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This is going to sound mean but one of the reasons I've largely stopped participating in conversations about sex, gender, relationships, etc... is that so many of the surrounding it is so, for lack of a better term, "autistic". Someone who doesn't seem to unterstand the concept of food preferences will turn around and argue the primacy of self-identification over empirical observation. Or alternately the inverse where you get idiots arguing that a trait is either 100% masculine or 100% feminine and then they tie themselves in knots arguing that men who display qualities that are traditionally coded as feminine are secret [redacted]/[redacted] and women who assert themselves are secretly men and It's all so fucking tiring to argue against.
That said, I think you're on to something in that I think a lot of it really does down to an underdeveloped sense of self. People who have a reasonably healthy sense of self and who are comfortable in their own skin don't need to make their weird sex thing their whole identity.
Some of this propably is a lack of social understanding from the people involved, but I think a good bit also comes from arguing in a formalistic way. Where, instead of "being reasonable", and using your common sense to grease the understanding, they try to be very literal about everything. Theyre doing this on purpose, not because they dont have common sense, but because, to stick with the metaphor, greasing well might let you get work done even with a mistake in the gears that you dont notice.
Potentially finding that mistake is prioritised because you dont particularly care about getting to the "practical" outcome. Theres propably many cases of red- and blue-pillers arguing with each other who handle their real-life relationship very similarly. The goal is to understand "what things really are", in some sense. To nerdy liberals, whether men or women are "really" treated unfairly in relationships is such an abstract question, not necessarily related to practical recommendations for anyone, but very important morally. And I think its clear why such a "reality" could be interesting on the trans topic.
This isnt intended to convince you such arguments are a good use of time, they propably mostly arent, but you might appreciate knowing it.
Those are all really good points actually. I appreciate you putting it out there.
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Plus one. And it is frustrating because it is so often divorced from reality and build upon the (non)premise of "No, this is how I feel. You can't argue with how I feel."
The counter-intuitive thing, in my mind, is that a well developed sense of self is often easier developed within a group or community. Major upfront caveat - not in a group/community that is completely dedicated to developing personal senses of self. Let me explain. Say you're part of a gym group - crossfit, traditional powerlifting, MMA, cycling, rock climbing, whatever. That group is there for the activity; developing the skills, trading advice, swapping stories. The purpose is beyond that of the group members themselves. This same principle applies to non-physical organizations as well. I'm in a professional society - let's say I'm a professional cake baker so that I don't doxx myself. I go to meetings and conferences, I know some folks. I've learned better cakery along the way. The important part in terms of sense of self is that I have these stable groups wherein I can place myself. I'm a batter cakerist than John from Cincinnati, but not quite as skilled as Mary from Hershey, Pennsylvania. I can lift more than Steve, but less than Don. We all get a long. I have confidence in what I can do, and a healthy humility regarding what I can't, and the group itself doesn't castigate me for my relative skill level.
Contrast that, first, to groups who are only about the preservation and boosting of the ego. These are largely online communities that sometimes get together in meatspace. What's the reward system there? Either a) be the loudest person in the group in terms of over-the-top unconditional support for the others (these would be your "yass queen, slay" types) or b) be the loudest person in the group in terms of victimhood identification. There's no other place to be within those groups because there would be no point. Again the whole point of those kind of groups is to boost individuals within them, there's no external goal/purpose/motivation. That leads to very quick sprints to the extreme.
But rewind the tape a little. What if I'm not in any of the above? I'm just a very online person who strongly identifies as something or another. Well, then we get into what I consider to be pretty dangerous territory. Absent of any meaningful community or group affiliation, people overcompensate be either super-inflating their own egos to fill up that void, or letting that crushing loneliness compress them into a neutron star that explodes. The outcomes vary. On the one hand, you have Gen-Z tiktokers giving rageful speeches about weird new pronouns. On the other, you have displaced loners killing themselves and, sadly, often other people. My theory is that it largely comes from the same primary source - lack of a sense of self and the resulting hyper-compensation. The cure isn't pop-psychology mindfulness, ill-defined "self-care", or, of course, hormonal modification. It's developing bonds within a structure larger than yourself to develop a stable self.
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