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[Magmacube_tr]

I've heard that neurodivergent people are more likely than average to be LGBTQ+

Would explain the Bay12 venn diagram I saw a while back.

[StrawBarrel]

Eyyy I'm LW I shirk from labels because I think they draw people towards enforcing rigid divisions between genders and sex rather than bring people together, but if I had to say, I'd say I'm a speed-strength-kinaesthetic-spatial main because it's like being a Dex build without being a filthy Dex build. GOD HATES DEX that is all _{even though dex build is the meta build. We have to show STR builds love otherwise they will lose their pride and become really small.}

I think labels are fine. Creating classifications is a normal thing to do. We classify different dogs into bull dogs, golden retrievers, chihuahuas, beagles, and so on. It's an objective fact that there is diversity within sexuality, gender, and sex. We ought to be able to classify masculinity, femininity, androgyny; endosex (I had to look this one up), intersex; binary, non-binary; cis, trans.  Less labels would limit our language.

I also do not believe that different gender and sex identities will create more division. It should make society stronger.

As this history shows, multiculturalism in Western countries was seen to combat racism, to protect minority communities of all types, and to undo policies that had prevented minorities from having full access to the opportunities for freedom and equality promised by the liberalism that has been the hallmark of Western societies since the Age of Enlightenment. The contact hypothesis in sociology is a well-documented phenomenon in which cooperative interactions with those from a different group than one's own reduce prejudice and inter-group hostility.

Contact with different people will reduce division and increase togetherness.

[Great Order]

Has anyone else found that in trans spaces there's this belief that cis people can't properly support trans people? I've been noticing it crop up more and more lately.

It seems like a load of bollocks, I think people are confusing understanding and support, or assuming that you can't support something without understanding it.

[Vector]

I think there's an appropriate wariness that even someone who is signalling they are a supporter may end up being a rotten "I support you but the other side has a point" type given enough time and comfort with you. I was just at a professional weekly DEI seminar and someone said something along the lines of "I wonder if as Californians we're just out of touch with how people in other states feel about queer people," and I was ready to holler. He was a cisgender straight guy who framed this take as supportive, to be clear.

Cis people seem generally incapable of Truly Getting It is a different message than Cis people cannot be supportive, though. I think the first piece may be true and believe the second piece is false.

Oh, on another note one of my trans friends said she found that every "ally" she had ever met eventually came out as queer. This friendship is rapidly deteriorating but I think some people do believe this statement to be true. I'm like 85% sure that it's false. If everyone who is homophobic is gay and everyone who is an ally is gay you end up with everyone is gay, which is a nonsensical idea.

[Rolan7]

There is one simple way for cis people to understand the trans condition: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/03/14/gender-dysphoria-cisgender-doctor-trans-patients-michigan-oestrogen-therapy-cats-william-powers/
tldr; Cis HRT doctor accidentally doses self with extra estrogen, feels dysphoria for a couple days.
Kidding aside, I do wish it was easier and normalized for people to explore safe levels of HRT.  Obviously that would have been... unthinkably nice for a younger *me*, but I feel like cis people might gain some insight into gender and sex from it.  Kinda like how some people experiment with homosexuality and verify that they're straight!  It's all valid, and nobody should have to try, but the option ought to be more accessible.

I like to think I've known several cis allies, but I also understand why a lot of trans people are most comfortable in relationships with other trans people.  Stuff's complicated.
...I wonder if that's particularly the case for people undergoing second puberty, when things can be particularly confusing and developing.

[Great Order]

Oh, on another note one of my trans friends said she found that every "ally" she had ever met eventually came out as queer. This friendship is rapidly deteriorating but I think some people do believe this statement to be true. I'm like 85% sure that it's false. If everyone who is homophobic is gay and everyone who is an ally is gay you end up with everyone is gay, which is a nonsensical idea.

There's also a slight issue in that it would mean, at a minimum, 50% of my friends and acquaintances. are queer in some way or another.

Now, there's a number of people among them who admit they're bisexual (And one who's pan), but as far as I'm aware the vast majority are still straight, and I don't think I've got anyone who's exclusively gay/lesbian in my circles. I know a few people who are, but I'd consider them acquaintances instead.

