I prefer to see reality than live in a fantasy world

 

The other day, RQS sent me some links to various "meetup" sites whose purposes are simply to enable people to make new social connections.  A couple of these sites were geared for females to make social connections.  So, I asked RQS how passable I am, and she noted that there are some telltales that I am TG.  In short, I am not 100% passing, but that's OK for most purposes - just not for all.

It's hard for people to see reality these days, much be comfortable with reality.  We live in an age where the people we once could count on to tell us things resembling truthful opinions now tell us lies we want to hear.  We have a president who is a pathological liar, and who is totally disconnected from reality.  We are in a war that no one wanted, save for two people: Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump.  And now, Trump is telling lies which conflict with themselves:  "We have won the war with Iran." and "We need more money to win the war with Iran."  Where is our objective reality here?   Trump is the leader of an American cult which, unfortunately, has taken control of our government.  At a macro level, much of America is stuck living in a fantasy world.  But what about us as individuals?

As an individual living in a society which has become untethered from reality, I find it harder to maintain a solid connection to reality. First, I need to find objective information about myself and the world I live in.  As a TG, I need to know many things: How well do I present? What can I do to improve my presentation? Where can I travel safely in my preferred presentation? How do I keep informed of significant events that could affect me?    Second, I need to make reasonable decisions based on the information I gather.  In the case of travel, I have to be absolutely sure of how well I pass, as I could be committing a felony in some states.  (I was in one Southern state where I had to go to the loo and relieve myself while presenting as Marian.  Technically, I committed a felony just by needing to take a bio-break.  Luckily, no one cared where I was.)  Even worse, I can't visit many countries as Marian, as my assumed gender preference would be considered illegal and punishable under their laws.  (We're seeing that in some American states today.)  I have to be sensitive to the fact that we now have a federal government hostile to TGs and the rest of the LGBT community.  So, I am glad that I sent information to a nation where a grandparent came from, so that I have an exit route available in advance.

One TG individual I know has been corrupted by the media she consumes.  Although she has lost the desire to get her passport renewed in her identified gender due to Trump's executive order, she still refers to his political enemies by the childish names he uses for those people.  Yet, she can't identify why these people are bad.  She sees the word "Socialist" and identifies all evil to this word and those who identify with it.  Yet, she can't identify what is bad about the word itself.  Even though she's unhappy with the cult leader, she still identifies with the values of the cult - even when the cult would treat her like crap.  This transgender woman is not alone in her fantasy views of identity.  Another transgender woman I met belonged to a conservative religious denomination.  When she moved to upstate NY, she went to attend another church of that sect.  The pastor said that she shouldn't attend again because she was TG.  Her identity conflicted with what others saw that her identity should be,  We all can make similar mistakes.  This is why we need to always seek objective reality, instead of seeking to feel comfortable living within our fantasies.

Why do transgender people skew towards being Liberal?

 

Why do transgender people skew towards being Liberal?

This is a question that has a simple and logical answer.  Liberals put a greater priority on the rights of the individual than they do for the community's need for individuals to surrender their rights to the collective for its preservation.  For example, who do we value more?  Do we value the contentious objector to a war fought for questionable reasons, such as Vietnam?  Or, do we value the drafted soldier who may give up his life fighting in the same war where our nation's goals were not achieved?  Whose rights matter more, the individual or the community?

Historically, gender was viewed as a binary in Western culture. Either one was born male or female, and then slotted into the roles assigned to the associated gender.  Household and community tasks were assigned to the genders, and rarely did things not match accepted Western cultural norms. Reproduction was a higher priority than it is today, as both a large number of women died in childbirth, and many children died before they were adults. Homosexuality was discouraged, and being transgender was totally out of the question. As you can guess, people who did not meet these norms had to hide their true selves in order to survive.  

The 20th century brought us great change.  We had 2 world wars.  We entered the computer age. And Christine Jorgensen made news with her sex change (now called gender confirmation/correction surgery). Things people took for granted as unchangeable could now be changed.  Gender may be the first attribute assigned to identify a person, and traditionally has been based on a person's visible genitalia for good reason. This can scare people with weak self identities. These people tend to cling to traditional ways of identifying people, and reject transgender people as freaks - simply because they don't understand the emotional pains of people born with a brain that develops with the characteristics of one gender, while the body develops with the characteristics of the other. In short, those that reject transgenders as being weird are simply looking to conserve traditional ways of understanding the world.

When people are rejected by a collective group of people, they gravitate to others that will accept them. Liberals tend to be much more diverse in views and expressions, as they accept non-traditional ways of defining the world.  This is why transgenders tend to associate with liberals - we are accepted for who we are, and not being forced to comply with others' ways of looking at the world.

