by Ethan Johnson
September 12, 2006

Back in April of this year, I wrote an article titled Wound on the subject of transgendering. I struggled with this topic, and recognized even as I went to press that there were fundamental gaps in my understanding, causing me to not "get it". Koan Bremner, arguably the most prominent TG blogger, offered these thoughts in the comments section of that article:

by Ethan Johnson
April 11, 2006

[UPDATE 9/12/2006:] My new and improved thoughts on this topic may be found here.

I have been mulling this topic over for some time now, ever since I received word that Koan Bremner, a fairly prominent blogger, underwent sexual reassignment surgery. I never knew what went on during a so-called "sex change", and did some research to get a better understanding of the procedure and why people elect to undergo the transformation. Here is my not-at-all PC view on this: I don't believe in transgendering. I will explain myself here, and the comments box is wide open for differing viewpoints and debate. Since Drupal is weird, I haven't written out the formal comment policy for this site yet, so the short version is, I will delete comments at my discretion and/or opt to shut off the comments box outright depending on civility (or not). Let's keep things delete-free.

by Ethan Johnson
November 18, 2000

To the chagrin of some, the relief of others, and the general indifference of many, I'm not a religious person. I was raised Unitarian, and at some point in my life I decided enough was enough, and I stopped going to church.

My Mom made sure I "sat in" on diverse church services so I'd at least have some exposure to what's out there. Even if I didn't see the Way, the Truth, and the Light, I'd at least have a rudimentary understanding of various belief systems. Smart move on her part. She also views the local church as a support system that I'm refusing to tap into at my own peril. I view churches as places that espouse beliefs that differ wildly from my own.

Differing beliefs and ideas are not necessarily an anathema to me, in and of themselves. However, I (for instance) resisted the advisement to go to church to meet girls, since I would have to "pretend" to believe dogma I rejected, and I did neither party justice in so doing. Being single and true to myself was more important to me than being "involved" with a woman and being a liar to everybody.

I did sound work for the Church of Christ in our neighborhood. I viewed it as "community service". I was respectful of their services and even took Communion(!) on several occasions. I viewed this as drinking socially. The church was awash in soap opera. In fact, what faith I began to build up in the church "system" was dashed when I saw the despicable politics and so forth that went on in the church proper, let alone anywhere else. Leave it to the Greek author Aeschylus to point out (rightly) that our Gods are imperfect, so expecting mere mortals to be paragons of virtue and perfection was asking a bit much. Amended to the Christian perspective, only God is perfect so it's too much to ask for perfection in His followers.

What brings me to such thoughts is the web site attributed to Real Love Productions, whom I assume is wholly responsible for its content. That said, let us examine what has been put forth for our edification from this organization.

Why Are We Here?

You see, we're put here on this earth [sic] for a reason -- to spread the gospel and the love of Christ. That’s it. We’re here and we’re His.

My immediate smartass reaction to this statement is this: What was our collective "purpose" prior to Christ making his celebrated cameo appearance 2000 years ago? Sounds like there must have been a lot of standing around with our collective hands in our collective pockets! But wait! Modern times might shed some light on what some of us were doing back in those ancient times. Admonishing others to "repent for the time of the Lord is at hand". Ah yes. Such people must have felt awfully smug when JC finally showed up in the manger. Surely they would have martyred themselves to save Jesus from the cross!

Martyrdom brings that choice home in the most immediate, most concrete way possible. "Which do your [sic] choose? What is more important to you -- this life with all of the fun it offers, or this God of yours?" It’s where the "rubber hits the road." It’s easy to say that we love God more than anything else in our lives, but it’s not so easy to prove it when the chips are down.

Unfortunately, the author's well-intentioned screed suffers from an overall lack of credibility. We hear what we want to hear, and sadly this author has engaged in a fanatical willingness to believe an emotionally charged story and ignores the fact that the story that inspired this article was trumped up, if not a flat-out hoax. In fairness to the author, this site is not the only entity propogating this modern-day myth.

Why Do We Get Married?

Why does the state bother itself with marriage at all? Is it because we think love is so wonderful that we want to recognize it publicly? Is the government really just a romantic one at heart, getting a thrill out of seeing two people who care about each other?

by Ethan Johnson
August 26, 2000

"Son, I like my beer cold, my music loud, and my homosexuals flaaaaaaming!" -Homer J. Simpson

This past Saturday Mar and I went to Lucky's Diner for breakfast. The place was crowded, the wait for a table was about 15 minutes, and there were quite a few people squeezed into various nooks and crannies waiting to be seated without being "in the way".

We stood next to a circle of five guys all talking about different things, including the Jennifer Lopez movie The Cell, which Mar and I had decided that we wanted to see. One of the guys was busy trying to ruin the movie for me (inadvertently) and I was busy tuning them out so that the movie wouldn't be a total bust. Finally, Mar broke my concentration and whispered in my ear, "I'm so glad you're a heterosexual male."