Seven Dissents from Gay Orthodoxy

Are you with me so far?

Yes; I do have no small familiarity with immunoassay techniques. And you are right; cross-assaying does have numerous problems associated with it.

However, there may be an as-yet-undiscovered agent (not bacteria, not virus, not even prion) that does, and until we find it, interrupting the vector is the wisest and safest approach. In the AIDS case, the vector appears to be blood transmission, whether that is via unsafe sex, sharing needles, etc. In this regard, discouraging unprotected sex is a very responsible thing to do.

Hence my statement about the pump handle.

However, encouraging HIV-infected individuals to take deadly toxins dressed up as medicine because of an unsound theory that AIDS is caused by a possibly harmless HIV virus, and then discouraging further inquiry and investigation into the cause of AIDS is an incredibly irresponsibly thing to do. If the HIV hypothesis is wrong, then those actions will have clearly caused the deaths of millions; if it is right however, having allowed further scientific investigation will have caused the provable death of no one who didn’t make their own choice about their own healthcare treatment.

This is akin to the debate over chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer, as in a) whether or not the cure is actually worse than the disease itself and b) whether or not there’s another direction in which we need to be looking.

I would agree with the last; the preponderance of evidence out there that HIV does in fact cause AIDS is good, but at the same time, it should be considered that there are alternative factors involved. The necessity for this in my mind is because the bulk of HIV/AIDS research right now is concentrated on developing a vaccine, rather than thoroughly understanding the etiology of the disease process; while I understand why people are doing this, I also would caution that a vaccine that does not cover all the bases, as it were, will make the problem worse. If there are factors involved other than HIV in the linkage between AIDS and unprotected sex, all that a vaccine will do is encourage the latter and magnify the presence of the former. We may well end up with a worse epidemic than when we started.

Meanwhile, though, we do know that protease inhibitors and other such things do inhibit the onset of AIDS — albeit with painful symptoms and potential damage — just as chemotherapy does with cancer. And, just as we have with chemotherapy, over time, we will develop better, more-targeted ways of dealing with HIV infection and AIDS — which would, again, benefit from a reduction in emphasis on the vaccine and more put towards understanding the entire disease process.

North Dallas Thirty:

“Yes; I do have no small familiarity with immunoassay techniques. And you are right; cross-assaying does have numerous problems associated with it.”

Okay, we’re off to a good start.

Now, the problem with “HIV tests” is that they assume that antibodies reacting with proteins prove “HIV infection” since they also assume that the antibodies in question are specific to “HIV”. The only way to prove this is to have a gold standard, that is, “HIV” itself, to test against.

Take for example a pregnancy test. The over-the-counter pregnancy test doesn’t actually test for pregnancy. It tests for a surrogate found in the woman’s urine. It’s assumed that the presence of the surrogate implies the existence of a pregnancy. How do we know how accurate the test is? We compare it with a gold standard, which is, in this case, the baby itself. A baby is fairly easy to detect within a mother’s uterus through ultrasound, and thus the sensitivity (how often a pregnancy registers “positive”) and specificity (how often a “positive” result is NOT a false positive) of the pregnancy test can be measured.

But you can’t ultrasound a virus, so how can the gold standard (“HIV”) be established? For retroviruses, this is done through retroviral isolation through a sucrose gradient. No one has ever done this. And thus, there is no gold standard for “HIV”. The medical literature and the “HIV tests” themselves admit that there is no gold standard for “HIV”.

In other words, if you test “positive” on an “HIV test”, then it could be true that your antibodies are cross-reacting with other antigens that share the same antigenic determinants. In fact, since there is no gold standard for “HIV”, then there is no way of knowing if the alleged “HIV antibodies” even react with “HIV” in the first place.

The nail in the coffin is that “HIV” researchers have explained the problems of false positives in “HIV tests” with “cross-reacting antibodies”. In other words, “HIV” researchers themselves admit that some “positive” results in “HIV tests” come about due to cross-reacting antibodies. How do we know that this case does NOT apply to ANY “positive” result on an “HIV test”?

Are you still with me? Because it gets even worse than this.

Odd: “Tolerate diversity.” Is that prescriptive, normative, or by biological fact of Darwin. But Darwinian “thinking” would not have used the word “orthodoxy,” as that is essentialist-thinking, and Darwin denies essentialism. Categorically. In fact, citing seven dissents from “orthodoxy” keeps you and everyone else in the same essentialist-thought world, along with Religionists, Marxists, Freudians, Postmodernists, Conservatives, Progressives, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and all the other “essentialisms” Darwin denies.