[alway]

So in my experience, there's a few factors to how this comes about. First, to actually be supportive, people must toss out several assumptions that come with cisheteronormativity; most importantly, the parts of it which Others those who don't conform to cisgender heterosexual cultural ideals. If you are no longer seeing trans folks as Others, to some degree it becomes a thing you yourself could be, as it is no longer strictly in the category of things which are for other people. This alone gets over one of the biggest hurdles of identifying oneself as LGBT by contributing towards breaking down the internalized transphobia and homophobia built up by society.

Secondly, folks tend to hang out with people similar to themselves; those who gravitate towards being in groups of queer folks are much more likely to be queer, if even they themselves haven't realized it yet. Among the social circles I've observed/been in, queer groups have also tended to be relatively neurodivergent, and accepting of such, and as a result, people who enter and stay in the groups are queer and/or neurodivergent. This results in groups consisting of a bunch of queer folks, many of whom are neurodivergent, and a few who aren't particularly queer but love that they found a group of people who enjoy listening to their fascinating special interest rants (some may even be in the otherwise queer polycules that often form from these). A good number of these often also end up as queer at a later time, but generally not all.

People can also be supportive without being in these sort of circles. The problem is, it's not all that common even among people who think they are supportive, just because their idea of 'supportive' is divorced from the reality of actual people they believe themselves supportive of. Most people falling into this pattern of 'support' just want to be patted on the back and applauded for quietly saying 'genocide is wrong' to themselves in a locked room, instead of taking actual actions like looking up #transcrowdfund on twitter and saving a life with some of their leisure budget, or even just educating themselves and putting in enough effort to actively make trans people comfortable in spaces they are in while making transphobes too uncomfortable to stick around. Thoughts and Prayers are neither support nor supportive, in spite of the weird cultural belief that they are. Tbh, people who are actually providing material support in some way but are neither queer, nor in queer circles, nor materially obligated to do so, are a minority about as small as trans people. This is a pattern which extends beyond LGBT stuff and into the realm of other minorities as well.

[MaxTheFox]

PTW.

[Iris]

To be fair I'm reasonably certain I'm trans these days and even I don't understand The Trans Condition.

Ninja edit: Perhaps "condition" isn't the right word? More like... the zeitgeist? I meant "the emotional response to the state of being trans" but "condition", uh, does not have the best implications in this context.

[Loud Whispers]

I think labels are fine. Creating classifications is a normal thing to do. We classify different dogs into bull dogs, golden retrievers, chihuahuas, beagles, and so on. It's an objective fact that there is diversity within sexuality, gender, and sex. We ought to be able to classify masculinity, femininity, androgyny; endosex (I had to look this one up), intersex; binary, non-binary; cis, trans.  Less labels would limit our language.

You'll have to forgive me, but my perspective is vastly different. I've never been limited in language when it comes to describing anything, but these labels have limited me. As a rule I cannot talk about sex or gender or whatever IRL because it always devolves into people trying to pin me down into roles Idgaf about and I've had it up to my neck with people talking about where I'm from or where I'm really from or gushing over my "mixed blood" or "hybrid" like I'm a fucking beagle or labrador. Leave the classifications to the taxonomists and let the infinite vaguaries of human existence be not confined to a finite vocabulary only a select educated few stand a possible chance of innately recognising. Headaches upon headaches ;-;

I also do not believe that different gender and sex identities will create more division. It should make society stronger.

As this history shows, multiculturalism in Western countries was seen to combat racism, to protect minority communities of all types, and to undo policies that had prevented minorities from having full access to the opportunities for freedom and equality promised by the liberalism that has been the hallmark of Western societies since the Age of Enlightenment. The contact hypothesis in sociology is a well-documented phenomenon in which cooperative interactions with those from a different group than one's own reduce prejudice and inter-group hostility.

Contact with different people will reduce division and increase togetherness.

I'm not feeling the contact hypothesis love

To be fair I'm reasonably certain I'm trans these days and even I don't understand The Trans Condition.

