Not who you’re asking, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be born cis

Me. Before I transitioned, and in my early days of transition, sure, I’d have made that choice if it were available to me. But now, years in? Fuck no. I don’t want to be cis.

This is all an interesting hypothetical to you. To me, it’s my lived life. Trust me, I’ve done what you’re talking about. I was active in /r/changemyview, and I’ve spent a lot of time having this discussion with people on social media.

And in that time, not a single person has changed their perspective or view on the topic. Because they already had a view, and despite the ostensible goal of the sub, they’re largely not open to changing their view. They may want to, but they’re not actually willing to change it. Because ultimately, people arrived at their “concerns” through emotional manipulation, and that can’t be undone by “rational discussion”. Like sure, maybe you’re the single exception, and in my 5+ years of having this discussion, you might be the first to genuinely change your opinion. But even then, after 5 years of normalising the idea that my rights are up for discussion, as if it’s actually ok for people to want them removed because of their “concerns”, I’d have a single changed mind in 5 years.

But you know what else I’ve done in those 5 years? I’ve told every other person that I’ve had this discussion with that it’s actually ok to debate my rights, that whether or not I deserve rights is based on how well I can debate and argue. And I’ve given the bigots driving this whole discussion exactly what they wanted, which is to make myself a target.

Fuck that.

So what does it say about me? It says I’ve got more lived experience in navigating this topic than you ever will, and I’m no longer willing to see “civil discussion” on the erasure of peoples rights, in the pointless hope that it will actually help us. Because it doesn’t.

That argument would be torn apart pretty easily

Sure. The argument can be torn apart. But that doesn’t change anything. What changes when you make those sorts of arguments is simply that it gives a green light to pushing back against marginalised people.

If argument being torn apart was enough, the argument against trans folk in sport wouldn’t even be an argument. But it is, because there is a political interest in creating harmful narratives about trans folk, and using exclusion from sport as a wedge to normalise exclusion in other areas. Which is exactly what is happening.

So if you’re ok with that sort of question, I think you need to spend a bit more time looking at the context those questions exist in. Why is it now that people want to suddenly talk about trans people in sports. It’s not because the trans folk have been doing anything different. It’s because there is an explicit motivation to create a culture war, with trans folk as the targets. You shouldn’t be ok with being part of that.

I’m not asking you to argue about it. I explicitly don’t want people arguing about it, which I was hoping my previous comment would make clear.

There are people out there that were raised a certain way that want to change or perhaps have questions due to ignorance on the topic. By being combative, you’re doing more harm than good for something you clearly care about.

If someone turns against all trans people because they encounter a single angry trans person, then they were just looking for an excuse to justify what they already felt.

And it’s not my job to play nice with the people trying to erase my rights in the hope that maybe, just maybe, they’ll stop what they’re doing! That doesn’t work. That has never worked. Every single civil right gain has been made by pushing back.

So thanks for the advice, but I’ll keep pushing back

So, you’d like to argue for the validity of excluding a vulnerable group, in the middle of a world spanning hate campaign against that exact group?

So, you’d be ok with someone arguing that maybe a discussion about racism is warranted, because sometimes, a bit of racism is warranted?

Or is that only ok when it’s trans people?

'cause if you want logical and consistent, that’s something you need to ask yourself. Why is it that folk are quite willing to discuss the erasure of rights of just one class of people, when it’s not something you’d even consider talking about with most other groups?

There is no consistency in that desire, it’s not driven by a desire to be logically consistent. This is driven by political interests and think tanks trying to create social divide. It’s not a co-incidence that you just want to consider the logical merits or trans folk, right now, at this moment in history.

Until you’re willing to face the reasons behind that, and the impact your social context has on you, you can’t be logically consistent.

What do you want changed then?

Also, if you come in expecting to debate for the removal of trans rights, you won’t last long

There is no world where “Check out that dude” will mean a woman.

It will always be “neutral” or masculine.

And that’s not neutral.

I have zero interest in fake neutrality

It’s funny how “just how it works out” always leads to “neutral” words having double meanings that equal “man” but never “woman”

Maybe it’s not “just how it works” and maybe it’s just bias…

Strange though, that when you ask most men how many dudes they’ve slept with suddenly, she’s not a dude…

Trans people

This isn’t poking fun at us, this is just facts :)