[PaulHoule]

I think it goes both ways.

I used to go out in drag in Halloween before things got so polarized. Many people thought I had a great costume but I'd always seem some microexpressions of disgust enough to know I was doing something that wasn't completely safe.

I was very inclined to think positively of transgender people ten years ago but my own experience with them on Mastodon and in other places has led me to agree with the person you're replying to. It was when I started reading their words as opposed to reading about them in the media that I became more negative. People were sharing so many hateful memes on Mastodon that I had to put in a large number of filtering rules so that I can't see anything they post except for the hateful image memes that can't be filtered because the only text is in the filter.

It's almost as if some of these people have a fascination with assholes like Kiwi Farms and see it as a template for activism, like they build their whole lives and find all their meaning out of hating and being hated. See that "Witch Hunt of J.K. Rowling" podcast -- yes, there are jerks online who say horrible stuff like that to them, but that doesn't make it a righteous cause to that to other people; by fighting for territory that they couldn't defend they may have turned people against them and lost rights that they could have kept. They mirror the hatred and intolerance of the people they hate.

So I don't agree that "Hate for trans has nothing to do with what trans to (sic)" -- they do have to overcome some hate which is intrinsic but there is a lot which is a mirror of the hateful view that many of them have about the world.

[lupusreal]

Paul, I agree with most of the points you've raised in this thread and share your concerns about the way troubled people may be manipulated online in ways that make their problems worse. However I just want to caution you on the point of your experiences on Mastadon. As people in technology industries, it is natural for us to spend a lot of time online, particularly in places which are off the mainstream beaten path like HN, Mastadon, IRC, etc. But for much of the general public this isn't normal, they spend less time online and when they do go online it's usually in mainstream places like Facebook. People who are "very online" and off the beaten path, if not in a tech field, are very often people who have a lot of problems IRL and retreat to online spaces as a refuge of sorts. So there's a selection bias in play here, the trans people you encounter online, particularly outside of mainstream social platforms, are less likely to be socially healthy than the average trans person IRL.

In short, nerds and nutjobs are overrepresented online so any conclusion you reach about groups of people using experiences you've had online need to be taken with a massive grain of salt.

[watwut]

Hate toward trans predates mastodon tho. Where I live, it is very normal to make fun of trans and gays. It is simply accepted that they are disgusting. People who talked to me about trans being disgusting were definitely not reading mastodon nor any other trans bubble. Trans being killed for being trans and then local politician using the situation to push anti-gay legal agenda is a very real thing.

I do not think it goes both ways symmetrically, really. What I think is that any misconduct by any trans person is used as excuse to mistreat all of them. And when they do not do misconduct, well, it wont help them either.

The attacks toward trans last years were not about ugly memes on mastodon. It was literally about beer can having minor ad with trans person. It is about making gender affirming care illegal, full stop. It is about transsexuality itself being disgusting. It is about pushing polite respectful trans people out of any visible situation.

Like, OP complains about people not knowing relatable things about trans. But, if they are visible, say on beer can, the hate campaign is very very real. You cant harass someone for being visibly trans and then complain you do not know about day to day trans people.

[PaulHoule]

It's reductive to say that it's one or the other.

I can say personally my feeling thermometer went from maybe 75 to 15 as a result of being on Mastodon and other online forums in the last tow years. I like trans people as individuals but I hate the movement. It's not the only place where that kind of negativity leaks out.

For instance the men's rooms in my building are stuffed with menstrual products for "men who menstruate" with a preachy card that talks about it in a reductive, narrow minded frame the same as the worst conservative Christians. This is for the benefit of 0.6% of the population at best, maybe 3 or 4 people benefit from it, out of 8 men's rooms in that building it is probably less than one person per bathroom.

It seems to me that this sucks all the air out of the room to discuss anything else. Young men are struggling. Maybe you only see the survivors in higher ed, but the K12 system is not built with boys in mind, particularly if you are in a racial minority, see

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/04/boys-school-challenges-r...

Instead of messaging aimed at, say, 20% of people who are struggling we get this stridently minoritiarian discourse that leaves many people feeling unheard, erased, and resentful.

[sunshowers]

> It seems to me that this sucks all the air out of the room to discuss anything else.

You understand that this state of affairs has been created by the bigoted side? I just want to live in peace and build stuff that makes the world better, not worry about the federal government coming after me and pretending I don't exist. Please try not to get so fooled next time.

