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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32930 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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It just looks to me like it's a bunch of people for whom transitioning was beneficial projecting that onto anyone who could possibly be on the margins

I'm not even convinced it's that. I think a bunch of them are profoundly miserable in a way they wouldn't have been if they had tried to make peace with their reality. I think there's a subset of them that just wants company for their misery, to drag others down the path they were guided down.

From observing some of my acquaintances who have gone down that path, the desire to evangelise has appeared in every single one of them, making "jokes" about slipping pills to people and asking "so when are you going to come out too?" Frankly it absolutely disgusts me.

I think a bunch of them are profoundly miserable in a way they wouldn't have been if they had tried to make peace with their reality.

There are a lot of accounts from trans people who transitioned who say it's made them much happier. I think calling people en masse liars and secretly miserable is usually wrong. I think 07muk's analysis sounds a lot more accurate.

Most of the ones I see on, say, reddit, especially in the places like egg_irl where conversion of people is attempted, are profoundly depressed. It's not really a secret to anyone. Their post histories are public.

And they'll say that they were even unhappier before transitioning. That seems perfectly plausible to me.

Also I think a lot of trans redditors who're depressed probably post that they're depressed, where as very few trans redditors who're doing alright post explicitly that they're doing alright

I think a bunch of them are profoundly miserable in a way they wouldn't have been if they had tried to make peace with their reality.

I think I agree with this.

I think there's a subset of them that just wants company for their misery, to drag others down the path they were guided down.

They do say that "misery loves company," and I wouldn't rule out there being some people like that, but... that seems uncharitable? Like, I'd find it more likely that these people have an ideological commitment to a mistaken idea of what's good for them and others than that they are being actively malicious.

From observing some of my acquaintances who have gone down that path, the desire to evangelise has appeared in every single one of them, making "jokes" about slipping pills to people and asking "so when are you going to come out too?"

Joking about slipping pills to people is pretty concerning. The evangelizing thing is interesting; I guess (loose categorization here) there's 3 major (not mutually exclusive) reasons people evangelize for something:

  1. They love it and are super excited to share it.

  2. They think they have a moral imperative to evangelize.

  3. They are themselves uncertain of or insecure in their decision, so they evangelize partly to convince themselves that it's a good idea.

Without, hopefully, trying to mind-read too much, your acquaintances sound like number 3.

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