Drivebyhaiku @ Drivebyhaiku @lemmy.world

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Gender does give some unique insights to things though. When only one sex are the only ones looking at something, particularly something that has an effect in a psychology or physiology based thing it's way easier to overlook a detail of something that they have never experienced. When science was the domain of almost exclusively men there were a lot of easily provable false things in regards to women and archeological finds that were just taken as gospel because nobody thought to prioritize or consider different perspectives. When you study a sex like they are an animal with no internal perspective, unique cultural expectations or values you make a lot of mistakes.

Like they never bothered mapping the internal structure of the clit until 1998. The internal structure is actually a lot bigger than you'd think.

If you want to, making your place and time available and showing some interest is awesome. It is definitely above and beyond parenting to offer to be there for your kid's crew. Just having spaces you know your presence isn't just tolerated but actually welcome is in short supply when you are a kid and sometimes regular kids, not even trans ones, learn to expect their presence to be a burden.

The first few times friends would have dinner with my parents they would be wary and have their guards up. They just didn't know how to react to an adult who was not their parent showing interest in the stuff they were up to. It was in many ways their first brush with adults socially treating them like they would an adult and giving their interests and work a sense of weight. I know it's not for everyone, sometimes parents just don't have the resource of time or mental energy to be there that way... But if you are looking for a way to be a lighthouse in the storm it's an option.

Yeah they call it "compelled speech" but they don't get it. They can say whatever the heck they want on their own time, the only consequence being is that trans people and those who understand trans people might not like them very much. You already aren't allowed to call a co-worker or customer something like "fat", "ugly" or "mentally ill" for example in a work senario without being remanded to HR because we as a society realize the harm it does to the people who that is levied against. You have to work to live so being forced to put up with that shit or take the financial hit of needing to find other potentially less lucrative ways to support yourself just because someone isn't empathetic to your circumstances has inspired legal protections. It's the exact same principle!

The "Freedom of Speech" crowd is usually the most callous anti-social bunch I have to work with. Acting like you are going to burst into flames if you have to hold your tongue when you are on the clock or in a meeting with rules of decorum is like dealing with a toddler who refuses to put on their shoes when leaving the house.

You are probably helping more than you think. Growing up trans in the 90's I had the opposite problem of just not having words for what I was going through. I had great parents though who made themselves available to my friends, if you were over at our place come dinnertime you were invited and they showed an actual interest in their lives... Which was often more than what their parents could offer. We ended up creating a family and all of the friends I have had from middleschool to my mid twenties ended up being part of it. That tribe has weathered a lot of hard knocks. Kindness is it's own reward as they have supported my Mom now that she's a widow.

I think young adults need a sounding board of multiple actively invested adults who care to be successful. It's part of becoming their own healthy person. What these laws ultimately do is try and isolate kids so their only legal sounding board is their parents which means if you are one of these kids who can't trust their parents you end up getting the guidance you need from other people your age, not experienced adults. A lot of folk growing up depended on my parents and now that they are adults in a position to be there the script has flipped. You never forget the people who were there when you were at your most vulnerable.

You see this all over the place with how things are culturally counted. Like how driveby shootings are not counted by a lot of US statistical data as mass shooting in the US because they are more interested in the phenomenon of a targeted usual murder suicide of a very specific terrorist style execution... but other countries will record drive bys as notable mass shootings for their data.

A lot of places have law enforcement that are very invested in not participating in things that could harm their reputations so not participating in recording data points that assist in the conclusion that a genocide is occurring makes it easier to sweep issues under the rug.

Yup, but queer and minority persecution has been tied to conservative and authoritarian politics world round over the past 100 years and it isn't even America's first go round. McCarthy's lavender scare sought to tar queer communities with the same brush as communists. Prohibition era Christian Temprance Union policies hit the queer communities by design. They used to hold police raids regularly of queer clubs which were often owned by the same criminal syndicates who were rum running. Those links ran deep. Stonewall was owned by the mob who saw the need for underground spaces to charge protection money, utilize the informants to give heads up before a raid and charge exorbitant prices just so you could slowdance in public... Other queer establishments were raided as illicit all the time because if you were caught out in the street in drag it was a crime. The Stonewall riot did not take place on the first raid. Fuck, it wasn't even the first raid that month.

Saying nobody cluched their pearls over drag shows in the past 100 years isn't exactly truthful. American history is a lot uglier than that. Whenever a country gets scared and wants to dress itself up in Christian nationalism it's meant queer persecution and genocide. America isn't particularly special in that regard.

