domain:open.substack.com?page=3
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
2m ago
I just woke up from a nightmare where I noticed the top of my head was balding. Even as a man with a very nice head of hair, having a bald dad gives you generational trauma :(
I think most of the recommendations here make sense. I'd personally advocate for topical minoxidil first and foremost, and then finasteride as an option second, if you're willing to accept the risks. If all else fails and you have the money, Turkey or Mexico beckons.
RenOS
the mountain passed, the sea in front
3m ago
On the other hand, many relationships I've talked about more in-depth with people include some moment in which one partner, usually the women, has some doubts and breaks it off for a while only to come back (often almost immediately). LDRs are one of the most common causes. And she is kind of right, if you only dated a few months, not committing to an LDR of more months than that is a very reasonable decision. Doesn't mean she isn't open to a proper relationship afterwards, and the fact that she starts the messages again shows that she likely has at least some interest still.
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
6m ago
Since you're being pretty up front about it and accepting the inevitable consequences, I'm only going to ban you for one day, but yes, this is absolutely not the kind of post we want.
Every one of us (including me) has a list of "people I can't fucking stand and wish would fuck off forever." If even blocking them is not enough for you and their very existence causes you to post things like this, that is a you problem. Deal with it in some manner other than this.
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
12m ago
Really? Before the trans debate, do you think men could just occasionally walk into the women's bathroom and pee in peace while only being freaked out at by rare Karens?
Men who were making a genuine effort to dress and pass as women (even if they didn't really pass)? Yes.
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
13m ago
Out of curiosity, have you actually read any books about the history of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Do you think you could accurately summarize both the Israeli and the Palestinian positions in words that they themselves would agree with? Of course there is no single "Israeli" or "Palestinian" position, which is part of my point below, but even narrowing it down to the militant partisans on either side?
Yes, I said that my view was based on those things, not that I was just directly quoting them, and I don't think any individual element of that description is inapplicable. Even pro-Israeli partisans admit they've killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including women and children - “There are no schools in Gaza, as there are no children left.” was proudly chanted by them in public.
Who is them? The footballers in Amsterdam?
It's undeniable that tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. There is no war, especially one happening in an urban environment, where lots of casualties weren't women and children. This doesn't make their war just, but it does make it unexceptional. Nor are the Israelis exceptional in having some drunken footballers chanting terrible things and soldiers in the field sometimes getting up to stupid and offensive grunt shit to amuse themselves.
I've based my views on quotes straight from the mouths of Likud officials, not Hamas. As I said, I'm not condemning the Israelis as evil (I don't think calling a state evil really has much meaning) - I'm just taking them at their word.
That would require you to describe them as they would describe themselves. Do you think they would describe themselves as "a blood-drenched, bronze-age state intent on ethnic purity and conquest via force of arms to reclaim the territory their god said was theirs"? Again, you aren't using the word "evil" but you're clearly saying, in not so many words, that they're evil monsters and there is no other way to explain them.
Also, Likud is one political party in Israel whose popularity waxes and wanes. They do not speak for the Israeli state and the entirety of the Israeli citizenry. This would be like taking some of the Republicans' most extreme statements and saying they speak for Americans. (Which of course is exactly what they and their enemies would both like to claim, but it doesn't make it true.) Much has been made of Netanyahu's "Amelek" comment. Netanyahu is a sort of Trump-like figure in Israel - he has a lot of supporters, especially after 10/7, but a substantial portion of the Israeli's population hates him. Think of all the outrageous things Trump has said, which a sizeable portion of the American population would not agree with, and then claiming that Trump was clearly speaking for the American people, and reflecting what Americans think. In an abstract sense, this may be true (they elected him, after all), but at the same time, you'd be completely wrong in claiming he's channelling the American psyche and voicing what the average American thinks about everything. Netanyahu, and other militant Likud officials, are pretty open about despising Palestinians, and there's a sizeable portion of Israel that would just like the Palestinians to go away (who can blame them, after all this time?). But most Israelis do not want to exterminate Palestinians because God said to, and you know this and you know it's not an accurate characterization, you're just using that description because it makes Israel sound really super-evil.
