Roughly 25 and a half years ago, my Scottish mother gave birth to me and my paternal father, also Scottish, was there as well. I was born with a penis and as such the doctor recorded that I was a male on my birth certificate.

Later in life I had to come to a realisation of whether I wanted to become romantically involved with males, females, both or neither. I chose females as that's what felt natural to me and I haven't considered changing this.

Oh, and that penis I mentioned earlier? Yeah I still have that, as well as my balls, and I have not considered changing my designated gender.

I am also a reasonably open-minded person. I do not think that anyone is better or worse for having a different sexual preference than me, nor if they were born to different nationality or race of parents, or if they have decided to change the designation of the gender that they were given by a doctor at birth.

This is all well and good, but where does this lead to?

Well, on social networks, if you choose to comment or express an opinion, then you are usually displaying slightly more personal info about yourself than on a message board or anonymous commenting facility. Up until a few years ago this did not really matter, but in recent years I have noticed a trend of people in a similar situation to me, when expressing opinions or making some kind of comment or statement, will often get this kind of response:

'Yeah well you only think that because you're white hetero male cis scum #checkyourprivilege'

Bear in mind this is not anonymous feedback you're receiving: people who are displaying their real names and profile pictures are saying this, so it doesn't really come under the definition of anonymous trolling. But what it boils down to is that if you are born into a position of perceived privilege then you don't get to have an opinion.

I don't see this as a tactic for 'winning an argument'. There seems to be a growing mentality where unless you can claim you are not privileged, then you do not get to participate in the discussion of society, democracy or politics.

What has spurred me to create this thread is in recent months, the satire website The Onion has come under fire for its satirisation of events that were notable to the African-American community (The murder of Trayvon Martin being a recent one). The main complaint has been that the Onion has not treated these events with the sensitivity that such news stories might require, given the fact that anti-black laws are still very much in the living memory of much of the USA's population. This has led to some claiming that the Onion is racist or is orchestrating a racist agenda.

Some people - from all backgrounds - have attempted to defend the Onion and that it is colorblind in who or what it chooses to satirise. For those condemning the Onion, instead of reasonably replying to such defences, simply point that those defending the Onion are privileged and cis and so do not get to have an opinion.

Anyway, thoughts? Does my penis and whiteness mean my opinions are invalid, or are my opinions just shit? Answers to the usual address.

*disclaimer - this is not an attack on feminists or LGBTs, just on people, many of whom are white male cis, who use this line of attack to shut down healthy discussion.

It is also not an attack on those who legitimately call out someone who is cis or hetero who has unsavoury opinions on LGBT.