Rings pretty true in the face of trans advocacy. In our case it’s really hard to fight a very simple take on something that seems like an easy “fact” because to do so depends on an understanding of a pretty specific psychological condition that dovetails into some complex social and philosophical principles and a history of how we got medically to the place we are in regarding treatment that really weren’t mainstream knowledge… And still kind of aren’t because people are more easily sold 90’s mad scientist logic over the structures that exist.
Like trans folls and their loved ones often become versed in psychology, phillosophy, history and sometimes endocrinology as a matter of survival. It’s way more efficient for most people who don’t need to constantly defend their quality of life to just shut it all down and repeat the thought terminating cliches, feel like they are the arbiters of truth while leaving damn near everything on the table untouched.
I relate very hard to it being like fighting the gravity of low mental resource allocation. It can feel like being crushed.
Oh yeah being trans throws a whole lot of heavy thinking at people. The worst kind: having to rewrite long-settled assumptions. I find it pretty easy to modify my long held definitions of gender. It’s really just recognizing the difference between sex and gender, which I’ve always known. But even I struggle to remember pronouns and names for people I have known all my life who then transitioned. And I’m willing and trying. There are folks with no trans people in their (probably very small) immediate lives and they just can’t overcome that gravity to make the change, don’t see why they should have to bother, and this leads directly to them trying to cancel the entire category of thought. It’s depressing as fuck to see people get up and fight to defend their mental laziness.
I mean for a lot of people it’s pretty easy to understand once it’s someone they care about.
If a random salesperson calling your friend ma’am makes her whole damn week why wouldn’t you do that for someone you care about?
I feel like half the issue with a lot of advocacy is we go a little too far into the intellectual stuff? I mean it definitely helps to know that the ethical underpinnings of the movement are epicurean but like… You go over someone’s head you rarely get em in the heart.
Rings pretty true in the face of trans advocacy. In our case it’s really hard to fight a very simple take on something that seems like an easy “fact” because to do so depends on an understanding of a pretty specific psychological condition that dovetails into some complex social and philosophical principles and a history of how we got medically to the place we are in regarding treatment that really weren’t mainstream knowledge… And still kind of aren’t because people are more easily sold 90’s mad scientist logic over the structures that exist.
Like trans folls and their loved ones often become versed in psychology, phillosophy, history and sometimes endocrinology as a matter of survival. It’s way more efficient for most people who don’t need to constantly defend their quality of life to just shut it all down and repeat the thought terminating cliches, feel like they are the arbiters of truth while leaving damn near everything on the table untouched.
I relate very hard to it being like fighting the gravity of low mental resource allocation. It can feel like being crushed.
Oh yeah being trans throws a whole lot of heavy thinking at people. The worst kind: having to rewrite long-settled assumptions. I find it pretty easy to modify my long held definitions of gender. It’s really just recognizing the difference between sex and gender, which I’ve always known. But even I struggle to remember pronouns and names for people I have known all my life who then transitioned. And I’m willing and trying. There are folks with no trans people in their (probably very small) immediate lives and they just can’t overcome that gravity to make the change, don’t see why they should have to bother, and this leads directly to them trying to cancel the entire category of thought. It’s depressing as fuck to see people get up and fight to defend their mental laziness.
I mean for a lot of people it’s pretty easy to understand once it’s someone they care about.
If a random salesperson calling your friend ma’am makes her whole damn week why wouldn’t you do that for someone you care about?
I feel like half the issue with a lot of advocacy is we go a little too far into the intellectual stuff? I mean it definitely helps to know that the ethical underpinnings of the movement are epicurean but like… You go over someone’s head you rarely get em in the heart.