Gay men's private campground

[BlackDude]

2 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

For what it's worth: I'm not suggesting that race and gender are "equivalent". 

But in terms of how people *respond* to them, I don't think there's a hell of a lot of difference. Toilet arguments are about a combination of privacy and safety; women legitimately worry about being molested or raped in areas where they may be exposed to a predator. Remarkably, most opposition to trans women in women's restrooms seems to come from cis MEN who think trans women are going to rape their women and children (perhaps betraying something of their own thought processes). 

In any event, at a campground like this - based on the bathroom analogy, the trans men there should be the ones most concerned about safety. The fact that they want to attend suggests that's not a concern, so the whole "bathroom" thing comes down to just another excuse.

You may think there's a huge difference between responses to gender and race. I can assure you that in much of the country, that's simply not true. I've seen cruising/play at a public place come to a screeching halt among the white participants when a black man shows up. I've seen the white participants break off into smaller groups and move further out of sight so that the black guy is discouraged from pursuing. I've been at gay bars where a group of white guys will "close ranks" from being a formerly "open" stanced group if a black guy heads in their direction.

(And conversely, just as some gay men fetishize trans gay men, I've seen some treat black men the same way - objectifying them sexually far beyond ordinary feelings of "that guy's hot.)

I'm not out to make anyone look like a bigot. I'm out to push those who say they are NOT bigots to give me a rational basis to exclude trans gay men from a gay men's event other than "I don't want to look at a vagina, anywhere, at any time, during my visit, and I feel that so strongly that instead of taking reasonable effort to ensure I don't look at them, I want them barred from being anywhere I might look."

Not a personal attack on you, but I think your comment served as the best jumping off point for me.

Not transphobic here, just wondering why black people are being brought up. Why can’t trans people argue (for lack of a better word) on the merit of their experience?

 

Using the unique experience and mistreatment of black people, particularly in the gay community, to argue for the fair treatment or parlay benefits for others is and old, tired trick. There is no comparison between the black experience and any other ethnic or minority group. In the gay hierarchy, a white trans is still desired over a black male. 

So it’s okay to say “no blacks,” but I can’t say I’m not into trans? As much as I hate it, I have accepted the racism in the gay community. So people should respect the sexual  “preference” choices of others. Me personally, I would just go for what I’m into at the campground. 

Oh, and don’t be fooled, gay blacks are not getting some kind of “benefit” trans folks aren’t. At many of these places, gay blacks are not welcome or included via common (unwritten) law. Damn what’s written on paper, the code and culture of these places make blacks unwelcome. However, it just wouldn’t be prudent for them to codify this in policy, but the practices are just the same. 

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by BlackDude

[myDNA4u]

6 hours ago, Spunkinmyarse said:

You cannot  substitute race and gender (whether cis or trans) in this way: they are not equivalent.

Apart from a few minor physiological differences such as skin colour, racial differences are almost entirely in the mind, phantom perceptions that are the result of ignorance and cultural bias.  The entire fight for racial equality is about shining a light on this and showing racial difference to be the myth that it is.

Gender difference is very real, at least to the vast majority of humans in every culture that has ever existed. The fact that we have (and largely accept) separate toilet facilities for men and women is proof of this, while separate toilet facilities for different races have been consigned to history, thank God.

Gender is far more complex than race, and how we as humans respond to gender is similarly complex. There is no equivalent of ‘trans’ in race.

Conflating race and gender as you have done in the above post is wrong, and appears to be motivated by a desire to make @myDNA4ulook like some kind of bigot.  Please don’t reduce this topic to mere identity politics, when an issue as complex as this deserves to be treated with care and thoughtfulness.

Thanks @Spunkinmyarse You seem to see my point. I feel the need to point out a couple of things. First I take real umbrage at anyone thinking of me as transphobic. Over 35 years ago as a business owner I hired a trans person who had had difficulty finding employment as their sex on their drivers license didn't match who they were as one could not change  one's birth sex on licenses in any state at that time. And this was in Key West and other gay and lesbian business owners wanted nothing to do with this person. I got a fair amount of grief from other owners and some of my employees for my stance. I know I learned from the experience and I'm pretty sure that my other employees did as well.

