The Caravan Moves On

 
I think we're about done with the LCO drama, but just some round-up points.

What we've found, not surprisingly, is two persistent memes, mainly perpetrated by the old FIC gang of the old official forums, and the ill-named Second Citizen, preserved to this day at Sluniverse.com namely:

1. "Prok always publishes lies, slander, inuendo, gossip, falsehoods, incendiary blah blah blah"
2. "Prok is a girl and doesn't get to be referred to as 'he' because...we say so and we determine who gets their rights by our say-so."

So, Second Life never changes, and it's important to point out once again, as wearisome as it may sound:

1. I haven't published any lies, libel, gossip, etc. No one has successfully challenged anything I've reported here.It's true as far as I know -- I don't see there's any other version of this story that's credible.

A. LaLa herself has not come forward and claimed there was no deal or understanding with Simone; she has no chatlogs proving this, but merely her dunning bill and Simone's initial attempt to deal with her by arranging payment; instead, LaLa has let her minions do all their yaking and shouting and swearing to distract.
B. I haven't said LaLa "stole" any content anywhere; I've said the content creator is locked out, can't get her content, and her wish to have it removed was ignored. So she's following up. And you need to listen to LaLa's own words, in which she says she is DMCA proof.

Me saying this doesn't make it less true; me saying this based on my own investigations of this world LCO and my interview of Simone doesn't make it less true; LaLa's chat logs don't make it any less true; Chip Midnight pompously declaring that he "agrees with me 100 percent" because he saw the creator-fascism agenda cranking up to his advantage, and then his backing away as soon as he saw some "other version" ("overdue tier") doesn't make it any less true. The Herald, with paid LCO ads, saying this is a routine customer service problem gone wrong (ignoring the larger issues) or that a false claim of theft was made (it wasn't) doesn't make it any less true; Cristiano, spouting his usual nonsense, as he collects pay for LCO ads on his website doesn't make it any less true; all kinds of people spouting on forums, including the official Linden ones, doesn't make it any less true.

I won't have to keep arguing any of this much longer, as I think we'll see a pretty rapid denouement by early next year.

2. Just because I've reported this story, and some don't like it, they feel they can attack my change of gender in SL. This is of course terribly bigotted and nasty, and, to boot, a terrible double standard; outspoken males, like Cristiano Midnight and Chip Midnight, both of whom have female avatars by their own admission, aren't subjected to this harassment.

Cristiano has a strange, old-fashioned last-century viewpoint -- one that the late Kendra Bancroft shared as well. And that is that if you have the opposite gender in SL, you aren't allowed to refer to yourself as "transgendered". You aren't "authentic". You are "fake". Of course, this is a subset of a belief that avatars themselves aren't humans, and are some sort of sock puppets. I beg to disagree.

Someone on sluniverse.com who still has a technical female gender in RL, and a male gender in SL, *does* get to be referred to as transgendered because a) he is a friend of sluniverse.com and b) he is transgendering via dress, etc. in RL.

But that's silly. Transgender is what your avatar in SL is, too. It is a legitimate, protected, rightful act of changing your gender and presenting as another gender. There's nothing "less real about it" just because you haven't undergone a change with a surgical knife in RL, or dressed up somehow in RL. Your avatar isn't "less real" merely because it is an icon representing you in SL; it's as real as you are. Does your voice on the telephone, stripped of your body, make you less real on the telephone?! Does your handwriting on a snail mail letter, stripped of voice and body make you "less authentic"? Of course not! Same concept.

And here, various gender police (Kendra was one of them) bear down heavily with didactic and prosecutorial glee. There are a zillion manginas and transvestites in SL going from the male-to-female direction. They are never told to "get counseling" or "get a life" or "stop that" -- especially in an uber PC palace like sluniverse.com

But the minute the issue is one of criticizing those people and their ideas, then suddenly, all PC bets are off. Suddenly, someone like me gets less protection from the law and morality; suddenly, I no longer get to benefit from being called by their proper SL pronoun, the way droves and droves of males, and even a few f2m avatars do. So the moral of *that* sordid story is, again, "Avatar rights are contingent on the whim of forums pharoahs like Cristiano". Rights are at the discretion of the sovereign. Step out of line -- you lose your tolerance level. Your right to tolerance is contingent on your speech -- so don't be too free with it." Of course, this horrid tribal atmosphere needs constant resistance and breaking up if we are to have a normal free world.