I'm just taking them at their word. I think that they're motivated by ethnonationalist impulses
"Motivated by ethnonationalist impulses" is rather different from "literally wants to commit genocide because God told us to," which is what you are claiming.
We have a number of white ethnonationalists here, and while sometimes they will admit that they would be okay with a violent solution to create the ethnostate they want, none of them would accept as uncharitable a description of their motives as the one you are claiming is the Israeli one.
Whether or not you believe ethnostates are bad, people (including Israelis) want them for reasons beyond "We hate other people and want to purify the Earth."
That's precisely what I'm doing
No, you are assuredly and absolutely not. Again, can I ask what books you have read?
I can imagine how insanely hard that would be, to have something wrong with your brain so that instead of having sexual and romantic attraction to the opposite sex, you have it to the same sex. And how hard it would be to have all those feelings of eros, of being-in-love, that scream to you from the rooftops that this is right and good and beautiful and what I'm meant to do, except unnaturally directed towards another man.
Can you?
Because the actual answer to how hard it is, is "not at all, actually". This is way, way more projection than anything any of us actually feel -- save those who have been bullied and belittled into thinking they should feel that way. But as someone who has been anti-religious since early primary school it has not been difficult in the slightest to deal with. If anything, seeing the state of women in 2024, I feel lucky. Blessed, even.
Anyway, I don't think the reason most ordinary people take against trans is disgust in any case. I think it's the entitlement.
99.9% of the population are supposed to change their manner of speaking and the rules for this 0.1%, who aren't ever even grateful for any kind of effort, but just make more and more demands once any inches are given. If you do not believe a man can become a woman, an incredibly common belief, you are supposed to never ever voice this belief, and indeed act and speak contrary to it at all times, because it is your responsibility, your duty, to reinforce these people's identities at all times. But they'll still fucking despise you despite it.
And don't you dare try to exclude them from your dating pool, even if they have the wrong genitals! That's -phobic, makes you a "genital fetishist" and "not really gay, since you only like dick and not men" and that means they get to call for your death on public social media and that's justified and totally fine. Bigot!
Nah. Fuck 'em.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
14m ago
Genuine empathy cannot be compelled. And to the extent that it could be, it would have no value. We should encourage understanding; that is, a rational understanding of the physical and social causes that make people think as they think and do as they do. But such understanding is distinct from empathy and compassion as emotional affects.
What I find most obnoxious about the contemporary transsexual "movement" is that they have legislated, by social fiat, a prescribed position on a philosophical question that rightly should be a matter of free inquiry and debate: namely, the metaphysics and ontology of gender. This really grinds my gears like nothing else. Possibly more than anything having to do with bathrooms or puberty blockers. The right to open inquiry is one of the closest things I have to a sacred value. When you are forced to refer to an MTF transsexual as "she", you are being compelled, under social duress, to assert as an ontological truth that this person just is a woman (and all parties are aware that that's plainly what's going on here - otherwise it wouldn't be such a heated topic of disagreement in the first place). I can't accept being compelled to assent to such a contentious position.
For my part, the two positions on the ontology of gender that I take seriously are the conservative position - that there are such things as men and women, and the way we usually sorted people into those buckets up until ~40 years ago is basically correct - or the eliminativist position - that no person is either a man or a woman, and thus "X is a woman" is vacuously false for all X. On either position, to say that an MTF transsexual "is a woman" is to utter a falsehood, and thus I do not believe that such a statement should be socially compulsory. There have been serious attempts to develop an ontology that would support the transsexual position, and I treat them with the same respect that I give by default to all positions that I disagree with, but I don't personally consider any such view to be a live possibility.