Second @BootmanLAcomments that the place for cis gay men who want to  have time exclusively around other cis gay men is "their own house". Being a full time RV'er living at two gay campgrounds and having stayed at 14 others, I can tell you in almost every case the campground is the owner's or owners' home and legal residence. So by that logic Mr. Quinn has every right to set a cis men only rule. It is his home.

I am not defending Mr. Quinn's position and definitely not his pretty abhorrent statement. I'm pretty sure he wishes he could have expressed his feelings in a much more tactful manner. However he should have the right to run his private membership only campground in any way that makes him comfortable. If someone doesn't like and there seems to a fair number who don't, no one is forcing them to go there. Just like I won't eat at Chick-fil-A or shop at Hobby Lobby. However there may be some cis gendered males for whom his policy is a plus.

[myDNA4u]

6 hours ago, drscorpio said:

 

I think there is more of it from lesbian women for a couple of reasons. A large number of women have been traumatized by sexual violence and/or domestic violence from men which makes them more susceptible to the notion that men might pretend to be trans to gain access to their spaces. On the other hand,  a lot of gay men seem to find transmen particularly attractive meaning they would more than welcome their presence. 

I agree with you that sexual and/or domestic violence by men on women is a large part of why many lesbian women have TERF. However it should be noted that there are more than a few young men and boys who have been sexually assaulted by women. Men are typically much less likely to ever admit to it having happened to them for all sorts of societal reasons. I know from personal experience as it has happened to me twice while I was in my 20's. One only after many years was I able to talk about at all and the other I have never discussed. Both are really painful memories for me. 

[Spunkinmyarse]

2 hours ago, BlackDude said:

Not a personal attack on you, but I think your comment served as the best jumping off point for me.

Not transphobic here, just wondering why black people are being brought up. Why can’t trans people argue (for lack of a better word) on the merit of their experience?

 

Using the unique experience and mistreatment of black people, particularly in the gay community, to argue for the fair treatment or parlay benefits for others is and old, tired trick.

 

@blackrobe, this is the point I was trying to make in my earlier post, but perhaps @BlackDude has put it more clearly.

Even though discrimination of all kinds manifest itself in similar patterns of behaviour, the core issues at stake are different.  This is not a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy, but a genuine attempt to shift the focus onto the real reasons behind this particular form of discrimination (transphobia), rather than wrapping it up in some kind of larger political movement.

[Spunkinmyarse]

11 hours ago, Spunkinmyarse said:

You cannot  substitute race and gender (whether cis or trans) in this way: they are not equivalent.

Apart from a few minor physiological differences such as skin colour, racial differences are almost entirely in the mind, phantom perceptions that are the result of ignorance and cultural bias.  The entire fight for racial equality is about shining a light on this and showing racial difference to be the myth that it is.

Gender difference is very real, at least to the vast majority of humans in every culture that has ever existed. The fact that we have (and largely accept) separate toilet facilities for men and women is proof of this, while separate toilet facilities for different races have been consigned to history, thank God.

Gender is far more complex than race, and how we as humans respond to gender is similarly complex. There is no equivalent of ‘trans’ in race.

Conflating race and gender as you have done in the above post is wrong, and appears to be motivated by a desire to make @myDNA4ulook like some kind of bigot.  Please don’t reduce this topic to mere identity politics, when an issue as complex as this deserves to be treated with care and thoughtfulness.

It disappoints me to see that of all the posts in this thread, this is the one that receives a downvote.  What great crime have I committed except express an opinion that racial injustice should not be brought into a discussion on trans rights?

