For better or worse, I keep trying

I keep getting submerged in political opinions, facts, argumments, agreements and disagreements online, especially on youtube. As I become more and more invested in that kind of thinking, it's getting all the more difficult to take a step back and focus on other things. Even when I play WoW, or look at non-political youtube videos, or scroll on tumblr, draw or take silly online quizzes, my mind simply won't shut up about it. It started out by me noticing the new transgender rights argumments about a year ago, and for the most part I agreed with them. I thought it was reasonable and inclusive and open-minded as most other trans people online seemed to think as well. But then as I started to get more involved and learning more, as well as stumbling upon others who had the opposite opinions, I was appalled and couldn't believe how I could have been fooled so easily. Me, getting manipulated by those of my own community that consists of a mostly friendly minority, or so I thought? Yeah, apparently.

Having been fucked over like that not only aggrevated me but lead me to investigate it further, and before I knew it I was heavily involved in everything sjw and anti-sjw, listening to both sides of the same arguments. So it started with transgender rights issues, but then evolved to also include feminism, racism, freedom of speech, religion politics and a lot of smaller issues more or less related to those. Perhaps not so strange that I turned against the sjw movement with how much I've always been for free speech and equality, even for the assholes of society who hate my kind of people, whatever label or category of mine that would be. I started deliberately exposing myself to transphobia and homophobia, as well as ableism to some extent, online to become more desensitised to better handle getting that kind of crap. It would make it easier to enter certain argumments online, and it has worked quite well so far.

My goal with that was to be able to keep my head cool in situations where people personally attack me, or "push my buttons" enough so that I could respond in a calm and effective manner without letting their shit get to me. And it has proved to be very effective, slowly over time. As far as I and others know, the majority of the trans community agree in various degrees with the sjw's, making us opposing them quite few in numbers. Or possibly that we aren't fewer, just less likely to speak up about it. The few of us who do though, tend to get a lot of shit from our own community, although I've somehow managed to dodge that so far. I'm sure it won't last forever and people will most likely start turning against me too eventually. Somehow that's a risk I'm willing to take. Of course I don't want to make enemies over something as stupid as politics, which is why I keep making an effort to not resort to verbal abuse/harrassment when arguing with those who do not agree with me. They're perfectly allowed to disagree with me, but I will not accept them forcing their opinions on me. But sometimes I do not succeed with that if the person's skull is particularly thick and they're especially overly sensitive towards almost literally everything I say or potentially could say.

My agenda doesn't include catering to their over-sensitivity by extreme sugar-coating or avoiding a lot of words that they don't like hearing, but explaining why I think they're misinformed and why their entire ideology is harming people, but they manage to get offended by me and others like me simply breathing. Yet they keep offending me. So I admit I've gone a little too far at a few times without initially intending to. Sure, I've got to work on my tactics of discussion too, never said I didn't.

I did start to question my stance on feminism about a few months or so ago, and although I'm still not entirely sure where exactly I stand in regards to that or which label would actually be correct for me to use for myself, I can now say that I know enough to firmly ditch the "feminism" label. Not cause of not wanting gender equality, but actually because I do want gender equality. Apparently it's a hell of a lot more confusing than I used to think, under the surface, and it actually just comes down to the difference between what each organisation claims to stand for versus what they actually stand and work for achieving. As simple, and as complicated, as that. But then I also have more reasons to stand against feminism, which I'm not gonna get into detail with right now, but things such as that it treats especially trans men quite badly in most types/sub-categories of it, and of course TERF's (trans exclusionary radical feminists) treat trans women extremely badly. So, what labels I'd use instead is probably something along the lines of egalitarian, MRA -supporter (men's rights activist) and anti-feminist. With the reasoning that although feminism claims to stand for gender equality, what they actually stand for is women's rights, and only women's rights. Sure, they subtley pretend to care about men's rights too, but they haven't done anything to prove that in the slightest. It's basically a publicity stunt to get more followers, and apparently it's been working exceptionally well for decades. Of course I too stand for women's rights, but not to the cost of men's rights.

So, when I say "anti-feminist" I don't mean I'm against gender equality, I only mean I'm against the feminist movement/organisation itself and what they truly stand and work for. Feminism is an ideology, but it's not the only ideology that represents gender equality. So whenever you hear the term "anti-feminist" being thrown around, it is not the same as "sexist" or being against gender equality, but that is what a lot of people think. Egalitarian does truly stand for gender equality, but it's not an organisation that works for it. It's just a label to describe people who believe men and women should have equal rights and responsibilities, advantages and disadvantages. So it's more a descriptive word than an organisation that has group meetings and riots. As far as I know it doesn't. And I recently adapted the "MRA -supporter" label to emphasise that men's rights are being highly neglected in society and the MRA's get a lot of shit for just wanting for men to not be discriminated against by the law, so they kinda need every extra supporter that they can get and I'll gladly be one. Just in case I have to clarify, no they're not misogynists or hateful towards women, or wanting more rights than women although they're often portrayed that way. They stand for women's rights too, but the difference is that they mostly speak up for men's rights because literally no one else does. And they did want to work together with feminists, but the feminists didn't even want to listen to them.

However I'm not sure if I really need 3 different labels for one way of thinking, but to me they're all reasonable and resonate with me. I guess I could even use them interchangably, or in different situations depending on the context. Or something like that. I kind of unavoidably got into that feminism/anti-feminism heap of things as a result of digging deeper into trans rights and the sjw movement, as the sjw's talk an awful lot about all kinds of gender issues and not just what involves and or affects LGBT people, and they hate on men (especially cis, white, straight men) far more openly as an integrated part of their feminist beliefs, than most actually reasonable feminists do. So no, not all feminists are bad just for being feminists. But the ideology itself still sucks. And I knew that in order to even know what I was talking about with other people, I had to start educating myself at least in the bigger topics of it all. Like for example, apparently the wage gap is a myth and doesn't exist anymore since sometime in the late 90's? I had no idea about that a few months ago. Sure I still have a lot more to learn, but I think I'm getting somewhere as it's starting to make sense in ways I did not expect they would now. I still probably mostly argue and discuss LGBT rights/issues above all else, but things float together at this point.

My goal is not to silence the sjw's and their views that I don't agree with, but to help raising the voices of the anti-sjw's and show I'm on their side. But truth be told? I do stand somewhere in the middle, or at least I agree with some of what the sjw's stand for and not all of what the anti-sjw's stand for. Maybe it's something like 30-70 with that or something. Or 20-80 but it's certainly not 0-100 by any means. I'm not really against non-binary, but I am against letting non-binary be interchangable with transgender only because it harms a lot of transgender people who don't identify as non-binary.

Because people at large these days, when they hear the term transgender, regardless of context, immediately jump to the conclusion that every transgender person is non-binary and sjw and they think of those as complete fucking morons who constantly claim victimhood, wanting to be "oppressed", obsessed with trigger warnings, safe-spaces and all kinds of ridiculous things that essentially makes all trans people look really bad to the majority of people, regardless of if they actually are or not. Like giving trans people a "bad name" has become a vast understatement and it doesn't just apply to the average person posting crap comments on youtube, but also teachers at schools, doctors, psychiatrists, employers... basically just about anyone. All kinds of trans people are suddenly being demonised by false accusations because of the sjw's, because most of them identify as non-binary which they claim is a form of being transgender. Thanks a bunch.

But I still know that not all non-binary identifying people are sjw's and not all sjw's identify as non-binary. But then it seems everyone identifying as non-binary regardless of their political stance wants to be included into the term transgender for pretty much the same reason. Are they wrong, by definition? I can't say either a clear yes or no, but judging by the direction this has taken and the consequences of them claiming to be transgender - I would strongly prefer it if it could be solved in some other way that could work for both parties. But of course it gets complicated with those who actually are trans but also claim to be non-binary. I don't think I'd be the best person to just sit and decide who belongs where and that's not what I'm trying to do either. I don't have a solution to this very real and urgent problem, but I might actually be onto something that could potentially work in everyone's favour, but it would be disliked by most. It's a compromise, that I know would be very hissed at, but it's not wrong and at least in theory I think it could work, if people would be willing to accept using terms for themselves and each other that they don't actually want to use. It is an idea that I haven't heard anyone ever suggest so far, on either side of the argument, so I'll keep it to myself for now, as I'm still uncertain if bringing it up would even be remotely helpful. Kinda need to know what I'm getting myself into first, as it is controversal. Also how to make it known to a large/important enough audience if I do eventually decide to take that route, I wouldn't know either.

So that's what I'm doing with my miserable life these days. Not even sure if it's productive, "good" or just obsessive. But it's something, I guess. And I also guess there are worse things I could spend my too-much-free -time on. I believe I do have good intentions though, with the goal to try to help "save" both the trans community and our reputation among the general population, preferably without stepping on too many people who disagree with me on my way. I've been wanting to write this more thoroughly than I had up until this point, but couldn't manage to finish a text comprehensive enough before I got bored with it or wanting to re-write the whole lot of it. I'm aware I left a lot of things out, but this would become a massive text that doesn't end if I would include absolutely everything. This is more meant to try to give the bigger picture and what's left out are just details. I'll probably write more about it later on, as my thoughts and feelings on these kind of topics continue to evolve and sort out as well as getting more entangled over time. So I say, to be continued, but I don't know when or how or if things will have changed in the future.