Dojan comments on [CW: Transphobia] problematic statements

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

🥚

I've already processed those thoughts, and I'm quite comfy with my gender identity. I don't care for gender norms, and what I define as cis-man for me isn't necessarily what's traditionally masculine. I grew up very androgynous, people often mistook me for a girl. I was mistaken for a woman through most of my 20s as well.

At most, I guess you could call me gender nonconforming, but within the context of the culture where I live, I'm not sure that's exactly true.

I've got a lot of friends who are trans though, so I'll happily be the example of why Littman and her propaganda masquerading as "science" is nothing but bullshit.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Its great you know yourself! For a long time, I read trans communities as a cis man, afraid or uncertain enough to make any change. I wish folks would have made prodding comments to get me unstuck and onto actually transitioning which has only helped. Apologies if it came off as rude or invalidating.

I'm not familiar with littman's propaganda, and I'm both curious, and relived to be unburned by it.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 5 points 3 months ago*

I'm really glad you were able to figure things out! It's always better a bit later than never. Also, absolutely no apologies needed! You were neither rude or invalidating, and given you reasoning it obviously came from a place of care. That's lovely.

I've this friend who is very similar to me, we almost share birthdays even. She ended up transitioning. When she came out to me, she thought my reaction was a bit anticlimactic. I'd gone through the same thoughts, only I came to a different conclusion. To be fair I came out as gay, and that didn't really surprise her either.

I'll explain Littman in short in a spoiler here so you won't have to see it if you don't want to know. If you're politically active, it might be good to know because it's one of these things that TERFs enjoy using as a hammer, even though it doesn't hold up to scientific scrutiny.

<Littman's BS>

In essence, Lisa Littman pushes "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" sometimes abbreviated as ROGD. The idea is that being trans is a social contagion because it happens when people (they usually say children, because oh no think of the children!) are socialising amongst LGBTQ+ peers.

So in order to prove this, Littman ran a poll on an anti-trans forum for parents with children who are trans, where she asked if they experienced their child's gender dysphoria as rapid-onset; that's to say, the dysphoria happened very suddenly.

The obvious flaw with this is that if a child isn't comfortable talking about this kind of thing with their parent (hello, I was also that child) because they know that the parent is hostile towards LGBTQ+ people, then the child will likely hide this from the parent. Meaning when the child is comfortable, like after they've moved out for college, or otherwise isn't under their parent's direct control, they might choose to live more openly at which point a parent might find out.

So to the parent it looks like it happened suddenly, once they started college or whatever, but it's typically something that the child has been carrying for years and years.

Like my mother was surface-level supportive of LG+ people (I don't know her stance on bisexuals, but she was not a fan of transgender, and I assume queer people), but she made it very clear to me that she wouldn't be happy if I was gay. Anything you said to her could and would be weaponised by her, so I just never told her anything.

Littman is part of the same circles as Kenneth "That Child Is Too Sexy To Be Straight" Zucker, and Ray Blanchard who thinks being trans is a kink. More than anything, all of these ideas speak volumes about the people pushing them.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent