Very good points and I basically agree - unfortunately many people are sniveling, insecure, delicate flowers who can't take more honesty than their horoscope, and for the benefit of these we must often watch what we say as the consequences can be greater than the benefits achieved via honesty. Arrangements like you had in DC only work if everyone assumes the basic good will of the other participants.

Gawd! Do I have one for y'all. (I'm a native Southerner. Can't help saying y'all sometimes.) Yesterday, in the Oregonian, I read a letter to the editor from a guy whining because he was referred to as a man in a dress. The remark was made in passing in regard to his appearance at Hillary Clinton's booksigning in Portland. Well, I was there, and believe me, "Lori" is a man in a dress. I've seen him around town and it is strikingly obvious he is a person intent on attracting attention to himself by his dress. An exhibitionist with a twist, if you will.

Yes, I know about transsexuality. Have written fairly extensively about it. But, when we give in to people demanding we deny biological facts, such as gender, we are being ridiculous. Until the man in a dress completes sexual reassignment therapy (which he probably will not do) he is a man in a dress.

This is the kind of issue I refuse to drink the far Left's Kool-Aid in regard to. If that means I am insufficiently PC, than I just am. We simply don't know the answer to all the connundrums of life, and transsexuality is one that is a question largely unanswered. (Not that this guy is necessarily a transsexual. Could just be a gimmick to serve his attention seeking.)

However, I still reserve the right to tell Al to shut up.

I reserve the right to tell any man in a dress to shut up, unless he is bigger than I am.

I am probably more protective of the fundamental concept of freedom of expression than most Amercans, than most artists, who haven't "made it". I've had it challenged even threatened, not really as an artist, but on a more personal level more than once. I can tell you, it's very scary, and sad to be cornered, have someone demand that you tell them a joke, and it's not simply that they didn't get the joke, or find it funny, or that they just don't like the way you look. They have an agenda to see no value in your humor, and convince you that you were never really a humorist, or any type of artist at all. No, this is not an audition. It's just me, getting involved in politics, and daring to tell some young, wannabe politicians I'm a standup comic, and I live in Santa Monica, and I go to Santa Monica College part time and take classes that I think will help me with my comedy. Daring to be real, to tell them the truth about myself, when appropriate. I tell them I'm here to learn what they're about. Now it would stand to reason, that they would be just as straight with me, and connect with me like the civilized human beings they claim to be, and convince me why I should support Lyndon LaRouche for President? But instead, a lot of them, set out first to attack my identity, break it down, and convince me to join the campaign fulltime and have no part of what they call the "degenerative culture". The smart ones knew they were no less products of that culture than I was.
Towards the end of July I spend a weekend with them in Big Bear Lake. I'd never been there before. I'd never seen the California Redwoods. I listened to LaRouche's speech. I paid attention, except for the part where I fell asleep because somone in my cabin had decided to wake everyone up at 5:15 a.m. because she didn't want anyone to miss breakfast, which was at 7:30. Of course, I was wrong to fall asleep. If I really belonged there, I would have stayed awake throughout the whole speech. A couple of people seemed to have a problem with me missing some of the classes and going out for a damn walk once in a while. "We didn't come here to look at trees.", they said. I told one of them, that I needed exercise, which I knew I did, because I'm in tune with my body and I know when I need to go for a walk. He said in a very hateful manner "If you want to exercise, go to your spa.", as if he knows I go to a spa, and if I did, there would be something wrong with going to a spa. It was a sign of an attitude that could seep in to this particular group mind as PC, that exercise is wrong. I said nothing and gave him a dirty look. Why should I dignify such an ignorant and hateful statement with a response. Let it be their problem, that's my AXIOM.
LaRouche even says POPULAR OPINION IS ALWAYS WRONG, yet they won't examine the popular opinions of the group, turn against everyone who isn't them, and expect to get LaRouche elected president that way. They're wrong.
I was staying in the cabin they had for women only. There were two young women there who were even less exposed to the dogma than I was.
I understand that LaRouche, while he may be a great leader, is an old man. I don't mean anything negative by this. I'm just stating fact. He is a tired old man. I can tell by his writings, that he knows this. He founded the youth movement in order to see his life's work completed. Now, in his speech, at the weekend at Big Bear Lake, Cadre School, they call it (cadre is Spanish or Latin for leadership, they told me), he was going off on one of many tangets about the degenerative culture, and how he's tired of seeing people going around displaying thier crotches, whatever that means. I think he said something about people cutting out the crotches of their pants, so their crotches would show. He said he's tired of seeing crotch displays. I beleive him. A couple of women in the group, seemed to take this as a cue to angrily order these two young women in the cabin I was staying in to change their clothes. Both good-hearted human beings who were there to learn about LaRouche, and had souls when they went in, and also happened to have asses, and legs, and some people got very upset about that. My friend Jane wears pants that are ripped in the butt. Another girl was wearing a short skirt. There could have been a kind way to tell her that you could see up it when she's sitting, and to tell her she might want to be careful how she sits in it, or suggest that she wear leggings or tights with it. But she was visciously ordered to change into something else by a woman who is uncomfortable with her own sexuality, and wants other women to be ashamed of their bodies, and to just cover up. This is another PC group mentality gone wrong, or out of balance.