Of Darwin’s Five Theories of Evolution that comprise the Law of Evolution, one of the requisite theories is multiplication of species (the origin of diversity) and the indispensable pre-requisite of VARIATION to evolution — the UNIQUENESS OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL. But if every individual is unique, and if Darwin is true (and after 150 years, millions of tests, and not once falsified), then “orthodoxy” is essentialist anti-life ideology unsupported by biological facts of nature. Since Humans are integral to Nature, the essentialist-mindset is “escapist” from confronting that Nature.

So, in effect, your dissents are still within the essentialist language game, and essentialism defeats diversity, indeed repudiates and denies it, because the “many” is pluralistic, heterodox, diverse, variable, which is all anathema to the essentialist conceptual scheme. And as long as essentialism is the paradigm, GLBT will always lose their quest for freedom, equality, assimilation, respect, dignity, because “diversity” is disallowed — it’s heretical, bourgeoisie, psychotic, abnormal, from the “orthodox” mindset, whoever and whatever “-ism” proclaims it.

Using the “old language game” and playing by “essentialism’s rules” are a guarantee for defeat, because the ONE gets to DEFINE what is and is not ORTHODOX. So, appeals to toleration of diversity under the “dissents to orthodoxy” is riddled with contradictions, no less for Queer Theorists as for Conservatives and Progressives, for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, for all who accept the essentialist ideology, rather than biological facts of Darwin.

Which explains why so many Americans are in “denial” over the most-verified fact of nature after gravity; they’ll have to abandon their superstitions, orthodoxies, certitudes, and metaphysics to live in the world as it is, not as ideologies try to remake it. No. Illusions remain the future, and your “dissents” merely perpetuate the illusions that an “orthodoxy” actually has validity. The LEFT and RIGHT speak the same lingo, play by the same rules, and alas it devolves to the Will to Power, not the Will to Be, and in that game, nearly everyone ELSE loses, save the plutocrat, the authortarian, the ONE. The ONE and the MANY are opposed, and the ONE rules. You are perpetuating that rule. So are Queer Theorists.

It’s a sign of just how balkanized our society has become that we can’t speak of taking on each issue separately and distinctly — or thinking of it clearly — without being sure that by so doing, we’ve got to be cheating somebody.

The only thing that motivates people to recognize the humanity in others is focusing on the fact that we all share this humanity. This alone will not divide us.

I don’t have to be “against” bisexuals or transgenders, or “insensitive” to them, to desire a more basic approach. Ironically, it is this one broad brush that eliminates the need for all the others.

In speaking of dissent, I can recall numerous times where my pro-life beliefs have caused all in the room to gasp, shudder, and raising of the hand. It is as if a discussion can not even take place, that some all-powerful gay ruling council has decided that I am somehow less of a gay if I believe differently. The irony is, of course, that a people who are so insistent on being “individual” spend so much time parsing how each “individual” should believe.

My belief on abortion is that it is anti-homosexual in every context. Should a gene ever be discovered, what is to stop someone from aborting a gay child? In addition, due to the impossibility of gay reproduction, do we not need someone to have children for us? Abortion slows the birth rate, thus, in our current political climate, guaranteeing that these children will go to heterosexuals first. Finally and quite simply, life should always be nourished and protected, and not decided upon by the whim of an individual. Those are the basics of my beliefs on abortion

Too often, the gay mob deems any pro-life stance as stemming from religion. And that is the real abortion issue for many gays – it has nothing to do with rights or children, but has everything to do with a backlash against the religious institution that has belittled and oppressed us for so long.

The irony that religion is a choice and homosexuality is not, despite the contrary being constantly pushed, has always amused me.

“one issue that cuts across LGBT peoples and transvestites is gender variance. Some gay and bisexual men and women “pass” gender norms quite easily, though not their same-sex attraction and sexuality, but the majority have gender markings (voice, movement, and others) that make us targets of violence, threats, intimidation, or just plain old marginalization.”

I agree with this generally, in that the common issue is what is considered “gender appropriate behavior” — that’s the link between the Gs, Ls, Bs and Ts. You can be as straight acting a G, L or B as you want, but the moment you walk up to a bunch of straight people holding your same-sex partner’s hand and getting an innocuous smooch on the cheek, you’ve crossed into “gender inappropriate behavior”, which, in my view, is the main reason why we still struggle for acceptance with many straight people (including non-religious ones). It’s all about gender, and what the straight world thinks appropriate gender behavior is (and that generally doesn’t include having a partner of the same sex, even if both parties are “straight acting”). Transgendered people are not accepted for a closely related reason: it isn’t considered appropriate to try to change one’s gender presentation and/or anatomy from that which one has inherited biologically — that is considered in appropriate behavior for someone who belongs, biologically, to either gender.

