Listers,
Some exciting, late-breaking news!! As luck would have it, a chance
conversation between a TAC member and someone sitting next to them at a bar
just last night in S.F. has led to an idea for a companion organization to
TAC. During the course of casual conversation these individuals realized
that almost the identical problem to that addressed by TAC exists for those
trying to obtain "authentic" sexual partners. This is a recent problem
brought on by the alarming increase in sexual "conversion" operations being
performed both openly and surreptitiously. As most of you would suppose,
the greatest activity in this type of conversion is in California,
primarily in the S.F. and L.A. areas. The need for some type of
"authentication committee" is obvious to anyone frequenting the bar scene
or other venues for establishing sexual companionship. In all too many
cases, what appears to be a perfectly authentic female (or male) has turned
out, after considerable investment of time and money, to be a fraud.
Obviously this whole issues raises a number of thorny questions, but they
are really all just the same issues that TAC has been dealing with already.
All that is needed is a new list of authentication criteria that addresses
the issue of "real" versus "conversion" gender.
Now many on the list (you know who you are) will argue that "So what's the
big deal here? When you get right down to it there's not a nickel's worth
of difference between male and female anyway." Well, of course that's a
point well taken. On the other hand, as the French say, "Viva la
difference!!!" Of course we can well anticipate that others of you on the
list will be incensed if we keep the authentication criteria a secret.
Again, point well taken. However, as with the Tiger versus Alpine question,
we can only wonder why you don't just check it out for yourselves. (Could
actually be fun!!) Yet others of you will be concerned that this new
organization (SAC) will abuse its power and arbitrarily assign a gender
based on superficial characteristics. For example, how does a boob job,
face lift, tummy tuck, etc., etc. affect the sexual authenticity of an
individual? While all of these questions, and many more are raised by the
issue of authenticity, the need for some type of authentication becomes
clear when you put yourself in the position of an earnest, but unsuspecting
individual who in good faith enters into a committed relationship only to
later discover they have been sleeping with a man (or woman)?? SAC people,
like the TAC people, will need special sensitivity training to enable them
to deal with the highly emotionally charged situation created when they
have the unfortunate task of informing an individual that his (or her)
partner is a (Gasp!!) A CONVERSION!!! Special counseling is almost always
required, especially in the case of long term relationships. (One can only
wonder if, in this later case, maybe it would have been better to just
leave well enough alone.)
I hope that most of you will be able to see the similar issues confronting
TAC and SAC and recognize our responsibility to try and lend our
considerable experience and expertise to address this very real and growing
problem. I''ll be looking forward hearing from many of you who I'm sure
will have pertinent observations and/or constructive suggestions to make on
how best to implement the SAC program. BTW, do we have any volunteers
willing to serve on the Committee?? It's a difficult and thankless job, but
somebody's got to do it.
Happy Fourth to all,
Bob
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