Has political debate reached such a level  of toxicity that even a suggestion of this sort needs to be punished in this way?  @BootmanLAand I are fighting the same war for a better, more harmonious world. Sometimes I might disagree with his methods and his tactics, and from time to time I would like to be able to point this out, without incurring such hostility.  It is not as if I posted something along the lines of “Trans men should fuck off and get their own camp”.  That might have deserved a downvote.  A reasoned call for cautious and thoughtful debate does not.

If the intention was to hurt, you have succeeded @Tavros : well done!  Has it contributed anything meaningful to the debate?  No, it has not.  I am fairly thick-skinned, and won’t let your action put me off my fight for societal change through reasoned, civilized debate.  But I wonder how many other good people out there are put off from making valuable contributions to this discussion and others, because they fear being burned in this way.  Your actions alienate potential allies in the struggle for a better world, and you do a disservice to all those who need our support.

 

[BootmanLA]

14 hours ago, BlackDude said:

Using the unique experience and mistreatment of black people, particularly in the gay community, to argue for the fair treatment or parlay benefits for others is and old, tired trick. There is no comparison between the black experience and any other ethnic or minority group. In the gay hierarchy, a white trans is still desired over a black male.

To be fair: I'm not saying and never would say that the experience of black people in this country is the same as or even close to that of any other group. I use the race angle because it has become a familiar way for people to look at discrimination: if the argument you're making wouldn't hold true for a racially biased decision, why would it hold true for one based on orientation, gender, or sex? I'd like to think that while we can agree black people absolutely had it worse, for longer, than any other minority group in this country (though arguments could be made over our treatment of Native Americans) - that doesn't mean we can't employ the same analytical techniques to evaluate discrimination and rationales for it.

That said: As evidenced by this campground, there are still people and places where a black male outranks a white trans person. I realize some white guys' willingness to have sex with black men is itself problematic (fetishizing BBC, etc.) but I'd imagine more white gay men sleep with black men than with trans men. If in socializing outside the bedroom, white trans guys seem to have an advantage, I'd suspect it's because most of the white gay men there don't know who the trans ones are, and if they all suddenly had a trans nametag, you might see a different approach to them.

14 hours ago, BlackDude said:

So it’s okay to say “no blacks,” but I can’t say I’m not into trans? As much as I hate it, I have accepted the racism in the gay community. So people should respect the sexual  “preference” choices of others. Me personally, I would just go for what I’m into at the campground. 

For what it's worth, I don't consider it okay to say "no blacks" (in terms of expressing one's sexual partner preferences). It may be legal, but I think it's a shit move by cowardly assholes who don't like having to turn someone down one-on-one and so figure it's easier to make a racist statement of "preference" to forestall any awkwardness on their part, even as it shits all over the feelings of black men scrolling through profiles, etc. Anyone who does that is, in my book, someone I'd "cut" when being introduced in public.

As for saying you're not into trans men: I don't have a huge problem with that as long as it's done with some sensitivity. "When I play, I find a penis essential, and so respectfully decline playing with pre-op trans men" (or some version of that) is a lot better than "No trannies, no femmes" which I used to see regularly.

14 hours ago, BlackDude said:

Oh, and don’t be fooled, gay blacks are not getting some kind of “benefit” trans folks aren’t. At many of these places, gay blacks are not welcome or included via common (unwritten) law. Damn what’s written on paper, the code and culture of these places make blacks unwelcome. However, it just wouldn’t be prudent for them to codify this in policy, but the practices are just the same. 

Oh, I'm not fooled, and I am well aware that this is the case. It's shameful. But - as I note - once you're in the gate, so to speak, you stand a shot at finding at least a few guys who are into black men, even if it's for problematic reasons. If there are several, some might even find each other attractive and be able to ignore, for a time, those who rejected them. But - if, like the trans guys here, you can't even get in the gate - that's another story. They aren't even being given a shot at being accepted or rejected on an individual basis. 

