Hey so it's #NationalComingOutDay

Let's talk about fluidity and how our general discomfort with it allows anti-LGBT forces to weaponize fluidity against us!!

(tl;dr, fluidity is perfect and you're awesome, obvi)
Part 1: What is fluidity and who is fluid?

"Fluidity" isn't, perhaps appropriately, a well-defined concept in LGBT studies.

Does it mean changes in sexual orientation and gender identity over time? Does it mean changes in labels over time?
How do we account for biphobia, homophobia, and transphobia as factors in someone's changes in sexual orientation or gender identity over time? Can we? Are those separable factors from one's identity? Or are internalized phobias inexorably linked to one's identity?
Dr. Kaestle used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to look at participants' self-ID, the genders of their partners, and the genders they report being attracted to across time.
Turns out a LOT changed over time!!

(HUGE CAVEAT THE DATA ONLY LOOKED AT PARTICIPANTS UNTIL THEIR EARLY 30S)

Here's a good summary of the findings:

In short: people (mostly ladies) who ID'd as not straight, were most likely to show fluidity over time.
So look: fluidity in sexual orientation is normal.

But what about gender identity?

Well, research shows that our gender identities are largely fixed from a pretty young age. Research on trans and intersex kids shows that people know their gender early and stick to it.
But what does this mean for people who come out later, or who are nonbinary?

For example, I came out as agender when I was 36.
Unfortunately, we don't have a widely adopted, well-understood narrative on gender fluidity.
So what about agender people? Bigender people? Nonbinary people in general?

What about people who transition late? Who transition in ways that don't meet societal expectations?

What about people who detransition?

WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO DETRANSITION??
This leads me to Part 2: How the Right Leverages Gender and Sexual Fluidity to Attack LGBT People.
Peter Sprigg works at @FRCdc.

He wrote an entire white paper on how sexual fluidity undermines protections on the basis of sexual orientation.

In essence: if sexual orientation can change, it's not immutable, and isn't a protected class. https://www.frc.org/sexualorientation
Now, OBVIOUSLY, changes in sexual orientation do not undermine immutability.

(We don't require someone to maintain the same religion to be protected from religious discrimination. Converts are as protected as everyone else.)
. @cliffordrosky and @LisaDiamondLab (one of the foremost researchers on sexual fluidity) have thoroughly debunked the idea that "immutability" as "inflexibility" be any part of constitutional analysis at all.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2965179
The paper is spectacular.

Here's the abstract.

"We conclude that the legal rights of individuals with same-sex attractions and relationships should not be framed as if they depend on a certain pattern of scientific findings regarding sexual orientation."
IN A FASCINATING TWIST, Peter Sprigg actually ENDORSES Diamond and Rosky's call to abandon the immutability argument, obviously for VERY different reasons that Diamond and Rosky put forth.
"Diamond, Rosky, and others on the Left argue that a belief in personal freedom should be sufficient support for pro-homosexual policies. However, this amounts to substituting the principles of the sexual revolution for the principles of the civil rights movement. . . [Cont]
[Cont] . . . The public would be wise to question instead whether the goals of the homosexual movement can be justified at all."

- Peter Sprigg
Wait, so why are these seemingly opposite forces agreeing that immutability isn't great?

Well, because they all agree that sexual orientation IS fluid!!!

FLUIDITY IS REAL

But the general *discourse* around sexual orientation and gender identity present them as fixed.
Damn are we* all uncomfortable with fluidity.

Does fluidity mean *I* might be queer??????
(Maybe)
How can I *predict* who is queer?????
(You can't)
IS QUEERNESS REAL IF IT CHANGES OVER TIME????
(I dunno, is the weather real?)

*The "Left"
And the biggest one of all:

If queerness is fluid, then can't people choose not to be queer?????

Here is Peter Sprigg's argument, and exactly why Diamond and Rosky want to move away from immutability as any part of the argument for protected-class status.
You still with me?

Say hi.

Got any questions?

We have a ways to go yet.
Ok, so Sprigg, FRC, and the larger anti-LGBT Right use sexual fluidity to argue against nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity.

And the Left's response is BORN THIS WAY

which, for a LOT of people, isn't true in the sense of "I always knew."
If you weren't BORN THIS WAY, you're valid.

Understanding your sexual orientation and gender identity relies access to knowledge of LGBT identities. Knowledge that is literally forbidden in some states and hard to access in many others.
Understanding your sexual orientation and gender identity may rely on ancestral and historical identities and knowledge that were erased by white settler colonialism and genocide.
"Born this Way" simply doesn't work for a lot of queers, particularly non-white queers, indigenous queers, bisexual queers, lady-identified queers, nonbinary-queers, older queers, and of course, fluid people of every demographic.

But it fits into a neat legal framework.
Peter Sprigg, FRC, and the greater anti-LGBT can sense this.

If we* can't decide between fluidity or Born This Way, maybe the Right can exploit that.

And they do.

*The greater Left
And how does the anti-LGBT right leverage fluidity?