Gaashk
15m ago
I don't necessarily feel disgusted. If I were forced by Society or the State to interact with a (certain kind of) trans woman in a female only space, I would probably feel threatened. The new trans woman in Congress who was making video threats about bashing their female colleagues head in the bathroom seemed very threatening. Trans women in contact sports or women's shelters seems potential threatening, on a case by case basis. I am basically fine with people using their intuition/gut/systems that are below the threshold of rationality to make decisions about things like "does this person feel threatening?" I think that we are wrong to try to squash that in the name of disparate impact.
Sex segregated spaces are usually a good thing. To the extent that we, as a society, have gotten rid of male spaces, that was mostly a bad idea and we should bring most of them back. To the extent that we are now in the process of getting rid of certain female only spaces by admitting trans women who the other women don't necessarily accept without coercion, that is also a bad thing. I think it is very reasonable to admit some trans women to some female spaces on the basis of vibes with the women, and not other trans women to other spaces, on the basis of things like large, strong, and has a penis. We've gone crazy and extra on marginal equity lately, which is a bad thing.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
15m ago
Not a Diablo player in the least, but John Carmack publicly stated on X that Elon actually does that, and that even his wife plays Diablo with him so as to be carried through tougher dungeons.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
33m ago
think about what kind of emotions must have driven him to that place, and have a little empathy.
But emotions can be flawed and often are.
If I see a stereotypical homeless schizophrenic person raving in the street, I definitely "feel" for them, but I'm not about to indulge their delusions of being Jesus Christ.
The thing that's never made sense to me about Trans ideology is that it seems to be firmly planted in the feeling and emotional camp for justification. If you really, truly feel you are the wrong gender, then, apparently, transition is a remedy for that. But there are thousands of people who, daily, really, truly feel that they are depressed, angry, lonely ... and still thousands more who deeply feel they are Jesus Christ. For this later group, we identify that that doesn't meet with reality and, therefore, that dissonance is a disease (or illness, whatever the preferred nomenclature is) and we ought to help that person through it (to the extent that they are capable. There's another thread in here about forced institutionalization, but let's stay focused). I would assume that any psychiatrist who has a patient who swears up and down that they are Napoleon reborn, and then offers that patient a prescription for Fancy French uniforms, they would be rightfully stripped of their professional license.
I have no problem with the idea of men or women wanting to dress, act, "present" as the other gender. If this provides joy and happiness in your life, that's wonderful. But the forced Kafabe of reality is a problem because society should never prioritize emotional comfort over truth (for adults ... we get to play a little fast and loose when raising children as they have to be taught emotional maturity gradually). The word games around "sex" versus "gender" don't make any meaningful distinction and only serve as a way to force conformity and create lines of demarcation for in-group and out-group.
Mostly, I think the trans issue is the same as the left-handed gun owners issue - there isn't one. For an vanishingly small percent of the population, they have severe mental and emotional issues that may or may not be alleviated through medical intervention. Many more are simply gay or lesbian folks reconciling with themselves. Some have generalized self-image issues. For example:
Sometimes -- during some periods in the past, at any time the thought would occur to me, which was quite often -- I want to be female... it's less common now because I don't indulge it as deeply -- I've almost never wanted to be what I actually am, male, except instrumentally... Why? I don't know why, that's just what is. Sucks to be me that I'm actually male, unlike half the human population.
Sorry to lightly edit your own words, but I think you can see how reading this could make someone think that it isn't about male-female, but more generally about self-conception/self-image acceptance. You could sub in some words about "fat" vs "skinny" and the sentences and ideas would still be coherent.
But the Trans-Ideology cult are none of those people and, instead, have taken up that cause as a political cudgel. Agreement with the ideology is far, far more important than empathy to the actual humans. Both of these are far, far less important than an accurate relationship with reality and the Truth.
DelendaEst
37m ago
I am much more hostile to trans than I am to gay, and more than I used to be. I wouldn't say I don't care if someone is trans or not, I will judge them and wouldn't want to hang out, but I am not here to police every dumb thing people do. So then I should be in favor of trans people being left alone right? I guess, but only if they will agree to leave me alone, and they certainly have not.