[BootmanLA]

13 hours ago, myDNA4u said:

Second @BootmanLAcomments that the place for cis gay men who want to  have time exclusively around other cis gay men is "their own house". Being a full time RV'er living at two gay campgrounds and having stayed at 14 others, I can tell you in almost every case the campground is the owner's or owners' home and legal residence. So by that logic Mr. Quinn has every right to set a cis men only rule. It is his home.

I am not defending Mr. Quinn's position and definitely not his pretty abhorrent statement. I'm pretty sure he wishes he could have expressed his feelings in a much more tactful manner. However he should have the right to run his private membership only campground in any way that makes him comfortable. If someone doesn't like and there seems to a fair number who don't, no one is forcing them to go there. Just like I won't eat at Chick-fil-A or shop at Hobby Lobby. However there may be some cis gendered males for whom his policy is a plus.

My point about "home": no, an entire campground where you rent out spaces to transient visitors all year long is not purely a home. It's a commercial operation. If I buy a hotel and rent out rooms but I live on the premises, that doesn't transform the entire hotel into "my home".

As for the "membership only" bullshit: as I noted earlier, it's a private membership only venue if the membership fees - and not "daily membership fees" that are nothing more than space rental fees thinly disguised - actually cover the lion's share of the operational costs. In other words, the membership fee needs to be substantial enough that you don't then also charge so much for daily/weekly/monthly occupancy/rental charges that the latter overwhelms the former. I realize that's the gimmick most such places employ trying to evade scrutiny but the reality is, if they're ever challenged, they're going to lose.

And yes, I'm sure there are people for whom this guy's cis policy is a plus, just like there are bigots who saw "no blacks" lunch counters and restaurants and hotels as a plus. That doesn't make them legal.

[BootmanLA]

8 hours ago, Spunkinmyarse said:

It disappoints me to see that of all the posts in this thread, this is the one that receives a downvote.  What great crime have I committed except express an opinion that racial injustice should not be brought into a discussion on trans rights?

Has political debate reached such a level  of toxicity that even a suggestion of this sort needs to be punished in this way?  @BootmanLAand I are fighting the same war for a better, more harmonious world. Sometimes I might disagree with his methods and his tactics, and from time to time I would like to be able to point this out, without incurring such hostility.  It is not as if I posted something along the lines of “Trans men should fuck off and get their own camp”.  That might have deserved a downvote.  A reasoned call for cautious and thoughtful debate does not.

If the intention was to hurt, you have succeeded @Tavros : well done!  Has it contributed anything meaningful to the debate?  No, it has not.  I am fairly thick-skinned, and won’t let your action put me off my fight for societal change through reasoned, civilized debate.  But I wonder how many other good people out there are put off from making valuable contributions to this discussion and others, because they fear being burned in this way.  Your actions alienate potential allies in the struggle for a better world, and you do a disservice to all those who need our support.

 

For once I'm not the one downvoting (and to be honest, I went back to check, and was going to remove my downvote before adding this.

But I disagree strongly with your assertion that race is all in the mind and gender is a very real thing.

You said that "Gender difference is very real, at least to the vast majority of humans in every culture that has ever existed." That was EXACTLY the perception of the scientific community regarding race about 100-150 years ago, and for "the vast majority of humans in every culture that had ever existed". As recently as the mid 20th century, courts were still accepting the view that blacks were inherently inferior to whites intellectually because of inherent biological differences. And yet, in a hundred years, that belief has been exposed as false and reduced in prevalence to a fringe of society.

In other words, just because societies have always considered men and women vastly different (and, naturally, women inferior), doesn't mean the differences are as pronounced as some of us think. We have people who are, genetically, unequivocally male (XY genome) who are born with a vagina and ovaries. We have people who are genetically unequivocally female (XX) who are born with a penis and rudimentary testes. We have people who have variant genomes (XXX, XYY, XXY, etc.) who sometimes can't be determined as male or female from external inspection - and a long history of infant surgery forcing "conformity" - removing a penis and creating a vagina for such children on the grounds that it's unlikely they'd be successful as a male, sexually speaking.

