this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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Try to understand that that would be a subjective position I did not address. My only non-objective statement was the prod at their idiocy in my second part mocking their hate. There is no justification for hate of any kind.
The "white moderate" position you're demonstrating is what MLK warned about: someone who agrees injustice is wrong, but insists on finding neutral framings for it. You're more devoted to appearing objective than to justice.
Trans people do not owe anyone a medicalised justification for their existence on a government document, period. The DMV are not medical staff.
Searching for a "reasonable" angle on a law built on hate doesn't make you objective, it makes you an obstacle; and to paraphrase what MLK said: Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than outright hostility.
You completely mischaracterize my point.I'll try to be clearer. I never assume that a law or tradition is right, correct, fair, or just. I question everything. The presupposition that I would not change or challenge current, new, or past legislation is false. My position is far from neutral, it's just not based on opposing the percieved enemy as is so common these days. My position is intellectual and caring.
The position you continue to think I took would be not be intellectual. It presupposes that I believe in conserving the status quo. That is as far from correct as possible. I question everything. The position you continue to think I took would not be caring. It presupposes that I am not considering the harm to individuals. Also, far from correct.
I question everything, even solutions, because it often happens that by making a change based on one harm has potential to do harm to another. I want to thank dandelion for the amazing post that helps explore the harm than is done by the new law. With the understanding that hate is the only reason such a law would pass, we see that this is only doubling down on harm. That alone would convince me to push for removal of gender from all IDs because they are relics of fundamentalists in power.
I took a moment to reflect on the possible need for gender as a qualifier for many niche social programs. My conclusion is that it could be a separate form if necessary. Further, these programs are a sad reminder that we do not take care of each other on the grander scale of things which is what would make such qualifiers necssary. But that's a much bigger tangent to this conversation.
You've missed the point, again.
So is your point that you are angry and fed up? Me too. Credibility matters in the long run. Feelings are fleeting. Both have great value. Acting only on feelings will have divisive outcomes and result in more bad feelings. Acting only on intellect only will unintentionally not account for some factor and result in more bad feelings. Holding dogmatic to either method only perpetuates conflict. What point am I missing?
The point isn't my feelings, it's not your fucking feelings either. It's that you keep treating trans people's right to exist as an intellectual exercise requiring balance. It's isn't. Honestly, what on earth is wrong with you?
It's worth noting you thanked the person who educated you patiently and spent four replies defending yourself to the person who named what you were doing. That's a very white moderate response to being told you're doing white moderate things. Trans people should not need to justify themselves this way. Jesus Christ.
Nothing in my comment has anything to do woth someone's right to exist. My comments have been about how they are treated. Nothing in my comments has been about trans people needing to justify themselves. Your perception of this is way off from reality. That is because of feelings overwhelming your communication. I'm sorry you are so hurt. Please try to stop seeing the world as dichotomous. It is far from it.
Ah, and there it is. You have proven my point, yet again, better than I ever could.
You just told me my anger is the problem and that my feelings are "overwhelming my communication." That I should stop seeing the world as dichotomous. In other words: the person naming the injustice is responsible for the discomfort caused by naming it. You tone police the objection so you never have to address the objection itself, and your response to being told you were handling it badly was to diagnose my emotional state.
https://letterfromjail.com/
You continue to add context that I did not give. Try going back and reading carefully to see how incorrect you are. That is why I say feelings cannot work alone. They fill in blanks with biases rather than asking why. For example, why do you believe I think anger is a problem? In all the context I have said feelings are important. The only feelings I have mentioned is hurt. How can you not be by the state of the world? I am. Also, your writing has tone that would appear as such. This is called empathy.
I deal with all kinds of people all the time. It is more common than not for bias to get in the way of communication. Feelings are a major player here. I'd like to recommmend reading some neuroscience. I am a fan of Jonathan Haidt. His books have helped me understand a lot of this. The Righteous Mind is a great start. Also, understanding how falacies work is very helpful.
King's letters from jail are great pieces of history but do not connect here. It doesn't feel like you have been reading what I have written and are even fabricating meaning. So again, I have no idea what your point is or if it has anything to do with mine?
You just recommended Jonathan Haidt, a man whose entire thesis is that we should empathise with the moral intuitions of people who oppose civil rights, as a corrective to my reading of MLK. I don't think you've understood either of them. He has been extensively criticised for false equivalence on exactly these kinds of questions.
https://behavioralscientist.org/whats-wrong-with-moral-foundations-theory-and-how-to-get-moral-psychology-right/
Moral psychology and civil rights protesters: Exemplary, different, and mad -> https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spc3.12915 This one specifically talks about MLK and Haidt's pet theory.
Criticism is a good thing! That is where I am coming from. And no, it is not a correction to your reading. I did not see any connection from the letters to our conversation. I reference Haidt because he has helped me to begin understanding how so many people around me are thinking. As I said earlier, I care. I care about everyone and want the best for them. This does not mean I think they have good intentions or that they should not be corrected. It just gives a place to start. I did make a joke in my original comment that I see as similar to King's "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." The law is obsurd, so should be the moral people.
You are claiming empathy while using a framework that pathologises the people you claim to care about.
even worse, the neutral framing is just wrong, there isn't a medical reason to treat trans people as their assigned sex rather than their actual sex, and in fact there are medical reasons to view trans patients as their actual sex and not their assigned sex (as I get into in my comment above).
There might still be other neutral framings that can be used to undermine trans rights, I think the trans athletic bans are a good example (though, the more evidence we get on that, the more it is looking to be the case that trans women on average are like cis women in their physical fitness and ability, not like cis men).
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