LifestyleMy lesbian friend is now trans and is trying to convince me that I am too

submitted by SillyGoose from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]reluctant_commenter 34 insightful - 1 fun34 insightful - 0 fun35 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Hey. Just wanted to say, I'm a few years older than you but same generation I think, and I relate a ton to this and I know others who are a similar age who are in the same boat. I've also gotten shit from people my age for calling myself "lesbian" because it made them uncomfortable.

Your trans-identifying friend is being extremely disrespectful, and hurtful. Especially about your eating disorder; I am so sorry that someone you reached out to for support is sitting there trying to diagnose you with gender dysphoria instead of listening to your own lived experience.

#1. First, I think it's important to set a boundary with your trans-identifying friend about identity. A few possible responses, if she's bothering you:

  • "I am happy living as a woman. My identity is important to me, and I happen to be lesbian. Can you accept me for who I am?"

  • "I understand that you identify as transgender, but I do not."

  • "My relationship with my body has nothing to do with gender dysphoria. Please stop insisting that it does."

  • "My relationship with my body is different than your relationship with your body. It's just not gender dysphoria for me. You have to trust me."

If she truly refuses to respect your boundaries about your identity and body, and keeps insisting that you must be trans, then it may be a good idea to start spending less time with her-- or at least, to not talk about your body image with her. That sounds like a really vulnerable subject (and BTW, I'm proud of you for talking about it with someone and thinking about it!), and it's hurtful that she's not listening to you when you say it's not gender dysphoria.

#2. To answer your question...

Will things get better or worse in college?

...it depends. On several things:

  • On the college you go to. Some have a lot more pressure for people to identify as trans.

  • On the people you hang out in college. I hung out with some alphabet soup crazies, some cool LGB people, and some straight people who shared my hobbies. I had a great time with the latter two groups, and avoided acquaintances who tried to pressure me into doing things that I said I was not comfortable with. Actually this extends beyond just LGB issues, your "friends" should not be pressuring you to say that you are X or to do Y when you're not X or are not comfortable with Y.

  • On the courses you take. I did a lot of STEM stuff in college and took 0 gender studies classes and I think I avoided a lot of bullshit that way. Reading course descriptions or syllabi BEFORE enrolling in the class helped me a lot in avoiding TQ+ nonsense.

  • On the college's location. Some countries, and some regions of liberal countries especially, are just more likely to have TQ+ people who pressure LGB people into identifying as transgender.

Please feel free to comment or message if you have questions or want to talk more. This is a really hard position to be in, but I believe you can get through this-- and that more broadly, we'll all get through the TQ+ craze and to the other side of the tunnel. :) I'm rooting for you!

edit: added a few details

[–]SillyGoose[S] 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

I really appreciate how thorough this is. I think you are right. I have been very gentle with telling her that I am content in my womanhood since I do worry about upsetting her, but I suppose it is within my right to be honest if she is upsetting me. She is a really good friend when we aren't talking about all the gender stuff though.

In terms of college, I am pretty deep in the research process, so I'm not going to change my plans, but I realize that the schools I am interested in may not be the best for LGB in hindsight. I know they are really liberal, but that may mean TQ would dominate over LGB. I know pronouns in email signatures, introductions, and even pronoun buttons are things I have seen in marketing and on college visits. I don't really have other options though, since I know I want to go to a selective liberal arts school and they are pretty much all the same in terms of being woke and social justice hotspots. Anyway, if I may ask, do you know how bad things are with non-STEM classes/humanities classes? I am good with science but I kind of hate it so I was considering studying history/political science since that feeds well into law school, but I realize that poli sci probably attracts a lot of woke people. I'm not super invested in the subject I suppose, I just know I want to be an attorney. I know that may vary from place to place, but I'm sure you know a lot more than I do. Sorry for the longer response.

[–]gadflyinajar 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

It depends on the quality of school, but I don't mean to discourage you when I say that any non-STEM classes that I'm aware of are currently barely even what they say they are. Things like poli-sci and history border on the worst, next to Sociology. My sociology class (which was mandatory) taught me, directly from the textbook, that there were two kinds of research in the field. The first is the scientific method. The second is "Intuitive Retrospective", where you look at data, and try to figure out through your "lived experience" what you think the cause of the correlations are. This is a logical fallacy, and they are currently filling up scientific journals with drek based on this reasoning at a lightning pace.

This is maybe fine, just a bit frustrating for a while, keeping in mind that you don't seem to care much about the classes this impacts. Just keeping your head down and answering the questions the way they want you to answer will get you through it. I never took any classes on law, but I imagine when you get to something based on the concrete present rules of law they can't gaslight you. Try to keep in mind that teachers are people too, I'm in my early 20s and already many of my friends are on the professor track. I love them, but these people are not the brilliant genius tweed-jacket intellectuals who can never be wrong that academia thinks they are. These people are not much older than you. If you've got a good head on your shoulders you can often realize whether or not what they're saying makes any sense at all, so do your own research and remember how to think. That should also serve you well as an attorney.

[–]reluctant_commenter 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

My sociology class (which was mandatory) taught me, directly from the textbook, that there were two kinds of research in the field. The first is the scientific method. The second is "Intuitive Retrospective", where you look at data, and try to figure out through your "lived experience" what you think the cause of the correlations are. This is a logical fallacy, and they are currently filling up scientific journals with drek based on this reasoning at a lightning pace.

Holy shit! That is a real trip. I've heard some crazy stories out of friends' sociology classes (don't want to risk doxxing or I'd share lol), but that's really extreme. I took an anthropology class and it wasn't that bad, but I think there may be different norms between the two fields.

