PRIDE SUNDAY: A non-expert’s guide to romantic orientation

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the final blog post in a series of five blog posts celebrating Pride Month in 2019. The Pride Sunday series will return in June 2020!

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I am not an expert of any kind when it comes to relationships. However, as part of my coming out story that I published earlier this month, I wrote about how I came to view sexual orientation, gender identity, and romantic orientation as part of a three-dimensional spectrum.

Most, if not all, people reading this blog are probably familiar with the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity. However, there may be some people who are reading this blog who are not familiar with the concept of romantic orientation, so this blog post will consist of my attempt to explain the concept of romantic orientation.

Romantic orientation, in short, indicates the sex(es), gender(s), and/or gender identit(y/ies) of people that a person is capable of being romantically attracted to. Romantic orientation is not the same exact concept as sexual orientation, because romantic attraction is not the same exact concept as sexual attraction. Romantic attraction is the state of being attracted to someone in a manner consistent with a loving relationship between significant others, whereas sexual attraction is the state of being sexually attracted to someone. It is possible for one to have a romantic orientation that is not consistent with their sexual orientation, and that’s okay.

Here are some common labels, as well as their definitions, for various romantic orientations:

• Heteroromantic – This means that a person is romantically oriented towards people of the opposite biological sex (i.e., a man being romantically oriented towards women or a woman being romantically oriented towards men).
• Homoromantic – This means that a person is romantically oriented towards people of the same biological sex (i.e., a man being romantically oriented towards other men, or a woman being romantically oriented towards other women).
• Biromantic – This means that a person is romantically oriented towards people of two different biological sexes.
• Polyromantic – This means that a person is romantically oriented towards people of multiple, but not all, biological sexes, genders, and/or gender identities (An example is someone romantically oriented towards cisgender women, transgender women, transgender men, and people of a non-binary gender, but not cisgender men, although this is not the only possible form of a polyromantic orientation.). The term polyromantic can be thought of as an intermediate term between biromantic and panromantic.
• Panromantic – This means that a person is either romantically oriented towards people of all biological sexes, genders, and gender identities or is romantically oriented towards people without regard to the other person’s biological sex, gender, or gender identity.
• Aromantic – This means that a person is not romantically oriented towards anyone of any biological sex, gender, or gender identity, in other words, not capable of being romantically attracted to anyone. Remember that aromantic does not equal asocial; it is possible for an aromantic person to have normal social relationships with family members and friends.
• Demiromantic – This means that a person is only capable of being romantically attracted to another person after forming a deep personal bond with the other person.

As I wrote earlier in this blog post, it is possible for one to have a romantic orientation that does not completely match one’s sexual orientation, and that’s okay.

PRIDE SUNDAY: Legislator raised by two mothers turns out to be a fantastic leader

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a five-part series of blog posts, published every Sunday during the month of June, commemorating Pride Month in 2019.

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Although Iowa State Senator Zach Wahls (D-Coralville) is a straight cisgender man, he is very much a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Wahls, then a student at the University of Iowa, gave this speech before the Iowa House of Representatives Judiciary Committee in 2011, both in opposition to a proposed amendment to the Iowa Constitution that would have prohibited same-sex couples from being able to marry and in defense of his family:

Wahls’s speech, which quickly went viral after it was posted on YouTube, was, in and of itself, a major turning point in the movement for LGBTQIA+ equality. Wahls’s speech helped portray same-sex parents, like his two mothers, as leading families that are, aside from the parents being of the same biological sex, just like opposite-sex parents and raising children who become positive role models in society. The proposed state constitutional amendment that Wahls opposed was never ratified; in fact, it was never placed on the ballot in Iowa.

In a 2012 interview that was published by the pro-LGBTQIA+ Washington Blade, Wahls said this to interviewer Phil Reese about how he considers himself to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community:

To be clear, I don’t consider myself an ally. I might be straight cisgender man, but in my mind, I am a member of the LGBT community.

I know the last thing that anyone wants is to add another letter to the acronym, but we need to make sure as a movement we’re making a place for what we call “queer-spawn” to function and to be part of the community.

Because even though I’m not gay, I do know what its like to be hated for who I am. And I do know what its like to be in the closet, and like every other member of the LGBT community, I did not have a choice in this. I was born into this movement. I want to be explicitly clear first of all.

