Why I'm personally sick of gay/trans jokes - Pride month 2023

[ExtraSlow]

So, I'm sick of gay and trans jokes, specifically, and since it's Pride month, these jokes have really ramped up, and it's been bothering me. I am a pretty open book on this forum, sometimes maybe more than I should be. I thought maybe explaining why I find them tiresome might be useful.

I'm not particularly "woke", and up till recently, I wasn't even particularly educated about the issues facing persons of diverse gender identity. I'm working to learn because this has become very personal to me. One of my children has "come out" to us as non-binary, and around the same time, it came to my attention separately that they were at significant risk of self-harm due to depression. The data is pretty clear that trans individuals have a massively higher suicide rate than cis-gendered persons. The data doesn't break out non-binary as granularly from what I can tell, but the whole trend is very concerning to me, on a very personal level.

Now one of the foundations of humor is some element of offensiveness or transgression. Much humor IS offensive, and it's easy to go over a line. I don't consider myself easily offended by "a joke". What's been bothering me lately is that it's not "a joke", but it's a constant, repetitive and tiresome effort to insert jokes about gender, identity and sexuality in EVERY discussion. It's a pattern, it's unnecessary, and I think it causes harm to people when it's so constant, because while most people can shrug off occasional jokes, hearing something like this multiple times a day, for months, or perhaps for your whole life, cannot help by impact your mental health. It diminishes something that you consider central to your own identity. On top of all that, it shows you really need to learn some more jokes.

I also realized that one of my closest friends is a real staunch "there's only two genders and I can pull down your pants and tell you which one you are" kind of dude. And that means for the safety and mental health of my child, I probably can't have that person around my child. That's sad to me, I don't have so many friends that I can lose one easily. My kid offered me a non-binary pride pin. I accepted it, but I realized that I'm too much of a coward to wear it out in public. Me a straight white middle aged man is afraid to wear a pin, because I'm worried about people judging me, mocking me, or having uncomfortable conversations with me. Being a teen is tough and frightening already. If I'm scared to wear a pin about it, how scary would it be to BE it?

Worrying about my kid's risk of suicide wears me down. This is on top of the medical (breathing) issues and learning disability issues we've been dealing in our family for years. As you can imagine, this takes up a lot of my mental energy, every single day, and it makes me tired.

So I was the guy who neg repped a member for making one of these jokes recently. I don't plan on making neg rep a habit, I try really hard to look on the positive side of life and to spread positivity as much as I can.

Happy Pride month everyone. Those of you who make jokes about it and consider it "problem for someone else" should realize just how lucky you are.

[Buster]

It doesn't sound like you are sick of funny gay/trans jokes, just unfunny ones.

Which is a perfectly appropriate approach.

[JfuckinC]

I'm with ya buddy, big supporter of letting people live their lives, and often think people are taking the jokes/discussion to far. it's getting old and tired.

I will openly wear whatever pin is given to me, hat shirt, don't give a fuck lol. Would prefer to stir the shit up and find out whos a piece of shit to be honest. I often check my friends for the way they talk about things on these subjects too.

I have family members in the community, and my wife is deeply tied to it with work so that even further influenced me to support it.

..that said some of the budlight memes were pretty funny..

[pheoxs]

Online there's a lot of insecure people that need to 'jokingly' attack any topic they aren't comfortable with. A lot of it is hypocritical too, if William asks to go by Bill and no one says a thing but if someone asks if you can say they instead of he people throw a tantrum. Same thing but online has bred people to be offended by one of those and not the other.

Kids are hard as we all, everyone goes through phases growing up. Lots of kids had all sorts of goth, emo, rockstar, frat boy, etc. For some people those phases stick and they enjoy their lives, and some people it doesn't but in the end what does it matter to you. Kids are kids and most turn out just fine regardless.

Let them live their lives before they become adults and capitalism crushes their souls. It's weird how much certain groups feel the need to attack other peoples choices nowadays.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

My personal opinion is everyone should have the opportunity to be happy and if part of that is being trans/bi/non binary or anything else, I personally don’t think that hurts or harms anyone else and as such shouldn’t be an issue.

[jutes]

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My personal opinion is everyone should have the opportunity to be happy and if part of that is being trans/bi/non binary or anything else, I personally don’t think that hurts or harms anyone else and as such shouldn’t be an issue.

