Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for April 07, 2016

Now that “Romeo” is a she, is she straight or gay?When she was he, was he an Alpha Romeo? ☺Back on Tuesday 5 April, I thought Bernice looked nice in the parka and boots.

what interesting friends Pru has

lol. right??

New poll up: Would you date “Tats”?

Describe your wardrobe1) 30 votes – “Me”2) 16 votes – Other3) 9 votes – “Um”4) 6 votes – Post Apocalypse5) 3 votes – Mad Max6) 3 votes – My Little PonyOther: Ancient and minimal; What’s a “Wardrobe”?; Comfortable; Exotic; Work: Suit. Play: Sweatsuit. Fun: Jeans; 1970’s; 16 Transformers T-shirts; Post Retirement Casual; LLBean with earrings; plain but comfortable shirts; Uniform; Evolving; Empty; I wear clothes and ignore people who talk of “wardrobes”; Clearance chic; My wardrobe is “Me”. Whatever that means?

Hey Luann, take a walk on the wild side….. Apologies to the late Lou Reed.

Hey Luann, take a walk on the wild side….. Apologies to the late Lou Reed.

Nancy probably feels like she’s in an alternate universe…

The can’t wait for Luann to go to Platos Retreat and the Steam Baths.

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Ugh.

Shouldn’t Romeo have changed her nickname to Juliet after the surgery?

Wherefore art it, Romeo?

I’m guessing that Luann & Berneice are going to go more the hot dog on Coney Island route.

Romeo found out Juliet was into girls?

Romeo made the choice after he found out that Juliette had just shaved her head, had her nose pierced and got a tattoo saying “Call Me BUTCH”.

Transgender people are not “He’s a she since the surgery” They are the gender they are before and after surgery. I know that Evans probably googled “How do lesbians talk and what do they wear?” before writing this series of strips, and probably stumbled onto non-binary gender and decided it would “relate to the youth of today.”

Or perhaps…   What’s in a name?That which we call a NoseBy any other name would smell,So Romeo would were he not Romeo called.

Pru, why don’t you just try to date Luann and see where this goes? Drinks are on me.

To me, it looks like Evans is building a ramp to jump a shark.

Luann seems to be open and enthusiastic about Prudence’s New York. But Bernice may not go along with meeting those theatre types. A potential, hidden opportunity for Bernice to develop social skills around different people. Or she could be snarky and go her separate way in the City.

It’s a science fact that transgendered people are real. It happens in the womb. When the chemical changes for sex occur, transgendered people get the body aspects, but the chemicals that change the brain (how it thinks, works, etc) don’t follow the plan. We are all created “female”, and when the sexual changes are suppose to occur, they affect only one part of the new human, either the body or the brain. So a girl baby can be born with the brain of a male, and vice versa. This is scientifically proven. And I also know from personal experience. My child was born with a penis, but always acted “girly”. I personally thought “he” was gay. But when puberty hit, and “he” was upset, because his body was changing differently than his brain said it was supposed to, I realized, I had a daughter, not a son. We are now working on changing it so my daughter can feel like a whole normal person. And really, when you think of it, it’s just basically a name change and some plastic surgery to make the outside fit the inside. The person themselves, the person you knew, has not changed. Just the outside. Is that really a reason to hate them when previously you loved them? Think about it.

Why would you believe Pru?

your typical Pru(ne). fun and unpredictable. wait til Bernice sees that list.

Bye. Screen doors and all that.

Transgender fun in NYC.Bite the Big Apple,don’t mind the maggots.

Maggots wouldn’t be in an apple. They feed on dead flesh.

“Is he cute?” Luann’s bottom line in life. Are we all like that?

I didn’t take Nancy for the literal type.

Now Romeo can play Romeo or Juliet depending on how s/he identifies that day.

OK. so what are the odds the “touring show” Quill joined is going to be touring NY?

Anyone???

Wow pru really is the sjw character.

Lu and Bern will see a part of NYC they never even dreamed about and will have a blast. Pru’s friends will take care of them…in a good way. When you get right down to it, I believe she has a good heart and so do her friends. Just hard working people who will be happy to show Pru’s friends their home city. And if they get to see some of the ‘touristy’ things & a couple of plays, bonus.

““♪♫ Me and Juleo down by the schoolyard…”

darn! you beat me by 10 minutes !!!!

Ok, this is just getting weird.

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore…

Okay, please, enough transgender jokes, now getting a little overdone. Except for @Kymberleigh – that was witty.

Hey Nancy? Don’t YOU wanna go along on this trip and….,Now, what was that ‘word?’ Oh yeah, ‘Chaperone!’

Besides, Old Frank can BANKRUPT the ‘FUZE’ All by Himself…..,

NYC, one stop shopping

I always liked Luann, to bad.

