apart, and which are disapproved by the dominant group: as far as I can tell, the scientific community is still researching the nature vs. nurture explanations for same-sex desire (take, for instance, this Slate article explaining some of the recent theories for the biological basis of homosexuality). My educated guess is that there are both biological and environmental factors going into sexual identity, and we’re still figuring out which conditions cause certain factors to come to the forefront. However, I don’t think the answer really pertains to the question of whether gays deserve minority status. Here’s why:

1. Other minority groups have changing memberships. Children – a great example of a vulnerably minority population – grow up. The educationally and economically disadvantaged can shift out of that status. Pregnant women are often discriminated against while pregnant, and that status is temporary. A person can convert to a religion which is, in that region, a minority, and then begin to experience oppression based on that status. Does it really matter if people “become” gay or “choose” to be gay? Not from my standpoint in this discussion. While they’re occupying that identity status, if they meet the traits of a minority group, they deserve protections.
2. The traits that set gays and lesbians apart – desire for romantic, sexual, and emotional involvement with same-sex people – are, most certainly, disapproved of by the mainstream (see the above bullet points). Further, while many gays and lesbians can and do try to hide this aspect of their identities, it is regarded by many as harmful. An Australian study finds that it is harmful for gays and lesbians to be closeted at work, while a Canadian study finds that adults who are out are less stressed and happier. Related is the study I mentioned above by Mark Hatzenbuehler, which found that LGB individuals living in high-prejudice communities have a shorter life expectancy of 12 years on average compared with their peers in the least prejudiced communities. So the unique traits that set gays and lesbians apart from the mainstream culture are not always visible to the eye, but they are experienced as uniquely setting this group apart.
3. Let’s not forget that some minority groups are invisible to the naked eye. You can’t always tell a person’s religion by looking at them, but religious minorities should be protected. You can’t always tell whether someone struggles with mental health issues or an invisible physical illness like fibromyalgia or lupus by looking at them, and yet these differently-abled people deserve protection against discrimination. See where I’m going with this?
4. Again, we can chase our tails for years about whether/how gays and lesbians are different from everyone else, and whether that difference is innate, or can be changed, or not… but, beyond the academic validity of saying that LGBT groups are 5 for 5 in terms of Feagin’s list of minority group traits, I’m inclined to grant the dignity to this group of (gasp) believing them when they lay claim to an experience. Blame my folklore background for this one, maybe, since my academic training taught me to regard everyone’s life stories with dignity and respect. If they want to claim minority status for themselves based on the differences they perceive in their lives, why not at least consider that they might be right about the reality of their lived experiences? How utterly arrogant and privileged is it of us to think we know better than they do what their lives are like?

What Happens When A Lesbian Has An Affair With A Married Woman?

 

You may be tempted to have an affair, but is it a good idea?

Do lesbians fall for women who are married to men? All the time! And if that's you, be prepared for things to get hard.
What does that mean? Don't expect it to be easy or for the wife to depart her marriage without a lot of hesitating, questioning and false promises. In the short run, that rush of falling in love is so powerful you forget that the wife isn't really available and is already committed to someone else. She and her husband have a life and probably a house and kids and bills and extended family.
Of course, there are some lesbians who like dating married women because they do not want to be with someone who is available. But that's actually more rare than those who wish their married lover would leave her husband now that she has been with you and discovered lesbian sex.

