I feel the same, Kelly. I've witnessed several massive fragmentations among people I love for the tiniest of political disagreements. I have lost people who demanded agreement I did not feel and could not/did not want to fake; the person who demands my compliance, in anything, is not a true friend but something else. Yet it smart, to exp…
I feel the same, Kelly. I've witnessed several massive fragmentations among people I love for the tiniest of political disagreements. I have lost people who demanded agreement I did not feel and could not/did not want to fake; the person who demands my compliance, in anything, is not a true friend but something else. Yet it smart, to experience AND to witness, all the same.
This is why I appreciate The Coddling of the American Mind, with its one Great Untruth that existence is a fight between bad guys and good guys, and newly released sequel The Canceling of the American mind, which adds the fourth great untruth that bad people only believe bad things. I've experienced/watched that "this person disagreed --> person is labeled bad guy no longer worth hearing --> person discarded for 'being bad'" process at work at least a dozen times now, among different groups of people, and so deeply appreciated this BARPod-endorsed taste of the braver way.
Friends should not demand your compliance. I am really curious what the topic was but understand if you don't want to say. I loved The Coddling of the American Mind, so I will have to check out his new one. Sometimes I wish life could be more like a sitcom, where people disagree and riff on each other for thinking differently about a topic, but still have a good relationship. I thought I'd spend more of my youth having political discussions with friends, but that did not happen much without people getting annoyed.
It's shown up in a few places, but trans medicine is #1 by far. To say "I have questions about the state of the medicine" is interpreted as "you are anti-trans!" This is wild to me, given how (explicitly!) my last couple years have been deeply marked by medical failures to understand certain realities and thus practice medicine in alignment with reality. Scientific and medical ignorances are not, I report with sadness, without consequence. :(
I talked about this with one of my kids earlier. I said, "If you told me you were trans, I'd support you. One way I'd support you would be by really digging into the medicine before walking with you down any path. I would want to know--I mean, really know--the risks I'd be signing you up for, if I were to put you on this or that medicine. I'd want our risk acceptance to be considered and based on accurate data, not to be totally denied an opportunity to understand THAT there are risks related to a treatment 'cause all that's sung are praises. And that's what's happening sometimes right now: Parents are accepting risks, or potential risks, they don't even know exist. And it breaks my heart what they may then uncover in their own lives, down the road, as they learn that the cases for the treatments they accepted was not as strong as they were told."
If reality isn't being represented accurately when treatment is accepted, then there's a gap between what parents are accepting and what they THINK they're accepting. Depending on what's missing in the data today, the gaps into which people may yet fall are ... potentially quite painful. As a parent, seeing other parents and their kids fall into such gaps (anywhere! not just here!) suuuuucks. Less of that, please?!
It's not that I'm transphobic that makes me want to have much better science here. It's that I understand iatrogenics (the harms caused by medical interventions) and want to make sure we're truly doing, societally, what we can to limit iatrogenics and/or be clear about potential for iatrogenics wherever possible. I want less suffering for everyone, y'know? That my desire for less suffering is treated as sign of my implicit evil? Let's just say I, too, want the sitcom-like life you describe! Sigh.
I don't have kids (yet? still possible) like you, but I like your strategy. Young people who say they're trans should also talk to detransitioners or older trans people who will give them the real scoop of what it's been like.
It's so annoying how quickly one gets called transphobic or when someone says "this isn't up for debate"- of course it is. The trans activists don't believe you or I when we say we're just concerned for these kids and young people. I actually used to be 100% on the left side of this issue- I was pro trans everything, including kids being able to do whatever they wanted medically. Even argued with someone once about it. But because I was so interested, I read and watched everything I could get my hands on related to the trans topic and my mind changed.
I feel the same, Kelly. I've witnessed several massive fragmentations among people I love for the tiniest of political disagreements. I have lost people who demanded agreement I did not feel and could not/did not want to fake; the person who demands my compliance, in anything, is not a true friend but something else. Yet it smart, to experience AND to witness, all the same.
This is why I appreciate The Coddling of the American Mind, with its one Great Untruth that existence is a fight between bad guys and good guys, and newly released sequel The Canceling of the American mind, which adds the fourth great untruth that bad people only believe bad things. I've experienced/watched that "this person disagreed --> person is labeled bad guy no longer worth hearing --> person discarded for 'being bad'" process at work at least a dozen times now, among different groups of people, and so deeply appreciated this BARPod-endorsed taste of the braver way.
Friends should not demand your compliance. I am really curious what the topic was but understand if you don't want to say. I loved The Coddling of the American Mind, so I will have to check out his new one. Sometimes I wish life could be more like a sitcom, where people disagree and riff on each other for thinking differently about a topic, but still have a good relationship. I thought I'd spend more of my youth having political discussions with friends, but that did not happen much without people getting annoyed.
It's shown up in a few places, but trans medicine is #1 by far. To say "I have questions about the state of the medicine" is interpreted as "you are anti-trans!" This is wild to me, given how (explicitly!) my last couple years have been deeply marked by medical failures to understand certain realities and thus practice medicine in alignment with reality. Scientific and medical ignorances are not, I report with sadness, without consequence. :(
I talked about this with one of my kids earlier. I said, "If you told me you were trans, I'd support you. One way I'd support you would be by really digging into the medicine before walking with you down any path. I would want to know--I mean, really know--the risks I'd be signing you up for, if I were to put you on this or that medicine. I'd want our risk acceptance to be considered and based on accurate data, not to be totally denied an opportunity to understand THAT there are risks related to a treatment 'cause all that's sung are praises. And that's what's happening sometimes right now: Parents are accepting risks, or potential risks, they don't even know exist. And it breaks my heart what they may then uncover in their own lives, down the road, as they learn that the cases for the treatments they accepted was not as strong as they were told."
If reality isn't being represented accurately when treatment is accepted, then there's a gap between what parents are accepting and what they THINK they're accepting. Depending on what's missing in the data today, the gaps into which people may yet fall are ... potentially quite painful. As a parent, seeing other parents and their kids fall into such gaps (anywhere! not just here!) suuuuucks. Less of that, please?!
It's not that I'm transphobic that makes me want to have much better science here. It's that I understand iatrogenics (the harms caused by medical interventions) and want to make sure we're truly doing, societally, what we can to limit iatrogenics and/or be clear about potential for iatrogenics wherever possible. I want less suffering for everyone, y'know? That my desire for less suffering is treated as sign of my implicit evil? Let's just say I, too, want the sitcom-like life you describe! Sigh.
I don't have kids (yet? still possible) like you, but I like your strategy. Young people who say they're trans should also talk to detransitioners or older trans people who will give them the real scoop of what it's been like.
It's so annoying how quickly one gets called transphobic or when someone says "this isn't up for debate"- of course it is. The trans activists don't believe you or I when we say we're just concerned for these kids and young people. I actually used to be 100% on the left side of this issue- I was pro trans everything, including kids being able to do whatever they wanted medically. Even argued with someone once about it. But because I was so interested, I read and watched everything I could get my hands on related to the trans topic and my mind changed.