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[GlyphGryph]

I admit it was a judgment call that could have gone wrong. But they seem to have actually considered the situation as a whole. The kid did agree to it. And there is a value for a kid coming out to his parents when his parents would accept him instead of keeping it hidden.

Being in the closet can do a lot damage to people on its own.

With increasing social acceptance, staying in the closet is going to be less and less the best choice... depending on area and circumstances, obviously.

It looks like the school took those factors into account - maybe they didn't! But it looks like they did. I definitely don't think outing kids should become general policy, but I'm not even sure they outed him, exactly! He'd already come out in enough ways to make it clear he wanted people to know, ways his parents could have and likely would have discovered sooner or later. I certainly wouldn't mind schools providing the /option/ for kids to come for the school to help, and the option for kids to let the school handle the task of informing their parents.

I think it would definitely be a mistake as any sort of general policy. But I'm not sure if it was a mistake here.

(Says the guy who's not even out to his own parents, not because they wouldn't accept them. They would! But because... oh god, he does not want to have to actually /tell/ them!)

[Truean]

I admit it was a judgment call that could have gone wrong. But they seem to have actually considered the situation as a whole. The kid did agree to it. And there is a value for a kid coming out to his parents when his parents would accept him instead of keeping it hidden.

Being in the closet can do a lot damage to people on its own.

With increasing social acceptance, staying in the closet is going to be less and less the best choice... depending on area and circumstances, obviously.

It looks like the school took those factors into account - maybe they didn't! But it looks like they did. I definitely don't think outing kids should become general policy, but I'm not even sure they outed him, exactly! He'd already come out in enough ways to make it clear he wanted people to know, ways his parents could have and likely would have discovered sooner or later. I certainly wouldn't mind schools providing the /option/ for kids to come for the school to help, and the option for kids to let the school handle the task of informing their parents.

I think it would definitely be a mistake as any sort of general policy. But I'm not sure if it was a mistake here.

(Says the guy who's not even out to his own parents, not because they wouldn't accept them. They would! But because... oh god, he does not want to have to actually /tell/ them!)

Let me start by directly proposing an alternative: the school refers them to a GLBT counselor and or support network, which does this sort of thing all the time and has expertise in it.

Forgetting that for a second. Let's say I, for the sake of argument, agreed with you that the schools should present this option. I don't, but let's pretend.

It then becomes a matter of HOW they do it. You state that, "I think it would definitely be a mistake as any sort of general policy." Here's the problem, things like this set precedent. The next time someone is put in this position, they might look up how other people did it and... see this.... Then they do this. Then it becomes defacto policy by default.  <-- What I'm worried about.

Even if the schools should be doing this, it is a matter of how they should be doing it.

[Frumple]

Let me start by directly proposing an alternative: the school refers them to a GLBT counselor and or support network, which does this sort of thing all the time and has expertise in it.

Fair question, any suggestions for areas that don't have something like that? If there's something of that nature within a good 40-50 miles of where I'm at, ferex, it's bloody well hidden*.

*Which is probably a good idea re: physical safety, honestly.

S'another one of the cases that pings me oddly, I think. There's days that I wish sexual orientation, hetero or not, just wasn't on the map. It doesn't seem to actually have any impact (in and of itself; other peoples reactions, on the other hand...) whatsoever on most social interactions (especially meaningful ones, like say, work.). There's nothing categorically different between most (not intrinsically harmful) sexual preferences re: moral code, work ethic, affability, etc. Only thing it seems to dictate is what you fuck, to put it bluntly, which doesn't come up in day-to-day public situations very often (Even less often without violating public decency laws.).

Sometimes I just wish people would get their bloody nosy selves out of everyone else's bedrooms, and keep their own doors closed (figuratively, of course. They want want a house-wide doorless orgy, that's fine, so long as it's not a matter of public issue.).

Quick E: Just to make it absolutely bloody clear, I'm not saying something asinine like "gays should stay hidden." Just that, yanno', maybe what we (regardless of sexual preference) screw is under a bit too much social scrutiny.

[kaijyuu]

I just wish we cared less about sexual stuff in general. I wouldn't care if you had a friggin' orgy on my front lawn, just so long as you didn't damage anything. To me sex is just another activity, like having a picnic or playing a game of cards or whatever. Who you have sex with matters about as much to me as who you like playing tennis with.

[GlyphGryph]

Let me start by directly proposing an alternative: the school refers them to a GLBT counselor and or support network, which does this sort of thing all the time and has expertise in it.

Thinking on this, yeah, you are probably right. At least assuming those resources are available.

[Truean]

Let me start by directly proposing an alternative: the school refers them to a GLBT counselor and or support network, which does this sort of thing all the time and has expertise in it.

Thinking on this, yeah, you are probably right. At least assuming those resources are available.

Agreed. No good answer when they aren't, huh?

[SalmonGod]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but autistic behavior is a fairly diverse group of behaviors, some of which are harmless (idiosyncratic mannerisms, for the most part), some of which are "objectively" problematic (difficulty socializing with neurotypical people is strictly worse than having an easy time of it), and some of which are "objectively" beneficial (greater facility socializing with other autistic people, for instance, which I will, for the sake of argument, generalize from Vector's statement).

Forgive me for being a few pages late, but I'm just now catching up on this thread after a period of busyness (holy crap it's moving fast tonight, too) and am disappointed no one took the opportunity here to point out the root of the situation.

