I used to be incredibly sympathetic to the trans community. No one deserves to face discrimination or marginalization.

Then, the community revealed itself to be full of ignorance, hate, and outright aggression to anyone that doesn’t agree completely. They use their marginalized status to bully and shame other. Some of it is just straight up misogyny. And they get off on it?

No thanks. I’ll continue to use people’s preferred pronouns and names out of respect, but thats that.

It’s pretty insidious that transgenderism postulates itself as the “correct and moral” perspective, using its stance to silence its critics as some nazi boogyman. “They’re trying to kill us,” and “this is a genocide” are hyperbolic fearmonger tactics so that when you’re gender critical, the less informed mass equate you to murder.

There’s no room for debate. Good criticism makes for stronger arguments, but trans right activism doesn’t seek to be better, it seeks to be the only voice in the room. Nowadays even sharing the side effects of T is seen as transphobic.

Reality really is nuanced, and I’m sorry you went through a tumultuous time in your life.

That said, I don’t consider gender critical to be black and white at all. Nor is transgenderism. Criticism doesn’t mean you’re outright denying the existence of trans people.

People with gender dysphoria exist, the how this dysphoria is handled (socially, medically, legal policies) and the labels/classism that develops is where trans and critical perspectives differ.

I’ve watched the trans umbrella expand to “if you don’t identify as cis, you are trans” and I find that perspective to be reductive and divisive, purposefully destructive. Every man and woman I know has had to come to terms with their place in society; the good and bad. Cross-sex curiosity is a typical human experience. By framing these feelings as exclusive to one class of people and actionable, trans ideology encourages youth and young adults to engage in pretty radical medical and surgical choices.

The focus isn’t to look internally, practice healing, and seek therapy; its to control your external environment with pronouns, labels and idealizing self mutilation with the promise that gender dysphoria will go away if enough environmental factors play along. The rise of self diagnosis, label culture and toxic positivity has played a huge factor in this. In trying to buck traditional roles, modern day transgenderism creates its own binary, and treats its critics as violent right wing conservatives. Trump can eat my ass and transgenderism is a harmful ideology with a pipeline to hapless victimhood+militant zealot unable to get along with society.

Taylor Swift, play “The Man”.

more and more hate towards trans people

I did a quick scroll of the most recent threads; no one is advocating for trans death. No one is denying the existence of transgender people. As a matter of fact, most of the topics have to do with detrans people going through our own journey. No one is even advocating harassment, brigading, or namecalling trans people, this subreddit is petty benign compared to other subreddits (have you heard of The Last of Us?).

I won’t deny that there are harsh and cutting comments toward transgenderism as a worldview. That criticism doesn’t translate to “trans people must die/don’t exist/shouldn’t have rights”; they’re well within the rules of the subreddit to acknowledge its contradictions.

Acknowledging biology fundamentally undermines the trans rhetoric; that anyone can be of any gender expression and any sexuality so long as you adopt the label of transgender. Thats why the topic of biology is taboo.

Even language such as “assigned female at birth” (AMAB or AFAB) is framed as if someone impressed upon to you a binary.

What is truer is a baby’s sex is observed by a trained medical professional. You weren’t assigned anything by society, it’s a scientific observation based in reality.

The transgender perspective on this is that biological sex and gender expression are completely separate…but thats far from the truth. Your gender expression is informed by your biological sex. If you were to say that part out loud, you would be deemed a transphobic, bioessentialist. Radical trans activists seek to completely break the association between biological sex and one’s gender, with trans people being the victims of the patriarchy and all others as the oppressors.

Its such a big no-no topic that theres no way to even speak about it in good faith. You are either trans identified, or youre to be a bad cis person who is—in their eyes—uninformed, not allowed to have an opinion, and upholding oppressive views. Its not an ideology that can acknowledge its own contradictions without falling apart.

Yes!!! This is exactly how I feel.

Yeah I’m cis by technically but the word makes me uncomfortable because it feels like il still ascribing to gender theory.

Kinda analogous; in christian ideology, I’d be a sinner, but I wouldnt ever call myself a sinner because I don’t participate in christianity.

that what she’s feeling is really really scary, but that theres nothing wrong with her.

she’s growing into a body that society has deemed a secondary class and its normal to want out of that classification

also seek help for that eating disorder and go touch grass, go find what you love in the world

Oh, I agree.

The longer I sat with the concept of a true (gender) identity, the more I realized that it’s a mutable thing sculpted by society and the people I surrounded myself with. You are you, a person in constant flux and adapting to your environment.

Ultimately, its why and how I came to accept myself; I am a woman in that it’s my sex, and anything I do is true to me, to my womanhood, and I don’t need to justify it to anyone else.

Transgenderism was still too limiting in perspective, and the basis for its activism was this ethereal, true soul concept which needed expression and affirmation was too close to religion than I liked. Its focus on stiff categorization—what was actually masculine, feminine, whats binary or nonbinary—felt like I was being encouraged to question everything, enjoy nothing, and indulge in my intrusive thoughts.

A cocktail for unchecked, mental unwellness where encouragement of getting well and accepting who you are outside of gender was framed as ableist and transphobic.

I thought I recognize you from your cosplays! Pretty cool to meet you. How awesome.

I found my gender dysphoria to have lessened toward my mid/late 20s. I’m still a little bit of a rugged tomboy, I dont feel right in a dress, but I’ve accepted my biology as a fact of reality that can’t change. What helped the most was moving away from queer spaces where everyone was gender obsessed, toward crafting/marathon running/wilderness.

A part of me wants to take some years back and shake my younger self to save her from all that turmoil. A lot of it was straight up self harm that was worsen by taking on labels.

In 10-20 years, do you think this ideology will be as prevalent?

Yeah I understood transsexualism (in its original concepts) a lot better than transgenderism. Now that gender dysphoria is no longer a requirement to be trans, its hard to grasp at what all that means.

The whole “having the mind of the opposite sex” is kinda wild because it presumes the opposite sex’s mind words in ubiquitous ways. As if to say all men have a base line for thinking in a manly way?