Another piece of business -- a BDSM queen named Briana Dawson, a regular on sluniverse.com, who takes it upon herself to print *falsely* a headline on the SL forums that incite hatred against me and incite furor on the forums. She says as follows:

"SL Content Creator Locked out of LCO, Content Stolen"

That's *not* what my headline says -- scroll down. I said merely Simone was locked out. I said she had *no access to* her content, and that I saw it was still being referenced and sold. Then I merely let LaLa talk. On her forums, on blogs, she says she has a TOS that makes all content over to her for her licensed use; she says she does not honour DMCA takedowns. She's said to be a former lawyer in RL; she's obviously working some imagined angle here.

But these nuances and this *accurate* reporting doesn't stop Brianna from fuming about "stolen content" -- although we're not there yet. Then that sets me up as a whipping boy to be declared as "lying" -- though it is Brianna who has misrepresented a) my blog b) the story.

I rarely follow up on these sorts of things, but I thought it was useful to contact her inworld; she seemed reasonable. I don't know her. She's not reasonable, of course, but feigns that merely as a manipulative sort of gambit of the type of all these broken BDSM people desperately always trying to coerce and maneuver people. I'm not playing *shrugs*. I call her on it. I note that she's misrepresented my blog headline, sensationalized it; incited the community; gotten sluniverse.com in a lather, and she should now correct that.

She promises to put a correction on the forums; I say thank you, before seeing it.

Then I see what she has put. She writes, essentially, "The issue of the accuracy or not of Prok's blog is a distraction from the main point, which is LaLa's refusal to acknowledge a DMCA could be filed on her".

I get back in touch, and I say, unacceptable. Here's the chat log (she's only covered it partially). I'll leave out merely things about her own personal SL relationships that aren't relevant here. ((She then erases it when I object to her deceit).

[2008/12/29 8:35]  Prokofy Neva: Briana, your obvious baggage on the forums and effort to discredit me is obvious, but do try to research the story and read even LaLa's own chatlogs which she so defiantly publishes, not realizing they reveal her shoddy practices more than anything. Simone has contacted the ISP that hosts LCO. They have said they have told their customer LCO to remove the content within 24 hours. So all this speculation that this is merely about overdue tier is ridiculous. That's not what the deal was about -- it was comped sims in exchange for newbie area content and a discount store. Go inworld to LCO and take a look. And you aren't reading carefully what LaLa herself ridiculously says: that she interprets her TOS to mean she has exclusive rights to all content and never has to honour a DMCA takedown notice! That's ridiculous, and you know it. Peggy Paperdoll is an anonymous avatar, likely an alt. There are many interested parties invested in LCO who aren't happy to lose their advertising of investment. Deal with it.
-- Instant message logging enabled --
[8:36]  Briana Dawson: Im not trying to discredit you
[8:36]  Briana Dawson: in fact, im posting right now that it's lame for them to keep bringing up your gender
[8:36]  Prokofy Neva: Peggy says that "the sim is still owned by Simone...the content is still owned..." but duh, Simone is LOCKED OUT from it and it is in LaLa's hands, with the money going to HER on HER SERVERS, duh. Can you grasp htat?
[8:37]  Briana Dawson: yea, Peggy has some vested interest in LCO
[8:37]  Prokofy Neva: When money goes into a locked account, it belongs to the grid owner, not you.
[8:37]  Prokofy Neva: well of course, that's visible a mile away
[8:37]  Prokofy Neva: I don't know these people; I had nothing but good will and good recommendations to them. I went there impressed with them, at Simone's behest to her entire friendship list.
[8:37]  Prokofy Neva: So it's seriously crap. I discovered all was not well. There are MANY complaints of LaLa's high-handedness
[8:38]  Prokofy Neva: people fear publicizing them
[8:38]  Prokofy Neva: I don't fear publicizing them. I truly don't care if people harass me due to transgenderism; it's immaterial. They are assholes. The story needs to be told. it's about the larger issue of protecting IP. end of story.
[8:39]  Briana Dawson: well, hopefully this will lead to an end for LCO
[8:39]  Briana Dawson: i really dislike these 3rd party grids cashing on these disgruntled people but some  of the people really deserve to lose their cash at those places.
[8:40]  Prokofy Neva: LCO could still right itself if LaLa will stop playing ghetto hoodie and behave like a professional.
[8:41]  Briana Dawson: haha ghetto
[8:42]  Briana Dawson: well thats all she knows...i dont expect things to change.  Is simone going to pay her off?
[8:43]  Prokofy Neva: of course not! they had no deal to  have her be paid tier!
[8:43]  Prokofy Neva: LillylFirth is cited as paying $25 for example ROFL
[8:43]  Briana Dawson: lol

[8:44]  Prokofy Neva: you're simply incorrect that the discussion is "better" at slunivers -- it's all vested parties there like Adam Zaius' boyfriend Joshua -- it's Adam's software LCO uses, duh, Cristiano takes ads from LCO, and the rest of the people there are either divas or just default haters.