Depends on where you are talking about 1930's German "conservatives" threw quite a stink about drag shows and queer caberets right before they started raiding establishments and violently purging their own ranks of anyone whom the gossip chain cited as potentially queer.

Always remember that Hitler killed his gay bestie.

I mean Prides are still open to cis and hetero folk in the same way like a Italian culture festival is open to non-Italians. The key component is that queerness has a culture with it's own traditions, history, art, coded language and etticate in much the same way an ethnicity does the only difference is that it is not passed along by virtue of birth. The nature of Prides as being in opposition to generational suppression and genocide just makes them a bit louder and in your face.

Straight prides... Have existed... and you are correct that the theme of straight prides were more about creating a narrative about how cis hegemony is unfairly under attack by the LGBTQIA making them in effect anti queer bigotry parades driven more by spite than anything. The organizers of such events have had traditionally firm links to the alt right.

The end effect of the Boston straight pride event was like an empty parody of a Pride event that just looks like an American Independance day celebration with a bunch of people wearing jeans and t-shirts waving American flags with a bunch of signs saying stuff like "Remember who gave birth to you" and a bunch of Trump related signage making it kind of vaguely indistinguishable from any other conservative rally.

The fact that when given a chance to organize a straight pride parade it just tends to take on the nationalist symbols of the country it is performed in kind of demonstrates that maybe there isn't a whole lot of point to the event celebrating straight culture as the participants can't really identify what is unique about being straight themselves because you are just supposed to assume it as a default...

Short answer - because the original events were called "Pride" and other events that followed that model and style can literally trace the name to two organizers of the original event, Brenda Howard and Robert A. Martin.

Long answer...

What is important to remember about Pride is it is specific. Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual liberation marches pre-date Prides but they were more like a conventional protest and they were poorly attended because you had to expect police violence. They were dour, focused primarily on the pain and hardship of oppression. It was mostly people dressed to look respectable marching with signs to appeal to the cis/hetro masses in a "hey look we're actually just like you!" kind of way.

"Pride" was different. They organized the first event around the concept of Independence day style activities. It was supposed to have the feel of an emancipation celebration and was originally intended to become a National day of observance of the five days of Riots at Stonewall, something that a lot of queer people decided to rally around as essentially the literal fight for independence of queer culture in the US. Shortly thereafter a lot of cultural aspects of Queer community done for fun that actually create a culture like Ballroom culture, Drag performance, dance, theater, caberet, burlesque, various bizzare kink related specialities were spotlighted. Pride took all that stuff that was happening in the shadows and turned it into a public festival. In part it was intended as a "fuck you we are not afraid and there is more of us than you think" but it also gave the public a look at the spectacle of open queer joy. That it was fun and weird meant it became a proper festival. It spread and other events that followed that format also became "Prides". Over time other communities and sub groups within the growing coalition came to define their own means to celebrate together and also came to call then things like "Trans Pride".

So at least in part the "Pride" portion is a historical naming convention for a very specific style of event and festival with a tracable history. It is helpful to understand that "Pride" has a secondary and silent implication of Pride Event "Woo Happy Pride! " is at some point like wishing someone Happy Christmas. "Proud" is in part an event theme that euphemizes that original "fuck you, our culture is valid and we won't be shamed out of the public eye."

Someone going on about "cis pride" is at some point basically just trying to carbon copy a format of protest made for a specific purpose while entirely misunderstanding the original usage. Some argue they don't really need a specific public culture festival or a protest because they are the dominant culture. They get their culture fest from national and religious tinted celebrations and they are accepted as a norm so the protest element is unnecessary. It more comes across more as someone who just doesn't like how queer people have claimed a slice of public space and want to have yet another party to celebrate themselves. It's like throwing an Independence day style celebration but when there is no commemorative event at it's core and no independence that needed to be fought for at all.

I would argue otherwise. Prides have always had a political aspect and part of that was a way to get a sense of numbers. Suppression of LGBTQ identities by early "support" groups encouraged narratives of it being rare, that it is natural to be lonely and shut away without a community. If you are small as a minority you tend to be meek and hide. Gay hook up spots were designed to hide people so true numbers were often impossible to have any notion of how many people were actually there. Some were just utterly flabbergasted by the numbers when police raids caused everyone to flee at once... But the news the next morning would make it sound like there was only a handful.

Consolidation and visibility, the understanding of strength in numbers has always been a factor of Pride. So to has been education and safety campaigns. While it has been a place to acknowledge the dead and bring hope to those who are afraid to be out it is absolutely for those at the festivities itself too.

