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[–]SpatOuttheKoolaid 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I tried to tell one of my straight best friends about the phenomenon and all the crap that was happening on reddit around last fall sometime. She's been roped in by her tech company into doing the "gender diversity trainings" at her job (aka they're using her hyper codependent niceness and makes a great handmaiden, apparently has a female "they" boss who she has to go around reminding everyone this boss is a "they"). Her response? "Oh, you should just get to know more trans people!" and "Reddit is male dominated" (she's never had a reddit account)---I was like "yeah, you are so close to getting it". She then told me about one of her acquaintances who is a "queer woman" who has a partner that went full on mastectomy, phalloplasty, etc' "No one would EVER do that if they weren't born in the wrong body". I haven't raised the subject since. I also have several other friends/aquintances that just form what they've been posting about JKR on Facebook knowing that my even attempting to say anything would just get me unfriended and banished for "terfiness"

[–][deleted] 12 insightful - 2 fun12 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I know plenty of trans people. Some are wonderful. Most that I know have loads of mental health problems and overlapping conditions, and some shouldn’t ever have transitioned. It’s harming them. If someone has mental illness they should be treated carefully and thoughtfully. Not pushed into radical lifelong changes where they will be lucky if they find a partner. It’s heartbreaking to me. To see them so lonely. Especially since it didn’t have to be.

Almost 100% of them are rabid about terfs. Real black and white thinking. For some reason they are still my friends, but it’s probably because they know I don’t mean harm. It helps that I have known them all for years, I guess. It also helps that I am known to be honest. People can be awesome and smart and interesting, and then flip into nutcase mode over this stuff. They have been conditioned. It is very much like a cult. Lots of them are good people that can’t shake it. It’s like how religious nuts are conditioned to think we are going to hell.

My main problem with all of this is that I do not believe in the “wrong body” idea. There is nothing more self-hating than thinking your body is wrong. It’s the opposite of everything I believe in. Having healthy bodies that work is a gift. Instead of losing it over our bodies we should be trying to be more “body neutral.” Like, be active and healthy as much as we can, but not obsessing about ourselves because it’s a huge waste of a life, and totally ignores all of the really amazing things our bodies actually do for us.

For this reason I am against all cosmetic surgery and bullshit unless it is really needed. It’s not just trans that bothers me, it’s how we end up (especially women) internalizing bullshit and thinking our bodies need to change. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and think about how much time I wasted on feeling ugly or wrong.