[8:50]  Briana Dawson: someone just contacted me about a blog on LCO
[8:50]  Briana Dawson: and is now giving me some notecard they say i wil find intersting
[8:51]  Briana Dawson: oh ffs, this is just 1 sided drama
[8:53]  Briana Dawson: no idea why that person contacted me.
[8:53]  Prokofy Neva: yes I've gotten a number of these -- and I stand by the story of Simone. The chat logs simply shed more light on LaLa's dunning of her, and the reneging on the deal. Divas make deals that they seal with air kisses. They break down. Drama ensues. What else is new. But there are larger issues here.
[9:01]  Prokofy Neva: And  I do want to point out that YOU are the one, on e the forums, posting a link to my blog, and headlining it with a headline I didn't use, which is "Content Stolen". I said "Content Creator Locked Out" -- and that puts the content at risk. I did not make a claim it was stolen -- but LaLa hrself takes care of that for me by her beligerent posts about refusing to acknowledge DMCA.
[9:02]  Briana Dawson: ok you are right
[9:02]  Briana Dawson: i did dramatize it, and i was wrong for doing that, i really wasnt thinking
[9:04]  Briana Dawson: i sort of let my dislike of Central Grid bleed over into that.
[9:06]  Prokofy Neva: I don't know the story of Central Grid but by hearsay. But as you have headlined a forums thread that has the junkyard dogs now posting everywhere that Prokofy lies and makes false claims and libels lala for stealing things, you *could* come back and say, the issue is *LaLa's own comments about not recognizing DMCA". That's the thing tow orry about. And we will see what happens in the next 24 hours if her ISP acts.
[9:07]  Briana Dawson: ok
[9:09]  Briana Dawson: posted
[9:11]  Prokofy Neva: thanks
[9:12]  Briana Dawson: You are welcome :)
[9:14]  Prokofy Neva: but...that was an underhanded, BDSM bitchy way to do it, so noted, and I won't be talking to you again. My story is true; your casting dispersion on its veracity is just a manipulative power-mongering thing you are diong for your own purposes, which remain opaque. Enjoy, not playing : )
[9:15]  Briana Dawson: huh?
[9:15]  Briana Dawson: wow
[9:15]  Briana Dawson: ok
[9:21]  Briana Dawson: hmm...muting.

Cindy Claveau, who has always been a horrid, horrid bitch on these forums for YEEAAARS says the following, "This thread is a good example of what happens when a blogger's vitriolic hyperbole overshadows the issues. These threads end up being more about one personality than they are about the seed issue."

But...I didn't have any "vitriolic hyperbole". I didn't overshadow the issues: I brought them to light. I told the story. If someone rages on my blog with their vitriol, what of it? they obviously have a lot of stake in this world. The seed issue *is* personalities -- because the personality and behaviour of LaLa Xevious has utterly overshadowed her attempt at making a world. You have to have a big ego to start a world -- look at Philip Linden -- but you also have to have humility and be able to work with others and be nice to customers.

In my business, I'm nice to my customers. I literally have had thousands and thousands of them. Most are happy. Because I'm nice to them and I follow my own rules and I enforce them to prevent one customer from harming another. If you see me being firm and even nasty to some former tenant on this blog, that's because that person is no longer my customer; they themselves are behaving as an enemy, threatening to boycott and libel me inworld or continue harassing me or griefing me or other customers merely because I applied my rules.

In dealing with the unjust situation of SL, which has no rule of law and no normal practices like public records offices and judges and lawyers, we have to use rough frontier justice. I'm all for that, but it, too, has its rules. Landlords should be nice to their customers -- but the customers don't get to abuse landlords. LaLa is essentially a glorified land baron. She's a sim diva trying to make a community to get her tier paid and take home a little. She's like any girl in SL with 30 or 300 islands trying to hustle content, relationships, events, etc. to make bank. That's all. Nothing special.

She's expected to be nice to her customers to keep her business going -- but her resorting to the publication of chat logs, which she invokes in order to somehow "avoid the libelous accusations of taking content" is over the top. Because...there's a much simpler thing that had to happen here. If she reneged on an understanding, or -- to put a charitable face on it -- had a different understanding of that understanding, once Simone logged on in good faith and signalled she would deal with it through payment, but had reservations about the economy, etc. being able to sustain the payment of tier, that put it on another level beyond merely a subscription notice and overdue tier. ESPECIALLY when LaLa implies she will override any automatic lock-outs with a simple call to Live Help  -- which she didn't honour.

Yes, it should have been a contract.

In my little business, if a girlfriend tells me an ex griefed and harassed me, I don't publish her chat logs and give them to that boyfriend in order to justify my actions in removing him. Not only is it againts the TOS; it's morally wrong.

