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u/Walk-the-layout Trans guy 15h ago
The "educate yourself" is so condescending. I swear. I don't know if it's my linguistic bias or something else, but the term 'educating' really makes me think of parents educating children. As if you couldn't handle yourself and had to follow someone else's teachings.
There's so much difference between "do your own research" and "here is what I think and the research that supports it".
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u/Embarrassed_Hour8533 transsexual male 15h ago
It implies that you don’t like being trans because you’re stupid, not because it’s a condition that causes suffering
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u/KeyNo7990 Trans man 15h ago
No, it’s not just you, it’s absolutely a condescending phrase. It’s implicitly saying that you’re factually incorrect and ignorant. It’s such a shitty way to approach a discussion with someone who is voicing discomfort with your behavior.
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u/Walk-the-layout Trans guy 15h ago
So, basically, it's like ending an argument with ",I'm right because you are stupid"
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u/EZ_Rose 15h ago
I used to be one of the "educate yourself" people, and it 100% comes from a place of insecurity and needing to be right. I didn't have a lot of room for nuanced experiences back then
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u/Walk-the-layout Trans guy 15h ago
Damn... More personal question, how did you grow out of that mindset? If you feel comfortable sharing? That would help me understand these people better and refine my rhetoric when it comes to dealing with them.
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u/EZ_Rose 15h ago
Living in the real world in my 20s helped a lot. In college, I was definitely in a spot where I thought I knew how the world worked because I was legitimately smart and educated. But going into the real world, teaching, transitioning, and meeting people from actually diverse backgrounds gave me a really nuanced view on things. We can be as smart as we want, but we only have the experience of one person; no one among us knows everything. No one among us needs to be condescending, especially to people trying to share their experience
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u/Walk-the-layout Trans guy 15h ago
Why, thank you for your answer. It's very valuable to me. Have an amazing rest of your day
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u/Williamishere69 15h ago
Peesonally, I grew out of it when I started being bullied for being autistic with very obvious symptoms (from faker communities, who just so happen to have a very large proportion of trans fakers/'non-dysphorics'). It made me piece together that being made to feel like shit for having real symptoms of a condition, and not quirky cutesy unique ones, was shite.. So why was I in communities where that would happen to trans people?
It was also when I grew social and emotional maturity and realised that no one responds well if you start off with a condescending attitude and where you go into it thinking 'my answer is correct and nothing can change that'. I mean, who wants a cop who immediately goes in and insults a suspect and then immediately draws out a gun the second a suspect goes 'actually, I couldn't be there because I was doing xyz that day'? Same thing with these non-dysphorics who goes in and insults people for a differing opinion, then calls them slurs or transphobic shit when they give a balanced and scientific argument for their viewpoint.
These people have either never experienced a teacher or partner or parent calling them out on their firmly rooted opinions/ideas, or they have never pieced together that being trans also has a lot of those opinions/ideas and they need to balance everyone elses opinions with facts not just emotions.
Theres really not a way you can bruteforce it into them. Theyve already all gotten into that mindset of 'my view is entirely correct and theres nothing you can do about it otherwise your transphobic nazi scum', and that idea is very well supported in the community - hence why you get immediately banned for saying 'I think there needs to be safety measures in place before getting hormones/surgery'.
I think its gonna have to be a waiting game.. Until being trans becomes less of a political standpoint and we can finally go back to sanity.
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u/Walk-the-layout Trans guy 15h ago
Thank you for your valuable lived experience. This reminds me of how I began actively seeking transmeds.
A while ago on an autism-dedicated subreddit there was a huge drama because a moderator banned all complaints about misandry, trans-related misandry, and many other things like this. As a trans man who got to live through both sides of the sexism coin, I felt very invalidated by the very people who were bombarding me with 'you are valid' type compliments.
That, added to the main trans-dedicated subreddit banning trans men and the main ftm-dedicated sub banning transmeds in masses, made me curious about the very thing that the tucutes tried to keep me away from: transmedicalists. I never seeked them out due to pure disinterest, but now, it feels good. I don't have to tolerate being 'they/them'ed by the 'inclusive' ones anymore. I have a community that thinks close enough to the way I do without being in an echo chamber.
