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My empathy for trans people is precisely why I find the entire phenomenon so impossible to look away from. I can find in myself some ability to reason myself into what they're claiming to be going through. I can imagine myself as a kid, not particularly popular and with plenty of angst, deciding that what is really wrong with me is my gender identity and clamping down on that idea. I am privileged to know what not doing that results in and it's a good life where I get over my angst. I fear for people who might trap themselves in a false understanding of the world that will lead them to living much worse lives than they could have led.
I know that memes are powerful enough to do this people. Memes can bend people into myrters, Jihadists, self immolators kamikaze pilots, and many other forms in service of the meme. Maybe the framing where I'm cis by default is true and they really are experiencing some extra sense that I am blind to. But I know, absolutely know, that given the right circumstances growing up I could have been made to think I was feeling that sense. I know, absolutely know, that if I had convinced myself of it I would be stubborn enough to cement it into my identity. Because of this I know that there is a boy somewhere that is going to sacrifice his health and exceptionally happy future to chase being a mere mimic of a woman. I see myself in him, I recognize that for the grace of god go I, and that breaks my heart.
I think something important to note here is the sheer volume. Especially for those who spend a lot of time online, there’s a firehouse of memes, and because of the silo effects, you simply don’t hear anything from the other side. It’s always been rather hilarious to me that the leftist response to free speech on Twitter was to leave almost immediately. And it’s rather the wrong approach to a radicalism spiral on either side. If you’re going down a black hole, the critical thing that can keep you from going too deep is seeing the other side. If I’m becoming a radical lefty, seeing conservative content and specifically memes opposed to mine will at least keep me from thinking that my Marxposting peers are in the mainstream.
The other thing is to unplug from media. Go camping and leave the phone at home. Read books, draw, paint, make warhammer figures, bake stuff, who cares. But unplugging from the firehouse is probably the best cure for radicalism.
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The meme-ness of it is the main reason I'm opposed to widespread normalization of trans minors. I've seen multiple young people (my relatives even) playing around with the idea of transitioning based on the social and online groups they were in. All of them stopped being interested in gender when separating from those groups. One push from a gender-related medical specialist and I can totally see any of them cementing gender beliefs into their identity.
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