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In 2018, Wahls ran for, and won, a seat in the Iowa Senate. Wahls represents Iowa Senate District 37, which includes part of Johnson County, all of Cedar County, and the portion of the City of Wilton that is in Muscatine County in the upper house of Iowa’s state legislature. Wahls wrote this piece on Medium about 14 lessons that he learned in his first session as a state legislator, and it’s fantastic advice for those who aspire to become elected officials themselves and provides an insider’s view on how the Iowa Legislature operates.

Zach Wahls has made his mothers proud.

PRIDE SUNDAY: Why pronouns matter

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the third in a five-part series of blog posts, published every Sunday during the month of June, commemorating Pride Month in 2019.

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Six days ago, I publicly came out as a polysexual man via Twitter. I wrote about my rather unusual coming out story here.

As this is the first LGBTQIA+-related blog post that I’ve written here on Apollo Corner since I came out as polysexual, I’m going to take this opportunity to explain why using the correct personal pronouns to refer to a person is extremely important, especially if a person is either a transgender person or a person of a non-binary gender.

In the English language, grammatical gender is not a feature in standard first-person and second-person pronouns. As a result, in an English-speaking society, when one asks another about their pronouns, it typically refers to third-person pronouns.

Grammatical gender is largely a linguistic fossil in the English language, although grammatical gender in English is retained in third-person singular personal and reflexive pronouns, as well as, for example, many nouns denoting familial relation, the practice of referring to ships and boats in the feminine gender, and a few verb-derived nouns denoting professions (an example of this is “actor”/”actress”). In English, there are three sets of standard third-person personal and reflexive pronouns: masculine singular, feminine singular, and plural. In the masculine singular, the standard pronouns are he (subject), him (object), his (possessive), and himself (reflexive). In the feminine singular, the standard pronouns are she (subject), her (object), hers (possessive), and herself (reflexive). In the plural, the standard pronouns are they (subject), them (object), their (dependent possessive), theirs (independent possessive), and themselves (reflexive).

However, people who are LGBTQIA+, especially, but not necessarily limited to, people who are transgender or are of a non-binary gender, may request that people refer to them in the third person by using non-traditional third-person pronouns. The website of the University of Southern California (USC) LGBT Resource Center lists three sets of gender-neutral third-person personal and reflexive pronouns, and, although USC doesn’t apply names to each of the sets of pronouns, I will refer to them, respectively, as the singularized pronouns, the S-class pronouns, and the Z-class pronouns. The singularized pronouns are essentially third-person plural pronouns used to refer to a single individual in the third person, consisting of they (subject), them (object), their (dependent possessive), theirs (independent possessive), and themself (reflexive). The S-class pronouns are sie (subject), hir (object), hirs (possessive), and hirself (reflexive), pronounced SEE, HEER, HEERS, and HEER-self, respectively. The Z-class pronouns are zie (subject), zir (object), zirs (possessive), and zirself (reflexive), pronounced ZEE, ZURR, ZURRS, and ZURR-self, respectively. These sets of pronouns are not the only non-traditional sets of pronouns in existence, and some people may prefer to be referred to using a non-traditional set of third-person pronouns that I’ve not listed here. It is absolutely important that, if you wish to refer to someone who requests usage of non-standard third-person pronouns when referring to them in the third person, please use the set of pronouns that the person prefers to be used.

In regards to personal titles, some people, especially, but not necessarily exclusively, transgender people and people of a non-binary gender may prefer to use the gender-neutral common honorific title Mx. (pronounced MIKS) instead of the standard forms Mr. (masculine), Mrs. (married feminine), Ms. (feminine), or Miss (unmarried feminine). Usage of Mx. appears to be more common in the United Kingdom than the United States, although it is not unheard of for Mx. to be used in the United States. Another gender-neutral common honorific title that may be used is M. (pronounced EM). It is important to use the honorific title that the person requests that you use.

Using the wrong pronouns or honorific title to refer to someone is a form of violence, even if you do not consider it such. Misgendering someone, or referring to someone by a gender that they do not identify as, is a very serious form of disrespect, and it will result in the other person feeling as if you’re questioning who they are or not regarding them as who they are. Except for not being believed, I can’t think of a worse feeling than having my identity being questioned or disregarded.

