Kel wrote:

The purpose of the section for LGBT Partners is to educate them how to come out to us while doing the least amount of damage to us. The entire guide is geared toward helping straight partners in the end. 
...why should a site for the straightspouse help an LGBTQ partner to ruin their life?

What we found when we did some looking around is that there were guides for LGBT+ people to come out to their employers, their parents, their children, their friends. But zero about how to come out to your spouse/partner. Who better to write that than us?
My opinion is this....OurPath wants to be all things to all people and to do that they have to bow down to diversity. It's happening all over the world. The LGBTQ alphabet soup is a bigger beast than the men and women it wants to discard and it appears not only are we inviting them in....they get to have a seat at the table 

Elle
 

Daryl, have you noticed a downturn in new members?  

divorcing partners coming out of the closet - how many are doing so with empathy for their partner and how many are doing every thing they can to advantage themselves in the divorce?  

I suppose there is a lot of tension in the world around changing terminology in order to be more accepting.

I have thought a lot about this, so I appreciate you going on this journey with me without being angry at me.

I personally really dislike the confusing pronouns system that has been developing.  While I don’t think it is fair to trans people that hetero-normative language is not nuanced enough to express their needs and feelings, what is happening is a horrible solution.  He / She and His / Hers is not enough.  In my estimation, we need a new set of words like ‘Ze’ and ‘Zeirs’’ or something newly coined specifically to help denote the trans experience.

HOWEVER, trans activists are dedicated to shoving He / She / They down our throats.  And it pisses me off.  What ‘They/Their’ does, in reality, is to take already imprecise language and make it even more confusing.  ‘They’ traditionally means ‘plural’, or ‘others’ or, when applied to a single human, sometimes denotes a mental health struggle like multiple personalities.

The problem is the language itself.

And, due to this arbitrary confusion alone, I have seen perfectly loving grandparents and their grandchildren get into divisive and lasting arguments about LGBTQIA+ acceptance.  People are talking past each other and not understanding each other because the very language they are using is not even universally understood anymore to mean the same things to all parties.  The issue is so emotional, that real damage is done before people can see the underlying problem with the language itself.

(Interestingly similar problem with the term BLM, by the way.  Black Lives Matter.  Of course!  Message received.  Got it.  Agreed.   Now, can we all just admit that all lives matter too?  Not capitalized All Lives Matter, but the core reality that all lives are important - essential but not exceptional.  Arguing against the term All Lives Matter because it somehow undermines the message Black Lives Matter is such a waste of everyone’s time and only creates more division.  Perhaps the term BLM simply could have been written ACCEPT BLACK HUMANITY or AMERICAN COPS REALLY NEED TO STOP KILLING UNARMED BLACK PEOPLE AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO STEP UP NOW TO MAKE SURE IT STOPS in line with its desired meaning.  Not as catchy, perhaps, but infinitely more accurate.)

And worst of all, my expressing any criticism of the new linguistic paradigm tends to be met with anger about my gender, hetero-normative, or racial privilege.

As a ex Straight Spouse myself with a former GID abusive narcissist ex wife, I am admittedly triggered when my awesome 12-yo daughter expresses herself using the militant LGBTQIA+ terminology preferred by my ex and her current lesbian lover.  (Worse, my lesbian ex and her lesbian partner are in academia, so they get and utilize all the newest crappy language first).  It upsets me to no end that I still can’t seem to demonstrate hetero love and acceptance for my daughter to see.  I need to find it for myself first!  Is it even real?  Not in my experience.

So…. I fully understand why the name change from SSN to OurPath is triggering.  I get it.

And, the reality is that OurPath’s expanded focus to include ANY information for LGBTQIA+ people must similarly feel like another betrayal to some.  Again, I get it.  The SSN forum saved my life with its straight talk (no pun intended) about the experience of learning one is, surprise surprise, a Straight Spouse in a MOM.

So we have to back up and make sure we are not talking past each other when it comes to the problems imbedded in our clumsy language.

In this case, the term ‘Straight Spouse’ is an accurate term which, unfortunately, contains extra connotations to some people.  To some, it feels exclusionary and reeks of homophobia.   It also clearly does not take into account the full breadth of relationship statuses that make up the potential OurPath audience.

I personally doubt my lying, abusive, narcissist GID ex wife would have bothered to read about how to not hurt me, so I’m not sure she would have been quite the right audience for that message.  However, should we not TRY to educate LGBTQIA+ people on how their actions creating fake intimate relationships with non-LGBTQIA+ people can create huge damage?  Should we continue to let it just happen?

Some are mad that by eliminating the word Spouse, OurPath becomes open to people who have not married an LGBTQ partner.  It seems arbitrary that marriage is the cutoff.  I agree there is a difference between a high school girl asking if her boyfriend of two weeks might be gay (although it is the in-thing nowadays), and those of us who have suffered 10, 20, 30+ years in these relationships.

However, many of us are here not just to heal ourselves, but also to help keep these things from happening in the future.  And to that end, I never ever thought when I was a young man that I might find a closeted lesbian girlfriend.  Why on earth would something like that happen?  I had no idea fake marriages were a thing other than for immigration, etc…. I know she didn’t marry me for immigration status, so why would I ever consider that she didn’t really love me?  She said she did, but her actions would ultimately betray her words.  It was so confusing.

If anything, rather than be annoyed that the high school girl is here questioning whether her new boyfriend is gay, we should be thrilled!  Every time that happens, it means that a young person is likely developing the antibodies necessary to prevent the infection from spreading, so to speak.

I dunno.  I’m sorry if any of this comes across as more woke bullshit.   I recognize that our society has historically been and continues to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.   I think we genuinely need to work on real and actual acceptance in our society.  This means we have to move past both the bullshit traditional ‘melting pot’ myth, and the current anti-intellectual woke bullshit.   

It is all too much to incorporate into a simple name, and OurPath is inoffensive and generic.  I like the attempt so far, but the key is to tune the searchwords, etc and make it the top hit for anyone going through our experience.

Remember, the words “Google and Amazon” or “Target and McDonalds” do not accurately reflect the experience you will get from visiting those sites or places.  Having a perfectly descriptive name is not necessarily the solution.

It is all very complex, and I totally understand both why the name has changed and why people feel triggered by it.

Thanks for reading this.

Victo wrote:

....Even then I felt the SSN name and website was cringy and out of date, .....

 

Funnily enough I felt the same. A bit 80s/90s and clunky. But
at least it had who we are....straightspouses....in the name
 

On the one hand is this insistence on being individuals and on the other hand the insistence we are all the same.

To me that is fine in specific terms.  ie despite the myriad of individual details most people are born with two eyes one nose etc.  but when it becomes we are one in the spirit it's not good, it's not true.  when we are young we know mostly ourselves - if we have been born with a nice nature we believe it is the same for everyone else.  but it isn't.  

I refuse to be told my spirit is in any way the same as that woman in Brisbane who went round the supermarkets sticking needles into strawberries.  I would no more do that than fly to the moon.  

Victo, have you tried googling my wife is a lesbian now?

 

Last edited by lily (October 14, 2021 2:24 pm)