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NY Times Op-ed naval-gazing about how you can be trans if everyone isn't constantly affirming it

submitted by odiusgay man from nytimes.com

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[–]NutterButterFlutterStill waving into the void[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Removing for rule 2. This would be better suited for s/GenderCritical, s/GenderCriticalGuys, or s/ThereAreTwoGenders

[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman🇬🇧🌳🟦 23 insightful - 1 fun23 insightful - 0 fun24 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

'Shelby' from 'Out West' sums it up remarkably succinctly:

It is difficult to share how remarkably self-indulgent this piece feels to me without signalling that I have an issue with transgender folks. In truth, I probably do have some issue, but it is born not of dislike but of lack of exposure. Still, the obsession with gender, the thought that the waitstaff is even remotely interested in your gender pronouns, the whole world-view that everything revolves around your gender, how you define it and how others may define it, seems to me to be painfully unhealthy.

Gender dysphoria must be very challenging. So are many conditions. But I wish we could dial back the drama a bit - dial back the need to feel victimized. Because the truth is, Alex, that anyone you would want as a friend in your life really doesn't care how you define your gender. Just live your life, dude.

[–][deleted] 21 insightful - 3 fun21 insightful - 2 fun22 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

More confirming that gender is just stereotypes and is absolutely not an innate part of someone.

No longer on the alert for how to signal a restaurant’s waitstaff that neither “he” nor “she” applied to me

Fuck she sounds insufferable. Imagine being so insecure about yourself that you harass random waitstaff over your pronouns that they're probably never even going to fucking use for you.

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 10 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It's because their identity is defined by being special. These people have nothing unique about them, so they insist that every little thing they do that isn't exactly what sexists would expect of them proves they're special and unique. This person in the article literally says that being different was what this was all about, which is why having no one to be different from made things difficult. Ironically, the people who claim to be the most independant of societal norms and expectations are the most reliant on it for their identity. A stereotipical man still likes sports and power tools even when he can't see his buds and talk about them while drinking beer, but these snowflakes can't differentiate themselves from that stereotypical man if there are no men nearby to differentiate from.

When your entire personality is "I'm not like other____," then you have no personality

[–]censorshipment 13 insightful - 7 fun13 insightful - 6 fun14 insightful - 7 fun -  (1 child)

This gave me a good chuckle. To sum it up, she wants what she considers to be the most important part of her life to matter... but it doesn't during a pandemmy. She wants to be "misgendered" in order to correct (and embarrass) people and to rant about transphobia. Smfh lol these mofos are so boring when their identity isn't the center of attention. They're basic with a lack of personalities.

[–]wafflegaffWoman. SuperBi. 10 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

She's missing her stage and her spotlight. And saying so with a straight face.

[–]Dromedary 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ugh, the NYTimes drives me crazy. I grew up with it on the kitchen table all the way to today digitally, it's a hard habit to break, but I find it excruciating to read now. Every article is hyper-woke as fck, forget there being any alternative viewpoint to TRA ideology presented. (This is from a paper that didn't allow the word "gay" to be used until 1986 - we were "homosexuals" because the editor HATED us. Now they call us queers. Such progress! ) Same with critical race theory- anything less than excoriating the US as a genocidal white supremacist hellhole now and forever will not be accepted. Gay people= pshaw! We're the privileged oppressors now, to be buried under an avalanche of letters.

Funny thing- Pete Buttigieg takes a Cabinet office and it's described as "a victory for the LGBTQIA+ community"- the word "gay" does not appear. Then a truly shitty article in The Baffler, promoted a lot on Twitter, is about "Gay Imperialism". Why not "Queer Imperialism"? The Times uses that slur really freely by the way. Why isn't it "LGBTQIA+ Imperialism"? I see this a lot lately, this idea now: Gay Men Are Bad. (Lesbians are okay I guess, unless they reject ladydick, then they are TWANSPHOBES and bad, too.)

Everyone the Times covers is the same sort: ultrawoke, painfully earnest, strenuously multi-culti, expensively over-educated and postmodern and hipster and Brooklyn and twee and bourgeois. This is the Times's target dream reader, all this but with LOTS of money, preferably family money for that awesome loft where artistes craft their pottery, or that Hudson Valley farm where boho yuppies play at being hip farmers.