Gender is the key to all of this, and lies at the root of why Gs, Ls, Bs and Ts all still struggle to find broad acceptance in the straight world. That’s the basis for the commonality, and it makes plenty of sense, therefore, for the issues to be dealt with at the same time — because they have the same basis.

“Gender variance” has nothing to do with being gay. Gay is men loving men.

Not spending much time on the fact that gay can also be women loving women, I’d like to further point out that heterosexuals would definitely define “men loving men” as gender-variance. Men are, after all, “supposed” to love women, not other men.

my concern is men who identify as men

Many straight folk would argue that gay men cannot identify as “real men” because they’re “sissies” by definition.

Not an argument that I agree with, but it underscores the seriousness of pretending that gender expectations don’t also impact gay men.

The Real James sounds like the sort of guy who — after completely stiff-arming women out of the “gay” equation — will then turn around and chide lesbians for insisting on being recognized with a separate term.

I’ve never been one to feel that a separate term was necessary. But I find it rather amusing that the Real Jameses of this world will speak as if gay women don’t exist — and then turn around, in a high, righteous dudgeon, and tut-tut-tut lesbians who insist upon being called lesbians.

Just sayin’.

I support everyone’s pursuit of happiness, but there are only so many causes I can get behind.

I see that it’s important for you to define yourself as “gender variant.” If that helps you, good, but that’s a choice. That choice unifies you with other groups you see as gender variant. Being gay is not a choice; defining yourself is a choice. It’s important to be an adult and be responsible for your choices. If you choose to identify as gender variant, don’t complain about being a victim. Instead, make a different choice.

I choose not to define myself as gender variant. I am a man first and foremost. My connection with the world of men is primary, and my sexual orientation is secondary. My concerns have to do with marriage, child custody, workplace fairness, etc. etc., which all men share.

I am not required by any law that I know of to work on behalf of lesbians, transgendered, or gender variant people, any more than you are required to work on behalf of undocumented workers or Sudanese refugees–certainly, all those groups have problems and I applaud the time you give to helping them. But one person can only take on so many causes.

My cause is the rights of men who want to build lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships with other men. I want to work on behalf of this group’s right to marry and adopt.

I am not involved in the problems of gay men who want open relationships or multiple partners. I am not involved in the problems of lesbians, transgenders, or gender variant people. They all have lots of people working on their behalf, and I don’t have to be one of them.

Personally, I think the rights of undocumented workers have a lot in common with the rights of men who want to form lifelong, sexually exclusive partnerships with other men–I think both groups suffer under unjust laws which need to be changed. If I have time after working on my primary set of issues, I would work on gaining amnesty for undocumented workers. After that, universal health care.

See? There’s only so much time and energy, and for me to be able to focus, I have to jettison the concerns of the LBT part of the rainbow. This is America. I can do that.

I see that it’s important for you to define yourself as “gender variant.”

Not for me — it’s simply important to me that people don’t ignore uncomfortable subjects out of wishful thinking that they’re full conforming with expected norms. Queer guys don’t conform to usual gender expectations, period. They have sex with men.

Now, those expectations are changing over time, and perhaps queer men will eventually be viewed as “gender-compliant,” but it’s not happening at the moment. Like it or not, if you’re a gay man in American society, you’re gender non-compliant — no ifs, ands or buts. There’s nothing good nor bad about that, but pretending it isn’t so is just silly.

As for self-definition, I prefer to define myself by what I am, rather than what I am not. I am Brian, a queer guy who does all sorts of cool things and has all sorts of cool friends. I am not Brian the gay guy who isn’t like all those other gay guys and isn’t this and isn’t that and isn’t a sissy and isn’t a flamer, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

I despise the term “queer”. I think “claiming” it as some type of “empowering” thing is retarded.

That’s your choice. It doesn’t change the fact you’re queer though.

because of the militant, orthodox, and borg-like nature of “gay culture”, people assume that I am part of “gay culture” just because I am gay

Gosh, sounds like an updated version of the 1960s lament of “normal colored folk” who “despise being called African Americans” and lament that white folks would treat them a lot nicer if it wasn’t for all those uppity civil rights campaigners. I mean, racism is clearly *their* fault, not the fault of the racists — just like homophobia is all gays’ fault and not the result of idiotic notions clung to by homophobic bigots.

According to you, I’m a queer.

