Catoblepas

So the drugs were part of self care, is what I’m hearing 👀

Correct. Doomerism is at best capitulating in advance.

There are very clearly some people that are accelerationist. I guess it’s possible they think they won’t have to fight, which makes being an accelerationist even shittier.

Also, if it’s wasn’t about you then it wasn’t about you.

I’m not talking about targeted harassment specifically, I mean dozens of accounts leaving bigoted remarks on any post about queer subjects that gets traction (more than a few thousand likes). Melon certainly made the problem worse on Twitter, but there’s a reason prior to that they had an entire department dedicated to dealing with that shit: plenty of people see no problem with it, and it makes social media a nightmare for queer people.

If you don’t have a strong trust and safety team, then you need blocking tools that do the heavy lifting. And having to block 50k bigots manually is why I left Twitter. As long as Mastodon doesn’t have anything that can compete with block lists, it’s going to struggle to attract people who need those features.

FWIW I understand you weren’t intending it to be negative, but it’s just one of those words with too much cultural baggage. If it’s important to point out that someone’s gender expression is atypical (unusual, etc) that’s something that can be done without the implied value judgement of ‘normal’.

How? It's literally encouraging them to transition away from their AGAB, it's literally breaking gender stereotypes by virtue of presenting differently than society expects them to, since they are presenting and identifying as a gender different than what they were assigned at birth.

On one hand, yes; on the other, sentiments like “girls do xyz, therefore if you do xyz you’re a girl” are just gender stereotypes but trans inclusive. The trans inclusive part is good, the gender stereotypes not so much.

Trans regret is one of the lowest regrets that there is out there, almost no one does and most if not all detransitioners do so because bigoted fucks made or coerced them to do it. Trans regret is practically non-existent in the real world without external influence.

Absolutely, and for clarity when I was talking about people making decisions they might regret I was referring to someone regretting not transitioning. It’s always better to err on the side of letting people determine for themselves who they are, even if you don’t get it or think they’re doing it wrong or that they’re going to wish they’d listened to you.

I’m not trying to tell you that you can’t feel the way you feel, or that it’s wrong for you to feel it. It’s just important to know when it’s affecting how you treat others and potentially making a place more hostile to both trans and cis people.

Even if you aren’t intending judgement with it, ‘normal’ carries a judging connotation, or at minimum the connotation that there is something wrong with them that needs to be fixed.

Telling them that the way their abnormality needs to be fixed is through transitioning rather than conforming to their ASAB is still imposing more gender stereotypes, even if it’s done with good intentions.

If someone is given free access to information about trans people and transitioning, can talk to trans people either in person or online to ask questions, etc, and they’ve decided they aren’t trans, then that’s just something you have to respect. Self determination is more important than making sure nobody can hurt themselves by making decisions they might regret.

It may not be typical or usual, in that most boys indeed don't do those things. But normal is a judgement word, and as they say, a setting on the washing machine. Thinking you have to convince someone the way they express their gender is not normal and they need to transition soon or they'll try to kill themselves is not just catastrophizing, it is way projecting your own trauma and hangups onto other people.

And like, to be clear, I am not blaming you for having Extremely Big Emotions about this! Being trans in a transphobic society inherently comes with a lot of trauma and societal conditioning to sort through. We have to be extra careful to not just reinforce the same oppressive system of gender stereotypes while working through our own shit, it's a real tightrope.

I'm not saying to force anything onto them, I'm saying tell them about being trans, that it's not exactly normal for people to do this stuff

Yes, that is the bad part. You shouldn't be telling anyone that it's not normal to express their gender however they're expressing it. Even if you think it's for their own good.

If they literally do not know trans people exist or you're correcting stereotypes about trans people that's one thing, but if they do already know all that then... that's it, you don't need to do anymore. People need to take it at the pace they need to take it at, even if that pace isn't the pace you'd have taken it at. (Assuming they are trans and not just gender nonconforming.)

Looking back at your own behavior as a child or teen and seeing how it was an expression of you being trans is absolutely fine, and so is wishing it had gone differently. But you can't project those wishes onto other people.

YDI, and it's a 2 day ban, chill out.

'Cis boys can't play as girl characters or have long hair or dress feminine' is a gender stereotype. There's no reason cis boys can't do that. Or trans boys for that matter.

You mention in your comment that you could've transitioned earlier if someone just forced you to stop being in denial, but the thing is everyone isn't you with the exact same needs as you had. There are feminine men out there who don't need to be told that actually, they're women and lying to themselves. Some of them may or may not wind up deciding to transition in some way. But that is something for them to decide, not for you to force on them because you have distressing feelings about when you started your own transition.

Everyone needs support to explore their gender and gender expression, no matter what it is. If you'd had that you would have likely accepted your gender and transitioned sooner. It sucks that you didn't have it (I didn't either), but we can't change that now. All you can do is try to make that environment for other people, and telling them that their gender must be this because of x, y, z reason isn't a supportive environment for exploring gender.

If you haven’t watched the dishwasher one, drop everything and go do it now!

Plato: [frantically] with flat nails, WITH FLAT NAILS!