The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Notes -
I'm okay if you read my use of the word "threatening" as "upsetting," that gets my point across, even though it's not quite the same. You could argue that I'm a rhetorical charlatan for using the word and I would see how you got there. But it's fair to assume that someone who feels vulnerable about their trans identity could feel threatened by some of the stuff J.K. Rowling says, and be reminded of it when they get served Harry Potter content on the internet, thereby feeling threatened. But I'd be willing to compromise and use the word "upsetting" if you're okay with that, either one serves to help illustrate the problem I'm having.
This is getting off track-- I made this post because I didn't come clean to my friend about my feelings and beliefs, and I want to be sensitive to their feelings and beliefs. I am seeking advice for how to handle the issue. What's a contentious issue between you and your friends? How would you handle it if it came up in conversation? Would you avoid it?
I am dismissive of the rapist tweet because:
Most trans people don't become trans because they want to rape people (I believe the numbers of fradulent trans people are on the order of 1 per 1 million, but even if it's 1 per 1000 how many fraudulent trans people are also rapists?).
The tiny minority of fraudulent trans people (like, for example, rapists who want to go to a women's prison) will get extra scrutiny and be dealt with accordingly.
If the rapist who became trans wants to rape people, they shouldn't be allowed to do so in any prison, let alone a women's prison.
It's a tweet, and it's ridiculous
I think the argument that people have different opinions (and that sometimes their opinions are dumb and/or offensive, or in the case of J.K. Rowling driven by their life experiences) is a good one to use. I may incorporate this into how I handle the topic if it comes up in conversation again.
It's not like you are making a favor to me because I'm dumb and can't understand it otherwise. It like using this term is abusing the language and we all need to stop doing it. Moreover, you are abusing it in a way that is also used by people to do very bad things. I do not say your goals are also bad, I am completely willing to accept it's an innocent mistake driven, but I am saying staying away from such abuse is not some negligible concession to just get people to understand you better. It's a very important principle and should be done because it's the right thing to do.
Their feeling would be wrong. If they are your friends, you will be doing them a service correcting their picture of reality to match the actual reality. Believing in false things is very rarely good for you. If somebody feels the TV is giving them orders coming from Alfa Centauri, they need help. If they feel a game is threatening their existence, they need help. If Rowling advocated, say, for putting trans people into camps or sending them off to Australia, then that may be thought of as threatening, but she never did that, did she? And neither does the game include any elements that promote such actions, right? So I don't see anything threatening.
If you mean that Rowling words may cause them doubting their identity - well, if their identity is so unclear to them that a word of a random person can change it, maybe it's a good thing they hear those words? Unless being trans carries some value to them and they are actually scared that it may be revealed to them that they aren't actually trans and thus lose this value and become ordinary boring people, like the rest of us? I certainly hope that's not the case.
The females in that prison won't be locked together with "most trans people". They will be locked with the specific rapist, who we know raped people because that's the reason he's in prison. And he somehow "discovered" he's "transgender" only after being convicted.
If I see no chance to change my friend's mind or if I feel trying to do so will hurt them emotionally - yes, I'd avoid that. If I can't avoid it, I'd tell them that I am their friend and I value their friendship, but I think they are wrong here, and explain why.
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