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[–]JulienMayfair 30 insightful - 1 fun30 insightful - 0 fun31 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Reality check: Just remember that no one had heard of this nonsense just 10 years ago.

I was teaching at colleges until 2009, and I never heard anyone mention special pronouns. Nothing. Nada. Not a word. I sometimes had as many as 120 students per semester and never had a single student who identified themselves as trans. The whole issue of gender identity might as well not have existed.

Can you think of any phenomenon that's taken this seriously by so many people that basically came out of nowhere to become such a contentious issue in such a short span of time???

[–]bopomofodojo 20 insightful - 3 fun20 insightful - 2 fun21 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Can you think of any phenomenon

Not one that doesn't have massive, institutional backing somehow. Which definitely fits this one.

It's definitely a form of mass hysteria being pushed by a small group to get rich (https://thefederalist.com/2018/02/20/rich-white-men-institutionalizing-transgender-ideology/) while also becoming immensely popular with the large swaths of alienated, downtrodden, and pornsick Millennials and Gen-Zers for whom it is simultaneously a large embracing community but also the epitome of disadvantage and oppression, which for wokesters is absolutely critical for social clout. It's a modern secular religion who's appeal is like that of any other trendy phenomenon ("the goths are now the trans kids") and also has social and parasocial benefits for those involved. A perfect storm of profit motive, late capitalist hellscape, and (para)social factors coming together to produce society-wide madness.

I take solace in that, like all such fads, it will die out eventually. But not before destroying thousands of lives.