Until you get into the "who, who does not want to wear the Ribbon?!" situation and by not wanting to participate in gay pride events, or wear the pins, or wear the shirts, means you're a bigot.

[Buster]

You can't swing a cat nowadays without hitting some kind of non-binary/trans teenager. Usually a girl.

The interesting discussion here is the idea of social contagion, especially amongst teenage girls...of which the trans/non-binary thing is just simply a recent manifestation.

[JfuckinC]

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Until you get into the "who, who does not want to wear the Ribbon?!" situation and by not wanting to participate in gay pride events, or wear the pins, or wear the shirts, means you're a bigot.

Would you consider the hockey jersey fiasco as one of those situations?

[max_boost]

I do like how a lot of biological women are all of a sudden bi sexual. That’s nice

[firebane]

I personally don't care either way and people can do whatever the hell they want.

Where I start having issues is when people want to start pushing their agendas and opinions onto me and that is where I draw the line.

Personally there are no good jokes that about this topic and most that people say are puns.

This thread also makes me feel like Extraslow is one of those drivers with the "Fuck Your Stick Families" sticker on the back

[Buster]

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Personally there are no good jokes that about this topic and most that people say are puns.

Dave Chapelle says hi

[firebane]

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Dave Chapelle says hi

Dave Chapelle is not only an idiot but not funny either.

[vengie]

I give you a ton of credit for this post.
Good for you and its appreciated.

I have a fair number of gay friends, and colleagues.
The resounding statement they all make is they all wish the pride and LGBTQ awareness wasn't pushed down everyone's throats.
If its constantly in everyone's face people get sick of hearing about it and thus rebel against it.

Does their need to be awareness of the societal pressures and discrimination faced by groups like this? Absolutely.
Does it need to be rammed down everyone's throats online, media etc? No.

What is the answer? I'm not sure...

As Buster said, kids these days see having a pronoun as a right of passage or essentially a "must".
I have a much younger cousin currently going to high school and the peer pressure to adopt a pronoun, change gender or be "different" in some way is astounding.
There is no such thing as just being a "normal kid" anymore.
This same pressure is corroborated by my sister who is a psychologist / guidance counsellor in a high school on the island.

The pendulum has swung so far the other way that its creating a whole new subset of issues.
Its not only fascinating, its unfortunate as there is a whole new subset of people who are now the ones being discriminated against.

[Buster]

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Dave Chapelle is not only an idiot but not funny either.

lol

[max_boost]

Okay but on a serious note don’t disagree with anything you said extraslow bro. My gf is big on the LGBTQIA’s community and pride month is huge for her so it also influences me heavily. I’ve never been one to wear any pins or anything like that but will be attending things with her and I do enjoy going to twisted element, it’s a fun place.

[max_boost]

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Dave Chapelle is not only an idiot but not funny either.

How about Hanna Gadsby?

[firebane]

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How about Hanna Gadsby?

No clue who that even is

[ExtraSlow]

On the free speech front, and the NHL jersey fiasco, my fundamental stance is that there needs to be freedom from compelled speech. That's been upheld in court case at times, but it seems to be not widely accepted.

I did have a medical professional tell me that there is a strong "clustering" effect for trans and non-binary identifying in teens. Apparently it's much more common in Alberta compared to other provinces. Weird.
I'm certainly not unbiased here. Glad to spark a conversation. I find it much easier to be fully open in writing vs face to face.

[msommers]

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I have a much younger cousin currently going to high school and the peer pressure to adopt a pronoun, change gender or be "different" in some way is astounding.
There is no such thing as just being a "normal kid" anymore.
This same pressure is corroborated by my sister who is a psychologist / guidance counsellor in a high school on the island.

The pendulum has swung so far the other way that its creating a whole new subset of issues.
Its not only fascinating, its unfortunate as there is a whole new subset of people who are now the ones being discriminated against.

Let me make sure I'm understanding this. If a kid didn't want to use pronouns, they would be peer-pressured into identifying as 'something'? As in, the idea of that kid having the mentality of 'let me live my own life how I want to without judgement' is being taken away from them?

Fuck me and the irony of that.

[vengie]

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Let me make sure I'm understanding this. If a kid didn't want to use pronouns, they would be peer-pressured into identifying as 'something'? As in, the idea of that kid having the mentality of 'let me live my own life how I want to without judgement' is being taken away from them?

Fuck me and the irony of that.

Yes.