To be fair this is just how people are in general. I’m not saying it’s good, but people always seem to make assumptions regarding your knowledge of your own feelings and not trusting you to act in your own best interests.
also, it’s frequently just a way to get a conversation started. not about this topic in particular, but in general.
i.e. a coworker asks me “hey, my computer’s not working, the screen’s constantly black”. and i will ask them, “well, did you check the cable connections” while knowing full well that they 100% obviously checked that. but i just say it anyways, to get the conversation rolling.
There’s two options here
- I’m only 40% convinced they even did anything on the list of questions I’m going to ask because it’s always them
- I’m trying to start a conversation
This is why I’m a misanthrope
Sorry that you have to deal with it. People making assumptions is never pleasant.
“Im concerned about this for a whole five seconds and then will never think about it again.”
Not trans here, Mentally ill, so know a little of your frustration when given “advice” for what you should have, should do, blah, blah, blah. I’ve been told to “just be happy”. Asked “why are you depressed?”. Told “Don’t worry, you’ll get over it soon. I always do.”. Nobody knows exactly what goes on in anybody else’s mind. People with diagnoses like mine have an idea of what’s going on in my head (somebody should), but never exactly. Noone should offer me advice, share my diagnoses/what I’ve shared with them or judge me at all for what I am. Likewise I should provide everyone the same respect.
As a cis male, I’m the greatest thinker on trans topics of all time.
I’m kidding, of course. Some people are pretty dumb.
Yes, but have you tried a regimen of hormones, lifestyle changes and living your best life?
I handled it so badly when my son came out to me. I just kept getting images of him being abused by transphobes, getting hurt, dying. I freaked the fuck out and said a bunch of shit like this. I deeply regret it. If your kid comes to you with something like this, if you need time, take it, do anything other than word vomit nonsense at them. I’m lucky my boy is so great, but I have no doubt I probably hurt him with my outburst.
YUP. Do they think transitioning was the first thing I tried? Or maybe it was the end result of a decade of “untreatable” anxiety and depression, plenty of therapy, self-reflection, being in the queer community, and talking to other trans people?
Turns out the anxiety and depression is pretty treatable after all, thanks E!
Okay, but have you considered that these people are world experts on anything and everything and that their insights and advice are magnificent gifts humanity should be grateful for?
Yes, and I’ve realized that they actually offer negative insight and are actively detrimental to humanity
I am not trans but i get sooo frustrated with people even if they are “supportive”.
Like i had a huge fight with a friend bc he said that medical intervention should only be allowed for adults and i was like, the parents of the kids, the kids themselves, their physicians and psychologists says its good for them and statistics agree too and he just wouldn’t stop saying " its just my opinion its just my opinion, why can’t you accept my opinion" Because your fucking opinion is WRONG objectivly WRONG. You didn’t do the tiniest bit of research, you do not have a single argument, i layed it out step by step for you and you still come to the wrong conclusion just say i don’t know enough to have an opinion on this but if you form one and voice it you gotta defend it ESPECIALLY when this community is under threat and your stupid ass “opinion” based on nothing might make the differnce for trans people if they keep their rights or not.
It shouldn’t be controversial to expect that people base their opinion on more than a gut feeling. If you feel “passionate” enough stating your opinion out loud you should feel passionate enough to take like half an hour to get your facts straight. Fucking infuriating .
just say i don’t know enough to have an opinion on this
It would be so nice if people could do this.
Also admit that they were misinformed or that they need a moment to think about what you’ve presented. Sometimes it seems like we expect everyone to have an immediate iron clad opinion.
Is it really that hard? I mean, if the doctor used to follow a given kid say that this specific kid needs a specific treatment, is it so hard to think that doctor could be right? Even when we aren’t doctors and do not know the kid?
Even if it should be for something we think usually bad. I guess we agree that cutting a kid’s arm is bad, yet some need the amputation for medical reasons, and we would call monsters those who would dare protest and request to let the kid die rather than being amputed.
But so how can it be that if it is for trans related thing we would allow ourself to have an opinion that kid should not have access to the medical care they need? At most, may we could be furious at the crual Nature… but neither at the kid nor at those helping them.
Had this same problem with a friend I saw some four months after I had figured out I’m trans.
“Are you sure?”
“Maybe you are actually __”
“Have you not thought even for a while that you might be wrong? I recommend you think about that possibility!”
“You are okay as you are.”
“You don’t need to feel dysphoria.”
