Empathy
You know, I find it kind of funny that a lot of my blog entrees so far gives a lot of prerequisite information. I think I do that as to no give improper context. Many times I've noticed disagreements because of people operating under different assumptions and I try hard not to do that myself. And thus I find myself now doing that for this entree.
I referenced in an earlier post about a youtube video I watched about traits of "intelligent people" and I felt a lot of them related to me. One of them was preferring few social contacts due to both avoiding drama that comes with them and often times having different opinions. Kind of the repercussion of being an "outside the box" thinker and the latter one is where my prequalifier comes into play.
Before getting into that, I once again point out that unlike many, I'm not emotionally or stubbornly attache4d to my opinions. For example, I'd have no problem never expressing them and just listening to what others have to say. Its one of the many reasons I have a high compatibility with most people. That said, I do have opinions on many things and part of the reason for this blog is to express my thoughts, progress and goals along the way. This one has to do with my my emphathy or more specifically social stigmas.
One of the many reasons I knew I relate to the female gender way more than the male gender from a very young age was the overwhelming empathy I have for others. Like I would totally make decisions in life purely based on feelings and could easily become depressed for care for others or make bad decisions if I let my empathy go unchecked. Luckily I do have it checked, but this blog entree is about a tik tok I saw that really struck home on multiple levels for me.
To put this into proper context, I want to give a little information about my views on things. Generally speaking, I hate being associated with any group of people because there are so many stereotypes with them that very clearly are not me. In fact, I think most of my issues with people, if i have them which I dont, would come from them assuming these stereotypes about me which is usually true about the group, but isn't with me. A few easy examples is that because I'm transitioning fully to female that i'm liberal or democrat. I'm not, i'm liberatarian leaning right if anything. (Reference what I said about not attached to my opinion above). Another is that I'm atheist, but perhaps spiritual is the better way to put it. I'm comfortable with not knowing and I don't claim their is no "God" because there is no proof there isn't. In fact, I get along with religious people way better then athiest. Many athiest blindly follow science, which I dont, i question science as much as I question everything. Athiest also try to do things like take God out of pledge of allegience, yet I have no problem with it being there because it speaks to freedom of religion, or in my case non-belief. Another group I'm thrown into going the transitioning route is that i'm feminist, which if you look at my other blogs, pretty obvious I'm not.
The reason I mention the liberatarian aspect earlier is because of the context for this blog entree. I'm very much you live your life the way you want to, I live life the way I want to. As long as your beliefs don't force themselves onto me, and mine don't force themselves onto you, we're entittles to live life the way we want in harmony. Worst case scenerio is that we dont' associate with each other. This is important for what I want to talk about because this is the number one thing I probably disagreee with the LGBT or trans community on. I have decided to transition fully to female. THat is my choice. I have no desire to force people to use the proper pronoun with me, force others to make wedding cakes for me, even force others to hire me as an employee. I don't want to be associated with people who would not accept me. I also understand (living in a red state) that Im' a little in the minority. That is why I'm going to go to living female full time when it starts being harder to pass as a guy then as a girl. Well, there are other reasons for that as well. Like I dont like pretending I am what I'm not. Even though that is my ultimate goal.
Now that I put my credientials up, lets talk about this tik tok. It was of a trans girl. I dont know if she is just "trans" and thus hasn't had the bottom surgery or if she has had it. In my experience, most trans girls choose not to do the bottom surgery. Earlier blogs have given my opinion on it, which for me in my world, social circles and such, your either fully male or fully female and choose which you want. Once again, they can live there life the way they want, just not how I choose to live mine. Anyways, that is going into more detail then needed. The tik tok was just an expression of the dating scene of her always seeing so many cute guys who lose interest in her when they find out she is trans. Like at bars, or clubs and such. And at the end she expresses she just wants to be treated like a girl. Not that it matters, but she is very very passable.
