How do I learn to love trans people and the trans movement

submitted by fuckupaddams from self.GenderCritical

This sounds like a joke post but it's unfortunately not.

((REFER TO MY LAST POST IF YOU NEED ANY CONTEXT - about my friend living in la la land.))

I was pretty much virtually intervention'd lately by my friends recently, they said they've been noticing I can say sort of "terf"y things and maybe be unintentionally ignorant about trans people.

Okay. The problem is I'm not ignorant, I know how I feel. I know how I feel about feminism especially. But unfortunately it still stands that though I did not make my friends in lgbtq spheres, they are all followers of lgb(tq) rhetoric. This is the truth I am living with. My friends wouldn't stand for my true viewpoints. And considering where I live, the chance any new friends will either is very slim.

I feel I have no other option than to just be... what, a little more tolerant? More knowledgable?... I can't help but feel like I already have a strong sense of reality that's unshakable, but the fact still stands that... this is happening. Trans people are here, and my friends either love them or consider themselves to be one. Every person my age I meet in my area is the same, either loves them or is one.

For all the ranting I do on the internet, this is my real life. What can I do? I guess I need to accept that nonbinary people are real the same way money is real. I need to accept that my friends notice when I call a transwoman "they" and not "she" and it's a problem...

I don't know, I'm just sort of spilling out my consciousness. Is anyone out there at all in the same boat?

1) these are my closest friends for years, it's not as easy as "drop them and find smarter friends" because 2) this is literally the reality of where I live. Everybody is like this, they move here to be like this. It's inescapable.

How do I reprogram myself? Not to believe in complete nonsense but to, I don't know... I guess at least believe them?? And stop getting so uncomfortable and mad everytime someone wants to talk about trans things?? Because fuck it's here to stay at least for me.

Help.

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[–]zephyranthes 24 insightful - 4 fun24 insightful - 3 fun25 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

"How do I learn to love people who want to make refusal to get raped a hate crime?"

Lol i dunno. Weed 24x7? Hope for an early onset Alzheimer's?

They're not your friends. They haven't been your friends for some time. You're living like a deep cover infiltrator who would be hanged for treason if found out, which is an actual job people get paid good money for - but you aren't getting paid, you aren't doing it for the Motherland, you're just suffering for no reason, surrounded by enemies who'd tell you getting raped is an opportunity to "open a pathway to erotic joy".

[–]marmalade 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I know they're you're close friends, but if they go out of their way to single you out for your views like this and make you feel bad, they must not care very much about you as a person. You don't have to accept their worldview just because they want you to, and you don't have to feel guilty about your views. You've never denied that nonbinary and trans people aren't worthy of human and civil rights, right (most of us don't, but that fact seems to have short legs)? Maybe just set some boundaries about what you will and won't talk about these friends with.

[–]jelliknight 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

My friends wouldn't stand for my true viewpoints

They're not your friends. They are your fellow cult members. They WILL cut you off when you leave the cult, because that's how cults work.

For all the ranting I do on the internet, this is my real life. What can I do?

Speak to them one at a time, calmly make them explain their point of view. Say "Hey, I want to believe you, but what you're saying isn't making sense. Feelings aren't sex." and when they can't explain it say "well, i can't blindly believe something just because I'm told to. If you figure it out let me know."

You can't re-indoctrinate yourself once you see the light, sorry. Can't be done. You can put their lies in your mouth if you want but I promise it will taste disgusting and you'll hate yourself for it.

Join groups of older people and more practical groups, e.g. gardening, repair, and craft. It really is a small proportion who believe this shit, they're just concentrated in certain social groups.

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

Join groups of older people and more practical groups, e.g. gardening, repair, and craft. It really is a small proportion who believe this shit, they're just concentrated in certain social groups.

I should have read all the way down before I posted. Totally feel the same way. Meet older people with actual skills who do activities of value.

[–]yishengqingwa666 10 insightful - 4 fun10 insightful - 3 fun11 insightful - 4 fun -  (5 children)

Fuck, cut these Narc vortexes off. Your "friends"? Really? Do they have YOUR back? Fat fucking chance.

[–]fuckupaddams[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I can't. Like I said, this is everybody. I am a very young person living in an extremely liberal city. I cannot escape this if I want friends. I don't know what to do.

[–]jelliknight 11 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Don't have friends then. Seriously. These aren't friends, these are enemies you let have access to you in your home or when you're vulnerable. If they're genuinely the only option you're better off without.

You won't be though. When women confidently speak up for themselves and refuse to compromise it acts like a beacon to other amazing women.

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

Make older friends. With the virus we can't do much of anything, but when you can go out again, join some clubs or activities that attract older women. They have actual knowledge and life experience to share with you and don't spend all their time in Transworld. When I was young (long ago....) I tended to have friends a decade older than me that I met through hobbies and my mother thought it was weird, but there was far less drama and I learned more about the real world.

[–]fuckupaddams[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That sounds great

[–]MezozoicGay 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Do not let them gaslight you into this. Do not do what terrorists are asking you to do, or they will ask more and more, with causing more and more terror. If everyone is doing evil thing - it does not makes that thing good or not evil. Try to not speak on such topics with people there.

Nowadays we have a privilege of having internet, you can connect to people like you through over the world, find similar minded people nearby, maybe even in your city, people you would never met otherwise.

[–]fuckingsealions 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I hear you OP. I have some hare-brained libfems in my life who are friends of friends or part of my work networking. I too have been trying to trick myself into thinking that up is down and black is white.

I feel like this is similar in some ways to what happened during the free love movement. Women were told they could be free with their bodies and it was a movement based on love. From reading memoirs it sounds like women had to go through it themselves and realize that men were just what they always were, regardless of what they said.

I think this craze will pass. I'm worried about what legislation will come out of it though. I can't advise on friends, though. That sounds really hard.

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

People are people. You take them as you find them. Just think of them as people.

I don't have a problem with pronouns etc; I'll call and even think of trans people as their desired gender BUT of course I know what sex they are. I believe identity is real - it has nothing to do with bodies or science in many ways, but thoughts can be true and feelings are real things - and at worst it's selfish.

I know sex-based oppression is real. I know you can't identify out of it. I know that identity can shift over a lifetime. I know sex in humans does not. I believe trans people deserve kindness and respect. I wish trans women in particular were more on board with improving things for the majority of women rather than centering themselves. I wish it was ok to discuss the reality of sports and private spaces and reproductive health, and work together on some kind of compromise instead of being told to sit down and shut up.

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

I liked a book called "Getting to Yes", which could also have been titled "We'll never agree, but we have to somehow."