Yet, there will always be some transgender people who identify with others that hold "conservative" values - even when those others reject them because of being transgender.  I'll never understand why some people keep trying to belong to groups that would reject them. But then, humans are a tribal species, and none of us enjoys being rejected by our peers.  One trans person I've met moved to a "conservative" region of my state and decided to go to the local church - and was rejected because she was transgender.  I don't know what happened to this trans woman since then, but I know the rejection must have hurt her very much.

So I have to ask, have you noticed how political conservatives are using the "fear of the other" to control the masses?  Look at Trump's lie, saying that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH are stealing dogs and cats, then eating them.  This has "given permission" to crazy people to terrorize the residents of this city, and has forced schools, offices, and public events to be shut down for public safety. Contrast Trump's lies with objective reality - the Haitians have been a net benefit to Springfield, law abiding people who have helped in the rebirth of the city.  No wonder why transgenders skew towards being liberal - we have suffered like most of the groups that have been defined as "the other".

So, what do you believe and why do you believe it?

 

The seeds for today's cultural wars were sown almost 75 years ago.

 

Last night, I was having a conversation with Vicki and the topic of Jane Fonda came up.  Vicki will never forgive Jane for visiting Vietnam during the war, and I understand why she feels this way.  This is one area in which we disagree.  But we are usually closer in our views than one might think.  And this got me thinking: 

When did the first seeds for today's social polarization get sown?

One could say that some of the seeds were down when the 13 colonies separated from Great Britain, "Free State" vs. "Slave State".  But the United States was starting to address this issue shortly after WW2 ended, when the McCarthyism and the "Red Scare" started the dysfunction which has resulted in today's extreme political polarization.

The 1950's was an era where the cracks in the "American Ideal" started to show. The "Red Scare" triggered people to coerce pledges of loyalty from the populace.  This was an era where "Under God" was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance, as a way to differentiate American values from the "Commies" in the USSR.  The Space Race started in the 1950's, and we were primed for the unrest of the 1960's.

Why is this so important?

The first of the "Baby Boomers" were starting to go to college around 1964.  There, they learned to question authority - something that simply wasn't done in the 1950's.  At this time, the Civil Rights Movement started to gain popular awareness, as well as the war in Vietnam.  Thousands of Americans were losing their lives in an unpopular war, and American youth questioned why we needed to fight this war.  This is the time when conservatives started saying "America, love it or leave it."  And many draft-age men did just that, moving to Canada as political exiles.  Liberals demanded equal rights for women and for minorities, threatening the forced political stability achieved in the 1950's.  So, when Jane Fonda visited Vietnam (which I consider a mistake of youth, and nothing more), it was an event which solidified the divide between Liberals and Conservatives in America.

Opportunist politicians such as Richard Nixon took advantage of the growing divide, making sure that tools being used to address segregation were de fanged, making it much harder to provide Blacks and Latinos equal opportunities in education.  Although Nixon is often given credit for ending the war in Vietnam, he was responsible for making it impossible for LBJ to get a peace treaty signed on his watch.  This was the time where the GOP started to "flip the south" from Blue to Red, while the Democrats were flipping northern GOP enclaves to Democratic strongholds.

America's great divide.

If one looks at a political map of the USA, one will see that most of the "Union" states from the Civil War are run by Democrats, and that the "Confederate" states are run by Republicans.  Most of the other states are controlled by Republicans, as they are rural and have fewer opportunities for people than the coastal (blue) states.  Opportunist politicians have demonized the opposition, and have made the Rural/Urban divide much worse than it used to be.  Since "conservatives" tend to desire order imposed by higher authorities, they get incensed when "liberals" focus on the rights of individuals.  

Social identity in the USA is often defined by the political party one is affiliated with.  In my case, a woman I dated called me a fascist when she found out that I am still a registered republican.  (I haven't voted for anyone in the GOP for years, as the party has become radicalized and I have moved towards the center.  In an earlier decade, I'd have been identified as a "Goldwater Republican."  Today, I would be labeled left of center.

So what can we do?

There will always be people who are seduced by the propaganda coming from one side or the other.  A thinking person has to keep one's sanity by challenging the messages being sent by a biased media.  Liberals should question MSNBC, while Conservatives should challenge Fox, Newsmax, OAN and other bastions of conservative misinformation.  When most people are polled about their beliefs, they are more centrist than one might think.  But, when political identity comes into play, people act against their own best interests.

When America works right, people are able to look out for their own selfish interests.  If tribal affiliation comes into play, people start marching to the drummers from their tribes - and everything starts breaking down.  So, I advise people to fact check both sides without paying any attention to their tribe's "opinion outlets" and then coming to a position of their own.  If they do this, they might find that their tribe's leaders are betraying them, and that they would be best served by voting the bastards out....