These two young women were in the cabin both upset that they were harassed based on what they were wearing. I was upset too. I knew how they felt. I got out one of my T-shirts and said "I'm going to cut holes in this shirt so my boobs are showing!" Inspiration. Were, indeed, would we be without PC. It was one of those moments where I felt guided by an unseen force, not necessarily outside of myself. It was an old Miss Saigon T-shirt. Yes, I'm a product of a degenerative culture. And as my high school history teacher used to say "If I'm going to have the name, I'm going to have the game. As I started cutting the holes, Shortskirgirl said, "Oh, my god, you're really going to do it!" I was their hero that night, if I do say so myself.
Buttgirl, Shortskirtgirl, and myself, Boobgirl talked amongst ourselves, breifly and tried to come up with a strategy for when confronted with the questions that we knew would come when we arrived at the campsite, such as "What does that prove?" "What is that doing to help us?", and my personal favorite, "What is that doing to help humanity?", "Uh, were human. It helps us."
It wasn't long before one of the censors burst in to the cabin. She'd heard signs of laughter, human emotion, and people expressing themselves coming from here. She couldn't allow it.
She asked what we were doing. I explained to her that I had cut holes in my T-shirt so my boobs were showing. As she could see, I was wearing a black, cotton bra underneath, and there was nothing inherently indecent about this, by the standards of the culture we live in, and I felt no need to explain this to her. The censor asked someting along the lines of what does that prove, or what is that doing to help us, and Buttgirl, said "We knew this would come up..." and started to attempt to explain. The censor cut in and said it was "just sensory". To this, I wanted to scream, JUST SENSORY?????? I'd heard enough of this bullshit, about how senses were nothing and intellect was everything. LaRouche had even talked in his speech that morning about how the senses and cognition worked together. It seemed to me that I was the ONLY one who paid attention in the classes and lectures and to LaRouche's speeches. I knew the senses and cognition worked together, and mine do, when someone isn't blocking this ability by telling me to COGNATE EVERYTHING and SENSE NOTHING, because

"You can't trust your sense perception"
--several Lyndon LaRouche representatives, who in no way know how to talk to a human being, much less run a revolution.

Then the sensor, pointed her finger at me and said "You're a product of a degenerative culture--"

I said, "Yeah."

"I've created a whole new degenerative look!" I was proud, and still am.

Everything she said only served to feed the chaotic energy that had been building up in me all weekend, which was really just one day, one very long day, of a bunch of assholes trying to force interest in something I was already plenty interested in, because to them, I just could never be interested enough, if I didn't do everything LaRouche says.