Well, by arguing against nondiscrimination protections on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity.

AND

- by promoting conversion therapy, and
- by using stories of detransition to undermine trans-affirming care.
I'm sure you can see exactly how fluidity can be perverted to push conversion therapy:

Here is the front page of Dr. Richard Cohen's practice:

"PATH believes in the individual’s right of self-determination, and advocates for the freedom of human expression."
But: "Our main goal is to promote healthy sexuality and traditional family values, adhering to the sacred covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. We have a worldwide referral network of professional therapists to help you resolve individual, couple and family issues."
Dr. Joseph Nicolosi founded the now-renamed National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.

He considers himself the "foremost expert on reparative therapy."
"Also, reparative therapy was never intended for people who identify as gay and are content with their gay self-identification. It was aimed at people who do not identify with their same-sex attractions."
NARTH is now the Alliance for Theraputic Choice.

And reparative therapy is now "Sexual Attraction Fluidity Exploration in Therapy (SAFE-T)"

Literally.

Some conversion therapists now openly reference fluidity in advertising conversion therapy.
"Sexual Attraction Fluidity Exploration in Therapy (SAFE-T): Creating a clearer impression of professional therapies that allow for change.
- Christopher Rosik, Ph.D."
Ok ok, I'm losing people.

You still here?

Next we're going to TRANSITION (get it) to taking about gender identity and detransitioners.
Ok, so I follow networks of parent groups with trans or gender nonconforming kiddos who share names of conversion therapists, or "non-affirming" therapists.

I wrote about it for @TeenVogue https://www.teenvogue.com/story/gender-critical-support-board-trans-youth
These parents rely on a few specific narratives to fuel their erroneous belief that their kiddos should not have access to trans-affirming care.

And one of those narratives is: some trans people detransition.
The anti-LGBT Right has always platformed the stories of people who have "detransitioned," although personal narratives vary widely person to person.

And the platforming of "detransitioners" has ramped up a TON in the past 5 years. Particularly young people.
Here's a few things:

- if gender can be fluid, then of course detransition (transitioning more than once across one's life) is expected;

- the Left has no unified supportive rhetoric of people who detransition; and

- the anti-LGBT Right knows and relies on this.
We now have organizations purporting to represent or comprise of young people who identify as people who did identify as trans, and then detransitioned and now identify as cisgender (again).

They argue, primarily, that they were offered or given "too much trans-affirming care."
Aside from the fact that there is malpractice in all forms of medicine, the myth of overmedicalization is so opposite to the reality for folks who actually need to access trans affirming care.

And of course, the myth of overmedicalization supports other anti-trans myths:
The myth of overmedicalization supports myths of young kids being "mutilated" or "sterilized."

And some young detransitioners' stories seem to validate these myths.

At the @FRCdc's recent Values Voter Summit, anti-trans advocate Walt Heyer interviewed a young detransitioner.
This young person's story sounded very dire on its surface: they were able to access an high dose of testosterone by telling their clinician they were trans. They had a bad reaction to the testosterone and only stopped taking it when their family brought them to Jesus.
The details belie the overall narrative--for example, this young person had to go to several sessions with their clinician before accessing hormones, and self-administration is common for all doses of hormones for all medical issues, including cancer survival.
Over and over I find that the details of a detransitioner platformed by the anti-LGBT Right do not support the narrative of over-medicalization or recruitment by Trans Rights Activists or over-sexualization of trans kids or really any thing.
What the details of these stories support, for me, is a narrative of discomfort with fluidity.

Which leads me to Part 3, the final part, Why We Need To Support Gender Fluidity Across Time and fully embrace everyone's gender journey over time NO MATTER WHAT.
If you're queer, think how many folks in your life have come out to you more than once.

How have you reacted?

Has anyone in your life "contradicted" themselves over time?

How have you reacted?
If someone in your life came out to you as a different gender than they are now, how would you react?

I assume, if someone came out to you as a different gender than they were assigned at birth, that you'd be supportive and happy.
What if they then, some years later, as another gender?

Either wholly different, or the gender they were assigned at birth?

Would you validate them?
Would you celebrate their transition?
Would you honor their pronouns?
WE* DO NOT DO ENOUGH TO CELEBRATE AND VALIDATE FLUIDITY ACROSS TIME!!!

And the Right SEES OUR FAILURES. And capitalizes on our failure to undermine our protections and our access to health care.

*The LGBT community
SUMMING UP MY THREAD pt. 1

- Sexual orientation is fluid;
- The Right uses fluidity to undermine nondiscrimination protections by claiming fluidity is contradictory to immutability;
- The Right uses fluidity to push conversion therapy;
SUMMING UP MY THREAD pt. 2

- Is gender identity fluid?
- The Left is unsure;
- The Left doesn't talk about detransition;
- This allows the Right to dominate the detransition narrative;
- We MUST get better at incorporating "detransition" into our LGBT community narratives.
OK IM DONE WHATS UP WHAT DO YOU DISAGREE WITH TELL ME EVERYTHING
You can follow @herong.
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