aidan

B. If we accept a Chinese version of Google then there's no reason we can't accept a Brazilian version of X.

You understand Google is banned in China because they wouldn't accept censure right?

They're talking about Bolsonaro. But yeah when you use the same insults against all the people you disagree with it makes it hard to tell them apart

Well it makes sense, the modern form of aliens is from American mythology. It's like complaining that all the spottings of the Loch Ness monster are around Loch Ness

It's true for a lot of these minor complaints about America. Of course there are valid complaints about the US, but some of them are very petty and not a real representation.

"American food quality is bad" because you go to fancy restaurants on vacation, and/or when visiting the US don't know where to find quality food because it's in different places.

"but quality food is cheap" yeah when you have to pay half as much or less for labor it can be

"people are less fat because the food is healthier" no, people are less fat because they are addicted to cigarettes instead of soda. also walk more.

"america has no culture" ... this should be obvious

"Americans are so loud" this very much depends on the country you're comparing too, but at least where I've lived Germans, Dutch, and locals(Czechs) are the loudest

Maybe

ok no tea for you then

I think cisness is actually two entirely separate phenomena in a trench coat. People just generally don’t recognize it because cis people aren’t generally put under a microscope in the same way and they don’t tend to talk to each other about it.

I agree, in that there are cis people that are basically non-fixated nonbinary, and there are hyperfixated cis people.

Also I would argue “gender hyperfixation” is an incomplete description for the effect of dysphoria /euphoria. A misogynistic cis guy blowing up because someone called his arms “like a girl’s” is as much a hyperfixation but it’s for a different reason.

I would say its just another way that hyperfixation can express itself.

We lack sex characteristic neutrality and experience a separate internal reaction that is always positive or negative.

Strong disagree that "we" do, maybe some people do, and that has infected language. But I don't think most people would say "you're balding? that's so masculine of you" or place much value on their finger length ratios.

Gender dysphoria isn’t external.

I don't really agree with this, obviously I can't speak for the experience of others- but at least for my own experience, with anything- I can only evaluate myself an inherently relative description in relation/comparison to others. If there is only 1 person in the world what does it even mean for them to be masculine or feminine? There is no frame of reference. If there were only 1 human, they aren't tall or short, they just are. That contrasts with something less inherently relative, like eye color. But obviously, the color itself is relative. I don't think someone could have body dysmorphia, or gender dysphoria, if they weren't* inherently comparing their own body or gender expression to others- and for many people they care about how that is evaluated by others- but you're right, it could solely be one comparing themselves to others. Like Alan Watts said "you love yourself in terms of what is other, because it’s only in terms of what is other that you have a self at all. ". Or in the terms of the missile "The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't."

Now this is explicitly not in an external validation way. Your answer cannot be at all about how other people react to it. It also cannot be about how it physically makes you feel - back pain, itchyness or convenience or inconvenience is not what I mean. Nor is it about the attractiveness - if it’s patchy or too small or too big in your estimation. When you stand in front of a mirror how do you feel about the simple straight up existence of those characteristics of your body? What emotional reaction does it inspire when abstracted from those other judgements?

I have no clue. I can't abstract it from those judgements, and those would be the only ways I would judge it anyways.

Edit:

If it was we’d react to people’s flattery for performing our prescribed gender role instead of wanting things we are constantly under pressure not to do.

For a lot of trans people their goal in transitioning is to be passing in the eyes of others or in their own eyes(ie in comparison to others).

What you're describing is a gender fixation, or a gender performance. You're right that most cis people don't experience euphoria, but that's because they aren't fixated on it. That doesn't mean it isn't deeply unsettling for someone to have their own self perception to be questioned. Which you missed and I think is the biggest thing for people, and is itself the root cause of most insecurity and body dismorphia, because you realize you can't trust how you perceive yourself. Someone who's anorexic can't trust what they see in mirror to know if they're fat, and they might assume that others who say they're not are just being nice.

When we try and tell you - hey we have an extra something, a fourth thing happening that is kind of unique to us and they insist on giving us anecdotes of how they deal with problems 1 through 3 it comes across as being unwilling to understand us because we are trying to highlight an issue theydo not experience and have no reference for.

You're not correct to assume this is all trans people, or all cis people. Some cis people are extremely performative with gender, and some trans people aren't. And, honestly, what you're describing as your experience sounds closer

accurately a cis capture of the experience of gender

I think it's more accurate to say most people don't hyperfixate on gender, just as most don't hyperfixate on race. It is true there are more experiences that are gatekept by gender, but the gradual erosion of gender is, in my view, a much more equitable goal than encouraging those few who hyperfixate on arbitrary descriptors.

So you can get upset if you really want to but I think that's going to just reinforce one of the hurdles to understanding the trans experience well which is important if you want to advocate for us effectively.

Don't be patronizing

You are also seem to be coming at this from the cis experience where your original sex characteristics don’t feel like a burden. Being misgendered doesn’t do harm to the majority of cis people. Your anecdote isn’t exactly up to snuff here.

Yea this to me shows this is just a response meant to insult. Yes, it is hurtful for everyone to be percieved differently from how they want to be perceived.

You sound like a hater of fascists