February 19, 2010.
While many people don’t read newspapers and rely on news from TV and blogs, etc., they are missing “news” and views that are relevant. It is not new, but in a recent advice column of The Shreveport Times there were question of trans and bi interest.
In one the person wonders how to handle the wedding of a child when they are not inviting her (I think it was MTF) to the wedding, yet she is paying for a share of it. Actually everyone knows of her sexuality and have been friendly, so it is strange.
In another a bisexual man is trying to understand why everyone keeps trying to make him make a choice.
The answer in the first is go with your feeling as it is their wedding, and you may not want to press the issue but can talk about it later and explain that the exclusion had hurt you. In the second column the answer, obviously, is, you don’t have to explain your sexual orientation, nor do you need to defend yourself. It is an issue that is difficult for many to understand, so just live your life and they will figure it out.
An even more difficult issue for people to deal with, especially parents, is how age can victimize the young.
In a column by Froma Harrop, the issue of young people having sex is covered in ways most people don’t think about — since most people worry about children being molested and intergenerational sex. But she points out that even a young man who had never had sex before, if he is, say, 20, can be arrested for having sex with a girl who has had many sex acts but is only 17.
And many laws, not even about sexuality, punish young people, such as new laws on texting while driving etc. that seem to only aim at young people. And many laws punish young people more than adults. (Older people often have just as many car wrecks as teenagers, for instance.)
And the issue of liquor is hard to deal with since we send young people at 18 off to die in a war yet deny them the right to drink. So the age for allowing sex should be based on common sense and not religious dogma.