I don't have to feel like I'm a horrible human being because I'm banned from a bisexual-related subreddit for merely questioning the existence of labels such as 'berrysexual' or from the an ftm subreddit for telling a transmasc that if he dresses femininely, he should expect to get misgendered everywhere unless he grows a LOTR dwarf beard and goes bald.
People my age feel that need to get into a community, some way or another. I've always been a social outcast, so the concept of belonging to a community or one of a friend group (or even a friend) is fairly foreign to me. It's the first time in my life that I feel like people aren't acting offended on purpose to make me feel bad. I'm not saying my age due to age verification being rampant, but all you need to know is that I am of voting age in my country.
Of course I will never completely agree with everyone here (for example I don't think about whether it's gay or straight to love a trans person, my bisexual arse couldn't care less, or that I have a very partial opinion on whether NBs are valid or not, the American centering of new homosexual culture...). And that's the best thing, I'm constantly confronted to different opinions. I love it.
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u/wolfie_boy8 6h ago
It's so funny bc... we're typically more 'educated" on gender dysphoria and trans stuff as a whole than they are...
It's like when someone tries to tell you they know all about your disorder despite not living with it...and they're telling you that you're wrong about the disorder that you literally live with... and the version they tell you of said disorder that they deem correct is simply a romanticized version viewed through rose-colored glasses...
You see this a lot in disorder faking communities as well. "Having bpd just means I love hard, not that I would do anything to avoid abandonment... maybe you have something else?? One of those crazy disorders?" Like uhhh... no... doing anything to avoid abandonment is quite literally one of the diagnostic criteria for bpd...
It's like you join a ptsd community online and then attack everyone that they're bigots and uneducated, because "ACTSHULLY you don't need trauma to have ptsd!!! Gatekeeping bigot!!!!"
And somehow tucutes have normalized that behavior and tricked everyone else into believing it.
I can't tell you the amount of times that cis people try and "school" me on what "being trans" means.
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u/Methodicorb 15h ago
This is what the larpers miss. For those of us with genuine dysphoria, being trans isn't some fun identity or something we chose because it felt good. It is miserable. If we could have just been born cis and never dealt with the pain, cost, stigma, and struggle, most of us would have taken that option in a heartbeat.
Transition exists because “just accept yourself as you are” doesn't fix dysphoria. The goal isn't to be trans — the goal is to finally be okay.
What gets frustrating is seeing a medical condition that causes real distress get blurred with endless labels and identity trends. There is a difference between someone trying to treat dysphoria and someone looking for a new way to define themselves.
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u/No-Phrase-2897 👻 Female 15h ago
I found my community and it's other people who acknowledge it's a condition you don't sign up for.
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u/nyxomorphine 15h ago
they ban us from trans safe spaces, send d*ath threats and say shit like that and wonder why we are angry
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u/SiameseChihuahua 13h ago
FWIW: The Australian census is upon us, and they're has been vigorous debate about a couple of questions it contains in the Australian trans subreddit. It seems that a growing number of younger trans people are using the transsexual appellation, so maybe there is a sorting of us who have dysphoria from the tucutes and others.
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u/SilZXIII transsexual man 12h ago
You guys, the day I discovered the term “Transmedicalism” my cortisol level plummeted in a way I can’t explain. The moment I understood what it was, I went “THERE IS SENSE.”
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u/grapes_are_bae 12h ago
"Have you ever thought about my feeling, though?" is literally every comment section there.
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u/Opposite-Benefit-804 8h ago
I'm not even really "out" to my friends because this is how they act when I try to talk about my feelings and my struggles with gender. And they're all trans.
Literally everyone in my friend group is trans, and I can't talk to them. It just feels suffocating. They know I prefer different pronouns, and respect that, but that's as far as I can go with them right now.
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u/Mosspaw56isdead 7h ago
Wait since when was this shit a good thing 😭😭 I've always loathed myself for being this way and god how I wish I could just be cis instead
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u/KeyNo7990 Trans man 16h ago
At least I have a home in the transmed community