For the record, this is why I'm going full online dating for any potential partners. I feel most hostile reactions from people come from the "Trap" mentality of thinking they're a girl and finding otherwise. IN my experience, I've had neutral to good reactions as long as people know form the beginning, and I do like avoiding conflict. Anyways, the tik tok was clearly just expressing one of the emotional aspects trans women goes through on just wanting to be a girl. Now I do admit their is a little too much of forcing others to confrom to your opinion if you do not do the bottom surgery for my taste, but I can certainly empathize with the desire of being a girl in every facet of life. So that tik tok touched me a little bit because I can relate to those feelings. And it does suck that most guys she or eventually I would meet in every day life will not be interested because of the trans thing. Nobody can control your feelings afterall.
So I had a little empathy for her given just that initial tik tok. But then I looked at the comments for a moment. Mainly to see how many guys would claim to be interested in her because she was super duper pretty. About 2/3s of the tik toks was negative reactions about how she shouldn't expect others to conform to her decisions. How she's wrong to feel that way. And this is where the earlier tidbit about myself not liking being associated with groups are. Those are all typical responses, and reasonable responses to the arguments made by the lgbt/trans community. She was associated with that group, so people jumped to those assumptions.
The thing is, there was nothing in that tik tok that actually showed in any way that she was forcing her decisions on others. If anything, it sounded like she was open about who she was and letting others decide not to be associated if they wanted to. There is nothing wrong to feel the way she did about just wanted to be treated and thought of as a girl. Those feelings are find as long as you are not forcing others to act that way. And because one of my biggest annoyances is when I'm lumped into groups who do not even closely fit who i am, I can really empathize with what happened to her.
To finish putting things into context. I'm okay with people feeling and associating the way they want to as long as not forced on anyone else. For example, if someone wanted to call everyone "it/they/they're" and not use any pronouns I'm okay with them doing that. I wouldn't force them to use proper he/her. Or if they were backwards and called every male she and every female he, still there choice and I don't hav ehte right to tell them to use the pronouns that everyone else uses. If I really didn't like it, I just wouldnt' associate with them. But this is not what happened in this tik tok. She was talking about typical feelings every transgender has and there was no hint of forcing those beliefs on others and thus those kind of reactions were at best preprogrammed and at worst completely objectifying (and not int he good way :p ) who that person was.
This other thing it made me happy about is my character/personality traits. I have very strong foundational beliefs, methodoligies and so on and thus can weather most of the emotional challenges up ahead with very little to non social support as well. I know I'm rare on that though, so makes me feel for others in my situation who are not as strong of willed.
I referenced in an earlier post about a youtube video I watched about traits of "intelligent people" and I felt a lot of them related to me. One of them was preferring few social contacts due to both avoiding drama that comes with them and often times having different opinions. Kind of the repercussion of being an "outside the box" thinker and the latter one is where my prequalifier comes into play.
Before getting into that, I once again point out that unlike many, I'm not emotionally or stubbornly attache4d to my opinions. For example, I'd have no problem never expressing them and just listening to what others have to say. Its one of the many reasons I have a high compatibility with most people. That said, I do have opinions on many things and part of the reason for this blog is to express my thoughts, progress and goals along the way. This one has to do with my my emphathy or more specifically social stigmas.
One of the many reasons I knew I relate to the female gender way more than the male gender from a very young age was the overwhelming empathy I have for others. Like I would totally make decisions in life purely based on feelings and could easily become depressed for care for others or make bad decisions if I let my empathy go unchecked. Luckily I do have it checked, but this blog entree is about a tik tok I saw that really struck home on multiple levels for me.
To put this into proper context, I want to give a little information about my views on things. Generally speaking, I hate being associated with any group of people because there are so many stereotypes with them that very clearly are not me. In fact, I think most of my issues with people, if i have them which I dont, would come from them assuming these stereotypes about me which is usually true about the group, but isn't with me. A few easy examples is that because I'm transitioning fully to female that i'm liberal or democrat. I'm not, i'm liberatarian leaning right if anything. (Reference what I said about not attached to my opinion above). Another is that I'm atheist, but perhaps spiritual is the better way to put it. I'm comfortable with not knowing and I don't claim their is no "God" because there is no proof there isn't. In fact, I get along with religious people way better then athiest. Many athiest blindly follow science, which I dont, i question science as much as I question everything. Athiest also try to do things like take God out of pledge of allegience, yet I have no problem with it being there because it speaks to freedom of religion, or in my case non-belief. Another group I'm thrown into going the transitioning route is that i'm feminist, which if you look at my other blogs, pretty obvious I'm not.
