Imagine if there were people who kept saying, "I'm not homophobic, but I think gay men should be kept out of locker rooms so they don't assault straight men. And I also think gays and lesbians shouldn't be allowed to marry because that takes away from from straight marriages. Also I think they're converting the youth. Still, I support gays' right to exist."
And the mainstream press was like, "SEE? They're not homophobic. They even said so." That's where we are now with trans people.
@charliejane Trans folks absolutely are getting the brunt of it, but that rhetoric is also being applied to everyone LGBT in my home town right now.
Books by gay authors are being labeled inherently pornographic regardless of their content. There's panic about coexisting in the library with gay people.
Folks act like the right's problems with LGBT people begin and end with trans folk, but they'll absolutely use it as a springboard to attack everyone who isn't a cis get white guy.
@charliejane Oh absolutely. Center-left folks are barely better than the right as it comes to trans issues, though they are definitely better at least with regard to the other queer identities.
It's ridiculous they don't take a harder stance against the right's BS, and I'm sorry you have to put up with them.
@gocu54 @charliejane It’s hard to tell what you mean by “understand.” I am guessing you understand that some biological males feel more comfortable as women? And some biological females feel more comfortable as men?
They’d like to identify as their chosen gender. They may also like to present as one gender or another, or express their chosen gender in various ways.
Can you say more about what you don’t understand?
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/understanding-gender-identities/
@gocu54 @charliejane Thanks for replying. I think I understand a little better.
First-person accounts from transpeople can help, but I agree it’s hard to know what it feels like or how transition happens.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/my-life-as-a-transgender-woman
My2c: as long as you’re not insulting trans people, discriminating against them, mocking them, excluding them, or treating them as otherwise inferior, you’re probably doing OK
@peterbutler @gocu54 @charliejane at the risk of speaking for others, i feel like the words "choose" might be a poor word here.
it might give credit to arguments that trans friends' gender identity isn't as real (or some other weird terf shit)
in general, i think it's probably best to let trans folk describe their experiences for themselves
@gocu54 of course not as long as you don't discriminate in action or word
Luckily this is the internet where there are tons of places to learn. Here's a site to get started https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/learn/guide but there are lots more!
@gocu54 @charliejane I don't think it's ever wrong to accept that you don't understand something.
It's also okay to ask others if you want or need help understanding, and that applies to anything. As long as you're making an effort to treat people with kindness and decency, I don't see any problems.
@gocu54 @charliejane I should clarify that I am cis-male (far from straight though), and not trans.
I'd like to hope that most of the LGBTQ+ community would agree with my comment. It's one of my firmest beliefs that as long as your treating people respectfully, that asking questions when you encounter something you don't understand is perfectly human and nothing to be ashamed of.
@charliejane
Imagine it? I grew up in it. That was the 90s.
Before that, it was black men.
It's all recycled bullshit hatred.
@charliejane there absolutely was this in the 80s and 90s in the UK. Calls for segregated bathrooms for gay men, the whole lot.
Haters got to have someone to other. It’s bullying of the worst kind.
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