Pet Peeves | Page 218 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

@50yearslate said
Nope. Just to be clear, I’m not quite sure what the difference is, but I have two bisexual friends and one pansexual friend who all assure me they are not the same thing.

Edit: Blagh it happened again! Thanks for explaining @TheWalrusWasBrian   

I think the main difference is that bi folks may have a gender preference whilst pan folks do not. Though of course I’m asexual so I wouldn’t know anything about any of it.

I’ve done a lot of research about transgenderism (I’m going to be old-fashioned and medical and use it as a conditional term rather than an identity) and I do see where @Dark Overlord is coming from. Being trans is very different from being gay, bi, ace, etc. It’s rooted in a mental disorder rather than sexual preference. And yes, I know that people used to think being gay was a mental illness, but the key difference here is that you can be attracted to persons of the same sex/gender as yourself without hurting anyone; while desiring your body to have characteristics of the opposite sex, and desiring medical processes that will sterilise you, is somewhat more pathological. And believe me when I say that I make this statement with the utmost love and empathy for trans folks, because gender dysphoria is a dreadful thing.

However, I believe that the main reason T is included in the acronym is that the experiences of trans people do have a good deal in common with some of the experiences of other LGB+ folks, given they often begin their journeys of self-realisation by coming out first as gay or bi; and before coming out as trans, may often display similar seemingly gender-nonconforming traits as some queer folks do. E.g. a little boy might have an unusually high interest in makeup and girly things and he may grow up to either be gay or a trans girl. (Some children also think they’re trans when young and eventually grow up to be gay or lesbian.) Another example would be a pre-testosterone trans guy resembling/being mistaken for, for all the world who doesn’t know his identity and mental state, a butch lesbian. So there is something of an overlap of experience there and I think that unity is to be preferred over separating everyone into separate communities — this is the primary reason I argue for a-spectrum inclusion in the LGBTQ+ community.

Of course, we should all Love One Another regardless, but as a sexual minority person I do understand the desire to seek out others with similar experiences of that particular sort.

Finally, the whole uproar over straight people playing non-straight characters (or whatever) is of course silly, there’s no question of that. Actors act, it’s what they do. They choose their roles for a variety of reasons, and I can certainly see a non-straight actor really wanting to play a non-straight character because the role is close to their heart for that reason; but if someone else fits the bill better, then what can you do? Of course, it’s likely that an actor who relates very personally to a role, as I imagine a queer actor would to a queer role, would probably be the best actor for the job because they can channel their own experiences into their work, but that’s no logical reason to go and shout about a straight guy playing a gay character or whatever if he can play the character well.

I don’t think there should be a whole lot of favouring based on sexual identity or whatever, just based on who will wear the character’s shoes best. (Of course I know that, in the real world, actors are chosen for a variety of reasons, including the possibility that the casting director would really like to see a queer actor play a queer role.) If there’s a dearth of queer characters for queer actors to play, then that’s a separate problem altogether.

Enough ranting… time for bed!

Of course, I never meant to imply that. Read my post carefully before you make assumptions: I said *some* gay people, specifying the gay people who display gender nonconformity (as a fair percentage of them do, of course not all).