However, if either of them tells me, after I've informed them of rules like no security orbs, and they keep breaking them, that they are going to boycott me and harass me, their chat log goes on my blog. I have no real recourse to stop people using vigilantism in that fashion except the publicity of shame, which I've found to be proven as a pretty effective deterrent.

Far from achieving the goal of "shaming Simone into silence" with these chatlogs, LaLa only cooked her own goose further.

And some people think if I publish a tenants' logs here, that I will lose business. I find that doesn't happen, because those reading the line see something obvious:

o there are rules
o they are enforced
o they are fair

What we find out from LaLa's transcripts is the opposite:

o there aren't rules
o arbitrary clauses are unevenly enforced
o they aren't fair

Comments

[Lewis Luminos]

Someone on sluniverse.com who still has a technical female gender in RL, and a male gender in SL, *does* get to be referred to as transgendered because a) he is a friend of sluniverse.com and b) he is transgendering via dress, etc. in RL.

But that's silly. Transgender is what your avatar in SL is, too.

I'm guessing this bit refers to me. Now I will first say that I know nothing about your RL situation so I won't offer any opinion on yourself, but generally speaking, transgender refers to someone who identifies, in RL, as the opposite gender. A transgender person generally knows, or at least shows signs to an educated observer, in very early childhood. Choosing an avatar of the opposite sex doesn't make a person transgendered in RL any more than choosing a furry avatar makes them an animal. I guess if your avatar cross-dresses and switches gender then it could be considered transgendered in SL. Either way, I don't think it's silly. It's certainly not something I would wish upon anyone.

[AlterEgoTrip Svenska]

Yeah, um Prokofy? HUH? About the transgenderific problem thing, I didn't know you felt so strongly about it, how would YOU prefer to be addressed then, since this is a bit of a blurry line between the words of RL and SL, please do tell me where it is and where you stand on the topic of what you wish to be called as I do not WISH to offend you.

Lewis, you do make an awfully strong point; if one believes themselves to be transgendered IRL BECAUSE they have a av that is, and believes that other people who may have a male personae avatar are "transgendered" IRL because of this, does this mean that Prokofy in calling out Vint, may really just be projecting some kind of sensitivity upon her? Vint clearly is female and says her av is a furry... for the most part.

Do you think the claim of whatever sexuality one has can add to this confusion from that kind of perspective? It makes me draw conclusions I do not wish to draw but may be most likely in these cases.

[Prokofy]

You seem to have a more enlightened view of this, Lewis, than your confreres over at sluniverse.com They believe that an avatar who is your opposite gender cannot properly be described as "transgendered".

I say this is extremist politically correct bullshit. Of course it can be. Gender is what the bearer wishes it to be and manifests as, not what the public constructs around that person at its whim.

It doesn't matter one whit what I chose to do in RL or not, whether I "back up" my SL transgendered avatar with a "real life action of transgenderedness". That's PC crap. Only the rigidly orthodox assholes at Sluniverse.com could come up with this shit. If I went on there and said that Joshua Nightshade could only be declared gay on my say so, or I could get to decide whether his avatar was "gay enough," there'd be a lynch mob. And yet, they can pull the same shit on me over the issue of transgender.

What I've always found in spades in SL is that when it comes to GBLT, there is real backwardness on the "T" part.

I think you're wrong that chosing an avatar "doesn't make them transgendered in RL" -- that's the sort of statement that in fact forms the basis for the hate of sluniverse.com, and their rigid rejections of manifestations they are intolerant of.

Avatars are real. The act of transgendering your avatar is an authentic human act. Your human does it, not your telephone book or your computer. Does having a transagendered avatar mean you will lockstep, follow this in RL? Of course not. Not everybody wishes to, or has the opportunity, to transgender in RL.

Honestly, there is nothing worse and more horrid than the stifling oppressive orthodoxy of the left. Sluniverse.com is a perfect stellar example.

[AlterEgoTrip Svenska]

So Prokofy, to answer my question in a different way, IF You feel so strongly about it, why all this hating all over Vint?

How do you wish to be refered to, and P.S. if you wish us to respect your wishes, then is it possibly to refer to Vint who is clearly female even if you don't think so, to Her or She, or is that too much to ask of you?

[Charity Colville]

(this comment was meant for a locked post)

Always the skeptic, I was naturally hesitant when hearing about LCO. My husband and I are well known in SL for founding and creating some of its most successful club venues ... and attracting online traffic ... but naturally I had concerns with devoting the time and energy involved promoting a new venture to a fledgling enterprise without knowledge of its stability ... both from a management standpoint and technical. (yes Prok....I know you way back from TSO)

When Simone contacted me about LCO, and sang its praises, it was a done deal. I do not know Lala, but I have done business for years with Simone. She has always dealt with me honestly and her professionalism is beyond reproach. We created our avatars in LCO and made plans to build, invest, and bring as many of our friends and our 14,000 member group with us.