Now entering The Twilight Zone?

Okay, now I am done. Must everything be polluted by this agenda?

That’s too bad – well, there are a lot of great places to visit across the United States other than New York.

Holly came from Miami F.L.A.Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.Plucked her eyebrows on the wayShaved her legs and then he was a sheShe said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side,Said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side.

Somebody tell me what happened to Delta???

6So, today we see that the folks Pru is suggesting Luann and Bernie hang with are all “theatrical types”. Interesting.I still hope that Luann and Bernice do not take ONLY Pru’s advice on what to do and see in NYC. I would think it would be great for them to spend a PART of their trip doing SOME of the things Pru is suggesting, because I think it will be off the beaten path and give them both some very interesting and valuable memories. But, ALSO, I think the two of them need to keep a sizable amount of the more “touristy” things they were both thinking about as well. Touristy things are NOT necessarily bad… in fact many can be great and memorable as well. I strongly suggest they take an intermediate approach…. much of what they initially envisioned with some of Pru’s ideas added.

Re: 2 late discussions yesterday:1. earth native, i just left you a message in yesterday’s comments section2. Brd, i think your daughter has many reasons to consider her dad to be cool! (If she goes through some degree of a different time in part of her teens then just wait for her 20s and all will be well again, since teens need to grow into some independence but after having it the young adults understand more.)

Hey! Maybe on the trip they’ll meet Edda and Amos and the rest of the cast from 9 Chickwood Lane next door. And they’ll wonder who the feckless airheads from the flyover territory are and why they can’t figure out the subway turnstile……

“is not done on the fly”

I thought that’s exactly where it was done!!!

I have a feeling that Mom will nix the NY trip.

no, the trip will go on. She is actually safer with Pru’s theater friends than being on her own. Bern and Luann will be just fine.

People are people are people are people. We live on a number of continua and very few discrete points. We vary in interests, heights, colorations, genders (more than two since there are variations from the more typical presentations such as intergender and chimera individuals), gender orientations, partner preferences, music selections, what shows we watch, who we vote for, weights, body build, ancestry, how different our phenotypes are from our genotypes, in what areas we have expertise, how we dress, and so much more. We are all just still people, nothing more and nothing less, and people’s own constructive life choices need to be respected including when different from ours, because ultimately all that matters is that we do some good in our lives and are respectful and loving.

Just listen to the song “Teach Your Children,” Mom. You and Dad did a good job, time to give Luann some space.

NG writes:Dr.s on their own have decided which gender a person is if they are not a definite male or female.

Sometimes. Sometimes parents or a combo have. Other times intergender people have been permitted to be intergender. Needing to have one of only two gender options on legal documents has been uncomfortable for some of them. (Legalities need to catch up with biological realities.) i have known two intergender people in my life who i knew were intergender. One grew up with some of my relatives, another who also has left this world was a friend i met as an adult who felt safe with me after the topic came up in a veterinary discussion.

Life has more varients than many people know, and people are just people are just people with all of us living on many continua.

Take a walk on the wild side!

Another thing many people do not realize is that both genders have and use both estrogens and androgens. The proportions differ (including over time), estrogens are the older hormones and serve more types of functions (including in brain function), the body can change hormones back and forth to and from each other, other tissues besides reproductive ones produce these two groups of hormones (examples: adrenal cortex and fat), and there are both natural and human made compounds in the environment which can fit the same receptors in tge body.

Yes, NG, you are right. I also have read of that happening. Maybe a decade ago i read of a movement in the intergender community to encourage physicians and parents to not assign a gender to intergender minors, but instead let them decide as adults if they wanted to remain intergender or select an alternative. I have no idea how many gave that consideration.

I smiled late last night at your messages, Brd!

Yes, you are right also about endocrine disruptors, NG

What i see happening in the comic strip are people each trying to do something good, but with possibly differing definitions of what “good” means. Ultimately, as they pick and choose, and hopefully assert their self-sovreignty Luann and Bernice will grow.

This is such new territory for Luann and for comics in family newspapers in general. I congratulate Greg Evans for finding a wonderful, non-threatening (except for troglodytes) way to introduce gay characters (now for a self-identifying gay male) and now transgender ones, or at least the idea. I will not get into arguments about transgender, I am a strong believer in social justice, civil rights, and I am a modern Christian, which means that all are meant to be loved, no one deserves to be judged negatively or with hate for who they really are, and all should be able to seize their destiny and be happy without hate. I don’t know a lot about transgender although I have some people I have known who have changed (is that the right term?) but regrettably I never got close enough to really talk to and get to know them personally. I hope I still get the chance at my somewhat advanced age.

