deathlygristly:

theunitofcaring:

Hey, hey, no. 

So, first thing, are they right about anything else? Like, seriously. If you’re trying to decide whether someone is right about an issue that’s close to your heart and emotional and hard to evaluate, you can ask “hmmm, is this person usually right, such that I have reason to think they approach issues in a way that gets them to the truth?”

Transphobes on the right think that God commits genocide against cities full of gays and that is why we shouldn’t be gay (and also that this morally okay of God). They often think that women are different from and inferior to men. They generally do not believe in bodily autonomy and like half of them don’t believe in marital rape. Many of them think that if you are allowed to pee in the women’s restroom, but not if you are not allowed to pee in the women’s restroom, you will lurk in bathrooms attacking children. If you ask them what the experience of a trans person is like – what is going on inside a trans person’s head, what the day-to-day experience of being trans is – you will get answers that are clearly, obviously ignorant. They don’t know. They are wrong. You should not expect them to be right about questions related to trans people, because you have never observed them to be right about a question related to trans people, or gender, or sexual ethics, or bodily autonomy. Your default expectation should be that they will get questions about trans people super wrong.

Transphobes on the left think that the only thing relevant to gender is what you were assigned at birth, and that all women were raised in the same way. They frequently assert wrong things about what trans people want, and they are remarkably bad at admitting mistakes when corrected on simple points of fact.They think that men are some kind of alien species, and often assert really wrong things about what it’s like to be a man or be in a close trusting intimate relationship with one. They are committed to a worldview where men are at war as a class with women. They are just as mistaken as the transphobes on the right when you ask them what the experience of a trans person is.

So, like, from a starting point it would be astonishing if the combination of these two groups of people were right about trans people. if you can’t evaluate their arguments on this, try looking at their arguments on everything else. 

Secondly, there are lots of people who benefit – lots and lots of people who benefit – from gender being a flexible concept we can explore, change, and opt in and out of. Nearly everyone I know is someone who has benefitted from this. I demand to live in a world where people can transition, where being a girl is something I can choose and can someday unchoose if I need to. I’m so glad that more and more places are acknowledging that and making that possible, and I am so indebted to the people who made it possible. Forcing your way into spaces that don’t want you? No. Spaces are starting to exist – because of you and because of other courageous women like you – which are better for people like you and people like me and countless other people who want to live with a concept of gender that’s inclusive and flexible and embraces transition. You are not imposing that concept of gender, you are just among the many, many people who thrive given that concept of gender, and because it makes people thrive it has seen a lot of uptake. 

When people say “I accept you”, they’re not saying “ugh, I have to let you in now”, they’re saying “like you, I have a concept of gender which has space for transition in it.” (Sometimes they’re just saying “I am confused but not a jerk”. But I want you to at least be aware of the existence of the ‘yes, that’s how gender works’ people.) And more often than you’d think, even if they are cis, they are actively better off with their concept of gender that has space for transition in it.

Thirdly, those people hate you. Why are you taking life advice from people who hate you? It won’t make them stop. Sometimes, you have to say “mmkay, you suck and I’m not going to give you a vote in how I live my life”. Sometimes you have to say that to family, or to a partner, or a formerly close friend, and that is incredibly hard and painful. But sometimes you just have to say it to jerks on the internet who don’t even understand anything about your life, and I hope in those cases it’s easier. Don’t give a vote on your self and your happiness to people who hate you. 

This is really good advice for dealing with the opinions of other people in general, like when my scrupulosity gets the best of me and it starts telling me that strangers on the internet who lack empathy and understanding are right and correct about the best way to be human, and I’m wrong and horrible for not agreeing with them.