Ninja edit: Perhaps "condition" isn't the right word? More like... the zeitgeist? I meant "the emotional response to the state of being trans" but "condition", uh, does not have the best implications in this context.

The trans experience? Because that has more implication of condition as the human condition, rather than condition as like medical condition

[Magmacube_tr]

I'd like to have you know that there is an ever increasing amount of anti-LGBTQ+ protests throught the world, and their sentiments are getting more and more violent.

If this goes on...

[Iris]

Yes, that's what I meant. The trans experience.

I am terrible with words when talking about these things and it has offended people in the past, which is why I don't really like talking about them.

[alway]

I'd like to have you know that there is an ever increasing amount of anti-LGBTQ+ protests throught the world, and their sentiments are getting more and more violent.

If this goes on...

ngl, wargame it out in your head based on what is plausible, rather than based on worst-case imagined scenarios only useful for spawning more anxiety and apathy. Have contingency plans and build the capabilities and relationships you need to follow them through. In the US, at the federal level, this means working out and accounting for how Obergefell, Lawrence, and Griswold being overturned could affect you in the next 5 years. At the state level, it means modifying this accounting for how these interact with state level politics to make places that are more safe and less safe; as well as at the local level. On the personal level: do you have the folks around you that you need to keep you safe in the environment you live in? How likely is it that you're actually personally exposed to these things? When it comes down to it, you won't be able to count on any cops to have your back, ever. Make sure you have people who do.

Here in Texas, I was hearing about most loving families of trans youth with resources to do so fleeing the state around a year and a half ago. A little under a year ago, the state criminalized transition related care for transgender youth, and told child protective services to open investigations into all families of transgender children. This and similar has since spread to several states controlled by fascists, forcibly detransitioning transgender people within those state. Since then, they've increasingly been talking about raising it to include adults under 25. In Florida, the state declared trans healthcare, despite nearly a century of use, to be 'experimental' and thus not covered under medicaid. Private insurance companies in the state are likely to follow suit. This will likely spread to other fascist controlled states as well over the next year or so, as they fundamentally do not believe trans people should be allowed to exist. On top of this, the state government has shown a desire to reinstate the laws criminalizing "homosexual behavior" if the Supreme Court overturns Lawrence. In part as a result of these open attempts at genocide, every trans person in my local social group independently decided they were aiming to move out of Texas within the next year; because changes in the near future have at least a double-digit percentage odds of affecting us in strongly negative ways.

But the US is also Balkanzing to some extent; you can see it here, as well as things like the recent state sponsored human trafficking. Some states spell out protections in legislation ensuring your rights. There's even the recent sanctuary bills in places like New York for those facing prosecution for being LGBT elsewhere in the US. This is also something to take into account when making plans and contingencies and generally wargaming out what you personally will do.


Anyway, some final reading material I recommend, from nearly a half century ago, on queer communal life: Find a PDF somewhere of the 1977 book "The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions." Do note that it is NSFW, with some explicit depictions of gay communal living from someone who did so at the time. It is feels remarkably still relevant, aside from a bit of outdated terminology (such as 'queer' having more or less inverted its meaning since Act Up)

[Vector]

Honestly: I'm in California, even a liberal part of California, and we're seeing local Proud Boy activity when it comes to school board sessions, queer events and Pride events. Oregon is looking like potentially having a red governor. We're legally a sanctuary state for trans people but let's be real, we're also a NIMBY state with a high unhoused population and extremely segregated/redlined.

If people are thinking about moving and they have options I recommend the East coast over us, especially NYC, because we're "blushing" more than I'd like. You won't be legally detransitioned here but people will absolutely harass you on the regular with zero consequence to them.

[alway]

That's about what I'd heard as well regarding the west coast. The PNW in particular was basically set up as a racially pure white supremecist paradise, and the effects of that persist to this day with all the creepy nazis left behind.

Massachusetts is where I'm headed; the place with supposedly good free healthcare for those without an income, and thus pretty ideal for a polycule where normal health insurance plans don't cover everybody.