That being said, one other point I want to make is that it appears that Luann and Bernice are about to get introduced to people who work in the New York theater scene. These are brilliant, talented, hard-working, but not at all middle of the road type people. They tend to be very tolerant, have very strong views about things—think Whoopie Goldberg, or Nathan Lane—and if you get to know them you will never be bored. They are perfectly fine more moral than most, although sexually they might be kind of free-spirited, and it would definitely widen the world of these young women. I also think Greg has a new love interest coming along, one that will make all of Luann’s prior love interests seem like little boys in comparison including the Aussie. Will he really be prepared to give her what SHE wants and needs? And if so would he come back to Podunk ville for her, when he has New York, the global city.

Bet!!

Thanks, Brd! The topic itself is an interesting one in its many variants. I will go see that link!

Really? All I know is that I am 100% straight by one definition, although I know we all have endocrine hormones of the opposite sex, and don’t attack me if I used not quite the right words, I am a retired lawyer, community college business professor, not a chemist, nurse, or biologist!!! She turns me own everything I see her skinny, short-haired, now in he 60’s personna,

Hey speak for yourself. I love females and everything about them. I hope we finally get our first female president in Hillary Clinton, and not a Sarah Palin, but they both are variations on the usual boring males. Although Michelle Bachman, or even though she is not running for anything, Anne Coulter, do cause me to modify that overall sunny opinion I have on women (lol). Yayyy Michelle Obama!!! I guess everyone will figure out where I am on the political/social spectrum!!

Oh Romeo, Romeo, WHAT-fore art thou?

At least Romeo had the surgery before saying she was a Romea. I try to be open minded, but I think one transitioning co-worker did it right— he wore dresses and make-up but called himself “Mr” and used the men’s room until he had the surgical change. We all got to see how he was doing and no one was confused. And post-surgery, it was a relief to use “she”.

Greg, Please tell us what you did with a Delta!

We are delving deeper into sexual identities than I would have predicted. It is IMO a good thing to do so, as long as we are not exhausted by it all.

Glad Mom was not “too cool” to intervene in which her daughter may be exposed to trouble.

Night Gaunt… you are correct that all males came from the female body plan…. if you speak of mammals. Interestingly enough, for many bird species (chickens for instance), it is the reverse…. the male body plan is the “default setting”.

Congratulations on winning the Dragoncat Award for Best LOL!

Can’t wait to meet ’Ecstacy"…

Romeo, Romeo, wherefor art the rest of thee?

This strips going Gay

Welcome to Overthinker’s Anonymous – Today we’re going to try not analyze Hamlet . . . But first, four hours on a comic strip . . .

No, he’s a she since she came out. Surgery doesn’t change what people want to be called.

Also why is she looking at a piece of paper? This would all be done on a phoneYou’d think that a guy with a name like “old timey dude” would like stuff done on paper.Judging by the recent posts on your profile, maybe you need to change your name to old whiny dude.

In their day, Curtis and Leigh were one of Hollywood’s up-and-coming couples, two successful, ambitious, famous people who appeared to have it all, with that ‘all’ including a happy marriage and two fine children. (As is often the case, appearances were deceiving: Curtis and Leigh divorced in 1962 after eleven years of marriage, and there were more difficult times ahead for both of them.) It’s thus possible that the current rumor about Jamie Lee stems from an ancient backlash against her parents, long-ago envy expressed as a slander about what the union of two “perfect” people had produced. Just as the fox decries as sour the grapes that hang out of his reach, so might meanspirited folks fed up with hearing about the beautiful people spread a rumor that cuts these stars down to size.

Two facts lend an aura of credence to the rumor that Jamie Lee was born with both male and female bodyparts. The first is her two-way name: According to the rumor, a boyish appellation was bestowed upon her by parents who hadn’t yet decided whether to have a boy or a girl “made” of their baby and wanted to be prepared to go either way, but that wasn’t the case of it. Janet Leigh explained how she came to choose the name: At that time, we didn’t know ahead of time if it would be a girl or a boy, so when I was pregnant with Kelly, my best friend Jackie Gershwin said, “Why don’t you call the baby Kelly, so if it’s a girl, it works, and if it’s a boy, it works?” And she thought the same thing with Jamie. The babies were named before they were born because Jackie said, “This way, we won’t have to worry about it!”If the names were truly chosen before the children arrived, that puts paid to the notion that ‘Jamie Lee’ was so christened in response to a medical condition that would only have been discovered after her delivery. (Jamie Lee Curtis was born long before the development of medical technology that could identify dual-gendered fetuses.)

The second fact that supports the rumor is Ms. Curtis’ own children: They’re adopted. Though couples opt for adoptive children over natural progeny for any number of reasons, it is true the operation necessary to correct dual gendering in a female infant would leave her unable to bear children.

