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There's an uphill battle here
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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So I'm gonna make some assumptions here to make this point, and I'm also gonna admit I'm a big old lefty and what I'm about to say even makes me a little uncomfortable (I'm working on it).
So first I am going to presume that you are male and not totally jacked or otherwise in amazing shape. What if you were in going to get take out and some called you Ms. Flax? You might say "it's actually Mr. Flax thx" and then they say "well, you're in pretty poor shape Ms. Flax... Men are jacked and you arent jacked... So... ?". This is patently shitty yeah? It's the same thing you have to go on if you hear anyone ask you to use different pronouns: the only way you can know for sure is to do a visual inspection of goods or a blood test. There is literally no circumstance where that would be ok. Now what is that was not once, but many interactions. If you weren't miffed to start, I bet it starts making you put out. I can understand that.
Now extend it to bathrooms. Do you usually card people in your house for the toilet or see it happen at restaurants? What if now it's on you to bench press 300 lb or you need to go sit in the girls room? It's demoralizing. It literally costs you nothing to just let someone go take a leak. You are at greater risk of some R/Tory going in to the bathroom with your kid to take some pictures than someone with some current or past gender identity issues (resolved or unresolved) who has to take a shit.
It is not always super easy. Even I sometimes see a really square jaw and broad shoulders and a skirt and it makes me uncomfortable for a split second until I remember I don't have any obligation but to call them what they want to be called and treat that person like a person. Then, it's just not that big of a deal.
Thank you for taking the time to not scream at me.
I have received verbal abuse in the past for having longer hair. Ironically it was transphobic abuse despite me not being trans. But I also had a toxic friend group which tried to pressure me into being trans. They kept talking about hating men, their pronouns, etc. I made a vague notion of being non-binary as I wasn't one of these "evil" men they were talking about and wasn't very masculine either. They took it and ran with it and basically started insulting cis men saying it's okay because I'm "not a cis man". At the time I was very affirming of transgender people. I advocated for their preferred pronoun use, rights to use preferred bathrooms, etc. It wasn't until they started talking about neopronouns and I began to look into it and debate it rather than straight accept it that they all kicked me out. I also had another friend who detransitioned. I also realised the comments online saying stuff like "billions must trans their gender" weren't a joke. I realised it had become some sort of social dogma which you cannot dare question, and a peer pressure element and sometimes a trauma element. The same movement I was trying to appease would fundamentally hate me anyway as well.
By calling someone by their preferred pronouns or letting them use a preferred bathroom, I am affirming them. But I don't believe anymore that I should be affirming them or telling them that they're correct and this is the right thing for them. I'd prefer to use gender neutral they/them pronouns as to not make them explicitly uncomfortable because they have a right to be comfortable, but I don't think it's right to play along with their emotional turmoil. Maybe I am wrong and genuine gender dysphoria does exist, but the trans people I interacted with, the ones claiming to be men acted like women and the ones claiming to be women acted like men. I don't believe in it anymore.
You are within your rights to do how you want, but you'll catch some hell.
I know 6 people in the trans community now, none of whom have "detransitioned" and none of whose judgement I would question. I was lucky to spend a long time in both boarding school and college and every trans person I know was and is of unimpeachable character and intellect. My argument to you is that it cost you nothing to trust that any person is their own best judge of their needs and perspectives. In the worst case, you end up on a position to have a frank discussion with someone you have always supported. If the shoe were on the other foot, I know I would feel pretty salty if my friends or acquaintances thought they knew my struggles better than I did.
There's nothing to be gained from yelling at you or anyone else who isn't "on board", but just like other social issues, I don't think it's the job of your friendly neighborhood trans person to explain to you either (and that's a totally separate tough place to get to). I would rather step up and try my best to do that role myself.
I don't really want to make transgender people explain themselves. Because I don't think it would be productive randomly sharing my opinion with them unsolicited and making it personal. I don't see how it would help either or be productive. Every trans person I've know or have known has had other things going on underlying, quite often they were the victims of sexual abuse as well. It's kind of hard seeing someone do something unhealthy yet you know if you point it out to them they'd be deeply hurt, because of society telling them they should be.