And as for separate rest rooms - the reality is that's about protecting women from men's sexual assault and from men leering at them. I don't know many women who are worried about trans women sharing their bathrooms, especially since most women's rooms have individual stalls with doors, not open urinals like men's rooms. it's only the men who raise the question about men pretending to be trans to get into women's bathrooms. That tells you where THEIR minds are.

[BlackDude]

This how I can best describe the black/minority issue:

Say I was in a bad car accident and I was awarded a large sum of money. But the judge decided that because there were other folks who had accidents, some minor fender benders, some bike accidents, some not as bad as mine, I needed to split my money with all the other victims. I also had to split with folks who don’t have a car because one day, they may be in an accident, and they needed compensation as well. Would that be fair? This is what I mean about other groups trying to parlay rights/benefit of if the struggle of black people.

 

I can find numerous examples in history, going back to the 1800s where powerful “cross dressing” or trans men have developed anti black policy and propaganda. I challenge you to find ONE powerful black person who has written anti-trans legislation. Again, that is a myth that gay black men have some power or status over trans white men.
 

I have nothing against trans people, and it wouldn’t bother me if they were at the campground. This is not a black vs. trans issue. But don’t use my experiences to advocate for someone else’s benefits. 
 

One a side note, statistics are now showing the “in the gate” (ie Integration) approach did not work for black people, for many reasons. Maybe trans folks should take note and buy their own campground and regulate it as they see fit?

 

[Spunkinmyarse]

13 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

But I disagree strongly with your assertion that race is all in the mind and gender is a very real thing.

You said that "Gender difference is very real, at least to the vast majority of humans in every culture that has ever existed." That was EXACTLY the perception of the scientific community regarding race about 100-150 years ago, and for "the vast majority of humans in every culture that had ever existed". As recently as the mid 20th century, courts were still accepting the view that blacks were inherently inferior to whites intellectually because of inherent biological differences. And yet, in a hundred years, that belief has been exposed as false and reduced in prevalence to a fringe of society.

I did consider this argument as I wrote my post, but came to the conclusion that the two issues (race and gender) are indeed different, and stand by that assertion.  I think we may just have to respectfully disagree with one another on this.  Perhaps we can make a date to check back in 150 years from now to see if either of us is right.

The different reproductive roles of each gender are substantial, and have had (and I think always will have) a huge influence on how each gender relates to the other. This appears to be universal across all societies and cultures, both historical and current.  Of course, nothing in nature is clear cut, and gender is no exception.  Trans and intersex people provide evidence of that. But their existence doesn’t mean that gender isn’t a real thing.  It just means that as a society we have tried to create clear cut distinctions in an area where we shouldn’t. Some other societies do take a less binary approach, but all recognize gender on some level or another.

 

[BootmanLA]

46 minutes ago, Spunkinmyarse said:

I did consider this argument as I wrote my post, but came to the conclusion that the two issues (race and gender) are indeed different, and stand by that assertion.  I think we may just have to respectfully disagree with one another on this.  Perhaps we can make a date to check back in 150 years from now to see if either of us is right.

The different reproductive roles of each gender are substantial, and have had (and I think always will have) a huge influence on how each gender relates to the other. This appears to be universal across all societies and cultures, both historical and current.  Of course, nothing in nature is clear cut, and gender is no exception.  Trans and intersex people provide evidence of that. But their existence doesn’t mean that gender isn’t a real thing.  It just means that as a society we have tried to create clear cut distinctions in an area where we shouldn’t. Some other societies do take a less binary approach, but all recognize gender on some level or another.

 

But again, how is that different from race? We don't believe in "clear cut distinctions" on the basis of race any more, but there are still biological differences - the increased susceptibility for people of African descent, for instance, to sickle cell disease, which appears to be a *genetic* difference. Until HIV/AIDS, Kaposi's Sarcoma was a cancer thought to be essentially exclusive to people of Mediterranean descent; it's possible that "white" (ie more specifically, northern European) biology evolved an immune system that could keep KS from taking hold, something that advanced HIV/AIDS patients lose.

