Well the thread title indicates GLBTQ. We did have one trans poster in this thread, but she kept getting banned for posts elsewhere, and after several accounts I think she stopped trying.

well I don't really know any other poker players so hi everyone !

Actually the T is in the name of the thread and there have been at least a couple of us in here. BTW, I've never been banned, they are referring to someone else.

Can't say that any have become very famous yet, but hopefully that's a matter of time. I'm certainly working on changing that. ;-)

Trans people do tend to be a bit rare. I'm the only reg I know of in SoCal, and only met a couple of others in Vegas. I've been playing mostly at the Bike since the turn of the century and I think that a lot of the staff and regulars know, and haven't had any real problems.

I "came out" on 2+2 around 2005 in OOT, and that thread was fairly respectful, more so than some other threads I've seen in recent years in places like NVG for some reason.

With the number of players at the WSOP, I keep thinking that I'm not the only one there when I play. Although with the low volume of female players in general at open events maybe I am. I know that there is a girl from the east coast that has played the ladies event in Vegas, but she's the only other I'm aware of.

More likely would be some FTMs (female to male) since more guys play than women, but those dudes blend in so well it's hard to read them and no incentive really for them to out themselves.

Guess I've gotten used to be an army of one. When you're part of a very small community, it's easy to be the only one of your kind in any given room.

Shauna

well ive been considering moving to less hostile territory poker wise for a while now. I live in texas, and the nearest poker room worth anything is a good 7 hour drive. I figured out that if I went there every other weekend it would end costing me 6 - 8k just in gas, food and hotel rooms. after looking at those numbers along with the horrid rake that come with live 200nl, it seems unbeatable unless I move within decent driving distance of multiple casinos. ive considered moving to l.a. multiple times.
How are the games there ? are they fairly soft and beatable ? is it worth moving ? my biggest concern with California is the horribly insane tax rates.

oh and whats the ts community like there ? is there plenty to do in the sense of clubs and bars ?

Oh, right, sorry. I had forgotten about you

there is a thread on the LA area at http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/20...es-ca-1142598/

El Lay is home to some of the largest card rooms in the country; Commerce, Bicycle, Hustler and Hawaiian Gardens are the main rooms with some others sprinkled around.

While the games don't get the kind of tourist crowd that you see in Vegas, there are a number of casual recreational types that aren't very good. The weird thing in California is the rake structure. They drop the same amount every hand, usually $4 to $5 regardless of the size of the game. So things like 1/2 NL with a $40 to $80 buyin are horribly over raked. The 2/3 and 3/5 with buyins of $100 to $300 or $300 to $1000 less so. If the hand ends pre flop they usually just take $1, but once a flop is dealt, it's $4 in rake and $1 in jackpot drop out of the pot, even if its just a couple of limpers with $9 in there.

the cost of living is a bit higher than other parts of the country, but the weather is beautiful and there is a lot to do in and near the city and beaches.

If you're seriously considering a move, I'd advise a scouting trip for a week or two to see how you feel about it. I've been in CA since 85 and the City of Angels on and off since 96 and wouldn't want to be anywhere else, but its not for everyone.


In general , the nite life scene is what you'd expect from a huge city that includes Hollywood. There are a lot of good clubs.

I'm actually not very much in touch with the specific ts bar scene since moving back and forth to SF and getting married. There are no doubt some places in West Hollywood that have nights and at least one in the Valley. The Gay and Lesbian Center has some support groups and stuff as well.

I'm just a bit out of touch with the community these days. Since coming back last year, the only trans folks I see in town are my close friends. I just haven't been doing a lot of community activism or clubbing like the old days.

Hope that this helps, feel free to PM if you want.

Shauna

yeah, I think that sometimes folks forget that I'm trans. Heck, sometimes I forget about it myself.

Shauna

Jason Collins, NBA player currently on the Washington Wizards, becomes the first openly gay athlete in a major US sports team.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mag...ay-nba-player/

That was a great article and i could feel emotions stirring

Very good article imo. I was glad that a player who seems well-liked by his teammates and who is obviously very intelligent and thoughtful (he went to Stanford!) became the first active players in one of the major American team sports to come out.

I'll also be really interested to see where his career goes from here and how it is interpreted. Right now he's a free agent and considered a relatively marginal player who isn't guaranteed to be in the league next year. I'm sure there will be some temptation to think that whatever happens next is somehow tied to his homosexuality (i.e. if he gets signed, some will say that the team is doing it as a publicity stunt or to make a "statement", but if he doesn't get signed by anyone, some will blame it on bigotry, when it could simply be the fact that he is getting older and has not produced particularly good stats in the last few seasons).

Still, I'm happy that he came out, I wish him all the best personally and professionally, and I think he'll be a good representative of the community in whatever capacity he chooses to express that.

Big Old Nit or Bi Gold Nit?

You're the second person on 2p2 to ask me that recently, so I'll tell you what I told them... When I chose the SN I was going for Big Old Nit (because I'm a veeeeery tight player), but the second is also kinda appropriate because, despite being a lesbian myself, I tend to fall for bi girls who like bling, so feel free to write/interpret it either way

I pictured you as like a seventy year old overweight man

I mean, in the coolest way possible, hope you don't take that wrong

Great to see jason come out! Was a really good article and worth the read by SI. Hope he is well received and many more follow in his place (maybe those 4 football players will come out?)