Lesbians who are having affairs with married women write me at least once a week to tell me that they are unhappy and that things aren't going well for them. And that would mean it's not going well for the wife or husband either. That's a lot of unhappy and confused people. So who is really responsible for this messy situation?
Sometimes it's the wife. She's unhappy in her relationship with a man and she's trying to figure out how to feel better about life. Even though she's been questioning her sexual preferences for a while, she may believe she has to stay married. Maybe she's not attracted to her husband anymore and is wondering if she's lesbian. Maybe he's not paying attention to her and she's lonely. Maybe she got married for all the wrong reasons and is looking for answers. Or maybe she just got drunk one night and decided a lesbian encounter would be a great experience and a story to tell her friends.
On the other hand, the problem may stem from you. Perhaps you are a lesbian who prefers more feminine women and finds it hard to meet femme or lipstick lesbians. Or you're a lesbian who finds heterosexual women sexy and likes to flirt with straight married women because it's a great way to feel powerful, seductive and connected to someone who isn't really available.
I've had many lesbians tell me they didn't mean to get involved with their straight married friend at work, at the club or at the gym, but it happened over time and they became lovers.
And once in a while I hear from two married women who are having an affair with each other and aren't sure what to do. They aren't defining themselves as lesbians but have discovered they'd rather be with each other than with their husbands.
Dr. Lisa Diamond of University of Utah does research on human sexuality and has spent a lot of time looking at why women become attracted to other women. She has concluded from her years of research that women are more open and more fluid in how they connect to other individuals than we generally think. And that sometimes, when a woman forms a very strong emotional bond to another woman, sexual attraction can follow. These women are not necessarily repressed lesbians as much as they are expanding their sexual preferences based on a deep emotional connection.
Of course, ultimately affairs between a lesbian and a married women happen because there is something wrong with the wife's marriage. When a relationship goes into the doldrums and distance starts to grow between a couple, an affair always becomes a possibility. Especially when someone shows up and starts paying attention to a woman who is lonely and desperately wants someone to really see her and appreciate her.
Now lesbians flirt with and romance women. So when a lonely married woman who is open to being bisexual or perhaps fantasizes about sex with a women, finds herself in the company of an attentive lesbian, things can get steamy and sex can happen. As Dr. Diamond pointed out, when an emotional connection happens for a woman, sex can follow.
It's can also be easy for a married woman to tell her husband about the time she is spending with another woman. Certainly much easier than trying to spend time with another man. When a married woman is hanging out with a female friend, many husbands never question it. Something really odd has to happen for a husband to even notice.
But most of the time, the cat gets out of the bag; the husband finds out or the wife tells. Then what happens?

1. The husband gets really mad and throws the lesbian out, telling her never to come back or he'll kill her. She sneaks around for ages trying to get the wife to leave her husband but the wife won't go. The lesbian is heartbroken and alone.
2. The husband says he loves his wife and is open to letting her try this out and get it out of her system. They experiment with an open relationship, sometimes all living in the same house together. This works for a while and then someone gets upset. Most often that's the husband saying he's done being nice about it and wants his wife back. The lesbian is heartbroken. The wife may be too, but she's too chicken to leave.
3. Once in a while, the wife leaves her husband. Then there is a big mess to get through because of the divorce. However, this is actually a happy outcome for a lesbian and will hopefully lead to a long and happy relationship for both women.

Why do lesbians have affairs with married women? I'd like to say it's simply because you don't believe you can find love any other way. But nothing about love or sex is that simple when it comes to women. If you're about to have an affair with a married women, think twice. Affairs happen. Some couples survive them. Some wives leave husbands for their lesbian lovers. And many lesbians are left out in the cold when it all falls apart.
Learn to take care of your heart and yourself. Get connected to a great therapist, counselor or coach who can help you navigate the decisions that will lead you to a great life and a great love.

Share this with someone you love (or even like a lot)!

Does Being Gay Make You A Minority? Part 2

In the first post in this series, I listed 5 sociological characteristics of minority groups, intending to build an argument that LGBT people are, in fact, deserving of minority status. Here’s where I’ll get into the first – and perhaps most important – of those characteristics.
Please note that for the purposes of this discussion, I will be focusing on gays and lesbians; this is not to erase the unique challenges faced by bisexual people, trans*people, queer folks, asexual people, and others, but simply because I’m not trying to conflate all these groups under one umbrella heading, though in some cases it does make sense to consider them grouped together, and I’d argue that they all do deserve minority status based on their uniqueness and their experiences of oppression.
1) Suffering discrimination and subordination: here is a list of atrocities committed against gays and lesbians specifically because they are gays and lesbians:

• Numerous hate crimes against gays and lesbians, such as the murders of Matthew Shepard, Steven Simpson, Sakia Gunn, and many, many more, as listed on Wikipedia’s page, History of violence against LGBT people in the U.S. (seriously, click on that last link if you don’t believe that hate crimes against LGBT people are a thing)
• Put another way, according to The Leadership Conference, “Of all hate crimes reported in 2007, the proportion committed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals rose to 16.6 percent, also the highest level in five years.” I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the population of gays and lesbians probably remained fairly constant, so the fact that the proportion of hate crimes against them went up means that they are being targeted specifically for who they are.
• Corrective rape is used to “cure” lesbians in South Africa, and it appears in the U.S. as well, both as an attempt to “cure” asexuals and as a suggestion for “curing” lesbians in the military.
• Gay teenagers are being tortured in Russia right now for being gay. The list goes on and on…
• I hate to play the Hitler card so early in this argument (or at all, really), but let’s not forget that the Nazis targeted gays, sending them to concentration camps by the thousands and killing off a number of them (I hate to sound imprecise but it’s hard to get solid data).