We can do "she said, she said" all day over this dispute, but the bottom line seems VERY simple to me. If there is a conflict over what the oral contract between these two is, and Simone wants OUT of LCO, which I know firsthand she does, then her content should be returned ... period! Lala, if you fronted her upload money...then eat it and call it a day.

I will say this in closing ... any intention we had of taking our sizable resources to LCO is over. I would never, and will never, do business with ANYONE who would so rapidly post private chat (in or out of context) for all to see on a blog or anywhere else. .(and I don't give a crap who does it first... Esquire or not)

Charity Colville

Owner/founder ~ Sweethearts Jazz

Creator/founder ~ Phat Cat's

[Lewis Luminos]

I don't believe that having an avatar the opposite gender as your RL gender qualifies as "transgendered". By having a "transgendered avatar" I was referring to something wherein the avatar itself was in some way transgendered or not possible to define as one or the other, or where the avatar itself is of ambiguous or indeterminate gender. Being a RL female and having a purely male avatar doesn't make you or the avatar transgendered. Now if you're dressing and passing as male in RL that's an entirely different thing. If you identify as male when you're not in SL, but when you're out and about in the real world, that's transgendered. Ditto if your "male" av was actually a crossdressing female.

There are tons of people who choose an avatar of the opposite sex to their physical one and they do that for may reasons. Maybe a testing alt for clothes. Maybe it's to see/participate in some hot lesbian/gay porn. Maybe it's an experiment. Maybe they just want to look at a sexy backside while they're playing SL. Maybe it's a way to get back at a jealous ex-lover. None of these things make a person transgendered. It's all about self-identification.

Also. You are so very right that the "T" part of GLBT is WAY behind, and not just in SL or SLU, this is global across the GLBT community everywhere. Progress in acceptance of the trans community is about 30 years behind the rest.

If you haven't already, take a look at my blog, the article I posted on Gender and Disclosure just before Christmas. You might find it interesting.

[Ace Albion]

If someone engages in homosexual relationships in a virtual space, but hasn't physically copulated with a member of the same sex in RL, are they, or are they not, homosexual, or at least bi-curious?

How does someone qualify as transgendered? Is there an exam you have to pass? Or is there a committee of scowling post-ops who sit in judgement of how people can define themselves? "No, you haven't been through enough social and physical suffering to be one of us- hie thee to a nunnery!"

[Prokofy]

Lewis,

I'm not surprised you believe that someone with a transgendered avatar isn't "authentic" and "doesn't get to call themselves" transgendered. Because you are following lockstep the rigid orthodoxy of the GLBT movement which is based on horrid, exclusivist identity politics.

You're engaged in a profoundly resistant act by changing the manifest identity of your RL gender, and surrounded by a conservative real world that tells you that this isn't authentic, that you are "really" female because of your physical attitributes, and that you "don't get to" call yourself male in any real sense. Oh, sure, there is a politically-correct or liberal thin veneer for some people that accepts your choices, but keeps their own counsel.

So, in true kick-the-dog fashion, you cast around, in your fierce search for your own tribalist identity, to find some other group less authentic than you. Ah, it's that group of people who don't "convert" in RL and "really suffer" but who merely have avatars. They aren't authentic. If they're less authentic, why, I'm more authentic goes that sort of reasoning.

In fact, some "Gs" and "Ls" in the GLBT will adopt a kind of sneer or knowing smile to someone declaring they are "bi" and shrug that they just haven't "accepted" their "true identity" and they aren't "really" bi.

And that's why I *loathe* the GLBT movement, which is basically yet another Marxist, 19th century movement, steeped in nationalism and identity politics. It is not universalist and inclusive; it is tribalistic and exclusive. Rather than seeking equality for all under the law, it seeks a series of special-entitlement categories.

That's why you get gay people defending Prop 8 in California seething with sneering rage at religious blacks who didn't vote for "their" proposition. They even want to disenfranchise them. They hate them, and even become violent about it. And that's because their movement has a kind of hateful core, which isn't "let's work toward equality for all" but "let's work for our own set of entitlements against others and others be damned."

I find these attitudes loathsome, violent, and illiberal. I find it especially unattractive when various transgendered people in RL have discounted me and invoked some kind of "suffering" card. They've suffered in RL by beatings -- and therefore the suffering of griefing and taunting in SL is not only trivialized, it's not even validated in any way. They've "really converted", so some pixel one-day wonder is a phony.