Demanding that society redefine gender to suit them even though it flies in the face of objective reality, trying to get men into women's only spaces, and otherwise trying to force everyone else to join them in their delusions is a hostile act, and I return it with hostility. If they want to be left alone and treated with anything other than hostility I say they can go first.
07mk
41m ago
My point about trans people experiencing passing is that there's no difference between the two for a trans person going about their day.
This seems fair enough, and I'd characterize it as that a trans person's experience of passing is indistinguishable from not passing within certain environments and contexts, particularly ones where everyone around them decides to treat them as if they pass. It's the difference between passing a test because you legitimately got 70% of the questions correct and because the professor decided that you deserved a free 50 points on top of the 20% you got correct. You can argue that, technically, the latter fits the definition of "passing," but I don't think that's a very useful definition for the way people normally use the term. For one, it implies that one viable strategy for passing tests is to manipulate every professor you have into giving you a free 50 points, which would subvert the entire purpose of what "passing" a test is meant to signify. I don't think when people say things like "if the transwoman passes, I'm okay calling her a 'she' and having her go into the women's bathroom," they mean that they'd be okay with it as long as they've been bullied, coerced, or otherwise manipulated into treating the transwoman as if they're female regardless of their own subjective perception of the transwoman. Rather, I think they mean something about how an ignorant stranger would perceive the transwoman.
No_one
42m ago
By centrist I don't mean someone who is in the political centre as party politics are concerned, just someone with no firm ideology or agenda.
Apart from his opposition to transgender issues, what politics does he have?
Wanting an efficient government that obeys the law and preferences of citizens and that isn't getting in the way is pretty much a non ideological.
Nobody but certain very narrow segments of political class desire infinity migration.
Tanista
52m ago
Diablo 4 players, how likely do you think it is that Elon Musk is bullshitting about his global ranking? What time investment would you need to get into the top 20?
Throwaway05
1hr ago
In order to have a conversation about increased patient autonomy you need to know the risks and benefits of increased autonomy. I'm not saying you are stupid, I'm saying you don't know anything about medicine or prescribing, which is the thing you are trying to alter. Demonstrating knowledge of the regulatory landscape is not the same as demonstrating the risks and benefits and you certainly have not intimated any knowledge of the many, many discussions about patient autonomy that have been going on for the last several hundred years.
You don't. And that's normal. If I was arguing for deregulation of nuclear energy and you told me you were an expert and that was insane and I blew you off by mumbling about something else, well...no bueno.
You are arguing that people have a right to walk along the train tracks without knowing about the existence of trains.
Since the 1938 date-
How much has the number of drugs increased since then? How much has polypharmacy increased since then? How much has comorbidity increase since then? How much has personal behavior in response to healthcare changed since?
Do you know to think about any of these things?
Sophistry is not a substitute for domain specific knowledge.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1hr ago
I think honestly I’d consider the relationship over. She’s not looking for you because she misses you. If she did, she’d probably not have broken it off. She probably did move, and either hasn’t yet found someone nearby or she did and th3 relationship came apart. To my mind, that’s not her choosing you, but her choosing to contact you because she can’t find someone in her new environment. If she really thought you were someone she could see herself marrying or even long-term dating, she would have at least made that offer. For whatever reason she didn’t want to. There’s nothing long term here.
My go to of any relationship among people in any context is if they wanted to, they would. If they really want to have a long term relationship with you, they would be making moves to make that happen— either not moving or committing to a LTR or something like that. If they actually want to marry you, they’ll be making concrete moves n that direction. If someone wants to be your friend, they will be willing to make time for you and to actually invite you over on occasion. If your boss really sees you getting promoted, you’ll see concrete moves in that direction— more training, being invited to conferences, being asked for input on things, maybe asked to fill in n occasion. On it goes, but my point is pay closer attention to what people are doing over what they are saying. If there’s a mismatch between words and deeds, go with the deeds.