The reason I mention the liberatarian aspect earlier is because of the context for this blog entree. I'm very much you live your life the way you want to, I live life the way I want to. As long as your beliefs don't force themselves onto me, and mine don't force themselves onto you, we're entittles to live life the way we want in harmony. Worst case scenerio is that we dont' associate with each other. This is important for what I want to talk about because this is the number one thing I probably disagreee with the LGBT or trans community on. I have decided to transition fully to female. THat is my choice. I have no desire to force people to use the proper pronoun with me, force others to make wedding cakes for me, even force others to hire me as an employee. I don't want to be associated with people who would not accept me. I also understand (living in a red state) that Im' a little in the minority. That is why I'm going to go to living female full time when it starts being harder to pass as a guy then as a girl. Well, there are other reasons for that as well. Like I dont like pretending I am what I'm not. Even though that is my ultimate goal.
Now that I put my credientials up, lets talk about this tik tok. It was of a trans girl. I dont know if she is just "trans" and thus hasn't had the bottom surgery or if she has had it. In my experience, most trans girls choose not to do the bottom surgery. Earlier blogs have given my opinion on it, which for me in my world, social circles and such, your either fully male or fully female and choose which you want. Once again, they can live there life the way they want, just not how I choose to live mine. Anyways, that is going into more detail then needed. The tik tok was just an expression of the dating scene of her always seeing so many cute guys who lose interest in her when they find out she is trans. Like at bars, or clubs and such. And at the end she expresses she just wants to be treated like a girl. Not that it matters, but she is very very passable.
For the record, this is why I'm going full online dating for any potential partners. I feel most hostile reactions from people come from the "Trap" mentality of thinking they're a girl and finding otherwise. IN my experience, I've had neutral to good reactions as long as people know form the beginning, and I do like avoiding conflict. Anyways, the tik tok was clearly just expressing one of the emotional aspects trans women goes through on just wanting to be a girl. Now I do admit their is a little too much of forcing others to confrom to your opinion if you do not do the bottom surgery for my taste, but I can certainly empathize with the desire of being a girl in every facet of life. So that tik tok touched me a little bit because I can relate to those feelings. And it does suck that most guys she or eventually I would meet in every day life will not be interested because of the trans thing. Nobody can control your feelings afterall.
So I had a little empathy for her given just that initial tik tok. But then I looked at the comments for a moment. Mainly to see how many guys would claim to be interested in her because she was super duper pretty. About 2/3s of the tik toks was negative reactions about how she shouldn't expect others to conform to her decisions. How she's wrong to feel that way. And this is where the earlier tidbit about myself not liking being associated with groups are. Those are all typical responses, and reasonable responses to the arguments made by the lgbt/trans community. She was associated with that group, so people jumped to those assumptions.
The thing is, there was nothing in that tik tok that actually showed in any way that she was forcing her decisions on others. If anything, it sounded like she was open about who she was and letting others decide not to be associated if they wanted to. There is nothing wrong to feel the way she did about just wanted to be treated and thought of as a girl. Those feelings are find as long as you are not forcing others to act that way. And because one of my biggest annoyances is when I'm lumped into groups who do not even closely fit who i am, I can really empathize with what happened to her.
To finish putting things into context. I'm okay with people feeling and associating the way they want to as long as not forced on anyone else. For example, if someone wanted to call everyone "it/they/they're" and not use any pronouns I'm okay with them doing that. I wouldn't force them to use proper he/her. Or if they were backwards and called every male she and every female he, still there choice and I don't hav ehte right to tell them to use the pronouns that everyone else uses. If I really didn't like it, I just wouldnt' associate with them. But this is not what happened in this tik tok. She was talking about typical feelings every transgender has and there was no hint of forcing those beliefs on others and thus those kind of reactions were at best preprogrammed and at worst completely objectifying (and not int he good way :p ) who that person was.
This other thing it made me happy about is my character/personality traits. I have very strong foundational beliefs, methodoligies and so on and thus can weather most of the emotional challenges up ahead with very little to non social support as well. I know I'm rare on that though, so makes me feel for others in my situation who are not as strong of willed.
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