Actually pretty interesting. I think we're starting to creep up on the actual numbers, as far as you can measure such a thing. I think comphet keeps a lot of people who would otherwise fall somewhere on the bi/pan spectrum from ever experimenting and realizing it about themelves, and I bet that population is actually quite large. As far as transness goes, I would be willing to believe a number within the realm of ~3% to even 5%. I think further complicating this whole thing is that human sexuality and gender identity is a lot more nebulous than the very rigid, medically-originated terminology we use implies. A lot of the identity labels we use (homosexual, transsexual/transgender, etc) were originally medical diagnoses that were later transposed onto cultural identities, which carries a lot of baggage that I think has been left unaddressed, such as the rigidity of their definition, but that's probably for a post for another time. Anyway, just thought it was neat neat, especially the state queerness leaderboards.
Well, it sounds like I may have rubbed you the wrong way, but I was never meaning to exclude manufactured hatred and rejection. I didn't highlight it specifically cuz I don't really know and again, want to limit my assumptions, especially in the presence of someone who knows better than myself.
In my experience in life (contrasting that epistemically with the stronger wisdom available from reading the right people), I find that a portion of folks are simply afraid of things they haven't experienced, and that fear can manifest in lots of different ways, generally depending on external factors more than internal.
And I've spent enough time around kids to understand very clearly that hatred is a thing that takes time to learn (must be taught), it doesn't really seem to arise naturally (though it is very effective at spreading - infectious).
What I was aiming to highlight, was new information to me, regarding the lie around the assertion that "people just didn't know any better". And saying, no, according to what you shared, that's not accurate, hatred and rejection (by motivated powerful people) did this, not pure ignorance. The fact of its only recent translation seems damning, and really struck me as "wow ideas were just locked away like that, pre-tech". I think I'm saying and thinking the same things as you, but maybe not?
At any rate, apologies if I am still missing something you find crucial.
[Edit: apologies I've edited this like 19 times in the few minutes since I posted to flesh it out better lol, I should really exercise better discipline and just collect my thoughts prior to submit. But anyway I'm done now]
you don't have to agree with me! I am not offended in any case. I am sorry my writing is poor in that I can come across as hostile or upset when I am only trying to be clear. I have tried to improve but it is ongoing problem for me. So I am sorry I was bothering you, I just find the subject interesting and it's hard for me to resist adding more.
I didn't see any of the prior iterations of your comment so whatever was said there is between you and god (and possibly a cache somewhere). I also iterated a lot on what I said. I guess we both did that out of mutual care and respect for the subject.
I worried that I'd misunderstood something and subsequently misstepped, is all. Regarding edits, I've been trying to experiment with being more concise. It usually ends up with either misunderstandings or my own hand-wringing followed by at least as many words, so. Plenty of room for improvement and lots to learn is territory I'm familiar with and comfortable within, lol.
I appreciate your approach to clarity, I find your POV easy to locate and worth listening to, two things not all that common and valuable to me :)
To bring it back to the original point, you shared info that scratched an itch that has been bothering me since I learned to think, basically. I've slowly grown dimly aware of how many other peoples and cultures have understood and integrated these basic facts as fundamental parts of being communities of people.
And that process has produced this growing sense of "it makes no sense, the claim that we're just late to the party and finally learning a whole lot of stuff all at once".
I've long had plenty of small explanations for that, but this feels bigger. As soon as I read it, it intuitively felt like "ah ha, this exactly fills in this gap of curiosity and obvious answers that I knew had to be in there (whatever diet of info and history of such I was raised on, or could even later find!*) somewhere".
Cheers. This will dwell in my thinking for a long time, probably just forever, as I grow my understanding of the world, and I really appreciate it.