This was an answer over on Quora.

Why is it offensive when cis men say they are lesbians trapped in a man’s body?

For the same reasons it would annoy or offend my trans friends if I described myself as a straight woman trapped in a man’s body.

I’m gay. I don’t experience gender dysphoria.

I don’t know what that feels like. I will never, ever know what that feels like. It’s not mine to make casual, offhand remarks about. It’s a painful experience that isn’t mine, that I only ever know about through inference. I’ve had friends compare it to various things, but none of that really tells me what the experience is. It just sort of tells me what some of that experience is like.

But I can talk, all day long about swimming. That will never be the same thing as experiencing the act of swimming.

In much the same way that I can’t ever really get a straight person to understand homophobia, the lived daily reality of it in the way I experience it, I will never, ever understand gender dysphoria. Ever.

I can sympathize, but I will never be able to actually empathize.

I am not straight. I am not a woman. I am nothing trapped in some other body. I’m a cis man; I’m a gay man. I sympathize with my friends when they say that gender dysphoria is painful – painful enough to risk all of their relationships by coming out and transitioning. That I do know something about, because I’m queer. We can share that.

But that doesn’t mean I understand dysphoria, and it’s hurtful for me to treat it like a casual joke as if I do.

This was an answer over on Quora.

How do you feel about the term “fag hag”?

I have friends who embrace the term, and friends who don’t. It’s up to them; it isn’t up to me. If I’m with friends who self-describe as faghags, we all use it – much like gay men who are comfortable with each other will call each other faggot and queen. (I do this, too, depending on the social circle I’m with.)

But if somebody dislikes it, I won’t use it with them.

I don’t feel like it’s inherently offensive, just because it’s historically been a slur, or connected to a slur. I think there’s power in reclaiming slurs across the board.

But it’s not up to me to tell a specific woman it’s okay because I think it’s “reclaiming.”

It’s only useful in that way if it’s chosen as such.

Madonna: “Let’s face it, I’m a big ‘ole faghag.”

Madonna shouldn’t call herself what we all know she is? Eh. I don’t see it. Others will object, and that’s fine, but if it’s something we choose, and embrace, why is it insulting? Because the word “hag” has shitty connotations? Because “fag” does? Okay. But there’s something really amazing, and particularly special about the women who hang around in the gay scene, the women who are there because they specifically want to be, because they’re us, too. If they want to embrace “faghag” in much the way I embrace “fag,” I think it’s fantastic. If you don’t, you don’t. That’s okay.

This turned into one of my semi-popular answers over on Quora.

“Nigger” (racial slur): Why can black people use the “N-word” in casual conversation, but white people should not?

The reality you’re going to have to face is that not all words are open to you.

You don’t get to call me “Queen” or “faggot,” even if my friends get to.

You and I don’t get to call trans women “tranny,” even if other trans people get to.

Not all terms are available to you. That’s a simple fact. Get used to it.

You don’t own the emotional reality of those terms, for those people. They own them. You didn’t grow up hearing “faggot” used as a slur and knowing, to the bones, that that was directed at you. You didn’t grow up a gender-variant gay boy hearing “faggot” and related slurs the way they were used to slur me.

I get to reclaim those terms, for my use. They aren’t for you. They don’t describe you. They’re not open to you.

Similarly, you aren’t black. You haven’t grown up hearing shit like, “the only good nigger is a dead nigger,” or “you know, I don’t mind blacks, it’s the niggers I can’t stand.”

The emotional reality of those terms isn’t something you ever experienced, and it isn’t something you ever will experience, because you are not that person.

Just as you aren’t gay, if you’re a straight guy, wondering why it’s all right when my friends call me a fag, but it’s not okay if you do it.

It’s not okay.

Some words aren’t open to you. That’s all you really need to understand.

If that feels unfair to you, try to imagine living in a world where you aren’t entitled to extra shit just because your skin is brown.

This was an answer over on Quora.

How do guys become gay?

By recognizing that they already are gay.