This statement

difficulty socializing with neurotypical people is strictly worse than having an easy time of it

Can be re-written in a qualitatively identical fashion as "difficulty socializing with autistic people is strictly worse than having an easy time of it".  The biggest problem is that most people don't realize this.

The two sides process information differently, so a neurotypical person communicating with an autistic person without putting any effort into understanding the differences in the other person's thinking and tailor the message accordingly is like expecting a windows program to run on an apple system, and vice versa.  It takes effort from both sides to bridge that gap.  It takes similar effort for people who grow up on opposite sides of the planet to communicate effectively with each other through their cultural barriers, and I don't believe autistic/neurotypical relations should be treated too much differently. 

It's not even about respect so much as realizing that these are simply differences, and there's no reason we can't work around them like any other.  That means openly educating each other about our differences on equal terms, instead of drugging the shit out of people who don't fit our egocentric definition of normality.

Vector, feel free to slap me around if I'm wrong about any of this.  I consider myself better informed than most, but that's not saying much.  I'm just trying to help bridge the communication gap as it appears to me.

In that case I was totally autistic as a kid. Honestly if that's the criteria alone.... So, if you have trouble socializing, some repetitive behaviors, and "odd" interest, that's it?

Actually, a while after my brother was diagnosed with aspergers, my parents started loudly wondering if I could be also, based on a similar summary of really vague symptoms.

[Bauglir]

difficulty socializing with neurotypical people is strictly worse than having an easy time of it

Can be re-written in a qualitatively identical fashion as "difficulty socializing with autistic people is strictly worse than having an easy time of it".  The biggest problem is that most people don't realize this.

The two sides process information differently, so a neurotypical person communicating with an autistic person without putting any effort into understanding the differences in the other person's thinking and tailor the message accordingly is like expecting a windows program to run on an apple system, and vice versa.  It takes effort from both sides to bridge that gap.  It takes similar effort for people who grow up on opposite sides of the planet to communicate effectively with each other through their cultural barriers, and I don't believe autistic/neurotypical relations should be treated too much differently. 

It's not even about respect so much as realizing that these are simply differences, and there's no reason we can't work around them like any other.  That means openly educating each other about our differences on equal terms, instead of drugging the shit out of people who don't fit our egocentric definition of normality.

This is actually exactly the point I was trying to make with that attempt at symmetry in the parenthetical note after that, but expanded greatly and more explicitly gone into. Thanks for that.

[SalmonGod]

Sorry I didn't pick up on that.

[Bauglir]

That was a legitimate thanks, actually. If nothing else, if you didn't pick up on it, other people didn't, so it's good to have it brought up again more clearly. I'm not always the best at getting a point across.

[Phmcw]

Filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian discovered that the Iranian government's "solution" for homosexuality is to endorse, and fully pay for, sex reassignment surgery.[15] The leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa declaring sex reassignment surgery permissible for "diagnosed transsexuals."[15] Eshaghian's documentary, Be Like Others, chronicles a number of stories of Iranian gay men who feel transitioning is the only way to avoid further persecution, jail and/or execution.[15] The head of Iran's main transsexual organization, Maryam Khatoon Molkara—who convinced Khomeini to issue the fatwa on transsexuality—confirmed that some people who undergo operations are gay rather than transsexual.

....

[ChairmanPoo]

Filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian discovered that the Iranian government's "solution" for homosexuality is to endorse, and fully pay for, sex reassignment surgery.[15] The leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa declaring sex reassignment surgery permissible for "diagnosed transsexuals."[15] Eshaghian's documentary, Be Like Others, chronicles a number of stories of Iranian gay men who feel transitioning is the only way to avoid further persecution, jail and/or execution.[15] The head of Iran's main transsexual organization, Maryam Khatoon Molkara—who convinced Khomeini to issue the fatwa on transsexuality—confirmed that some people who undergo operations are gay rather than transsexual.

....

... you know, that the saddest bit of that is that Khomeini probably thought he was being groundbreakingly open-minded and clever when he came up with this idea...


Suddenly I'm reminded of Stanley the Tool from Erfworld.

[G-Flex]

So, what do they do if you're somewhere else on the Kinsey Scale?

"Well, I'm mostly into girls..."
"Sure thing. We'll remove one of your testicles and wax your armpits. That should even things out a little."

[Darvi]

Or even off the scale?

[Truean]

Filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian discovered that the Iranian government's "solution" for homosexuality is to endorse, and fully pay for, sex reassignment surgery.[15] The leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa declaring sex reassignment surgery permissible for "diagnosed transsexuals."[15] Eshaghian's documentary, Be Like Others, chronicles a number of stories of Iranian gay men who feel transitioning is the only way to avoid further persecution, jail and/or execution.[15] The head of Iran's main transsexual organization, Maryam Khatoon Molkara—who convinced Khomeini to issue the fatwa on transsexuality—confirmed that some people who undergo operations are gay rather than transsexual.

....

Yeah, it's quite Ironic that Iran is incredibly transgender friendly, at the expense of homosexuals. On the one hand, it proves that there really are no negative consequences for transgender people other than those society manufactures and dumps on them. When those artificial consequences are removed, we do just fine.

On the other hand, it's a problem of lumping all people into one category.....

Also, it is not lost on me how horribly women are often treated in Iran.