I make one reply and the thread gets closed.

Anyways, I've been off the ice for some time as I've been working on my mom's house most of the winter. It's so bad I only skated for 45min in one month.

But her house is almost done and I'll be starting my summer job soon so I'll have some time again to get some ice under my feet.

I also have new boots, after my visit to Chicago and talking to a few people including "Ask Mr. Edge" himself, it was found there were too many problems with my boots to correct. One item was that my left sole was not level, and also due to some pronation, my boots broke down incorrectly.

So I headed over to NY and was fitted with some new Klingbeils, I have no idea how there going to do yet as I've only been in them for those 45min so far!

I also finally did my first competition at Wyandot with Chandra in a pairs interp program, it was some fun, maybe next year will be better.

And of course I'm still without a coach, but nothing new there, even the PSA won't enforce their own rules on this issue, typical.

AN was a lot of fun, was great to meet so many people, just forgive me as I'm terrible with names and faces for a little while at least. I was surprised to be the only Platinum level sponsor, you only needed to give $100 for that level, I did send them more then that, just surprized I was the only one. I also bought a few competitors party tickets to be given out and I sent Sara the last of her money to cover her expenses.

Not sure what I'm going to do for next year yet, it's still a ways away, but should always start early for such things, at least this time I could drive there.

Steven

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

The reason the thread was closed was not posted, so you may be jumping to conclusions, SDFanatic. It could have been because of the intolerant response made to your post rather than your post itself....

__________________
Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

Very true, I've been informed that it's been closed for two accounts, mine is somewhat the reason as we know the heated discussions it causes. The majority steams from another post in the same thread.

Hoopefully we can avoid some things and just talk, forgive me?

Steven

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

Sorry. I forgot to post the reason. I'll take care of it.

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves.

__________________

Hey! Keep it "G" !

__________________

Erps!

Steven

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

Steven!!! Hey, dude, good to see ya back around these parts!

__________________
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
--Thomas Jefferson

www.signingtime.com ~sign language fun for all!

Yes, Steven, I meant to say the same thing when I was replying earlier to your post, but I was in a hurry... Good to see you posting again!

__________________
Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

Sorry I hope I wasn't the one who deemed the thread as doomed by posting in it. I'm a very nice (and tolerant) person honestly - so Nice to meet you Steven!

__________________
AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

Hi flippet!

Hi mikawendy!

Hi AW1!

I'm sorry too, I've just been so busy with so many things as of late, mostly with my moms house. Those of you who don't know, my dad passed away in May, since the house has been in an uncompleted remodel stage for the past 20 years, my mom asked for it to be finished. As such, thats what I've been spending a lot of my freetime on, I still have some work to do as she wants a shower and sink downstairs and I still have to finish the wiring for the telephones and computers.

Then on the weekends I've been spending time catching up on my own stuff as well as all the advocacy I need to keep pushing for fair treatment. So far I either get nothing or they give the ladies more freedoms and skip mine.

And AW1, I sure wish I was a female trapped in a mans body, then I'd have a reason to go through all the stuff to change who I am. But my brain isn't working that way so I'm just a guy who wears skirts like they used to before pants were invented.

If you dare to read some of my babble, head over to www.maleequality.org I've also reprinted the newspaper article about me at http://gotedge.net/content/view/16/34/

And if you really want to read some things, do a search over at fsuniverse about me and the slippery slope article (I read through the whole thing again the other day, boy did I write back then!)

I make no promises, but I'll try to post more, seeing as Yahoo! deleted all my groups and profiles saying I violated their terms of service, which so far they have failed to prove. As such I have to scour elsewhere for my skating fix, lol.

Steven

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

haha! Steven, sorry for the analogy, I was just trying to push a point. I know one guy who lives in the Netherlands, who does classical ballet, and does all the things that the girls do, including pointe work and wearing ballet leotard & skirt/tights to class because he feels he needs to. And he's not gay and he's not a woman trapped in a mans body he simply is a cross-dresser. He just feels like he needs to do it that way. While I can't say I completely understand his decision to do it, I do respect that he's made that choice and admire him for standing up for what he believes in.

And anyway there's heaps of guys in skirts in Scotland!

__________________
AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

Nope. The thread had come full-circle and the original question was answered, so I closed it before it went off-topic. I'm glad Steven opened this thread - it's much nicer, I think.

[Added:] The thread closing had nothing to do with intolerant posts. C'mon, I'm from NY - I would have told you off if you were out of line! Steven - do you want me to move the relevant posts from the other thread to here?

__________________

Ok, I'm going to try and keep this short, I have a bad habit of making them long!

The guy in the Netherlands is not crossdressing, leotards were inveted by a man for men to wear, it just never caught on for males to show off their body in such a way. Even for a skirt, males used to wear them all the time and only males were in the performing arts and some males portrayed females, In fact, the tutu was orginaly a male garment and males also wore tights (even before females I think)

I hate the term crossdressing, it only applies to males, a female can put on her boyfriend or hubbies clothes and walk out the door and nobody cares. But if the boyfriend or hubby goes out the door wearing his girlfriends or wifes clothes, he supposedly has some major issues.