But why should we let other people define who we are?

How postmodern of you!

You are nothing more than yet another gay agitating for a “separate but equal” lifestyle for gay people.

Au contraire. I simply reject your laughable contention that other gay people are responsible for the fact that straight people don’t like you.

If you’re as “pleasant” to them as you’ve been in this exchange, I’d suggest you look in the mirror for the cause of their animus.

When some gay people (let’s call them faggots, shall we?) insist that the gay identity is bowing at the altar of Harry Hay, revering drag queens, extolling a lifestyle of superficiality and hedonism and then claiming to speak for me in some kind of “gay community” then, yes, they are responsible for some straight people’s animus toward me

I don’t know what’s sadder — your victimhood mentality (i.e. “poor me, the straights don’t like me and it’s all the faggots’ fault”) or your willingness to accept abuse from the poorly educated and bigoted — and even excuse that abuse.

Any gay guy who insists that I’m “queer” looks like a grade-A faggot to me.

Well poopsie-woopsie, jutht sachet over there and take those hands off those hips, girlfriend! Ms. Thang ain’t bein’ a Mary Sunshine, that’s for sure. Be bright and sparkly, honey, and put some spring into those light loafers, girl!

(Oh dear, now I’ve made even more straight people hate you, sorry about that!)

North Dallas Thirty:

No, but you can electron-micrograph it.

The problem with this statement is this: how do you know that the object being electron-micrographed is anctually “HIV”? The only way to know for sure is to have a gold standard to test against (isolation) and then compare the morphology of the suspected electron micrograph against the gold standard. As is, exactly NONE of the alleged electron micrographs of “HIV” contain all of the aspects of the alleged morphology of “HIV”. In other words, scientists who are paid to “photograph HIV” will take a photograph of something and merely claim it is “HIV” without any way of proving such a claim to be true (becasue “HIV” has never been isolated).

What you are pointing out, Jimmy, are the problems inherent in general bacteriology and virology; that is, it’s very difficult to define that which lies outside the human senses.

While that may be true, what I am actually pointing out is that the notion of “HIV status” is meaningless since no one has any way of knowing if antibodies are cross-reacting or not. It would be different if “HIV researchers” themselves hadn’t already admitted that some “HIV positive” results come about due to cross-reactivity of antibodies.

Just like you pointed out with the pregnancy test, one doesn’t redecorate the nursery on that basis; one checks with the doctor and uses other means and assays to verify it. You won’t know with absolute certainty until the baby pops out, but you can definitely get within a good range of likelihood.

Exactly — this is what the “sensitivity” and “specificity” of any test refers to. What is the sensitivity and specificity of any of the “HIV tests”? HIV apologists like to claim that it’s “99% reliable” when everyone who’s actually read about the tests knows that the tests are only validated against themselves, and this is precisely due to the fact that there is no gold standard for “HIV” against which to validate the test.

Let me make it more clear. In this “validation” of the “HIV test”, the test is run once and it comes up “positive”. Then the exact same test is run four more times. If it comes up “positive” each of the other times, then this is seen by “HIV researchers” as a validation of the “HIV test”. The problem is obvious: what if the antibodies were cross-reacting in all five of the tests? Such a test does not validate whether or not the FIRST test was correct — it may very well show that the test is reliably meaningless.

But, like a maze in which you don’t have a map, blundering down alleys and around wrong turns is the only way in which you’re ever going to find out the solution.

It’s a shame you have to rely on clumsy analogies for what should be a strictly scientific issue. As is, what you say is dead wrong. One does not solve a scientific problem through non-science, and that is exactly what “HIV research” is: non-science. “HIV research” is the assumption that the theory is correct and then looking for evidence to prop it up. The scientific method requires people to first find the evidence, and then formulate a theory around it. As is, there is no evidence for the existence of “HIV”. Instead, all you have is the “HIV test” and the correlation with “AIDS”, and then scientific consensus. As is, NONE of that is science. Instead, it’s politics and money (mostly money).

Do you work in the AIDS industry?

And now, remember when I mentioned that the “HIV test” got even worse?

You and I know by now that if certain proteins react against antibodies in the victim’s blood, then the person is assumed to be “HIV positive”. But which proteins have to react? As is, there is no agreement as to which proteins constitute “HIV infection”. There are at least twelve different sets of proteins used and they differ from test set to test set, from country to country. A test that comes up “HIV positive” in the USA might very well be judged “HIV negative” in Australia. How are you going to convince me that “HIV positive” has any meaning when no one knows what proteins are needed to be “HIV positive”?