And although we realize that skin tone and facial feature differences are, to use a phrase, "skin deep", whether they're deeper or not is irrelevant for the purpose of discrimination: either it's a valid basis for discrimination, or it's not, and that's a *societal*, not a *biological*, choice. Throughout this entire discussion I have yet to see a single argument in favor of allowing this discriminatory practice to exist other than, in essence, gay men don't want to see vaginas and should be protected from "having" to see them. In other words, pure snowflake-ism. If someone can offer a more reasonable justification otherwise, I'm listening.

[1stimebare]

Has anyone considered that they may simply be trying not to run afoul of local indecent exposure laws which may state that if women, which is what a pre op transexual man would be considered legally, then nudity could be legally classed as indecent exposure.  Political correctness needs to stay out of it when the subject is a matter of legal technicalities.

[drscorpio]

35 minutes ago, 1stimebare said:

Has anyone considered that they may simply be trying not to run afoul of local indecent exposure laws which may state that if women, which is what a pre op transexual man would be considered legally, then nudity could be legally classed as indecent exposure.  Political correctness needs to stay out of it when the subject is a matter of legal technicalities.

Whether or not a pre-op transman counts as legally female or legally male is going to depend upon the state's laws and at what stage the person is in their legal transition. 

[GoingEasy]

5 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

But again, how is that different from race? We don't believe in "clear cut distinctions" on the basis of race any more, but there are still biological differences - the increased susceptibility for people of African descent, for instance, to sickle cell disease, which appears to be a *genetic* difference. Until HIV/AIDS, Kaposi's Sarcoma was a cancer thought to be essentially exclusive to people of Mediterranean descent; it's possible that "white" (ie more specifically, northern European) biology evolved an immune system that could keep KS from taking hold, something that advanced HIV/AIDS patients lose.

And although we realize that skin tone and facial feature differences are, to use a phrase, "skin deep", whether they're deeper or not is irrelevant for the purpose of discrimination: either it's a valid basis for discrimination, or it's not, and that's a *societal*, not a *biological*, choice. Throughout this entire discussion I have yet to see a single argument in favor of allowing this discriminatory practice to exist other than, in essence, gay men don't want to see vaginas and should be protected from "having" to see them. In other words, pure snowflake-ism. If someone can offer a more reasonable justification otherwise, I'm listening.

Ok, I'm a little reluctant to agree with Bootman LA ( because I'm still smarting from him ,deservedly , calling me  out on my hissy  fit  the other day regarding the closure  of bathhouses and sex clubs due to likely prolonged mask mandates here through December. Yes, I'm  a self centered spoiled brat, but I pretend that others don't see that.)   

When I was 18 and coming out, my favorite clubhouse so to speak ( much more than a bar, really)  was a small quiet music filled lesbian bar in my hometown. They women, (it was about 97 %  women / 3% men) who were gentle, kind and supportive, and even introduced me, via   their home introductions, to a few community business leader gay men ( who never hit on me) ( Ok, I hit on one incessantly and finally  we fucked years later I think just to shut me up) and became  my successful  role models  and friends for a decade or more. I didn't like the gay men's bars so much, because you were thought to go there for " one thing",( and

I was  offered that one thing right quick)  and actually I didn't want sex most of the time, just some camaraderie and validation.

My point : Why  shouldn't the women's bar or  Louise herself  ask me to find another place to go, informing me that her place was a women's place? She didn't and furthermore I felt welcome and cherished and loved there by these women.

Why can't we find the graciousness in our souls to accept all of us ( yup, I said us) gay folks regardless of our plumbing  or sexual preferences,  let's expand our circle of passion and concern, I invite you to.

 

[Ozbbbottom]

So if lesbian women and transgender ppl allowed there they accept its a sex place and not then say wax not allowed