These complaints have always existed about the Times, but WOW it's intensified and pervades EVERYthing they cover, with an extreme humorlessness. Extreme Wokeness is the new establishment conservatism, you have to follow their rules. I'm a gay man who considered himself very liberal, but these days wow, I feel such opposition to this extremism I'm wondering if I'm going conservative.

[–]pancakewaffleSip the nuance 11 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Holy shit, I feel dumb after reading that. My personal favorite is:

pursued a second gender-affirming surgery, a Brazilian butt lift

Is that really gender affirming? After all the talk about privilege they hit you with that one, then ramble on about a legislative attack that is stripping away "access to gender-affirming health care".

[–]IridescentAnacondastrictly dickly 12 insightful - 2 fun12 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I love this opinion piece because it reveals how much of this gender nonsense is driven by the ego (in the Buddhist sense of the term - the monkey mind, the false consciousness).

Alex was forced against their will to undergo something like a spiritual retreat, in which they discovered that gender (like so many other ephemeral aspects of what we think is "reality") was really an illusion. Unfortunately, they ignored the discovery and pushed on in the delusion.

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

When your entire existence is based on the idea that you're different from someone or something else, then you have no real personality. A real interest/personality trait, such as someone liking sports or makeup or looking at architecture, stays even when there's no one nearby. Those interests are based on an objective thing, so a football or lipstick or cool ornamentation can be enjoyed without comparing it or yourself to someone else. But whe your entire personality is based on the idea that you're not like other people, then you have no real personality and it disappears the moment the other people are no longer there for you to differentiate yourself from. This person isn't unique, they're just a narcissistic asshole that doesn't like when there's no one else nearby to insult.

[–]chupacabrawitchI'm super thanks for asking 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This article reeks of narcissism...If no one is watching and giving me constant attention, then how will I live??

[–]wafflegaffWoman. SuperBi. 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

"Coming out as a woman" is not a thing.

I asked both Ms. Minor and Mx. Slarii what they hope we carry forward as a society from this pandemic time, and to my surprise they gave the same answer. What they wish for on this year’s International Day of Transgender Visibility is us to be able to see one another, and ourselves, with a more compassionate and nuanced eye. Not as what society tells us we must be, but as who we are.

Super! They can stop giving us labels we don't need, throwing projection epithets at us, and homophobically telling us to want "girl dick." Can't wait.

[–]grixit 5 insightful - 5 fun5 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 5 fun -  (1 child)

If a tree falls in the forest with no one to see how it identifies, is it still valid?

[–]MarkJeffersonTight defenses and we draw the line 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Lol exactly

[–]chandra 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

With the gender binary all but gone, what did it mean to be nonbinary?

Non-binary summed up in a single sentence. For them to be special and complex and interesting requires the majority of us to be simple, cookie-cutter men and women who've never had an independent thought in our lives. It's an adolescent way of thinking.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've been saying this shit for years now.

A gay person can exist in a vacuum. Transgender people need constant "validation" through coercion of everyone else's thoughts.

It's crazy when they just come out and say it. It isn't that they "are" the opposite sex. They need "to be seen as" the opposite sex.

[–]JoeyJoeJoe 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

"naval" = pertaining to the navy. "navel" = belly button.

[–]odiusgay man[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes I noticed this after I made the post.

[–]wafflegaffWoman. SuperBi. 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That one kept giving a server error when trying to archive, so I did it by hand: https://imgur.com/a/QVrTGAs

[–]TheBitchinAccounting 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is barely related, but two of my former classmates - who are nearly 30 - have recently come out as non-binary. They are both feminine heterosexual women who, of course, got "the cut" and dyed their hair rainbow colors but still very much present as women (though one says she eventually wants to get top surgery).

Both of them say they used their free time during the pandemic to "explore" their gender (read: Tumblr and related forums). It's interesting that many trans and non-binary identified people backtracked during the pandemic, while many others used it as an impetus to identify as such. It's still clear that this is a huge social trend, rather than gender dysphoria.

[–]our_team_is_winning 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Both of them say they used their free time during the pandemic to "explore" their gender

And they are nearly 30!?!?!? Millions of us were (and are) struggling with a huge loss of income and our world being turned upside down, and these women pushing 30 have time to play on the GenderNet and act like immature 13 year olds trying to be edgy. "First World Problems" doesn't begin to describe it.