Draws a lot of attention to the fact that "white" is a construct that is tied up intimately in supremacy narratives. Irish and Italian people were at times not considered "white" because they were discriminated against as immigrant populations. To the supremacist, whiteness defines an "us" so whether Jewish people are considered "white" is really depends on the level of anti semitic sentiments present.

It's part of why "White Pride" is a really bad idea. Part of the experience of being white is tied up in the legacy of exclusion based on class or othering and how genocides, murders and exploitation based on the ideas of white supremacy shaped the world through empire and those systems haven't exactly been dismantled. Until whiteness is basically "fixed" so that this is a factor of the distant past the correct way to interact with one's own whiteness is more to reflect on the complexities of the history and modern application of it and realize that while being light skinned isn't something to be ashamed of throwing a party about it is still in poor taste.

How actually historically relevant it is is just mindboggling. It is literally the codification and beginning of the alt-right. Britebart news guy and eventual Presidential advisor Steve Bannon and a massive swack of the early alt talking heads right got their start with Gamergate. It's essentially the proving ground of the model of engagement and the networking that brought the scum together.

I suggest Ian Danskin's talk on "A Case Study of Digital Radicalization " https://youtu.be/lLYWHpgIoIw?si=WD8gi7XXFVrIKg-n

It is one of the best breakdowns of Gamergate I have ever heard while keeping sight of just how bloody insane the whole thing is. It's a really long video yes but it really has some interesting takes on digital Radicalization and a key part of the modern history of how we got where we are.

Probably. I ask cis folk about this pretty frequently because while I understand being trans I don't actually know what it is like to be cis, it is just sort of assumed mutual experience amongst cis folk. Trans is my lived experience and our society insists we need to defend our needs in ways that make sense to them but cisness is just as interesting. I encounter two camps. The majority of cis people I ask this question to just don't feel strongly about their body on the axis of their sex. They might feel dysmorphias around not looking good by the rubric of their sex that's more about how the privilege of beauty or ugliness impacts their lives.

I have also encountered a minority of cis people who are actually decently euphoric about their gender. Sometimes that has to do with the cultural bits of their experience and sometimes not. The one thing they have in common is they actually just really love what they got going on. Being male or female is an integral part of their self identity.

My personal COMPLETELY unsubstantiated posit that these two versions of cisness are distinct and the with the euphoric version they are basically experiencing the key component of binary trans nature with the one factor different being the body and mind are in alignment and not at odds.

Some of the non-binary agender experience seems almost like an extreme version of what you experience where the concept of gender matters so little internally that it's outside application to aspects of your life become a complete nuisance as if becomes an obstacle to people recognizing the actual person you are as they make too many assumptions about you based on a factor which is personally meaningless.

Not to say this is key to all agender folk. Some folk just react poorly to having any sexual characteristics at all. Non-binary as it's own spectrum is internally made up of such disparate presentations it is like comparing peaches to green peppers. Both are fruit but they practically nothing alike in experience.

The thing is in both cases it's hard for cis folk to really empathize with the trans experience because they either can't get a handle on what it is to care about gender at all or they take their comfort as a given and don't realize just how bad it is to live without that source of confidence.

Horrible... There is some S-tier evil in the world. That we must take additional risks if we ever want to make a difference is such bullshit. It will take an investigation to tell if it was political, personal or a gender hate crime but that the assumption that hate crime alone is sufficient reminds us how far we need to go before we are not at war.

Ah passing privilege. "Trans visibility" doesn't mean people being able to clock you it means that people are fighting so that if somebody does clock you, you are still safe and supported.

I desperately wish I could be invisible, but I can't so I have to go the other direction. If I am invisible I am by default in the closet so "trans visibility" means that I am seen, understood and that people are able to understand so that I get to live too. It isn't exactly fair to us to disavow the work we do when it ultimately benefits you in the long run just because you essentially "got mine". You don't want to fight that's fine, you have the benefit of not having to ... But don't spit on the people who are.

I mean the difference is likely not based out of a difference in the number of trans people but in the cultural risk one has in living out of the closet. Destigmatizing left handedness saw a sudden generation jump in people who were left handed. If you don't think you are likely to be accepted you struggle in darkness.

