One of the problems I have encountered fairly frequently is the character flaw of some individuals having the attitude that if they couldn’t personally do something, then no-one else could.
As a relatively mild example, those people who are sceptical of others being able to solve a Rubik’s cube in just a few seconds.
Other examples come from the world of morals, where people assume that if they personally would find something difficult to do, others would also find it difficult - or even impossible.
An example of that is not drinking alcohol. I have encountered many people in work situations who don’t realise the rely on alcohol to cope with life, and they either cannot conceive of others having different coping mechanisms, or they feel embarrassment/guilt/shame at the possibility that they personally could have chosen another coping mechanism/strategy.
There are also clearly nasty examples of this from the evil world of gossip, but I’ve no desire to the delve into that cesspit.
What I do want to consider are those cisgender people who have the view that, because they personally did not think of gender identity issues as children, no-one else could possibly either think of, or have, gender identity differences.
That attitude has a number of major flaws.
The first I’ll mention is the obvious one: cisgender people are, by definition, comfortable with their assigned sex & gender role. That means they have no trigger to cause that thought - if they did have a suitable trigger (e.g., someone close to them being trans), they may very well have undergone the same sort of analysis at a young age as trans kids.
Next, denial of a problem is a form of enforcing discrimination.
The clearest example of that is racism, where people claim that, because they are not personally aware of (even if it happened right under their noses) something that they perceive/conceive of as racism, the problem doesn’t exist. This problem is particularly pernicious and endemic in many workplaces, in my experience, and is why anti-racism (especially the conscious raising that goes with that) is so essential.
The amathiac, irresponsible, and racism enabling-facilitating approach of so-called “racial colourblindness” is another example of denialism that is equally as pernicious, although a little less widespread.
Denial of the climate crisis and the continuing problem of COVID denialism (one of the tradies who came to our home was an example - an amathiac, irresponsible and thoroughly unpleasant ciswoman who put the wellbeing and lives of three vulnerable people at risk) are other examples of the problem of denialism, although for a more complex set of character flaws.
Going back to the point of this post, those people who deny that young children could have an awareness on this issues that they personally did not are actively being transphobic and promoting/enforcing transphobia - and in a version that threatens the lives of trans children (which is a problem that has been actively suppressed - see https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trans-youth-suicides-covered-up-by [which links to a thread on X] and https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/attempt-cover-up-explosion-trans-youth-suicides-nhs-waiting-wareham-tskbc/).
This might be an appropriate place to insert the problem of ignorance - and in western nations, claiming ignorance in this day and age is, in my opinion, very difficult to do with any credibility.
Gender identity issues have been investigated scientifically for around a century, modern medical/surgical interventions have been used since the 1960s, laws against discrimination have been in place in some places since the 1980s at least, and there have been movies, books, campaigns, public debates, and. more recently, brutally savage and nasty backlashes that have likely killed trans and gender diverse people.
The ignorance may be real, but it is as equally unforgivable as those who claim ignorance about the climate crisis.
The next character flaw I wish to examine is that of guilt/shame (the words have different “official” meanings, but the unofficial “everyday” meanings may differ, which is why I have chosen to link to both words).
Some people may realise that there is a problem, but rather than admit that and do something constructive, for the sake of their personal comfort - and especially the avoidance of having to acknowledge and work with guilt/shame - they choose to deny that the awareness of gender identity could exist, nor that some children could have had to deal with gender identity differences.
This problem also falls into the categories of spiritual bypassing and the shadow self.
And finally we come to the flaw that was the reason I wrote this post:
a perceived threat to social status
In this case, there are a few possibilities.
The denialist is operating out of a fear that they may not be viewed as progressive / inclusive / “good” if such a problem exists, and they had failed to take action.
More likely, though, is that they see acceptance of gender identity, especially childhood awareness of gender identity, as a threat to their flawed, lacking in spirituality personal sense of identity, or the flawed and founded in falseness worldview that they used to plan their life, or the social status they considered they “should” have as part of their personal sense of identity and/or worldview.
And something I have found is that being considered a threat to social status is probably the worst thing you can be ...
After all, people like Trump have started civil wars over the threat to their social status ...
- “Is the US Headed Towards Another Civil War? | Barbara F. Walter | TED” https://youtu.be/Yilgr2SJ3xQ?si=S3xHqLNj7koZvAeE The two major risk factors identified by the work described in this TED (not TEDx)
talk were (1) whether the nation was a partial democracy, and (2)
whether political parties in that nation are being formed around
identity rather than ideology - both of which apply to the USA, and the
model would have been predicted high risk of civil war in the USA in
December, 2020. Also, civil wars are started by those at risk of losing
social status ... I was dubious about the claimed change of ethnicity
until I looked up https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demographics_of_the_United_States&oldid=1194963938 The
commentary on what to do about these problems is interesting, and I am
going to spend some time thinking about that - although I already agree
with the need to address those who have been left behind, which was the
working class in the USA, according to the speaker, and also the same
here in Australia, based on my life experience - although some of that
has a US bias. The comments about social media are significant
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(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)
Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024 NO AI
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