You're very good at this, Steve. "Self-unaware" is a splendid turn of phrase that I will plagiarize at earliest opportunity.
But here is where you and I differ:
"I truly hate the toxicity that surrounds trans discourse. Which is why I think it’s so important to try to understand it."
I would change "try to understand" to "ignore" or something stronger. Years of online combat now feel like wasted time for me and even if I had once had your patience, seeing the odometer of age roll from 59 to 60 would have ended it. I don't know why you focus on the most hopeless and least reachable.
Because it was clear very early in the exchange that Stephen/anie is a virulently hostile person whose claims of "trans joy" and of belonging to a "community" are not exaggerations but lies. Nobody as hostile as he is could ever experience a moment of joy except maybe after getting someone banned, and he is far too self-centered to be a reciprocal part of any community.
This interlocutor supports the point of your article very well; why would anyone whose only exposure to this fad community* want to get closer to it? This person is repellent. And the backlash is growing.
*That Stephen/anie is not actually dysphoric is not proven but it is a statistically defensible presumption and his defensiveness is wholly at odds with self-acceptance. He's jumping aboard whatever bandwagon affording opportunities to play the victim.
Edit: I almost never continue engagement with people who use "lol" or "lmao" or any of those. That's just immature. I respond with "teenybopper" and answer no more.
"I would change "try to understand" to "ignore" or something stronger."
I wound't mind ignoring it. In fact, I'd be absolutely delighted if reasonable, good-faith discourse were common enough that the crackpots could be dismissed as just that. But, at least from what I'm seeing (and I'm not just talking about my experience here, but trans discourse in general), reasonable voices on this issue are hard to find.
Emotions run high on both sides of this issue. And, as I mentioned, both sides have many people operating with a caricature of the other side in their head. The toxicity can't go away until more people start thinking about this issue in a more broad spectrum way.
I have the advantage over you in the reasonable voices department: all my communications with transgender people were with *real* ones and they preceded the fad with its grotesque denials of reality.
My conversations on these matters were candid, calm, and free of the rage that always comes with them online. I was never called "incredibly transphobic," and the dumb word hadn't been invented yet.
The difference between the people I had just had sex with and the shrieking harpies like Stephanie could not be greater, one reason I doubt the absolute hell out of the "trans" phenomenon.
"My conversations on these matters were candid, calm, and free of the rage that always comes with them online. I was never called "incredibly transphobic," and the dumb word hadn't been invented yet."
Ah, the halcyon days! Yep, I know this used to be the case, but we're a long way from that today. Most of the trans people I've met in real life are also more reasonable. As everybody is in real life I suppose. I'm quite sure Stephane wouldn't dare shout and swear at me in person.
But the reality denialism has become foundational. And is embraced not just by extremists, but many well-meaning people who aren't trans, but who think lying is kind. I regularly see trans women refer to themselves as female, not just as women, but as *female*. I didn't see that at all even a year or two ago. And the social contagion means that we suddenly have huge numbers of people, particularly young people, who we have to figure out how to accommodate in society.
I don't share your certainty that this is a passing trend because there's no factual basis for that certainty. Only time will tell on that front. But the degree of institutional and cultural capture I see makes me think it'll be extremely hard for society to return to its previous delineations of sex and gender. Even if the more extreme stuff fades away.
You're very good at this, Steve. "Self-unaware" is a splendid turn of phrase that I will plagiarize at earliest opportunity.
But here is where you and I differ:
"I truly hate the toxicity that surrounds trans discourse. Which is why I think it’s so important to try to understand it."
I would change "try to understand" to "ignore" or something stronger. Years of online combat now feel like wasted time for me and even if I had once had your patience, seeing the odometer of age roll from 59 to 60 would have ended it. I don't know why you focus on the most hopeless and least reachable.
Because it was clear very early in the exchange that Stephen/anie is a virulently hostile person whose claims of "trans joy" and of belonging to a "community" are not exaggerations but lies. Nobody as hostile as he is could ever experience a moment of joy except maybe after getting someone banned, and he is far too self-centered to be a reciprocal part of any community.
This interlocutor supports the point of your article very well; why would anyone whose only exposure to this fad community* want to get closer to it? This person is repellent. And the backlash is growing.
*That Stephen/anie is not actually dysphoric is not proven but it is a statistically defensible presumption and his defensiveness is wholly at odds with self-acceptance. He's jumping aboard whatever bandwagon affording opportunities to play the victim.
Edit: I almost never continue engagement with people who use "lol" or "lmao" or any of those. That's just immature. I respond with "teenybopper" and answer no more.
"I would change "try to understand" to "ignore" or something stronger."
I wound't mind ignoring it. In fact, I'd be absolutely delighted if reasonable, good-faith discourse were common enough that the crackpots could be dismissed as just that. But, at least from what I'm seeing (and I'm not just talking about my experience here, but trans discourse in general), reasonable voices on this issue are hard to find.
Emotions run high on both sides of this issue. And, as I mentioned, both sides have many people operating with a caricature of the other side in their head. The toxicity can't go away until more people start thinking about this issue in a more broad spectrum way.
I have the advantage over you in the reasonable voices department: all my communications with transgender people were with *real* ones and they preceded the fad with its grotesque denials of reality.
My conversations on these matters were candid, calm, and free of the rage that always comes with them online. I was never called "incredibly transphobic," and the dumb word hadn't been invented yet.
The difference between the people I had just had sex with and the shrieking harpies like Stephanie could not be greater, one reason I doubt the absolute hell out of the "trans" phenomenon.
"My conversations on these matters were candid, calm, and free of the rage that always comes with them online. I was never called "incredibly transphobic," and the dumb word hadn't been invented yet."
Ah, the halcyon days! Yep, I know this used to be the case, but we're a long way from that today. Most of the trans people I've met in real life are also more reasonable. As everybody is in real life I suppose. I'm quite sure Stephane wouldn't dare shout and swear at me in person.
But the reality denialism has become foundational. And is embraced not just by extremists, but many well-meaning people who aren't trans, but who think lying is kind. I regularly see trans women refer to themselves as female, not just as women, but as *female*. I didn't see that at all even a year or two ago. And the social contagion means that we suddenly have huge numbers of people, particularly young people, who we have to figure out how to accommodate in society.
I don't share your certainty that this is a passing trend because there's no factual basis for that certainty. Only time will tell on that front. But the degree of institutional and cultural capture I see makes me think it'll be extremely hard for society to return to its previous delineations of sex and gender. Even if the more extreme stuff fades away.