One more thing, be careful telling a Scot that he's wearing a skirt, they honestly don't like it being described that way.

Steven

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

It's cool I think that's where he was coming from since all ballet dancers USED to be male until not that long ago and used to wear that attire. I only call it cross-dressing, since this is the term he uses to refer to it - I suppose for simplification.

Ahh!! I know this too well, my hubby's maternal family are Scots and yes, they are funny about the ol' kilts.

Ok should I open my mouth and change feet yet?

__________________
AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

Nothing intolerant about it, just curious... I honestly had no idea that there are men out there skating as women. What I do know is that there are tons of jokers on the net... just wanted to know what I was dealing with. I'm relatively new to this forum, apparently Steven hasn't posted here in a while, so how was I supposed to know who he and his story is?

In the past, Steven had a history of hijacking threads, so I am very pleased to see that he now has a thread of his very own.

Welcome back, Steven!

Hey!

I never intentionaly try to hijack threads!

I replied to the thread and stayed on topic, it was the other message(s) that were starting to diverge, course perpetuating it doesn't help, but it was closed before that happened.

Steven

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

Not if you have your skates on!

Steven

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

You're not...it's okay. Steven's pretty cool about it--he knows that it's unusual, and expects questions and comments. And actually, he's not 'skating as a woman'...he's a guy, he skates as a guy, he just chooses to skate in clothing that females usually choose. That's all.

__________________
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
--Thomas Jefferson

www.signingtime.com ~sign language fun for all!

Seeing Steven's posts on line at first, I was a bit . But getting to know him on line, and then later in person, I found out that Steven is pretty darn cool. He's a truly giving, caring person who loves our sport and the people in it. It's too bad people can't seem to get past the appearances.

__________________
"The only place where success comes before work is in a dictionary." -- Vidal Sasson

"Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway." -- Unknown

There is another side to that too though... why not fit in better? Especially if you see that your appearance is getting in the way of something that is important to you...

Should overweight people have to become skinny? Should African Americans become white? Should blondes dye their hair? Should disabled people stay at home?

I've been told I should compromise, but some people give me either/or, that is not a compromise. Even now however if I were to look "normal" I am still discriminated against, and where will it stop if I do? Will I then be told I have to wear black boots? Then black pants? Then white or black shirts? Will I also then be told that I'm not allowed to do certain elements as only females should do them?

I've seen so many people start and then stop skating due to being hard, falling down, or other various reasons. Yet here I am after three years of detrimental actions by others still skating. I'm lucky to be me as if I was any other kind of person I would have given up skating a long time ago due to the bigotry that exists in this area.

It's ok that coaches don't want to take my money, I used it to be a platinum sponser of Adult Nationals and I paid all of Sara's expenses to attend. I also bought all kinds of stuffies to throw and I brought Chandra with me to enjoy the experience, I also give money to local skaters to help with their expenses.

My first coach was hassled quite a bit, even before I became her student, she ended up getting out of skating and now works at a fitness club. My second coach at my summer rink had no issues in coaching me, she did ask and I told her about it, and she was ok with it. When I returned the next summer I asked for lessons again and she told me pants only or no lessons. My third trainer was a body dynamics coach, she herself told me she was blacklisted because she would not bow down to others. As such, she didn't have a problem with my attire, yet three lessons later she refuses to return my phone calls and hangs up when I am able to talk to her on the phone.

Skating is not about skating, I've proven that fact, females have much more freedom to express themselves while males such as myself are denied any form of being non-traditional.

So VegasGirl, does one have to become something their not to be accepted? Or should one be able to be themselves in a sport where such a thing is allowed?

Steven

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

Steven, we've been through this before.

To me, the issue is how badly do you want a coach? Seems to me that you're putting your personal clothing preferences above your desire for coaching and then blaming coaches for not meeting your standards when you flatly refuse to meet theirs.

Thefact remains that figure skating as a sport is a pretty conservative, traditional activity and the people who participate in it tend to be the same. There are rules governing clothing and, whether you agree with them or not, they have to followed if you want to participate in the sport.

I'm also beginning to wonder if it's not so much the clothing issue that's driving coaches away from you, but possibly something in your attitude, which comes across to me as rather "my way or the highway". It looks as if you just don't want a coach all that badly if you're not willing to compromise at all. How about agreeing to wear pants for your lesson and then wear whatever you want on practice?

And, IMO, a choice of clothing is far from being in the same league with race as an issue for discrimination. Clothing is a choice and something that can be changed depending on the situation. Race cannot.

ITA.

Steven, could you not agree to wear pants for lessons, and dresses/skirts for your own practice time?

ETA: Oops; I missed that blue111moon already suggested that!

__________________
~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

The rules govern competition, not lessons or practice. If he wants to take lessons in a dress, I don't see why that should be a problem. Honest to goodness, it's just fabric.

__________________
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
--Thomas Jefferson

www.signingtime.com ~sign language fun for all!