Televisual treats: Amish gap years, homocidal University staff and parental gender desires.

• Rizzoli and Isles had a storyline about a murderous pimp who happened to be a residence advisor - beware all those heading to University this fall - your local, friendly helping-hand could be your worst nightmare!
• Amish: World's Squarest Teenagers was another fly-on-the-wall documentary where the participants were clearly prepped about what controversial things to say or do, yet it was still eye-opening and warming, unexpectedly so. I learned about bundling, the different types of Amish clothing options (and how Becky wore shorts on the beach!) and how dancing for joy (and to glorify God) can be life changing.
• 8 Boys and Wanting a Girl talked about PGD and the controversy. But no-one mentioned whether it was selection of a foetus based on gender, for which I can understand people's concerns. Or whether it was sperm selection (using centrifuge to spin off the light from the heavier sperm, since one type is mostly male) and then swamping a syphoned ovum in that selected sperm, or whether they actually selected a specific spermatozoa to implant in an ovum. This latter technique seems less controversial, but presumably it is more expensive. Also the feature was about women wanting girls in a family of men. I have two questions:
• Do those with gender disappointment tend to wish they had girls? Are there more mothers wanting mini-me's than there are fathers wanting little girls? Are there a similar number of dads in feminine families wanting some male company?
• Do these parents realise that even if they do conceive the longed for daughter or son, that they may turn out just the same as the other children - tree-climbing, gun-loving, football-playing, or doll-dressing, tea-making, pink-wearing? There is no assumption that the preferred gender will meet the cultural desires the parents want fulfilled. Mummy may not be able to go shopping for girly dresses with the daughter - she might want combats. Daddy may not get to go camping with his son, if he would rather stay home and play house. Do they prepare for this mentally? What if the kid is gender dysmorphic or sexually queer? Are they prepared for this? Does fulfilling the desire for a certain gender simply mean that the child must have the right genitalia? Would these mothers be happy with a gay son who wants to go to the gymkhana, discuss hair styles, or whatever else these women assume their imagined daughter would do? Would a father be okay with a butch daughter who can throw a ball, rugby tackle and make armpit burps with the best of them? I guess not. I think these parents are longing for a cultural stereotype that is unrealistic. They are hoping for a certain stereotype of personality rather than the genetic gender. Would any of their children feel pressure to be other than their current gender - do any of them consider transvestism or a transgendered identity more readily due to familial pressure? 

Okay, I have four questions actually: 

• Why don't any of these families consider adoption or fostering? Do they want a little version of themselves so badly?

•  What happens if the child is sick or disabled? They would be the right gender but the parents wouldn't be able to do all the 'gender-appropriate' activities - is that child still valid in their eyes as fulfilling the category they so badly desire? Would another healthy child of the right gender be needed to adequately satisfy this hunger?

How a child misses biological parents

I wonder if children of single parents miss their 'other' parent. I wonder if two dads, or two mums, can make up for the fact that the other biological parent (of the other gender) is not known/around. What if the missing parent is the same gender as the child; can a boy raised by two lesbians feel the lack of a leading man?

What about adoptions and egg/sperm donations? Do those children ache to know the people with whom they have a genetic connection?

This article goes someway to look at the very real pain children can feel at a missing part of their life. For this little boy he remembered a father and knew his mother prevented them from seeing one another.

So do you miss what you never knew you had?

I must, I must improve my...

Darlinks! Here are the tippity-tip-toppiest tips EVER!

Lexicon improvement from Queers United: "Gynaeotrope" is an unpopular and outdated term for a lesbian that was used in the 1940's to counter the negative connotations of the word homosexual. You learn something new every day!

More autostraddle.com goodness in the form of Ms. Beals who incidentally presented a half hour show on Pablo Neruda after the Il Postino surprise hit movie.

Gay happiness in China with supportive parents but name trouble thwarts those with individual identifying monnikers as the Chinese government was bureaucracy to deal with only a limited set of Chinese characters.

Fashionable boundaries broken in First Amendment challenge over boy wanting to wear a rainbow wrist band

Facebook feed is actually occasionally useful as it lead me to discover Spotify the shiny rival to lastfm.com

Visual display of stereotypes and assumptions

Queer is as queer does... Why the term 'bisexual' isn't for everyone

Can there be any more fabulousness in the world?

Gay penguin couple stole eggs from str8 neighbours in their bid to be parents - an extremely strong urge in male penguins, apparently. Thus they were separated from their colony. Protest ensues and the zoo backs down, giving them eggs from a couple who weren't so good at rearing the wee ones - all together now... aaahhh!

I shouldn't laugh but I did

Lady Gaga fabulousness: Video clip of tv interview where she quick-as-lightning retorts suggestions that she is in fact a man with the outrageous 'Well, I do have a really big donkey dick' in the best dead-pan this side of Jack Dee. Towleroad has the clip.

Queered disability: Event for disabled LGBT people at Harvard Law

Significant Otters from icanhascheezburger.com

Frightening breach of basic human rights in a SCHOOL - I really cannot write any more about this horrifying story because it upsets me too much.

Thanks to another Autostraddle.com link, I have discovered more visual loveliness

Random, quite simply random...

Fabulous sartorial suppliers... King and Allen

More state stalkerishness...

So, as a Born-Again Virgin, I am seeking a woman who will be happy to wait until we are married to have sex. So I think GayChristians and RainbowChristians are good places to start. Waiting to marry...not so that all sexual connectivity will be for the procreation of children (unless miracles occur), but lesbians waiting to make love to that one special, true lady. I guess that they do not have to be a queer Christian, per se, just someone who values sex, believes it to be sacred.Someone with faith and joy. We don't even have to have the same religion, as long as they are not a fundamentalist who thinks that my version of The Higher Power is wrong and therefore we cannot be together.

Questions for the LGBTQ community:

• Do some lesbian couples have their kids call one of them (maybe the birth mom, or the most femme) Mother and the other, Father, Dad, Pappa, or whatever? Could this wesbite provide an answer? Or maybe an academic paper by Polly Pagenheart? See: Pagenhart, Polly. "Lesbian / Dad: Masculine Mother, Feminine Father" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Women's Studies Association, TBA, St. Charles, IL, Pheasant Run, Jun 28, 2007 . 2009-03-24

Quotation from that paper:

Abstract: Nonbiological lesbian mothers challenge traditional notions of motherhood; that’s plain to see. Take a few steps farther back, though, and you’ll notice that lesbian parenthood revises and extends fatherhood just as much. Indeed, for a lesbian parent like me, "Both/and!" is the only answer to the either/or question: "Are you mother or father?" This essay, part memoir, part analysis, explores that rich parental space that exists at the crossroads of those two roles, and proposes that not just feminism and gender studies, but every parent—woman or man; queer or straight—stands to gain from the insights found there.

• Are FTM transpeople having their cake and eating in - childbirth then penis-ownership - do we applaud? Or ask them to chose the joys of one gender only, and stop being greedy in the experiences...?

Get ready for the advice column! Suggestions to improve life such as... Peeing like a ninja - quietly in bathroom stalls, also to allow you to pee in a urinal or whilst standing like a man... Too dry? Lick the tampon end first to make sure the applicator glides in.