The other night I rewatched a movie I liked when I was younger, Heartbreakers. If you want a light comedy featuring a funny performance from Ray Liotta and a hysterical one from Bob Hoskins (and also a leading turn from Jennifer Love Hewitt in her prime, displaying acres of leg and cleavage), check it out.
The premise of the film (this is revealed in the first ten minutes of the movie so it's hardly a spoiler, but the movie would probably be more entertaining if you go into it blind) is this:
WhateverHappenedToNorman
1hr ago
I have a lot of sympathy for the heavily gender dysphoric: their existence seems to be very painful, and the apparent best treatment currently avaiable to them, gender transition hard and early, cannot be reasonable healthcare policy with today's screening methods: You're going to ruin the life of many a confused child (or the children of histrionic psychos).
The problem is that their plight gets used as a cover for a bunch of perverts, fetishists, political actors and other assortments of malcontents. As such, trans-acceptance discourse is not properly framed as what it might be: an act of kindness, for which boundaries need to be set, and in which some people who are suffering are not going to get everything they want.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
1hr ago
I don’t understand why more people don’t recognize that Allman is clearly superior.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
1hr ago
I don’t buy that meditation can reliably lead to “any emotion or experience”. I don’t think the evidence is weighty enough to support that idea. Certainly you can’t trust the old writings of an institution of monks who are interested in getting monks to meditate as much as possible.
to see on paper the maximum benefit we can derive from these practices
This is a more realistic aim. Non-effortful meditation is probably beneficial for the Domain Mode Network, resulting in greater rest and general awareness. But if anything, I’d bet the benefits of meditation are precisely insofar as they don’t cause a preferable emotional state. If meditation is boring, unpleasant, but restful, then your “real life” will be more interesting, pleasant, and energetic. It’s like a nap.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
2hr ago
For your average person who isn't sleeping well I would strongly recommend moderate cardio, cutting out caffeine and no screens for an hour or two before bed (books, podcasts, kindles ok). Even better if you can switch in some basic mindfulness meditation.
Also, if you've never done one, go for a sleep study and get yourself tested for sleep apnea.
Southkraut
A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
2hr ago
K&R, accept no substitutes.
It's logically consistent, space-efficient, orderly and readable. The others don't even come close.
dovetailing
2hr ago
I am once again asking you to have a little empathy for people you find disgusting
Let's start with an easier case.
I find male homosexuality disgusting. The idea of two men having sex makes my stomach turn. Even something like two men kissing makes me a bit queasy. And, separately, because I'm a Christian and take Christian sexual ethics seriously, I think it is (along with many other things) morally wrong.
It would be very easy for me to decide that, therefore, all gay men are sick perverts. There's more than ample evidence for that if I were inclined to take that position: bathhouse hookups, near-nudity at Pride parades, piss orgies. Case closed, right?
But I think we're all aware that that's not the whole story. When two men want to get gay-married, they are not, apparently, doing so merely to indulge in (and force society to be complicit in) some perverted sex act. Apparently, gay men actually fall in love, and actually form romantic attachments to each other. I know this because they say so, and because homosexually attracted men who think it's immoral talk about how hard it is, and because who on earth thinks getting married and tying yourself to another person is the easiest way to indulge in some perverted sex act; come on.
So I can have empathy for gay men. I know what it's like to be infatuated with a woman, to fall in love, to want to get married (I'm married myself) -- and, yes, to be sexually attracted and want to have sex, too. And I can imagine how insanely hard that would be, to have something wrong with your brain so that instead of having sexual and romantic attraction to the opposite sex, you have it to the same sex. And how hard it would be to have all those feelings of eros, of being-in-love, that scream to you from the rooftops that this is right and good and beautiful and what I'm meant to do, except unnaturally directed towards another man.
So yeah, I think that being homosexual means there's something mentally wrong with you, and that men having sex with men is sinful, and that it's not a good thing that we've normalized these things in our society. But I can also have empathy and understanding for their situation, and not insist at every turn that they're all perverted sickos who want to inflict their perversion on the rest of us.
