There's nothing quite like the reward one receives from being wrong...as long as you're willing to accept and synthesize new information. There's a certain comfortable humility in being corrected. It's like that door you've been yanking and shoving at for hours finally buckles, and a flood of fresh, new data washes over the stale air of old ideas.
New information fascinates me; especially when that information alters my old views and ideas. It's like an upgrade that doesn't crash my whole system, or if I'm being honest, like a new toy. It's not enough to just receive a new idea, you have to actually play with it...
Turn it over...
Examine it...
Explore its texture.
I'll give you an example:
Recently, a very good friend of mine opened up a new neural pathway for me. I had seen somewhere, someone claiming to be a "non-transitioning M to F" (for those of you unaware, that means a man who feels as though he's truly a woman, but does not intend to have corrective surgery). This is not unusual in my world. There are many transgender people that opt not to have surgery for equally as many reasons. What struck me as odd, though, was that this person, as a man, is decidedly heterosexual. As a kid, I used to joke about being "a lesbian trapped in a man's body" and the joke was so old and stale, that it just became something a preteen boy says when he's bored. So, this person's situation, sounding very much the same, raised a red flag for me.
I chuckled, because to me, it was a clever twist on an old joke.
Then, I thought about it.
Is such a thing possible?
As it turns out, yes. Remember that very good friend of mine? He gave me a new toy. A new piece of information to play with.
While seemingly connected, it turns out gender identity and sexual orientation are unrelated.
Mind. Blown.
This concept had never occurred to me before, and while it now seems so transparent, so obvious as to be relegated to common sense, at the time, it instantly made my world exponentially larger.
Just figured I'd share something positive with you all today, because I have a sneaking suspicion that people well be pissing me off willy-nilly tomorrow.
Take this thought with you, though:
There's no shame in being wrong... only opportunity... provided you're willing to accept it.
I know what you mean. I've been learning about such things in leaps and bounds lately. Not only is there no necessary relation between gender identity and sexual orientation, there is a whole other dynamic, to consider, also unrelated, and though I'm not sure exactly what it's called, I'd suggest we might call it "relationship orientation". For example, do you prefer monogamy, polygamy, or polyamory? Doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, male, female, etc...
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