And here is a list of other ways in which gays and lesbians suffer discrimination and subordination:

• This study demonstrates that gays and lesbians in high-prejudice environments have shorter life expectancies. No further comment needed.
• Uganda’s leader is signing a bill into place that would sentences gays to life in prison. That bill, by the way? Is backed by American evangelical Christians. Do you think they wouldn’t try to pass the same laws here if they thought they could get away with it?
• Between 15 and 43% of U.S. gays and lesbians report experiencing workplace discrimination, with many states not yet having laws that will ban such discrimination.
• There’s a whole host of other bills in the U.S., in various stages of being passed, that attempt to deprive gays and lesbians of basic rights, such as allowing business owners to deny them service.

Stay tuned for Part 3 and Part 4…

Does Being Gay Make You A Minority? Part 1

Since I started following the news about HJR-3, the proposed Indiana amendment that would ban same-sex marriage (which will not appear on the 2014 ballot after all), I have gotten more and more involved in debates on why gay marriage should be legal, what gay rights are, and whether the phrase “gay rights” should even exist.
One Indiana blogger, Sam Kean, wrote in a blog post titled Sexual Identity & Equality that “The LGBT culture attempts to claim rights as a minority against which discrimination is happening. That claim for equal rights as a minority is based on sexual identity, as if sexual identity must be equated with other essential (permanent) descriptors of human identity–race/ethnicity, gender, nationality (origin), age.” Kean discusses other aspects of sexuality in his blog post, which I won’t get into here, as my main goal is to demonstrate that gays and lesbians do, indeed, deserve minority status. Here’s why.
Kean argues that gender and race are primary descriptors of identity, and are deserving of minority status “because of their being apparent to the observer of the individual and inherent to the individual at birth and unchanging unless acted upon determinately.” I would agree that gender and race are indeed potential determinants of minority identity – but that these two criteria (apparent by sight and inherent/unchanging) are not sufficient.
Sociologist Joe Feagin in Racial and Ethnic Relations (1984) defines a minority as having five characteristics: (1) suffering discrimination and subordination, (2) physical and/or cultural traits that set them apart, and which are disapproved by the dominant group, (3) a shared sense of collective identity and common burdens, (4) socially shared rules about who belongs and who does not determine minority status, and (5) tendency to marry within the group.
This list of characteristics comes from a respected sociologist. It gives us an academic, empirical way to discuss minority groups. It includes religious groups, for instance (and I’d say there’s a very strong argument to be made for religious groups constituting minorities; look at the persecution of the Jews). And it includes cultural/ethnic groups that are not identifiable upon sight, such as the Roma, who have been persecuted over time, and still are in Europe today.
In the next few posts in this series, we’ll examine how these characteristics apply to LGBT folks.

10 Practical Wedding Gifts For Your Gay Buddies

10 Practical Wedding Gifts For Your Gay Buddies.

Wedding season unofficially kicks off this month, and with more and more states deeming same-sex marriages legal you're bound to receive an invitation to your friends' fabulous nuptials any minute. And that means you'll need to buy a gift. Instead of sticking to the registry, however - do they really need more stuff? - think outside the Crate and Barrel box and opt for a practical-but-still-thoughtful present that the happy couple can put to good use. Here are 10 ideas to get you started.

1. Date-Planning Subscription

Date-planning services - like HowAboutWe Couples and Kahnoodle Concierge - are tricky because they often only serve a limited area (New York City for the former; San Francisco and D.C. for the latter), but you may be able to find a similar concept in the area in which your newlywed friends live. Date options run the gamut of uncommon experiences like ring-smithing classes, fencing lessons and body-painting sessions to more tame outings like comedy shows and wine tastings. To help keep the first year of marriage fresh and fun for your friends, gift a year subscription to one of these services so the pair can enjoy quality time together while participating in an activity they may never have thought of themselves.