But this post isn't about gays.
I keep seeing in these threads people talking about transsexuals as though they are all sick perverts who want to inflict their fetish on the rest of us. They can marshal evidence, of course, because, yes, there are trans people who are in fact doing something a lot like that. It's not as much evidence as in the case of gay men, but sure, it's there.
And it's not wrong that there's some sexual elements to transition. If you've not heard of Blanchard's typology of male-to-female transsexuals, here's the short version: There are, broadly speaking, two types of males who want to become female so badly that they will try to do it as best they can.
The first type are very effeminate males; they are attracted solely to men, they act like girls from a very early age, and they feel, often very intensely, that they are in the wrong body, to the point that it causes them enormous distress; in fact, their actual bodies are often somewhat androgynous. They have a good case that they have some prenatal hormone or endocrine issues that caused this cross-sex psychology. This type is very rare, probably less than one in ten thousand in the general population.
The second type are different. They are almost always attracted to women. They rarely displayed overtly feminine behavior as young children, and their personalities run the entire gamut of the male distribution. They often don't develop the level of distress (or obsession) that drives them to transition until later in life (though with the threshold for how motivated one has to be to transition coming down, more and more of them are transitioning earlier). This type is much more common, forming the majority -- and an increasing one, as barriers come down -- of males seeking to transition.
But the unique and startling attribute of this second type is that they find the idea of being or becoming female sexually arousing. This attribute Blanchard named autogynephilia, and to it he attributed the ultimate cause of their desire to transition.
Most "trans women" are autogynephiles.
But just as it's wrong to attribute the desire of gay men to get gay-married to their getting horny in perverted ways, it's wrong to attribute autogynephiles' desire to transition to the same. Insisting on doing so betrays the same lack of empathy that results in street preachers who think yelling at the gays about how they're sick freaks is the way to fix anything.
I don't want autogynephiles to transition. I think the messaging they are getting about how "wanting to be a girl is the number one sign of being a girl" (yes, an actual statement I've seen) is destructive and leads to foolish delusions about what they really are. I think most of them would be much happier -- and make those around them much happier -- if they would not indulge, not try to transition, not let this stuff blow up their lives and relationships. And I think that making your best disgusted face and yelling "it's a fetish" is the second-worst thing you can do, second only to the active encouragement they're getting from the trans movement.
So let me help you have some empathy. As it turns out, I have autogynephilia. (And no, before you ask -- I have never cross-dressed, not even in private. Not everyone is the same.) Let me tell you why -- in spite of the fact that I think it's wrong, and in spite of the fact that I know damn well that it doesn't actually work to change sex, I've been tempted by the siren song of transition. Here's a hint: it's not because it would help me to have orgasms.
I'm going to come back to the analogy of being in love. Not because it's exactly the same -- it isn't, not really -- but because it's the closest thing that most people have experienced to the emotions I'm trying to get at, and has many of the same complicating sexual factors. I'm going to assume you are a straight guy, because I am, and so are most of the people here. If you're not, feel free to fill in the sexes appropriately.
Let's say you develop an infatuation with a girl. You enjoy thinking about her. You want to spend time with her. Being near her is pleasant, and comforting, and a little exciting. You want her, just her, not instrumentally, not to do anything in particular, just her, for no reason and every reason. Holding her hand is electric. You just want be with her forever, to sweep her into your embrace, and damn it, why the f&!k are you getting a boner right now, you were having this pure and chaste and beautiful reverie and now you're thinking about sex.
So yeah, it's kinda like that. Sometimes there's a pure lust thing, too, just like a guy will imagine some girl and masturbate while thinking about her. But the primary thing, the reason transition has any appeal at all, is not that, any more than simple horniness is the reason a man in love wants to marry his beloved.
