@raphjd You know, I’ve been thinking, the way you argue reminds me a lot of someone who’s been let down too many times by the same kind of people. And I get the impression that, deep down, you really do want the world to be fair, ordered, and honest. That you’re tired of hypocrisy, tired of manipulation, tired of people using identity as a shield for bad behavior. That’s actually pretty reasonable.
But here’s the thing, I think you’ve let a few very specific, bad stories convince you that the whole world is rigged against you, or that a huge group of people (like queer folks, trans people, Muslims, liberals, whoever) is fundamentally dishonest. And that’s just not true.
The way you talk about trans people now is really similar to how religious conservatives used to talk about us, gay men, a couple decades ago. Remember how they'd say, "I don’t hate gays, just the ones who push it in people’s faces or corrupt the youth"? Or "Sure, love who you love, but I don’t want it in schools or bathrooms"? It always sounded like they were drawing lines, but when it came time to make laws, those lines disappeared, and we were all treated like predators.
Now you’re doing the same thing to trans people. Saying you respect “real” trans folks, but then spending 99% of your energy attacking the very idea that they exist, or treating every legal loophole or outlier as a reason to suspect them all. That’s not protecting society, that’s painting targets.
You say you're just raising questions, and okay, sure, questions are valid. But it’s hard to ignore that they only ever seem to point in one direction. You rarely raise questions about the gay rapists or serial killers out there. Why not? We’ve got our share of fucked-up people too. Every group does. But we don’t let those few define the whole. That’s the whole point of justice, individual accountability. Not punishment by category.
And look, when you expand the conversation to other groups, immigrants, Muslims, liberals, it starts to feel like you're not just upset about one issue. It’s like you're trying to stack grievances until it justifies writing off half the world. That’s what a lot of people in the US are doing right now. Everything becomes part of a culture war, and there’s no room left for just fixing problems like adults.
Because yeah, some of those UK laws you mentioned? They were messy. And in some cases, they were actually corrected. Some loopholes were closed. The prison system is changing its gender policies. Parents were right to raise questions about letting kids make medical decisions too early. That’s all part of how a healthy society works, people push, others push back, and the system adjusts. It’s slow and imperfect, but it's not a plot to destroy civilization.
But when you frame everything as “liberals protecting rapists” or “trans people invading women’s spaces” or “Muslims ruining the UK,” then no correction will ever be good enough. Because you're not aiming for solutions, you're aiming for enemies.
I think you’ve been radicalized a bit, honestly. Not in the dangerous way, but in the “always on edge, always ready to prove something, always suspicious” kind of way. And maybe, just maybe, some of that anger you have toward liberals or queer activists is really just disappointment at the way the world has handled you. That would make a lot of sense. You’re gay, you’ve lived in two countries, and you’ve probably had to deal with a lot of bullshit from all directions. I don’t blame you for being guarded.
But I do think you’re shooting in the wrong direction.
And if you’ve read this far, that’s already more than most people would do. So thanks for that.
Say to me how much of this is right if you feel like it.
