yes because the trans community has spent more time arguing we're uwu smol beans who can't possibly be tainted by working in Capitalism with its Compromises and Responsibilities than emphasizing our prodigious capacity to contribute to society. time to change that - ThreadSky

eleanor.lockhart.contact • 20 days ago

yes because the trans community has spent more time arguing we're uwu smol beans who can't possibly be tainted by working in Capitalism with its Compromises and Responsibilities than emphasizing our prodigious capacity to contribute to society. time to change that

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pennywise.bsky.social•20 days ago

I think a giant portion of society has no idea how much trans folks are doing to contribute, because it seems like a majority of trans people take up jobs that aren't really visible to the public and golly gee I wonder why that is. (It's avoiding assholes, isn't it)

balsapphicvinegar.bsky.social•20 days ago

Yeah. I noticed how much the trans community leans into "SMASH!" rather than "Get that bag!". Like there's not enough element of getting trans people out of low paging jobs and into tech or other high paying careers. At least for me, I moralized my learned helplessness.

cstarks.bsky.social•20 days ago

The first well-known trans woman I was aware of was an economist named Deirdre McCloskey. This was mid-90s. I was in college, and my econ professor had assigned a book she wrote. …

cstarks.bsky.social•20 days ago

Well, she transitioned during the semester, and the prof announced he wasn’t going to test us on the material in her book because he now considered her discredited. I bet there was a lot of that reaction at the time. Nonetheless, she persisted & wrote more books.

cstarks.bsky.social•20 days ago

So that was sort of the first indication I got that trans people were, like, strong in the face of oppression, and it was reinforced over the years … until I joined Bluesky lol

eleanor.lockhart.contact•20 days ago

my adviser in graduate school was a friend of McCloskey's, despite them having strong ideological disagreements, and was a huge ally. He was a huge influence on me in being aware of how many incredibly intelligent and resilient trans people existed.

cstarks.bsky.social•20 days ago

I feel like my prof’s disdain sort of backfired bc even though I was deeply conservative and closeted at the time, I became fascinated with McCloskey, and her writing about her transition has been a lasting influence on my thinking about identity

sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com•20 days ago

i've read her BOURGEOIS DIGNITY and it's very good!

eleanor.lockhart.contact•20 days ago

and yeah, the current community would never see McCloskey as a positive because the idea of someone who thought economics was important instead of just The Revolution might imply people had to work on themselves, at all, ever

lines.snail.skin•20 days ago

I just do not agree with you that "the community" that you identify is in any way representative of, well, anything to the extent that they exist at all.

sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com•20 days ago

her sister tried to have her psychiatrically committed!

apogean.bsky.social•20 days ago

a revolutionary cadre of trans radicals who believe in human rights, democracy, social justice and well-regulated markets

khartsun.bsky.social•20 days ago

I believe in all of these, with a fairly large asterisk on democracy.

oneoneder.bsky.social•20 days ago

Tbh I wonder how much of this is age cohort effect / lack of age filtering

I would guess a tremendous proportion of trans community discourse is created by people aged 15-20, who have not yet reached the age of We Live In a Society

effinvicta.bsky.social•20 days ago

I doubt it; I suspect that the broader issue is that much trans community discourse is fostered by people who have come out recently, started transition fairly recently, and are adjusting to pubescent hormonal levels while going through a period of psychological reconstruction.

effinvicta.bsky.social•20 days ago

They aren't causing it, but they are important contributors to keeping the temperatures high because of those factors coming together.

missingthejim.bsky.social•20 days ago

There *is* a certain energy among the community from what I've observed, yes, and I think you've pegged it.

tznkai.bsky.social•20 days ago

Hormones are serious juju.

isomorphism.net•20 days ago

This plus a whole shitload of trauma because right now one of the most powerful political organizations in the world is captured by a group of people who will gleefully subject them to arbitrary, random, and capricious pain for no other reason than to get a topic trending or distract other people.

isomorphism.net•20 days ago

I spend an abnormal amount of time with trans people under 25 at varying stages and it is difficult to overstate exactly how much stress they're dealing with.

eleanor.lockhart.contact•20 days ago

ok but it's also true that Black communities, immigrant communities, etc. are also being targeted and somehow manage to not aggressively disincentivize anyone being happy or reasonable

isomorphism.net•20 days ago

True, but many of the people in those communities have family support, a common narrative, a cultural history, and a whole slew of other things that serve as collective structures.

More than half of my kids' friends have been functionally disowned, are ostracized from their families, etc.

sharmake.bsky.social•20 days ago

Admittedly, a lot of the problem is shown here:

https://bsky.app/profile/effinvicta.bsky.social/post/3lhh3zje5rk2r

sharmake.bsky.social•20 days ago

And often, it isn't a distraction, unfortunately.

apogean.bsky.social•20 days ago

we need to build community around incorporating a diversity of ages and experiences and I have no idea how to do this

eleanor.lockhart.contact•20 days ago

also that it's heavily discouraged to ever, ever suggest your friend might need mental health care, because of the community stigma against being viewed as "mentally ill" because of how that gets weaponized

eleanor.lockhart.contact•20 days ago

so if your friend says something along the lines of "I think I need to find a way to get declared permanently disabled due to anxiety, otherwise I might have to get a job and someone would misgender me there" you get called a fascist Republican if you suggest this is a really bad life choice

apogean.bsky.social•20 days ago

I thought we were normalizing therapy so that people could get better

eleanor.lockhart.contact•20 days ago

the folks I'm talking about will usually say something like "what are you, rich?" and if you, say, offer to pay for it or offer a free resource, will probably say something like "they're going to give information to the government death squads"

sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com•20 days ago

you can be a baby trans without being a literal baby, in other words

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