Today, I learned that one friend’s father was gay and another friend’s daughter has started taking T. This thread is about that father and that daughter.

From his youth, the father spent decades pretending to be a straight man because he believed that male bodies are only supposed to be attracted to women.

The daughter is pretending to be a gay man because she believes that female bodies are only supposed to be attractive to men

In the 20th century, the father lived 40 years of pretense thanks largely to regressive beliefs of the religious right.

In the 21st century, the daughter believes she should live a life of pretense thanks largely to regressive, quasi-religious beliefs of the progressive left.

Nowadays, despite religious theologies, few would encourage a gay man to pretend to be straight in order to avoid homosexuality (in much of the west).

But thanks to gender theology, many eagerly encourage a straight girl to pretend to be a gay man in order to avoid femininity.

The basic problem is that society keeps telling young people that their bodies are assigned various sexist expectations such as:

- if you have a penis, you shall be attracted to women
- if you lack a penis, you shall be attractive to men

We should stop encouraging young people to live lives of pretense either because they want to fit into or because they want to opt out of sexist stereotypes.

The stereotypes themselves are the problem!

Instead, we should start encouraging young people to lead happy and productive lives by learning to accept traits that can’t practically be changed (e.g., sex, sexual orientation, body type) and to manipulate traits that are changeable (e.g., interests, appearance, actions).

Society must demonstrate that LGB people don’t need to pretend to be straight, that no-one’s body is wrong, and that women/girls aren’t defined by their attractiveness to men.

Until then, many young people will continue setting themselves on needlessly difficult & harmful paths.