Sometimes -- during some periods in the past, at any time the thought would occur to me, which was quite often -- I want to be female. (And to be clear: although the intense desire to be female is not uniform, and it's less common now because I don't indulge it as deeply -- I've almost never wanted to be what I actually am, male, except instrumentally.) It's almost a primitive, axiomatic thing; a simple fact, not to be questioned despite its strangeness. My "ideal self" would have long hair and breasts and a round, sweet face, would wear dresses (but not makeup and heels, those suck), would not have a penis and testicles but a vagina and a womb and ovaries. Why? I don't know why, that's just what is. Sucks to be me that I'm actually male, unlike half the human population.
(Downthread someone mentioned the social attitude of "man bad, woman good"; unironically this is my own deeply felt and instinctive emotional response.)
For about a decade and a half of my lifetime, roughly between adolescence (maybe before; I don't remember) and when I got engaged, if you'd given me a magic button that would have instantly and permanently made me fully female, with all the right parts and functions and everything -- I would have pressed that button so damned hard you have no idea. I wouldn't do it now -- because I'm married, and I love my wife even more, and also because I have some concept for why my feelings on the matter are wrong -- but I'd still be sorely tempted.
Interestingly, I never really hated my actual body, as such. I don't like it; I don't like seeing myself in the mirror, I don't like my "equipment". But I don't have the kind of revulsion that some people report. Maybe I'm lucky after all; I mostly disliked my male body only because it wasn't a female one. But if I'd spent another decade single and investing in the fantasy of becoming a woman, instead of focusing on loving my wife and resisting those thoughts? Yeah, I'd probably be so miserable with my actual body, and so fixated on the fantasy, that I'd be willing to accept transition (hormones and surgeries and all) as the best I could do.
So anyway, next time you see some dude in a dress, with long hair and breasts but a face and voice obviously male despite his best efforts, think about what kind of emotions must have driven him to that place, and have a little empathy.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
2hr ago
I prefer K&R with mandatory braces around single-statement blocks.
Indeed. To take an easy case, I have to constantly admonish secular people have to such empathy and magnanimity towards religious people. Many secular people consider religious folk mentally diseased and morally defective. This is not meant to be insulting. I just take ethics seriously. It would be easy for me decide that all religious people are intellectually and morally deranged; a lost cause. They routinely claim certainty about something I know they are not certain. Almost always they were indoctrinated about what to believe, and then not to question it. Case closed, right?
But that's not the whole story. I know that religion does so much good for so many people. I know what spiritual yearning and salvation feels like. Order. Comfort. Community. Humility that this world is much bigger than we can even begin to understand. To realize that the purpose life - no matter who is controlling it - is to love whoever is around to be loved. To realize that one friend is all one needs in order to be well supplied with friendship. Imaginary friends should count, too.
So yeah, I think being religious means something is mentally wrong with you. But don't let what I have written tell on me. I - the author of this post - actually, sincerely, earnestly, unsarcastically and unironically, have empathy for religious people.
But this isn't about religion.
This is about empathy. Not pity. Not sympathy. And certainly not about condoning actions one finds immoral. Empathy isn't best derived from an analogous personal experience. Thoughts can overcome emotion. As a straight guy, I too find depictions of men blowing and butt fucking one another to be inherently gross. According to John Haidt, this is fairly normal as when some straight men are show such images, areas in brain related to disgust become active. However, I have the analogous feelings of love and lust to fall back on. When a gay person says "I want that too" my emotions are easily overcome. When it comes to trans related issues I'm more at a loss. I have hated myself in one way or another, but never in a way that altering my outward appearance would be useful. I'm quite open to experience, so when a trans person tells me they want to be trans on their own time, I have to felt sense or moral or ethical implication, and am willing to make reasonable accommodations in kind. However, when trans activists make a religion out of woke, I can delineate what and is or is not a reasonable accommodation in kind. Importantly, I can still have empathy for the terminally woke. It probably is genuinely distressing to think the Cass Report is bigoted pseudoscience, or that there is some sort of trans genocide, as is often hysterically claimed. Empathy has a role to play in destroying bad ideas.
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