For that matter, how does any testing agent know what constitutes an “HIV positive” result? From here, it gets even worse.

It’s a shame you have to rely on clumsy analogies for what should be a strictly scientific issue.

But Jimmy, that is exactly what science is. Edison had literally thousands of failed experiments before he came up with the incandescent light, but I don’t find people saying he wasn’t scientific.

It would be different if “HIV researchers” themselves hadn’t already admitted that some “HIV positive” results come about due to cross-reactivity of antibodies.

Therefore, by that logic, any test that ever gives a false positive is utterly and completely unreliable.

Since virtually NO medical test in existence for pathogens has a zero false-positive rate, using that argument, that logic requires us to state that the entire medical community is lying when it says that certain pathogens cause certain diseases.

Do you work in the AIDS industry?

And that really is the gist of the problem here.

You have convinced yourself that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, and you are now casting about for proof to back up your conclusions. The fact that I disagree with you means, not that I have done and understand the science, but that I am corrupt and being bribed to cover up the “real truth”.

Any more discussion, then, is a waste of effort on my part.

North Dallas Thirty,

I am disappointed by your response. You are choosing to make this personal when it should not be (and I will address what you will likely see as an obvious contradiction in a few moments), and you make several statements which are completely wrong.

But Jimmy, that is exactly what science is.

Absolutely false. Science is formulating a hypothesis based on observation and then testing that hypothesis for the purpose of better understanding of reality. Here, the hypothesis is that “AIDS” is caused by a unique and exogenous retrovirus “HIV” (did you know that many retroviruses are endogenous?). This hypothesis was NOT based on observable data and is, in its present form, NOT testable and thus NOT falsifyable. Hence, it is NOT science.

Therefore, by that logic, any test that ever gives a false positive is utterly and completely unreliable.

That is also false. Tests such as those (such as the pregnancy test) are measured in their terms of specificity, which measures the rate of false positives. A pregnancy test does NOT have a 100% specificity. Meaning, it sometimes gives false positives. But it is still useful because such false positives are rare. The reason that we know this is because we have the gold standard (the baby) to test against and thus know exactly what the specificity of the test is.

On the other hand, it is impossible to know the specificity (or even the sensitivity) of the “HIV test” because there is no gold standard for “HIV”. The “HIV test” manufacturers admit this. The “HIV” researchers admit this. These facts are NOT in question. The fact that antibodies cross-react is NOT in question. The fact that “HIV” researchers admit that cross-reacting antibodies yield “false positives” and have no way of excluding *ANY* “positive” result from this possibility is NOT in question. Hence, the “HIV test” is meaningless and worthless. You are unable to dispute these facts and neither are the top-tier “HIV” researchers.

You have convinced yourself that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS

No, the evidence causes me to dissent from the *theory* (orthodoxy, actually) that “AIDS” is caused by a unique, exogenous retrovirus called “HIV”. You believe in spite of the evidence to the contrary, which is called “faith”.

The fact that I disagree with you means, not that I have done and understand the science, but that I am corrupt and being bribed to cover up the “real truth”.

I did not ask if you worked in the AIDS industry (and I thank you for declining to dispute that it is an industry) for the purpose of dismissing you as corrupt. I only asked out of curiosity because you seemed well-versed in “HIV science”, well beyond a run of the mill “HIV” evangelist. I just wanted to know you better so that I could know how much background information I could safely exclude in order for you to understand the points I was trying to make. Most people believe “HIV=AIDS” but know absolutely nothing about what the differences among ELISA, WB, and PCR. If you work in the AIDS industry, then you would know what those things are, and I could save myself the trouble of explaining them to you.

That said, if you do work in the AIDS industry, then for you to accept my point of view means eliminating your paycheck, and I understand how that would cause you to be resistant to what I’m saying. I would have nothing to lose from accepting your point of view whereas the reverse would NOT be true. Hence, I’m at an unfair advantage. You would be fighting not just to be right, but also for the continuance of your lifestyle.

Any more discussion, then, is a waste of effort on my part.

Indeed. What do you have to gain? I didn’t expect you to hang around because you do not have science or facts on your side.

I am fighting for science, for reality, and for the lives of gay man, many of whom I think died of AZT poisoning but doctors said they died of “AIDS”. Did you know that the side effects of AZT (a deadly, toxic drug that *will* kill you dead, dead, dead if you keep taking it) match the symptoms of “AIDS”?

Since North Dallas Thirty is bugging out, I will shamelessly exhort everyone here: Do not, under any circumstances, have an “HIV test”, EVER, for the rest of your life!