I’ve always “appreciated” when some with no concept of my subjective experience - who can’t even fathom why mine is different then theirs - offers me advice on “how” I should live my experience from their point of view. We exist. We aren’t a mistake, I’m not confused. I know me. I only wish people would come to this “debate” with at least that base level of respect for my knowledge of me - it’s so dismissive and demeaning when they don’t. It’s like trying to explain “what air is” to a fish who refuses to even accept “air” as a thing. [My paraphrasing of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave w/ fish! - sorry!]
Anyway, thank you for pointing out the many fallacies within their “reasoning” in your article. You are, truly, appreciated.
Thanks for this informative and excellent rebuttal. Affirmations are so much better than false information cloaked in a layer of "we know what's best for you".
Wow thank you so much for writing up a response to this! The writing in the initial article is so insidious and I appreciate your clear counter to each point!
As a trans man, I have always felt like a man from my earliest memories as a child. No one “brainwashed” me into believing that. There was no representation growing up about trans men and yet even without words like dysphoria I had those feelings. It’s not an “ideology”. If that were true then the “ideology” of cis heterosexual normatively would have convinced me. Guess what you can’t brainwash someone into being cis het and you also can’t brainwash someone into being LGBTQ. They either are or are not.
When I did finally figure out what the feelings were I was feeling and why I transitioned. That was nearly 14 years ago. I am now a happy gay man with my gay cis partner. I was considering suicide before transitioning and this saved my life.
I think most trans people have attempted to ignore the discomfort. Most of us have woken up every day and put on the cis mask, some of us for decades. It DOES NOT WORK, all we end up doing is suffering. So anytime I see arguments like “you have to embrace your natural body,” all I hear is: “you have to accept your suffering.” You don’t and you shouldn’t.
I tried for the better part of 5 decades to cope with my gender dysphoria in many of the ways Ms. Schultz suggests, and it nearly killed me. It also left me with a tremendous amount of grief to metabolize over time lost to white knuckling it in my assigned birth gender when I might have been thriving in my trans identity. Thank you for your well-reasoned responses to this and all the other fallacious arguments for trans-abandonment and trans-eradication. Greatly appreciate the time and effort you spend.
Wow Keith, I am glad you are here to give such heartfelt feedback, and to share what you have! Thank you very much - I hope that this helps in some way. You are awesome!
Thank you! I found Schultz's arguments especially insidious and chilling because they're so polite and cloaked in the warm, fuzzy language of self-love and self-acceptance. This is the kind of argument I bought into for a long time because it seemed so aspirational and righteous. So grateful I finally came to see it for what it is: a bypass of my own knowing and my own reality. Thanks again for all your good work.
![People with Inconvenient Truths about Transphobes [PITT]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_80,h_80,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F704ba0db-3e10-4112-9364-c2f224d0cfae_500x500.png)
![People with Inconvenient Truths about Transphobes [PITT]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_36,h_36,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F704ba0db-3e10-4112-9364-c2f224d0cfae_500x500.png)
I’ve always “appreciated” when some with no concept of my subjective experience - who can’t even fathom why mine is different then theirs - offers me advice on “how” I should live my experience from their point of view. We exist. We aren’t a mistake, I’m not confused. I know me. I only wish people would come to this “debate” with at least that base level of respect for my knowledge of me - it’s so dismissive and demeaning when they don’t. It’s like trying to explain “what air is” to a fish who refuses to even accept “air” as a thing. [My paraphrasing of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave w/ fish! - sorry!]
Anyway, thank you for pointing out the many fallacies within their “reasoning” in your article. You are, truly, appreciated.
Yeah, her ignorance is staggering... I wonder what her arguments for "young boys" would be. But she probably hates boys and doesn't care.
Thanks for this informative and excellent rebuttal. Affirmations are so much better than false information cloaked in a layer of "we know what's best for you".
Wow thank you so much for writing up a response to this! The writing in the initial article is so insidious and I appreciate your clear counter to each point!
As a trans man, I have always felt like a man from my earliest memories as a child. No one “brainwashed” me into believing that. There was no representation growing up about trans men and yet even without words like dysphoria I had those feelings. It’s not an “ideology”. If that were true then the “ideology” of cis heterosexual normatively would have convinced me. Guess what you can’t brainwash someone into being cis het and you also can’t brainwash someone into being LGBTQ. They either are or are not.
When I did finally figure out what the feelings were I was feeling and why I transitioned. That was nearly 14 years ago. I am now a happy gay man with my gay cis partner. I was considering suicide before transitioning and this saved my life.
can’t read it because it’s too triggering but thanks for writing this. imagine finding yourself only to be told your self is wrong.
Thanks for commenting anyway - I appreciate the fact that you did so :)
I think most trans people have attempted to ignore the discomfort. Most of us have woken up every day and put on the cis mask, some of us for decades. It DOES NOT WORK, all we end up doing is suffering. So anytime I see arguments like “you have to embrace your natural body,” all I hear is: “you have to accept your suffering.” You don’t and you shouldn’t.
I tried for the better part of 5 decades to cope with my gender dysphoria in many of the ways Ms. Schultz suggests, and it nearly killed me. It also left me with a tremendous amount of grief to metabolize over time lost to white knuckling it in my assigned birth gender when I might have been thriving in my trans identity. Thank you for your well-reasoned responses to this and all the other fallacious arguments for trans-abandonment and trans-eradication. Greatly appreciate the time and effort you spend.
Wow Keith, I am glad you are here to give such heartfelt feedback, and to share what you have! Thank you very much - I hope that this helps in some way. You are awesome!
Thank you! I found Schultz's arguments especially insidious and chilling because they're so polite and cloaked in the warm, fuzzy language of self-love and self-acceptance. This is the kind of argument I bought into for a long time because it seemed so aspirational and righteous. So grateful I finally came to see it for what it is: a bypass of my own knowing and my own reality. Thanks again for all your good work.