I find that intolerant and loutish, because it completely annihilates the person who might indeed be in transition. What of the person who simply has no money, or for health reasons, or reasons of stigma of the particular country they live in, or whatever binding circumstances, simply can't become the "authentic being" you can become in affluent San Francisco?! Why do they get to be annihilated and declared inauthentic?! They don't! If they want to make a female or male avatar opposite than what they are, and they seek recognition in SL, by God, it should be granted to them, and the word "transgendered" simply, liberally, authentically applies -- because to do anything else is to question anybody's right to change; anybody's right to tolerance; anybody's *freedom* to define their gender *as they wish* which is at the heart of freedom for sexuality and tolerance of its choices.

So I utterly reject your orthodox pronouncements from the Gender Police that say me, my avatar, or anyone else's opposite-sex avatar isn't transgendered, and I say a resounding: fuck you. Just as anyone who is gay and is told they should get "therapy" or "face the music" and "find a girlfriend": fuck you.

I don't think you back up and validate avatars from what the person does in SL. To do so goes against the very core of Second life, which is freedom. Freedom to chose, freedom to pick another self, freedom to manifest as your soul dictates, not as the Gender Police dictate.

If somebody adopts another avatar merely as a lark, or to test some clothing, or to get some peace and quiet for a day from constantly being hit on because their overly sexually manifesting females attract too much attention, so what? They are chosing a temporary transgender experiment. God bless them. Have fun, enjoy. You are allowed. You are free.

If someone continually picks a male gender in every MMORPG or game or social media or alt they have, if they spend four years as a very public male while being constantly harassed and mistreated inworld with near-daily hate mails and malicious IMs and sneering comments in the official moderated Linden forums
um, when do you think it's time for the fucking Gender Police to accept that person's chosen virtual gender, Lewis? When do you think they get to *stop* facing the intolerance you'd find UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE in real life, that constantly flogs them with their RL gender and constantly tries to pull down their pants and "check"? Well?

No, it's not about self-identification in the tribalist, Marxist, nationalist way you have phrased it, in the tired memes of these leftist movements that never examine themselves. It's about the freedom all enjoy to express themselves at any place on the spectrum, as they please, how they please, when they please, and not accept the constructed identity of the dominant society, which in this case merely consists of "Ts" who are fiercely scrambling against "GLBs" and the rest of society for their "identity" and looking around for some *other* minority they can kick.

Ace, I think if someone makes a male avatar and has sex with a male avatar they are in that time homosexual. And what of it? If they go back to being straight in Rl, I don't even know if you have to call them "bicurious". It's part of the problem with these identity labels.

People in health work simply call it "men having sex with men" or "MSM" -- neutral, factual, non-judgemental.

[Ace Albion]

My point I suppose was that just because you haven't taken the step to make it "real" it doesn't change who you are. I thought I picked something that might be comparable to presenting as TG online. I used the labels I thought Lewis would understand, I wasn't trying to be perjorative with them.

I agree with everything you said in your comment, and I'm glad you wrote it.

[Ruprecht]

"That's why you get gay people defending Prop 8 in California seething with sneering rage at religious blacks who didn't vote for "their" proposition."

Pick up a newspaper, you have that story all wrong. It's not "their" proposition. Why do you think they are protesting it?

Anyway, yourself, Ace, and anyone else who thinks that simply having an avatar of the opposite gender makes one TG, well, that's just nonsense.

People might have sympathy towards your "plight", Prok, had you just once said "I tend to self-identify more as a male than as a female, therefore I chose a male avatar for SL." Yeah yeah, I can hear it already - "It's none of your fucking business, fuck you, you are not a valid interlocutor, blah blah blah."

No, you make it other people's business when you demand to be addressed as the opposite gender. If they aren't satisfied with your absurd and apoplectic "BUT I PLAY A MALE TOON IN SL, ASSHOLE!", then it's wholly your fault, because the only criteria you are submitting is that you have a male avatar. And that's not enough, and I am neither FIC nor a member of any GLBT community, and never have been, so you can save the sure-to-come tirades to that end.

[Elanthius Flagstaff]

Let's be honest, it's only the mean little shits that feel obliged to pipe up with corrections whenever anyone refers to Prok with "he" or "him". It has nothing at all to do with GLBT and everything to do with the constant bitter harassment they love to engage in.

It really makes communication very cumbersome because in any public conversation about Prok I have to restructure my sentences constantly to avoid male pronouns to have anything remotely close to a civil discussion.

[Prokofy]

Elanthius,

Yes, it's only the mean little shits. And if you grasp that, you should just refer to me as "he" and not get into contortions to avoid harassment yourself. Each person who does that enlarges the space for freedom that much more, and ensures freedom of speech without persecution. That's all.