Try to keep in mind that teachers are people too, I'm in my early 20s and already many of my friends are on the professor track. I love them, but these people are not the brilliant genius tweed-jacket intellectuals who can never be wrong that academia thinks they are. These people are not much older than you. If you've got a good head on your shoulders you can often realize whether or not what they're saying makes any sense at all, so do your own research and remember how to think.

Agreed, it's important not to idealize professors. Research is awesome, but humans in every field are fallible.

[–]gadflyinajar 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, we wonder why our arguments aren't getting through to these nutjobs, but it's because they're basically taught a 2+2=5 approach to reasoning. I could scarcely believe it, I might try and find the textbook this is taken from. The fact that I could so easily read the paragraph describing this "method" and see it as plainly ridiculous, and yet it made it into the book feels like gaslighting. Somehow it made it through enough editors, professors, and schoolboard committees to be "prescribed", so what right have I to criticize it? Is it more likely that I'm right and all these people are wrong? These days I worry more and more that I'm the crazy one, browsing tiny forums like this while the rest of the world revels in the smell of their own farts. Sure can't help but want to call out the emperor for his missing clothes, though.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"Intuitive Retrospective", where you look at data, and try to figure out through your "lived experience" what you think the cause of the correlations are

Yeah that's neo-Marxist thought. "Different ways of knowing." https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-ways-of-knowing/

I bring it up, because critical social justice is, to a degree, behind the trans movement. Or, they're at least cut from the same cloth.

[–]emptiedriver 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Try to keep in mind that teachers are people too, I'm in my early 20s and already many of my friends are on the professor track. I love them, but these people are not the brilliant genius tweed-jacket intellectuals who can never be wrong that academia thinks they are. These people are not much older than you.

And, correspondingly, remember that a lot of professors are struggling with the exact same issues that students are, i.e., they're caught in an academic world where being "woke" is expected. For them it's a livelihood issue: they're concerned they could lose jobs or anyway opportunities in publishing, presenting at conferences, networking and so on, if they're too blatant in disagreeing with what's considered progressive.

It's hard to actively fight the standard if you don't have money, stability, power, or some kind of established position. I encourage you to take the risks when you're a student since it will not matter as much - you can "innocently" ask questions or push back a little with fewer repercussions. And there will be some teachers who appreciate that you do (others, not so much, but usually the worst they could do is not write you a recommendation or something...)

[–]blargus 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

My parents were in college in the 70s and the way they talked about stuff when I was growing up, sociology was on par with underwater basketweaving.

I took a sociology class as my ethnic studies requirement and it was pretty interesting. It was about different groups in poverty around the world--favelas, homeless in NYC, bush people in Africa, Pacific Islanders, and Appalachia. The dept was aware it was the class for outsiders. The professor basically said that sociology doesn't have a direction or know what to do. Old fashioned sociology is like Victorians doing National Geographic type trips to gawk at non-Europeans and modern sociology is stuck in the "I can't judge anyone" thing and the professor was older when I took that a decade ago so she was probably from the 60s or 70s mindset which is a different generation to now as well.

[–]reluctant_commenter 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I really appreciate how thorough this is. I think you are right. I have been very gentle with telling her that I am content in my womanhood since I do worry about upsetting her, but I suppose it is within my right to be honest if she is upsetting me. She is a really good friend when we aren't talking about all the gender stuff though.

No problem! I hear ya. I have often struggled in the past with asserting myself. But, I think of it this way: A good friend cares about me and wants what's best for me; someone who cares about me wants to know if I feel hurt by something they say. We might not always agree but I can trust them to care about me and to actually listen to me. And, moreover, the phrases I stated (not saying you have to say those directly! just as examples) are not being mean. They're just statements about the truth, and I think they're all consistent with respecting your friend's experience and identification.

If your friend gets upset when you set a boundary-- well, a boundary is a boundary. It's OK for her to feel whatever she's feeling, but once you set that boundary, it is NOT ok for her to keep breaking it.

I don't really have other options though, since I know I want to go to a selective liberal arts school and they are pretty much all the same in terms of being woke and social justice hotspots.

I wouldn't say that's necessarily the case! Are you in the US? Liberal arts colleges in the US are generally be predisposed to harbor TQ+, but I'd say there are a few that are a lot worse than others, and probably some that are more relaxed than others as well (again, region really plays into this).

Anyway, if I may ask, do you know how bad things are with non-STEM classes/humanities classes? I am good with science but I kind of hate it so I was considering studying history/political science since that feeds well into law school, but I realize that poli sci probably attracts a lot of woke people.

From my experiences talking to friends, poli sci is kind of a mixed bag, a lot are far left but some are far right actually, haha. My experience with humanities classes was that many had a very liberal perspective, e.g. messages of equity, but there was relatively little mention of gender identity nonsense; if it ever affected discussion pertaining to demographics, it was almost always about race. (And those discussions tended to have way more nuance than the echo-chamber posts I see on Reddit.)

There are actually a couple of users on this sub who are/were in law school; if you're interested, I can PM them and ask if they'd be down to talk with you about it. But, whatever the case, you should pursue something you're interested in and not STEM just for the sake of avoiding TRAs! My field has its own problems, lol.

[–]SillyGoose[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah, I'm in the US. I can only really apply to schools in a certain region though, given that my parents don't want me to leave the country or go to a college too many hours away from home. I don't want to go into too much detail on here at risk of doxxing myself. I appreciate the offer about the users in law school, but I think I'm good for now. I have a few years before I would go to law school and I suppose there is always the chance that I would change my mind while I'm in college.

[–]reluctant_commenter 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Makes sense! Good luck with everything. :)