After living part of my adult life in Asia, specifically in South East Asia, at first I found it very difficult to understand the American reluctance to accept and tolerate people who were either Lesbian, Gay or Transsexual. I had seen many. Some were my friends. In Thailand there is nothing wrong with having a highly educated ladyboy as a friend to advise you on meeting a nice highly educated upper middle-class Chinese woman. So I never really thought anything of ideas like homophobia until I came home to the United States. It seems to me that Thai's are much more honest about things generally and about sexuality in particular without all of the stigma we associate with it. You can read about ladyboys here: http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php?blog=8&cat=290
Any offense against a Thai ladyboy may wind up getting you beat to a pulp as many are experts in kickboxing and can be quite aggressive. If only the same were true in America. I am sure things would change overnight here for a homophobe redneck the first time a guy that looks as hot as Angelina Jolie kicked the shit out of him.
Much like the "banned" portions of Benjamin Franklin's racy writings that some 19th century Victorian decided violated a social code that no self respecting 18th century gentleman would have ever believed in let alone followed in the "land of liberty." What I find is that people who are different from a definition of normal about as long as a fingernail are somehow deviant in our intolerant social climate.
Gays are stigmatized, Lesbos, ladyboys, even using the names I used provoke sensitive reactions in some people who are gay or lesbian despite the fact that I am so comfortable with my own sexuality and woman worship, I am also comfortable and will defend everyone else's orientation no matter what.
I still find it interesting, that the tolerant attitude of my Quaker heritage in Delaware, is exactly the same as the tolerant heritage of the Buddhism I practice with regards to the LGBT community and neither of us attach any stigma to the people who choose to live and are the way they are. What cultivated tolerance and reason and sometimes idiosyncratic weirdness in us, and left others out? Anyone want to help me understand the phenomena of this intolerance?
And while I do not think that the radical pornography of the Thai tranny mafia is a good thing. It shows one just how clearly that the third sex has been accepted into social life without the paralyzing stigma that affects so many homosexuals and bisexuals in the United States. The lady boy mafia in Bangkok controls parts of the city now and have become a potent political force in the social dynamic of the metropolis.
All of this begs the essential question: Why should people not be accepted and treated and respected and integrated into society just as they are and NOT as we want them to be? It is a question I have no answers to, and I still do not understand American attitudes that seem to contradict the libertarian spirit of our national heritage. Are the Puritans still in charge?
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