• hauntingspectre [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Sorry, no more transplants for anyone. Lung cancer? You're gonna die. Organ failure of any kind? What's that, you want to use NAZI medicine?! Congenital heart failure? Looks like we're getting rid of the Nazis young!

    It drives me utterly bonkers how I just can't understand these people. Like, I honestly try to understand where people are coming from, because it helps me understand how to argue against them. But this TERF shit being so incredibly widespread on TERF island breaks me every goddamn time. It's so fundamentally irrational, bullying, and just cruel that it defeats my brain.

    • RNAi [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      Do you think they put any thought on the "justification" for their bullshit? No, that's never the point. The point is to say "I hate trans people", after that they just tap autocomplete. An emotion needs no justification.

      • hauntingspectre [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I know, but that's part of what makes it so frustrating.

        If I'm actively harming people because of my emotions, I need to work on my emotions. Not enlist everyone I can to amplify my emotions and the harm.

      • hauntingspectre [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Interesting example. I've never had a problem with trans pronouns, going back to 90s, but when NB folks started becoming visible, it took me aback. "I have to use a traditionally third party plural pronoun for an individual now?!"

        So I had to stop myself, because I recognized I was being irrational, and apply the "who is being hurt if I do this test?" And the answer was "no one is hurt by me using traditionally third party plural pronouns for an individual who identifies as such". So I cheerfully use they/them if that's how someone identifies.

        But it was a definite "wait, am I the bad guy here?" moment. And the answer is "yes, I am the bad guy". It did give me a shred of empathy for other older folks who don't understand how their treatment of others, which was so advanced at the time they began, now find themselves getting called out for previously acceptable behavior.

        Like, one of my best friends in high school was gay AF. It wasn't easy for him, and even though I was, for the time, a good ally, you bet I still dropped the f** on him. It was wrong of me to do so, and of course I don't use that word anymore. I don't feel defensive about it; I did the best I could as a teenage cishet boy in the 90s. I'll do my best now, and if what's best changes in a decade, I'll do my best to change with it.

        Sorry, this response got long.

    • Blurst_Of_Times [he/him,they/them]
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 years ago

      The logic behind it is "ew different people" and anything else is so much window dressing. I admire your patience, but I dont think there's any discussion to be had with these people.

      • hauntingspectre [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I'm sure you're right. I guess the sheer stupidity (honestly, I want to say silly, because it's so childish, but the consequences are far from silly) is just so...alien? Bizarre? to my way of thinking.

        What kind of garbage person do you have to be to target the most vulnerable amongst us? (Answer: fucking TERFs)

        • Blurst_Of_Times [he/him,they/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Oh man, I totally feel that. Sometimes I try to put myself in that alien mindset, try to think all the nastiest things I can think for all the most shallow, horrible reasons, deny the humanity of others for a moment. I kind of half hope that something will click, something will come into focus and that worldview will make some kind of sense, but it never does.

          It feels like trying to think like a bug, tbh. Not in terms of intelligence, but socially, trying to emulate the "got mine, fuck you" outlook always just leaves me feeling alone and psychotic.