[PaulHoule]

No. This is the black and white thinking that I'm talking about. Yes, the federal government has deteriorated, but some of that is that progressives haven't had a message that reconciles the rights of 0.6% of people with many concerns that the 99.4% have

Start taking responsibility. Bigotry is a real thing but you can have a large impact on how other people treat you based on how you behave.

Organized transgenderists in my view have a reducivist, moralist, my-way-or-the-highway approach that initially exploited 'progressive' people who were inclined to think they were acting in good faith but are in the process of driving those people away. (I was really inclined to think of transsexual people positively because my best friend in college was a really awesome person who happened to be transsexual)

J.K. Rowling picked an issue where public opinion was far away from what transgenderists wish it was. (Where do violent sex offenders in prison get housed?) She thought the vast majority of transgender prisoners were safest in prisons that corresponded to their identity but that authorities had to have some latitude for people acting in bad faith.

She got jumped on because she agreed with them in most cases but not all.

Normal people will call you an ally if you agree on 7 out of 10 issues but organized transgenderists come across as people who will treat you as an enemy if you disagree about anything.

On some issues (workplace discrimination) public opinion is on the side of trans people. On other issues (sports participation) public opinion is the other ways. A year ago questions involving access to health care tended to split down the middle, the one recent poll I looked at seems to have moved far to the right in the last year on the issue of transgender care for minors.

A healthy political movement accepts that it's won on certain issues, that it can't win on other issues, and that there are some issues in the middle where you can persuade people and win.

On top of that there is the whole "egg hatcher" thing where you find there are people who are looking for people who "march to the beat of a different drummer" and sell transgenderism as an answer to their problems, almost certainly a false answer. If somebody knew their gender identity of a child I'm inclined to believe them (e.g. they certainly aren't going to change their mind based on whether people 'affirm' them or not) but if somebody discovered a variant identity as a teen I'm skeptical. As a schizotype

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypy

I am already frustrated with the bandwagoning of 'neurodivergence' by an autism industrial complex and an ADHD industry that pushes addictive medicine. Neurodivergent people are already 'bully magnets' and the last thing they need is to take on an identity which will get them further targeted and be surrounded by people who will reinforce their feelings of victimhood. (see 'impulsive nonconformity' in the article I link above)

I see the current movement as something that centers the activism of its enemies as a template for its own activism [1] [2] and that thrives on bigotry. It looks like a pernicious cult that is all about 'othering' other people and sees any and all pushback they get from people whether it is primary preexisting feelings of disgust, fear and hatred or the learned feelings of exasperation you might see on the face of a otherwise bleeding heart socially progressive HR manager who has just dealt with too many people who see a fascist under every bush and wants the whole cake yesterday.

[1] see anti-fascism

[2] transgenderists say it was OK to treat J. K. Rowling the same way Kiwi Farms treats them

[sunshowers]

> progressives haven't had a message that reconciles the rights of 0.6% of people with many concerns that the 99.4% have

It is an objectively true moral statement that minority rights ought not depend on majority opinion (that is the whole point of constitutionalism). To the extent that minority rights depend on majority opinion in reality, that is a deficiency of political systems. All of us exist in deficient political systems.

> if somebody discovered a variant identity as a teen I'm skeptical

What is your expertise in this matter? Why do you think your opinion is worth anything? People figure things out on their own pace.

If you think your opinion carries any weight here, you've been fooled.

> She got jumped on because she agreed with them in most cases but not all.

JK Rowling signed the so-called "Women's Declaration International" which has the exact same policy proposals as what Trump is doing. Again, you've been fooled.

> A year ago questions involving access to health care tended to split down the middle, the one recent poll I looked at seems to have moved far to the right in the last year on the issue of transgender care for minors.

Yes, because people's brains have been cooked through immersion in social media.

If you surround yourself with virtue, you will become virtuous. If you surround yourself with vice, you will become vicious. Social media rewards vice, so people have become more vicious.