“You’re always being so radical, is this just about you hating men? You should not hate men.”
He seemed hellbent on asking every infantilizing question anyone has ever invented about trans people. That was one very very very strenuous “conversation”!
Cripes. “you don’t need to feel dysphoria” is right up there with asking a depressed person “Have you tried not being sad”.
…oh. i initially read that as “you don’t need to feel dysphoria [to be trans]” and wasn’t sure what the problem was.
I thought based on the other non-supportive statements it was meant in the more dismissive way.
(i assumed that much based on context, but couldn’t figure out how it could be interpreted dismissively until seeing the comparison with “have you tried not being sad”)
I guess my brain just doesn’t work like that. My first reaction would be to just - believe it! And if I knew the person well enough, I might ask questions because I’m insatiably curious like that.
Yeah. He absolutely had to help me by telling me how to live my life. And somehow assuming that he knows a lot about a subject he has never had to personally encounter before and that I have not come to think in the last few months of any of the things he conjured within 30 minutes.
I mean, he was clearly motivated by a will to be helpful. But yeah, the result was just ridiculous. And I don’t think I’ll be bothering to spend time in his company all that much in the future. A will to help in order to get a good feeling for having helped is one thing, a will to help in order to make someone else’s life better is another thing.
You didn’t ask him to help you find out if you were trans, you were telling him because already knew! It’s incredibly invalidating to tell a person something about yourself and them have them question it, like they know you better than you do.
Sounds like the outline of a letter:
"I enjoyed seeing you, but I feel like I spent so much of our time together defending myself and my choices that it was only afterwards that I started realizing something about our conversation.
Are you sure you’re the gender you’re trying so hard to express yourself as? Maybe you’re actually a lot more like me than you let yourself imagine. Maybe that’s why you feel you need to change me.
You’re very determined to direct my life path, but have you not thought even for a while that you might be wrong? Maybe even wrong about your own? I recommend you think about that possibility! As a trans woman I don’t need to feel dysphoria anymore, I know my gender and embrace it. I’m not just okay, I’m pretty perfect, and so much better than I was before. So if you want to stay as you are, I won’t judge you, but perhaps you could try to be happy for me instead of jealous.
You’re always being so transphobic, is this just about you hating women? Hating trans people? Hating me? Or hating your own dysphoria? Whatever it is, your misogyny is keeping you from being a whole person."
(Of course this is just me having thoughts over here on the internet, not telling you to say or do anything. You’re pretty perfect as you are.)
Your friend sounds a lot like my self doubts (yes I am doing all this just because it makes it less weird to hate men, duh /s), I’m glad I haven’t met him
Cis person here. I cannot comprehend what it’s like to be trans.
I don’t mean that in a disparaging way, I mean I literally cannot comprehend it because I am comfortable in my own gender. I can only imagine what it might be like if I was born with the opposite gender yet am exactly how I am otherwise. Is that even a valid thought? Would I be exactly the same otherwise, or would I be entirely different thanks to the trauma of have no understanding of my own body?
I literally have no idea at all. None.
uhm, i think a matching analogy would be if you really like fresh air, because you need to breathe obviously, but you’re stuck in a stinking city and have no legs to walk out of it. medication is the wheelchair that allows you to move regardless.
One way to get an idea is to imagine if everyone started called you by the wrong pronouns, and if you corrected them, they reacted with confusion or outright hostility. I’m apagender, so I can’t actually be misgendered. The closest I can come to that is being called “it”, which I don’t feel represents my humanity, but even that’s not quite the same thing.
I’m a cis people, but struggling with mental health and life and … so many things.
I think “normal” people are just oblivious to most things outside their scope.
“You’re depressed? Have you tried to be happy?”
“You’re feeling burned out? Have you tried to be happy with what you have? Other people have way less!”
Geez, thanks for the idea! I’m much better now!
And sorry for breaking in here. I do not mean harm.
“Have you tried to be happy with what you have? Other people have way less!”
Yes and when I think about how other people are worse off, it makes me feel like a piece of shit for feeling bad despite being better off, which amazingly does not help me feel happy
“Here we go! With the fuckin’ smashed hand!”
Don’t be sorry. It really is a similar type of frustration
Cis people suddenly pretending they love and support feminine men always gives my brain a tickle, but also i was already a fae man, no thanks, but also, everyone thinks i’m just a femme man, checkmate
:(
:)
Most people are like this about pretty much every chronic issue… fucking sucks.