Degrees of intersexuality vary in intensity from presence of an additional Y chromosome to being born with a mixed set of genitals. Treatment of cases of blatant intersexuality is generally (but not always) surgical in nature, with reconstruction performed on the infant patient to add or remove body parts so as to end up with a child completely male or female in physical appearance. Hormones are also given towards this end, but there is a limit to what can be corrected medically. Though an appearance of sexual normalcy can be constructed, fully functional reproductive organs cannot.

According to Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, a recognized expert in this field of study, 1-1/2 to 2 percent of all births do not fall strictly within the tight definition of all-male or all-female, even if the child looks “normal.” In reaching her numbers, Dr. Fausto-Sterling is counting all incidents of intersexuality, from mild to extreme. The incidence of children with mixed genitalia is pegged at 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 3,000, or 0.033 to 0.05 percent of all births.

(Many technical names have been assigned to describe sexual ambiguity, including testicular feminization, transgendered, and androgen insensitivity syndrome. Rather than get bogged down here in descriptions of them, we direct readers to follow the link in the “Additional Information” section of this page for further discussion of the subject.)

Intersexuality is a reality; some children are ambiguously gendered at birth. However, one particular point needs to be made, and made quite vehemently:

The existence of such medical conditions s not reason in itself to suppose that Jamie Lee Curtis has any of them. Using the one to bolster belief in the second is akin to claiming the existence of the Atlantic Ocean somehow proves a particular ship sank in it.

It is a telling commentary on the skewed importance we give any matter relating to sexuality that this rumor exists at all. Numerous children come into the world less than perfectly formed, yet no stigma is attached to those who require surgery to repair a malfunctioning heart, a disorder of the digestive system, or almost any other condition unrelated to gender. Yet when the question of sexuality is raised, it’s all whispers behind hands and meaningful looks. Barbara “unfit for humane consumption” Mikkelson

This has been the weirdest (and most poorly drawn) series ever. I can’t wait until we’re done with Pru and get on with it.

Gonna go listen to some Lou Reed and Velvet Underground while I wait…

I nominate Team Evans for the Star Trek Award.*They go where no family comics have ever gone before.

< Cackle! > Yeah, you rock, Greg! Welcome to the Land of the free (and progressive!) If your fans kvetch, or defect, there will be others to replace them. Viva la Evolution! Carpe diem! …… (Believe it or not you & yours are inspiring me to move forward with my scary, & thrilling, new photo book project! Thanks!!)

Of the about 270 comics at Go Comics only a baker’s dozen have over 100,000 subscribers. That includes Luann with 110,245. Obviously, something very right is happening. The topics and the crowd reading Luann also wind up with rich conversations in the comments section and many of them. That also indicates that something very right is going on.

Calm down, Nancy. Luann has nothing to fear from Pru’s friends. On the other hand, the mean streets of NYC could be worrisome unless she has constant company!

"When have you had anything good to say about this strip? "

actually, if you check his profile, he never said anything good about ANY strip. it’s his modus-operandi.

“You know he’s only posting that to get a certain reaction, don’t you?”

we seem to have recently acquired a couple or three such “people”. The one repeatedly moaning about Delta is another such.

“I am guessing that you were not valedictorian in your class.”

funny, I wouldn’t have associated the word “class” in any context with the poster.

From the perspective of endocrinologist, the rumors concerning Jamie Lee Curtis are suggestive that if she has a gender disorder, it would have to be Andrgen Insensitivity. Her body type is so stereotypically female that of the potential disorders, this the only one that would fit. Other disorders lead to more intermediate body morphologies. Again the rumors may or may not be true, but if true that is the only form that fits.

If Nancy wants to be protective w/out getting the teens’ hackles up i can think of two sneaky options, both of which have been discussed here before, but not recently:1. Knowing it is an easy Amtrak ride between DC and NYC, mention the upcoming trip to Delta’s mom2. If Ben is near NYC mention to Bernice’s parents how very much fun Bernice and Luann had with him during his visit.

SPOILER ALERT

Some interesting pillow talk, but not from those you might have been expecting to see…

My oh my… what interesting friends you have?

Wonder why Greg is dumping us in to the gay thing. Lot better story lines out there. Must be a political thing your pushing.

Romeo didn’t need to have “The Surgery” to be a woman. All you need is gender dysphoria. “The Surgery” is $20,000. Some college aged chick can afford that, she’s doing all right. She was a woman before she had “The Surgery” and if you guys waited to call her “her” just because of that, you are all dicks.

A better question would be why does it make you uncomfortable? Hmm?

Insulting to theater people and the trans community, cool. Nice exposure, but maybe like… know something about things before you start namedropping. Is there some uber elite theater group I never heard of in the course of obtaining my theater degree in which you prove your theatrical worthiness by taking on a strange name? _