Ruprecht --

Pick up a newspaper yourself, fuckface.

Everybody "gets" what Proposition 8 was about. Duh. It was bombarded to us in the news, on Twitter, in SL forums, everywhere. And it was AGAINST gay marriage and those who opposed gay marriage voted FOR it. Duh.

Those opposing it simply couldn't make their case well enough.

Let me suggest a very salient reason why: the gay community celebrates promiscuity far, far more than they celebrate marriage. Therefore, when some people, especially religious people, hear about gay marriage, they see it as an erosion of an institution, not only because people are gay, and they are intolerant of their preference, and fearful of it, but because the gay notion of marriage has proved to be a rather a flimsy one, much of the time.

When the gay community stops celebrating promiscuity so much, and is less fierce about demanding endless multiple sex partners as a "right", and demanding that the entire world pay for their health care when they become sick with diseases as a result of their promiscuity, then they might find more support from the non-gay world for their marriage. Sorry, but there it is: it's a social issue, that doesn't lend itself to political correctives.

I personally don't think the right to marriage should be contingent on moral behaviour before, during, or after marriage. I think it should simply be recognized by any couple that comes forward and seeks a binding tie. All should be equal before the law. But I'm explaining the dirty little problem of gays that they refuse every to consider: that they celebrate multiple sex partners and using people up like kleenex as a right. I'm unimpressed with their sudden howling about marriage rights when in fact they live in a context where they demand promiscuity as a right and as a public expense.

When they're done with that, they will find more willingness to mainstream them. That's all.

I merely elided the meaning of what I was trying to say when I typed that. They weren't "for" Proposition 8 obviously -- duh -- they were for OPPOSING it. THAT became their cause. Proposition 8 *was* their cause, because they opposed it! Duh! Like...that needs even correcting or restating?

It's a good example of how matters of this sort shouldn't be decided by propositions -- and yet, there was enough sentiment in this state against gay marriage that regretably, that is how it got to be decided. And gays were simply *unpersuasive* in getting religious won over -- and have grown less persuasive with every passing day, as they whine, hate, and scream.

>People might have sympathy towards your "plight", Prok, had you just once said "I tend to self-identify more as a male than as a female, therefore I chose a male avatar for SL." Yeah yeah, I can hear it already - "It's none of your fucking business, fuck you, you are not a valid interlocutor, blah blah blah."

Um, so, again, the Gender Police, and the fascist FIC on sluniverse.com, gets to decide whether to confer tolerance on people or not depending on whether they pass a loyalty test, like under MacArthyism.

So as long as they take the pledge, and announce that they or this or that in RL, then they can "pass". If they refuse to pledge, they will not be accepted.

So you know what you can do with that -- you can stuff it up your ass. It's not your business, and it's not required. I'm not required to discuss my personal life with anyone online; no matter what I do in RL, it's not relevant to SL. That's all there is too it. I don't have to pass an oral and written RL exam and be accredited by the Gender Bar to be "allowed" to have a transgendered avatar in SL.

I just have one. Because I can. And fuck you.

No one feels the need to constantly pry and see what the real life gender is of, oh, Vint Falk, for example, or any of the other parade of weirdos and dysfunctionals on sluniverse.com Nobody bothers to check.

The ONLY reason they do this to me is that they don't like what I say, and they think harassing me on this issue is an acceptable way to silence me. It's not. And I push back -- hard.

[ichabod Antfarm]

Elanthius,

In a civil discussion you aren't forced to censor yourself simply to accommodate the assholery of "little shits". If someone insists on correcting "he" to "she" when speaking of Prokofy, I just walk away. They aren't worth the time nor the effort, and nothing you say, however reasonable or factual, will penetrate their dim ideologies.

[Vryl Valkyrie]

Prok, what a little energy sucking instigator psi vampire you are. Of course you are a vamp. Why else would you need to feed on the confusion and negative energy that you generate. One moment you are aligning yourself with the gay/lesbian community in order to somehow protect your self proclaimed rights of declaring yourself a male avatar in SL and also male personal blogger out of SL and then next you are stereotyping the gay community, lol.

Besides, we all know that what you say is total BS. Too funny.

You know exactly what you are doing, laughs. Try to make it a little less obvious next time darling.

Happy feeding. :-)

[Prokofy]

Er, I don't need to stereotype. Over the years, let me see, in real life, I've had some friends I can think of, that form the basis for my valid opinion, that is replicated by the experience of many others:

o 4 are dead of AIDS because they fucked everything on two legs, in bars, toilets, bookstores, anywhere

o 1 lives with HIV positive and keeps having multiple partners

o 3 have long-time partners they might light to marry, but every single one of them steps out on their full-time partner constantly, behind their backs, sometimes with risky behaviour.

o 2 have remained faithful and don't sleep around and are married in a state where you can do this

[ichabod Antfarm]

Vryl Valkyrie is accusing someone of being inconsistent with their allegiances?