PRIDE SUNDAY: North Dakota columnist Katie Winbauer shares heartwarming story about being an ally

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a five-part series of blog posts, published every Sunday during the month of June, commemorating Pride Month in 2019.

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Katie Winbauer, a columnist for The Bismarck Tribune, a newspaper serving the Bismarck, North Dakota area, recently wrote this column about her best friend. While I encourage everyone to read the entire column, I’ll share the first two paragraphs of the column on here:

I met my best friend, Ethan, the first day of seventh grade. We had homeroom together and instantly clicked. People often opined that Ethan and I would get married one day, but as we grew older, people turned to questioning Ethan’s sexual orientation.

My “I don’t know — ask him,” quickly turned to “Why does it matter?” Frankly, it did not matter to me who Ethan was attracted to. That factor did not change the fact that Ethan is the funniest person I know, nor did it affect how caring, passionate and smart he is. It did not make me love him any less; it probably opened my heart to loving him more.

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Like Katie, I’m from a conservative-leaning part of the country that is not the first place a typical American thinks of as generally accepting of the LGBTQIA+ community. In the case of the area of the country where I live, I don’t know of a single Pride event scheduled in my home county this month.

Katie’s story about befriending Ethan is a heartwarming story, and I’m proud of people like Katie who are allies of LGBTQIA+ Americans. Compassion and friendship can, and does, cross sexual orientation, gender identity, and romantic orientation boundaries.

PRIDE SUNDAY: Trump’s policies towards transgender Americans are absolutely horrific

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a five-part series of blog posts, published every Sunday during the month of June, commemorating Pride Month in 2019.

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With Pride Month, which is a month-long celebration throughout the month of June celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community, beginning yesterday, it’s an important time to note that the Trump Administration’s policies towards transgender Americans have been absolutely horrific. In particular, two actions by the Trump Administration against transgender Americans have drawn significant criticism, and rightly so. The first of these is the ban on transgender Americans serving in our nation’s Armed Forces, which was reinstated by Donald Trump. The second of these is a more recent decision by the Trump Administration to effectively legalize discrimination against transgender Americans seeking health care.

Rev. Jennifer Butler, who chaired the White House Council on Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships during Barack Obama’s presidency, wrote this op-ed for CNN’s website in opposition to the Trump Administration legalizing health care discrimination against transgender Americans. In her op-ed, Rev. Butler also called out religious conservatives for weaponizing religion in an attempt to justify discrimination:

Yet far too often, politicians instead choose to use faith as a weapon to judge the same marginalized people that Jesus commanded us to love. This weaponization of faith as a political tool has grown more acute in the last few years, with politicians like President Donald Trump using so-called moral or religious objections to push their own discriminatory partisan agenda in defiance of the very values they claim to embrace.

Among the latest examples of this trend: Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services has proposed a rule that would roll back anti-discrimination protections under the Affordable Care Act for transgender people or people who have previously undergone an abortion, and also finalized a rule to allow medical providers to refuse treatment and services for religious and moral reasons, which critics say could justify denial of service to trans people.

Coming on the heels of the transgender military ban, the proposed rule removes protections against gender-identity discrimination from the nondiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which bans sex discrimination in federally funded health care (after a final rule implemented in 2016 explicitly included gender identity). The new rule would strip civil rights protections in healthcare from an estimated 1.4 million transgender adults and 150,000 trans youth ages 13 to 17 in the US.

As someone who is an atheist in a country where a majority of the country’s population self-identifies as Christian, I am very supportive of the concepts of freedom to exercise religion and separation of church and state. However, the religious right’s vision of “religious freedom” is not freedom at all. It’s weaponizing religion in order to discriminate against others. When a freedom or right is used as a sword to discriminate against people instead of as a shield to protect the rights and freedoms of people, it ceases to be a freedom or right.

The policies of the Trump Administration towards transgender people, including barring transgender Americans from being able to serve their country in uniform and the legalization of health care discrimination against transgender Americans, are discriminatory, barbaric, and absolutely unacceptable. On the first Sunday of this year’s Pride Month, remember that the right’s use of “religious freedom” to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ Americans is most certainly not freedom, and that discrimination of LGBTQIA+ Americans is absolutely wrong on many levels.