> I am already frustrated with the bandwagoning of 'neurodivergence' by an autism industrial complex and an ADHD industry that pushes addictive medicine. Neurodivergent people are already 'bully magnets' and the last thing they need is to take on an identity

I have ADHD (according to my psychiatrist one of the most obvious cases they've ever seen), and autism, and I'm trans (both -sexual and gender). So I guess in your eyes I'm a bully magnet (??) who has taken on an identity (???????). In reality, despite the horrible discrimination, my neurodivergence gives me a pretty nonstandard insight into things, and an ability to explain concepts, that I've been able to turn into something valuable to others. (The last 4 technical blog posts I wrote were all front page on HN, with 100-300+ upvotes.)

This has nothing to do with paranoia or delusions. My work is valued for its correctness and attention to detail.

[skissane]

> It is an objectively true moral statement that minority rights ought not depend on majority opinion (that is the whole point of constitutionalism). To the extent that minority rights depend on majority opinion in reality, that is a deficiency of political systems. All of us exist in deficient political systems.

No constitution is an absolute guarantee of the rights of any minority. Constitutions contain roadblocks to slow down the majority when its desires conflict with the rights and interests of minorities, but a sufficiently determined supermajority retains the ability to overcome all those roadblocks. At the end of the day, almost all constitutions can be amended, even if with some difficulty – no matter how many constitutional provisions you have to protect minority rights, if the constitution can be amended, then those provisions can be altered or repealed.

The alternative is a constitution which is impossible to amend, no matter how large a supermajority of the population wants it amended. That's fundamentally antidemocratic, and could be described as a form of constitutional tyranny.

[PaulHoule]

I should have said "interests" rather than rights, although one thing I know is that when this civilization collapses people will turn their back on everything it stood for and the idea of individualism and rights will be gone ("my carbon my choice"), the next culture will have a bill of responsibilities.

Sports is a clear example. Nobody has a 'right' to be on a sports team. Women have been working for years to build the opportunity to have a pro career. Until tests were developed (1970 or so) it was a chronic problem that men would crash women's events in the Olympics to steal gold medals.

On the other hand, there are many benefits to participation in sports. I don't want the state to decide who can play in what league. I want leagues to decide that. My school is part of club leagues where teams have a mix of men and women in them and I think there's a lot of room for innovation. Different leagues want different things: I want trans people to be able to participate in some sports, it's important.

J. K. Rowling didn't start out in the place where she ended up.

As for social media, I deleted my Twitter account in 2016, I don't hang out in places with right wing nuts, rather I am on Mastodon and Bluesky with the left wing nuts. I need lots of filters to keep out hateful content posted by trans people on both of those platforms.

'Virtue' and 'Vice' are a frame that makes all problems impossible to solve and leaves people talking past each other. See [1]

It took me 40 years to get my diagnosis; I've had numerous psych evals and today I can get enough signs and symptoms to get a diagnosis looking at the first paragraph of any of them, even if that paragraph stated it was inconclusive.

I have a small amount of the thought disorder of schizophrenia, enough that I can't win at chess because I'll screw up. I max any test of verbal intelligence I take, I write long posts like this that have bizarre typos, the harder I try to fix them the more my keyboard turns into a Ouija board. On a bad morning I have a paranoia towards objects that seem to jump out and grab me. At one point of my life I was wrapped up in a system of delusions.

I also can do detail oriented work and systems thinking. (I've compensated for my condition very well) Sometimes my work is highly valued. Yet I graduated from elementary school the same way Ender Wiggin did. The child post of this one (where I tell the story of my son's incel and trans friends) [4] got upwards of 37 votes so "my opinion does hold some weight here" (But so does yours, and one difference between me and you is that I'm not going to tell you that your opinion has no weight)

Sometimes I feel angry that I wasn't served by the mental health community and that about 5-10% of the population is similarly underserved. On the other hand I was lucky that I was only under the spell of a charlatan for about 9 months of my life and I'm glad I didn't get drugged the way they wanted to drug me in school because a friend of mine who's the same age as me and did get drugged got all his teeth pulled at the age of 40 and might suffer from osteoporosis soon [2] [3] if he lives that long.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Rights-Talk-Impoverishment-Political-...

[2] https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2016/b...

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-19894-x

[4] My son's friend went through a period of near complete social isolation during the pandemic where just about the only person he talked to was an 'egg hatcher' for months. It is not a clinical study or even a case report but my son and I both have notes on our experiences of knowing this person from elementary school to the present day that we're going to consolidate and turn into a real write-up some day. I'm going to support this person as an individual to the maximum that I can because those are my 'family values', I can still think they're making a mistake.