*head explodes*

[Vryl Valkyrie]

Prok, thank you for sharing an accurate summary for both gay/lesbian and heterosexual lifestyles.

One question, the two that are faithful and don't sleep and are married in a state where you can do this, by any chance are they mormons, therefore do not sleep around outside of their union?

Just curious. :-)

Oh Prok, wipe that little smudge off on the corner of your mouth please. Thanks.

[Lewis Luminos]

Prok, having read your comments here, I'm happy to refer to you in whichever gender that you wish, but you've proved that the others on SLU were right all along. You're still a fucktard. Rationalism has no place in your vocabulary. I hope you have a happy new year but somehow I doubt that will happen.

[Prokofy]

http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/05/invalid-interlo.html

[Ruprecht]

Again Prok proves what a mendacious asshole he is by refusing to acknowledge a simple mistake, and instead tries to twist the error into a "truth".

Well, if anything has come of this - we can now see how horribly bigoted you are towards gays.

No Prok, fuck you. Ugly, bitter cow.

And fuck the pack of sycophants who lick up your crap on this blog.

They deserve a good kick in the ass (balls - if they had any, but oh well) for falling for your tactics.

Now ban me, Bessie.

[Prokofy]

I hardly think it's "bigoted toward gays" to point out that promiscuity in the gay community doesn't help to make the gay case for marriage *shrugs*. You want an explanation for Prop 8? You got it.

If that's being "bigoted" -- telling the truth -- um, I guess you think gays get to remain in a protected bubble and never have their shit called out like hets. That's pretty fucked, no?

I'm not really so ugly, certainly not bitter, and not a cow. What are you, big guy?

I don't ban people for hate; I merely ban them if they harass me inworld with griefing, or incite damage or do damage to me in RL. You've done neither.

But you might like to move along with the caravan : )

[Gareth Nelson]

"she says she does not honour DMCA takedowns"

If not, then perhaps the hosting provider does?
[email protected]

"None of these things make a person transgendered. It's all about self-identification."

Bingo: self-identification
If someone self-identifies as transgendered and is expressing a different gender from their biological one then who are you to dismiss them?

Prok has a LOT of flaws, but "fake transgender" is not one of them from what i've seen.

[alexia cournoyer]

You use your sl name here and are explicitly and determinedly a woman. Yet in SL you wish the same avatar name to be considered a man.

Multi-gendered perhaps, but you're not transgendered. It's just like being a furry, you may look like a dog, but it doesn't make you one.

One day hopefully you'll post just why you run these two distinct gender types for the same name. I look forward to you explaining just why you need to be called by the gender you seem to despise so much.
and here's an interesting discussion on the term transgendered http://www.alterheros.com/english/dossier/Articles.cfm?InfoID=396

paragraphs 2 & 3 under the heading why are particularly interesting I think.

I'll certainly be interested on your thoughts on gender identity and it's importance to self.

and I seriously think you might need some professional help. most people have moments of inconsistency within their ethical framework, but you seem completely devoid of the basic level of enlightened self interest or even intellectual consistency that might at least give some weight to your request for fair and appropriate treatment.

Sadly I see people treating you in the same way as you treat others.

You really can't complain about that.

[Gareth Nelson]

"The current accepted definition of "transgender" is as an all-inclusive term for all persons whose expression of gender is outside the current cultural expectations or norms."

Crossdressers are only part-time and yet are accurately called transgender. There's more to transgender than full-time transexuals and transvestites. Personally I experiment in both SL and RL but only part-time (i.e I would not want to be female fulltime). When i'm in "female mode" I don't care about people still saying "he" but some people care deeply about this.

[Yumi Murakami]

I think the reaction to the term "transgendered" is more to do with the balances involved in RL. Once in my real work I met several m2f transgendered people, and the truth is that only about 1 in 5 appear in any way convincing. The others are instantly identifiable as male. So to be transgendered IRL you really have to so badly want the experience within yourself of being the opposite sex that you will put your whole social experience in danger.

In SL it isn't like that. As long as voice isn't involved, a guy's gal avatar can look the same as a girl's without too much difficulty. And so you can play an opposite gender avatar just because you prefer the outfits or want to RP or something similar.

I suspect these people want the word "transgendered" reserved for those who are so hugely disaffected with their real gender that they will take the huge risks and sacrifices involved in RL transgendering, rather than the girls who don't want to be propositioned for sex and the guys who'd rather have a cute av to stare at!