Anyway, I think that's when she said it was "just sensory", and asked, "Do you want the men here to see you as body parts?", Implying first, that I have no clue what it's like to have men look at me as body parts and nothing else, yeah, yeah, it sucks. Also implying that it's my fault if a man looks at me in a way that she deems to be inappropriate. And actually, I'm single, and human beings who are unattatched, unlike the 80+ year old Lyndon LaRouche, who is married and has a family, generally would like to attract a mate. I've been coming to campaign meetings for a couple of months now. I've made a first impression already, as have they. Is drawing a little attention to my breasts really the worst thing I could do? I did think about it but only for a second. Then I shouted. "That is not the point! These two got picked on for what they were wearing and that wasn't right!" I was shouting, I was standing up on the bunks. This had been building up in me for a good couple of months. I had been hearing them out. I was telling the censor what to think, instead of listening this time. She judged and questioned whether this was really fun for me. She tried to convince me I only thought it was fun. She said it wouldn't be fun for very long. I told her she'd be surprised how long this could be fun for me. What she did not know is that I kick ass. She said that our mothers burned their bras, and asked if I wanted to go down to the barbecue pit and burn my bra. I yelled, "I can't burn my bra, I have holes in my T-shirt!" Besides, my mother never burned her bra. If she did, she never told me anything about it. My parents were Republicans back then. Bra-burning is so 50 years ago.

If I had changed my shirt, and burned my bra, as the censor said I was welcome to do, what would that prove? I would prove that I allow my own ideas to be destroyed and I do what I'm told. It would prove, that, no, I don't care that my friends were visciously attacked based on their surface appearances, and that I was told I was not a comedian. That I was not an artist. It would prove that everyone there who had tuned out what the very cirriculum they worship says about the human potential, and failed to see it in me till I proved myself to them were right. That they were right, not to give me the benefit of the doubt, but to question everything I said and expect me to automatically follow along with everything they said.
It would prove that blondes are dumb.

Erin Belcher

So what if a man is wearing a dress? Why should he shut up, Eric, because you apparently have hangups about gender stereotypes and society's sartorial norms?

As for PC, I am all for free expression and opposed to censorship. But if some guy I care about -- hell, anyone for that matter -- is hurt being referred to as "he," why in the heck would I want to hurt him? How does it hurt me to refer to someone as they wish? There is too much pain inflicted upon people in this world as it is.

Actually, it was a small joke, but the farther you get from the "norm," the more you have to expect to hear about it. That's just reality.

But, Natalie, what if the guy is just toying with other people? There is also a fellow here who is tattooed (very badly) from head to foot, including his face. He walks around wearing as few clothes as possible. If he says it hurts his feelings to be described as "the tatooed man" are we to go along with his manipulation? That could lead to a slippery slope of feeling we must agree with everything anyone says, no matter how wacko.

As for "Lori," I've seen him initiate quarrels with people with 'you were staring at me' on several occassions while seeking out that staring. There are some mental health issues going on there, for sure. From what I've read about transsexuality, the true transsexual gets reassigned and goes on about his or her business in the other gender. Lori's perverse goal is already being met, so I don't believe that will happen.

You have been a reporter. If you had been at the booksigning, how would you have described the man in the dress?

I would not deign to do so without ascertaining information from that person first and, then, only if that individual was germane to the story I was writing. If "Lori" was wearing a dress just to gain attention, well, he's a man in a dress. But I don't see that as being weird -- clothes are clothes. If a man is wearing a dress -- sure, it's not something one usually sees -- but that dress is men's clothing for that man. Do I usually comment on people's clothing? No. What people opt to wear is none of my concern. Sorry, I don't think of dresses as being for women and trousers as being for men. It isn't for me to judge one way or another.

My general rule: Talk to the person, find out how he or she sees him or her or hirself, and then respect the individual. Groups don't interest me, usually -- individuals do. So I deal with each individual on a case-by-case basis. (Do unto others...) Goddess knows, the erroneous classifications people have forced onto me have caused me nothing but torment -- why in the world would I want to do the same to another human being?

When I was in college I worked as a copy editor for the school newspaper, and the head of the ethnic studies department was Davianna Alegado. One day she got married and briefly became Davianna MacGregor. Then her PC friends began working on her head and she reverted to Davianna Alegado. After that she was Davianna Alegado MacGregor, and later, Davianna MacGregor Alegado. Or maybe it was the other way around. At some point hyphens were involved. Every week the editors had to have a meeting to decide what to call her.
It was a complete farce. Only at a university could this silliness be not only tolerated, but taken seriously.

Natalie, I understand and appreciate your heightened level of sensitivity regarding such things, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect the same from everyone: sometimes a man in a dress is just a man in a dress.