No offense taken at all... In fact, I kinda like the image

And I do play poker much like the stereotypical old man coffee. But I'm actually a girl, in my early-30's, I could probably stand to lose 10 lbs, and I have the wardrobe and mindset of a typical 16yo boy (except for the part of my personality that sometimes likes to go all Feminist Hulk on fools), if that makes any sense at all. Basically, Ellen Page is my hero

Bravo to Jason Collins.

Maybe I'm less attuned to the media *noise* these days, but I can't stop thinking about the differences in coverage of Jason Collins relative to Brittney Griner.

Maybe it *is* a bigger deal that Collins came out because the sports world is *probably* a crueler place for gays than lesbians. But the fact that it is a bigger deal just makes me sad in a way.

Heck, the fact that this is news at all makes me sad in a way, but I know how fundamentally important this is in the push for tolerance and visibility for the LGBTQ community.

So instead of being sad in a way, I will just say bravo.

I think it's a bigger deal for a number of reasons:

- male sports are more popular than female sports

- there have already been a ton of high profile lesbian athletes, including ones who came out at or near the peak of their popularity, so some of the locker room issues and other things have already been dealt with when people like Martina Navratalova or Sheryl Swoopes came out.

- the stereotype that lesbians are "manly" has always led to the assumption by a lot of people that female were gay so fewer people take notice when a woman comes out whereas a gay man who plays football or basketball is cutting against the stereotypes of gay men. It's the same reason why people aren't as surprised when a figure skater or a diver comes out (those are perceived as "gay" sports, so it's not as big of a deal).

Like you said, it's still a little said that it is a big story, but I understand why it is and I think it will make things better in the future, so I'm choosing to focus on that.

(Futurama clip on the WNBA)

I saw this, too.

And I'd include why this is a "bigger" deal is that it's more acceptable for some inexplicable reason in many people's minds for women to be gay or bisexual than for men. Lesbians are hot. Gay men are disgusting. You know the drill.

The other part is what was already mentioned - a lesbian in female sports makes sense to these type of people, because lesbians are manly and sports are manly ergo lesbians in sports makes sense. Gay men are sissies and professional male sports are SUPER manly, so gay men in sports makes NO sense whatsoever.

I mean to people with that mindset, of course. Others realize that there have always been gay men in sports (or in the military), because sexuality has no bearing on athleticism or patriotism.

Anyway, congrats to Collins. I think we see some NFL players come out within the next couple of years. Football, as you know, is the MANLIEST of the manly man sports in the US.

SportsCenter is running an interview with Collins this hour, I'm going to watch.

oh hai dere, this is LirvA fwiw

so in my political science class, we've had to do these online discussions that are sort of like an online forum like this, but it's just the students. Anyway, we've had to write 150 words on a topic, and reply to another student's post with 100 words, with a different topic every week. We just had our last discussion and it was on gay marriage. Look at some of these posts from people. (fwiw, I live in Oklahoma, middle of the ****ing bible belt)





So I kind of had it out with a few of them, and I've made a decision. There's something that I want to do, and I'm going to do it. Thursday, right before class, I'm going to address the class, and tell them how disgusted I was at some of the comments, and the hatred and bigotry. I am then going to tear up a bible, throw it to the floor, stomp on it, and then say "excuse me, I need to pick the word of god up off the floor and dump it into the trash where it belongs", and proceed to do just that.

... and then do an in class writing assignment.

Yeah, you see stuff like that and you realize just how far we still have to go.

50 years ago, these were the same people (not LITERALLY the same people) who were saying that interracial marriages were against God's will as well.

You have to understand this culture. Assuming a fairly high proportion of them are devout Christians and were raised that way, they have literally been taught from a very young age that there is right, and there is wrong, and anything that seems to contradict that (like, you know, science or higher reasoning) is the work of the Devil attempting to deceive. They can always fall back on "God's will" to justify their own bigotry, although they don't perceive it that way, and if you point out their hypocrisy (like why they only follow certain parts of the Bible) most of them will simply ignore the cognitive dissonance after a few minutes of confusion and doubt.

They ignore the actual history of marriage (Jacob had 12 children by 4 different women, only 2 of whom were his wives!) and the fact that marriage as a public institution is more about the conferring of governmental and civil rights.

I support the right of any religious institution to refuse to perform any marriage ceremony that does not fit with their beliefs. But the GOVERNMENT cannot discriminate against its citizens. You can call it a marriage or a civil union or invent a completely new word to placate the ignorant, but marriage rights for the LGBT community are coming. Equal rights usually wins out, however slow and painful that win might be.

I get where your reaction is coming from, but doing this is not going to open minds. Those minds haven't been shut by the bible, but rather by the people who've used it to narrow hearts and minds alike. If you wanted to be demonstrative in more positive way, take that bible in your hands in front of the class and try telling them of your disgust at their arrogant, close-minded certainty about denying others their human rights, and just hold that bible the entire time. It'll confuse them at the least. There's a pretty cool flow chart here that might be useful:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hombiblmarr.htm

Best of luck whatever way you try!

It's definitely not going to change anyone's mind, and it's not really about that. I think it's more about being the only person standing up for what's right, in the face of an entire classroom of adversaries, and destroying something they all hold sacred. Kind of a self empowerment thing I suppose.

Anyway, I got my bible today, and I can't wait to tear it up tomorrow.

Bible torn, haters mad.