The covid bump has another possible explanation. My trans nature long existed in the shadow. My industry is such where it's all short term employment and causing your team any friction could mean falling to the bottom of the employment pool. I didn't try to be out because it came with drawbacks. Coming out to people is also the process of onboarding everyone and that transition period where people know but are still fucking up your name and pronouns takes a lot of your mental energy. It some ways it sucks less when people don't know they are hurting you. Then it's just not their fault. Once they know the struggle to switch how they think of you is plain. It's obvious they don't think of you as your gender, they just are faking it until they do and that disparity draws more attention to your own body and presentation and the uphill battle of true acceptance even if they are theoretically on board with trans issues. My Mom STILL fucks up my name and pronouns and even though she loves me it's like an admission that she will NEVER actually see me as I see myself. It's difficult to do that and work a soul crushing job at the same time so it was something I did one person at a time and I was a fucking hot mess in the process.

Then Covid happened and I was isolated in my cohort of friends and family to whom I was spottily out to. I had the time to DO the work and have the conversation and be the hot mess. I figured out I was trans back when I was 21 but there was a fifteen year gap before I came out to people outside because it seemed like a monumental task where I would risk losing a huge chunk of my relationships, risk my career and still have to juggle going to work every day even when I felt like dying. But since people started talking about it and showing trans issue support it gave me hope that there would be light on the other side. So by the time covid came around I was half-out.

But then during covid I got to live as myself full time. It's like having an allergy you are exposed to all the time. You don't realize exactly how shitty you feel until you stop being exposed to it and you realize that your capacity to feel generally more energetic and healthy is actually way higher than you thought... And returning to exposure makes it hit that much harder.

Returning to work I realized how bad I actually felt and felt more compelled to do something about it. Having the time to actually do the work, not on myself but on the people around me, gave me a taste of what it feels like to be healthy and it's hard to forget being actually happy and then willingly just go back to being miserable. From the outside it might look like being cooped up caused me to be trans but it's the opposite. Being cooped up gave me time to properly socially transition where the risks were lowered.

It's a little different for everyone. Sometimes it's more based in joy than pain or if things don't get in your way or you have active plans to change it's easier to live with them as a temporary nuisance. Sexual organs are often fairly low on the priority list because the surgeries around them can be a bit scary given the recovery regimen and with ftm bottom surgery you have to decide on what you specifically value in regards to function because nothing is perfect and it's a little more difficult to be enthusiastic about something that feels like a compromise. It's also scary in the way you could potentially make a choice out of the ones available and later on potentially wish you chose a different surgery option.

With hysterectomy as well if you aren't fantastically rich and can afford suragacy you have to give up on the idea of kids. So a lot of the biological concerns are very wrapped up in practicality and once you have a strong sense of where your values and what your overall life planning are the compromises make sense and become tolerable.

The HRT aspects are usually the bits that folk find relieving on the FTM side of things because you get more of the trappings you get to see and experience while you are out walking the world. The deep voice, the facial hair and the way fat redistributes itself on the body. A lot of people find that feeling of revelling in the things they enjoy about being in their body which allows you to focus on the good and dismiss the stuff you don't like.

Ah yes, not hateful or afraid of LGBTQ people you just don't want them to exist in public where you can see and talk about "exposure" like you're talking about a disease. Can't say I am fond of people talking about their own kids like chattel property where their parents decide every single interaction they have and shape their entire experience as though if they can just keep them "pure" of influence they will grow up to be good little carbon copies of their parents who will do exactly what they are told when they are adults. Seems like a good way to put a kid in therapy and for you to end up in a senior home to me.

You want to teach your kid that the gays will burn, fine, the kids still got to learn how to be at least tolerant and share the space in society and learning to get along is kindergarten stuff. Training up little terrors who will flip the fuck out if they ever see two men holding hands while buying IKEA furniture is doing society at large a disservice. Also these are fucking high schoolers, do you really think you need to wrap them in cotton wool and give them safety sissors? I am pretty sure they would light you on fire for trying.

It's pretty easy for transmasc folk to fly under the wire because a lot of the cultural stuff on the girl side of things have been broken wide open. It's more widely regarded as sexist to try and force women to conform to all the trappings of traditional womanhood than it nessisarily is the other way around. I know a lot of binary trans women who wish they could just wear shlumpy hoodies and jeans and go out without a full face of makeup and have short easy to manage hair like cis women do but then everybody who doesn't know them doesn't pick up on the visual cues they need to make the assumptions to take the steps to gender them properly.

I feel like the concept of gender being wholly performative is really bullshit. You can see it a bit in the specific way misgendering stings? It's like it's the verbal equivalent of someone pointing our some sort of injury or a deformity that you've learned to live with. You can forget it yourself most of the time by just focusing on things if other people aren't constantly pointing it out but it's such a bloody drag when you realize people are noticing and focusing on that. The performance aspects of gender are just the protective shell of that innate feeling rather than the sorce of the feeling itself.