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No. 11847
>>11844
Your frequent use of caps and exclamation points makes me feel as if you are yelling at me, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I just thought I'd address that, if that's not the feeling you intended to evoke.
To address there being more trans people than there were: Coming out as trans is partly physical, and partly emotional/mental. The physical part lies in the hormones, in the brain chemistry- the part that tells you that you are in the wrong body. The mental/emotional part is the part that makes you have the desire to seek out others like you, seek some sort of acceptance, understanding, etc.
What I'm wondering if it is simply a case of the media outlets, providing more people with the emotional/mental ease and desire to explore this part of themselves, or if there are more people experiencing the physical symptoms of being in the wrong body.
It's not too far-fetched. More and more new diseases are coming out every day that we've never seen before. My mother and I were discussing this yesterday, and when she went to school in the 60's, she never knew anyone with autism, or with any sort of allergy...
I just wonder if it's a case of our world changing physically (pollutants in the environment, drugs in our food, and such), or socially (technology providing more sources of information, communication, etc.)
It's less of an issue specifically about transgender people, and more about me wanting to understand why and how our world is changing in this way. I don't see it as a bad thing, but I just want to understand it.
Now, I never said I judge everyone out there who says they are trans, or that I question whether they are or not. But if someone says that they are transsexual, and they are a person that I know are prone to following stupid fads for the sake of fitting in, then I will be suspicious. A friend I had in high school went through various stages of anorexia, cutting, bisexuality, homosexuality, then transgenderism, and now he just identifies as a straight, pot-loving mackdaddy, and denies ever coming out of any sort of closet to us. So, if I meet another person like him, it makes me wary, and unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of those on the internet. Anyone ever seen that image floating around of a 12-year-old girl's profile page? "I'm totally bi, but I've never been with a girl! Ew!"
In contrast, I have a friend I met through theatre, and he (Ftm trans) is just a well-adjusted person, with this different aspect to his life. He never had to follow fads or anything like this. He was just a man in a woman's body, and that was all there was to the issue. Him, I never had a problem with, because he wasn't some whiny little twit- he was an adult about this condition, which is all I want people to be. I want everyone out there to recognize that it is a real state of being- not something you can take on to appear different/exotic/unique, or to get attention. I want people to be adults about it. That's all. If everyone saw it for what it was, then I'd have no problem at all. I have the same problem with people who try to use cutting and anorexia to the same end, without really realizing how seriously ill the people who really have those conditions are. (Not to imply that people who are trans are somehow ill, mind you.) It's disrespectful, is what it is.
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