Before I could put a finger (teehee!) on how I specifically felt different from other, “normal” boys, I knew I was different. Apparently, as a tot, I didn’t go through an “eeeew, girls have cooties” phase. I was friends with several of the neighborhood girls.

They were awesome. They cared not a whit that I was a boy and was every bit as interested in their dolls and silly plastic jewelry as they were. (Mom put a stop to that, however. I may well have been the most obviously pink boy ever, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to cover over all of that with liberal coats of any other color.)

A little later, when folks would talk to me about when I grew up and got married, and had kids of my own… I knew, somewhere deep that wouldn’t happen. My nine and ten year old crushes were all boys. My fourth grade male teacher was awesome in ways I had already learned I needed to keep to myself. A fourth grade boy with a crush on his female teacher is regarded as cute…but his male teacher? Don’t ever let that slip.

A short while later, when the hormones and adolescence kicked in, that interest in boys became overtly sexual. I wasn’t just the somewhat fey, pink boy who didn’t enjoy “boy things”…I was gay like a box o’ Christmas lights. Visible from space gay. Diamond tiara and combat boots gay.

Pretty freaking gay.

But I didn’t become anything so much as realize, and eventually accept that I was, and had been all along.

This was an answer over on Quora.

Does your cat meow back to you when you talk to it?

It totally depends on which of our cats I’m talking to.

If it’s Jasper, he talks to everyone. He talks back if you talk to him, and he’s quite happy to initiate a conversation. He’ll talk to new people, people he knows, the bird on the feeder outside, the bathroom door when it’s closed, some random spot on the wall… He’s chatty, that one.

Orlando only ever talks when he’s hungry, but he’s constantly hungry. If either of us set foot anywhere that might eventually lead to the kitchen, he heads straight for his bowl and announces its emptiness. If you talk to him, he will look you in the face and tell you again. And again. And again, just in case you didn’t get it the first 167 times.

Paco was a chatty cat when he first came to us, but he’s quieted down now that he’s settled into our house. About the only time he talks now is when we’re getting out of the shower, and I suspect that’s more about the shower door being closed, than anything else. (Himself does not approve.)

Iggy ? rarely ever talked. If she was vocal, something was wrong.

This was an answer over on Quora.

What is the appropriate bedtime for a 17 year old?

Mom sat us both down when we turned 16.

“If you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to get yourself out of trouble.”

What she meant was: we were out of the house, on our own, at least as far as getting to school or jobs were concerned. (I don’t drive, but the conversation was largely the same.) We each knew – to a certainty – that our mother meant it when she said, starting at about age 13, “if you get yourself in trouble, I will not bail you out. If you drive drunk, you’re spending the night in jail, or until your hearing. If you get someone pregnant, you will support your child, under your roof. If you steal or do drugs, and you get caught, I will not bail you out. I will visit you in jail.”

We didn’t test her. We’d been raised from infancy that that particular tone of voice meant she wasn’t kidding around, and she meant *every last word *of what she was telling us.

Neither of us were stupid enough to call her bluff, because we *knew *she wasn’t bluffing.
Now: bedtimes and curfews. Once we were old enough to drive, or get ourselves around, hard curfews ended. We could work until 10, hang around with friends until 11 or midnight (or later) but we weren’t to wake her or cause a disturbance coming home. We were expected to maintain our grades, and hold a job such that we could continue paying room and board.

If we screwed around with either of those, she might have instituted a curfew, but I doubt it. She was pretty much set on the idea that we were either responsible teenagers, or not, but it was up to us to manage our time, keep our grades up and keep a job.

When J. blew off his first job and lost it, mom kept a running tally, and he was to pay back rent when he had a paycheck again. (And again, she wasn’t kidding around.)
At 17 your ability to parent her like a six year old has ceased. Your daughter is nearly an adult, and will be one inside of a year.

You need to start preparing her to be one. You need to have started years earlier, but if you expect to keep her following rules that might make sense for younger children, you’re not doing that. She needs some adult expectations and with those, some adult consequences for failing to meet them. If she isn’t waking up for school, that is *her problem. *Make sure your 17 old is prepared to move out, or she never will.