2. Moving Crew

Remember the last time you moved and you swore you'd never do it again without the help of (preferably hard-bodied, shirtless) movers? If your just-married pals are relocating soon, do them a solid and hire the same for them. Granted, this can be quite pricey, so if you can't afford to hire several hours of full-service moving, get your best group of gays to commit to helping the couple start anew. The only cost of going this route is time and energy, plus you'll get in a great workout without having to go to the gym.

3. Dance Classes

If the two who are saying "I do" have four left feet, present them with a pre-wedding gift of dancing lessons. Attending several sessions a few months before the wedding will give the rug-cutting duo more confidence on the dance floor when they take center stage as husbands or wives for the first time. This comes with an additional cost, however: It will also be your responsibility to stay alert throughout the night so you can simmer 'em down when they start to get too jiggy with it after the fourth or fifth celebratory cocktail. Just wait; it'll happen.

4. Home Repair Supplies

Home repairs (even small ones) start to add up quickly - especially if you have to hire someone to do them for you. To help alleviate this necessity and the cost associated with it, surprise the lawfully wedded with a hodgepodge of tools and other household must-haves given in a nice toolbox for convenient and aesthetically pleasing storage. Another helpful around-the-house idea is to gift painting essentials - trays, rollers, brushes and drop cloths - with a gift certificate to a nearby hardware store so they can choose their favorite colors to freshen up their home.

5. Cooking Lessons

Cooking isn't everyone's favorite hobby (in most cases because they don't know how to do it well, so they avoid it), but it's one of those few daily opportunities of which spouses can take advantage to grow closer by creating something they'll both savor. If your friends aren't exactly kitchen savvy, introduce them to the wonderful world of from-scratch satisfaction with cooking lessons. Private lessons can be held in their home, or you can find a local establishment that offers lessons. The latter will be much less expensive than the former, and it'll give your friends an opportunity to mix and mingle with other couples with whom they have something in common.

6. Home-Brewed Craft Beer

If your pals are known beer lovers, add a personal touch to one of their favorite beverages by brewing a case of homemade suds. To add even more flair, dress the bottles with custom labels that you can order online that celebrates their wedding day. The recipients will enjoy kicking back and relaxing with what you've made exclusively for them, and they'll likely think fondly of your creativity and care every time they crack off a cap.

7. HitchSwitch Gift Card

It's not as common in gay marriages as it is in straight unions for one partner to change their last name to the other partner's, but plenty of LGBT couples are traditionalists - and more power to them. To make the name-changing process stress free, set them up with HitchSwitch, an online name-changing service that removes all the hassle of assembling, filling out and filing forms for just $50. True, it's not a super exciting gift, but it's one less thing they'll have to worry about as they start their new life together - and they'll appreciate that sentiment very much.

8. Frisque Gay Box Membership

There are numerous sex-toy subscription services available these days, but most of them cater to the hetero crowd. Enter Frisque Box, a sensual subscription service that caters specifically to gay and lesbian couples. Boxes filled with bedroom toys and other pleasure products to keep the spark flickering and frolicsome are sent bimonthly, discreetly to their doorstep, for $55 per cycle. If you don't want to commit to a year's worth of service, there's also a Frisque Honeymoon Box, which is a one-time only purchase.

9. Deep Cleaning Service

We gays like to keep a clean house (most of us anyway), and while weekly spot cleaning is a breeze, the twice-yearly deep clean is a burden. Help ease it for your freshly married friends - who should be spending their first year having fun under the sheets instead of sweeping behind the stove - by surprising them with several hours of cleaning services scheduled for the beginning of spring and fall.

10. Language-Learning Software

One of the advantages of your friends being gay and bound by marital law is that they're likely a DINK (Dual Income No Kids) couple that has money to burn. (No offense to all you gay parents out there, of course, but your days of jet-setting are over for a while.) Thus, they have the incredible opportunity to see the world at their leisure if they're savvy savers. You can help make their vacation even more enriching and fulfilling by gifting them language-learning software. If you know them well, you probably know which language to choose; if not, pry for some information. The beauty of language-learning software - besides becoming part of an entire population of people with whom they can now converse - is that it's conducive to couples using it together, which will help fortify their relationship even more.