Why so much hate?

[Cody Jensen]

Since I have had desires to be a boy, I've noticed a lot of hate towards transgendered people, even within my own family. I realize I would probably lose most of my friends if I ever decided to transition. But what hurts even more is my family making rude hate comments on the transgendered community. I am having a difficult time dealing with this hate and I am starting to wonder why people have so much hate towards people who are different. I didn't hate trans people before I realized I myself was trans, but I was uncomfortable about it. However now that I have educated myself, understand what trans people (including myself) go through, and that my cousin is trans (which also helps me understand better) I am more comfortable and don't hate (I never hated in the first place but you know what I mean). I hope I am making sense. Basically I am just wondering why there's so much hate out there..and how to deal with it better.

[CaitJ]

Basically it makes people feel better about themselves.
Every social group has a pecking order, with people at the top, middle and bottom. When you're at the bottom, you do your best to climb higher so that people like you more and give you more respect. The easiest way of climbing is to make someone fall lower than you on the pecking order.
The pecking order is based on a sort of 'ideal' human being and the closer you are to this ideal, the higher up you can climb. However, the further away from this ideal you are, the lower you will fall on the pecking order.
Obviously being trans is not seen as very normal, therefore it pushes you away from the 'ideal'. Others who are low on the pecking order will see this 'abnormality' as an excuse to push you lower on the pecking order, thereby establishing themselves a rung or two higher on the ladder than you, as they are closer to the 'ideal' than you are.
That's pretty much what drives hate. The desire to fit in and be liked by everyone.
And the more people you can pin an 'abnormal' badge on, the more 'ideal' you look to you peers.

Sad thing is that these people need us.
Otherwise they'd have to recognise how low they really are in the pecking order 

[Jacquelyn]

Basically it makes people feel better about themselves.
Every social group has a pecking order, with people at the top, middle and bottom. When you're at the bottom, you do your best to climb higher so that people like you more and give you more respect. The easiest way of climbing is to make someone fall lower than you on the pecking order.
The pecking order is based on a sort of 'ideal' human being and the closer you are to this ideal, the higher up you can climb. However, the further away from this ideal you are, the lower you will fall on the pecking order.
Obviously being trans is not seen as very normal, therefore it pushes you away from the 'ideal'. Others who are low on the pecking order will see this 'abnormality' as an excuse to push you lower on the pecking order, thereby establishing themselves a rung or two higher on the ladder than you, as they are closer to the 'ideal' than you are.
That's pretty much what drives hate. The desire to fit in and be liked by everyone.
And the more people you can pin an 'abnormal' badge on, the more 'ideal' you look to you peers.

Sad thing is that these people need us.
Otherwise they'd have to recognise how low they really are in the pecking order 

I agree with Cait that people inevitably seek out an established pecking order, and typically do so through exploiting differences. There's also another thing that contributes to this hate that you pointed out yourself; people are often undereducated. Not saying it gives them a right to be complete jerks, far from it, but some people react somewhat adversely to things they don't know or understand.

Things that are novel tend to make people uncomfortable. Before I started to educate myself about trans-issues I never had a problem with trans individuals, but there were some things that I didn't understand that did make me uncomfortable. Now I know I just didn't understand and no longer have those feelings in the least.

I am sorry to hear that your family has been making such comments though (regardless of whether they know or not).

I hope things look better for you.

Hugs,

Jackie

[Cody Jensen]

I wish other people could know what this feels like. But thanks to the both of you for explaining to me why they hate us so much.

[Arch]

In a way, you answered your own question. You said that you were uncomfortable with transness before you educated yourself--and you're trans yourself. Other people, particularly those with limited empathy, need education. But education without empathy is only a partial cure, I fear.

[Del]

I have seen some who try to help with what religious beliefs they have and their honest attempt is deemed as hate. I have also seen others that try to help and are just ignorant of many things about the trans issues without knowing they are ignorant of them. These too may be seen as hateful.
I have seen very insecure people that have to laugh at others or belittle them. Generally behind their back. These seem to talk about all types of people to feel good about themselves.  Many times a lack of education for a better job or the emphasis the world seems to place on always being in a position of power, influence or financial security cause the problem. Those whom I know who do these things need to just be content with who they are and quit trying to convince themselves that they are worth while and of any human value by the standards of others.
Face it. Without the garbage man (or waste disposal technician) the brain surgeons and corporate C.E.O's would die of disease.
These things remind me of Hitler's master race where the perfect people were all alike. No garbage men, janitors or cashiers but all highly educated professionals that glorify the country they live for and while they secretly contemplte suicide because they don't think they are worthy by man's standards. The American Arien.
I think many things considered hate are really not hate but misinformation and insecurity and low selfesteem and outside pressure about schooling and professions drilled into a child's head from their youth.
And I imagine some really do hate. They are the ones that are pathetic.
Just some thoughts.

[xxUltraModLadyxx]

it always has to do with their own insecurities. they are really intimidated by us rather than thinking we are unworthy. they handle their intimidation and insecurity by being hateful.

[Da Monkey]

It is usually easier to make fun of something than to try to learn and understand it.

They just simply don't get it, and they don't want to get it. So they laugh/get mad/get uncomfortable/make a comment instead because it's effortless.

[kate durcal]

ignorance leads to confusion, confusion to fear, fear to hate, and hate to violence

Kate

Vex,

I though you were gone to greener pastures; I can see you dodge the quake

[angiejuly]

  If I wanted to rule the world. I would make a religion thousands of years ago based around mythical beliefs that remove people from there natural selves and nature. ( makes em easy to brainwash and controll). Within this religion I would make the very people born with the insight to see through my B.S. Public enemy # 1. I would tell my brainwashed public they worshop the devil and say they must all be killed at the "->-bleeped-<-".

These religions are still causing damage today. It a left over societery flaw. Tapering out though. Ask any christan . Most of them do not agree and think to each his her own and sucks to be you. I am not mad at anyone or do I envy there faith. I am not guilty of anything to need it. I know what my path is why I am here and can see and feel universal energy. ( Many others can too).
Love you all......... Aloha,
 

[Amazon D]

Basically it makes people feel better about themselves.
Every social group has a pecking order, with people at the top, middle and bottom. When you're at the bottom, you do your best to climb higher so that people like you more and give you more respect. The easiest way of climbing is to make someone fall lower than you on the pecking order.
The pecking order is based on a sort of 'ideal' human being and the closer you are to this ideal, the higher up you can climb. However, the further away from this ideal you are, the lower you will fall on the pecking order.
Obviously being trans is not seen as very normal, therefore it pushes you away from the 'ideal'. Others who are low on the pecking order will see this 'abnormality' as an excuse to push you lower on the pecking order, thereby establishing themselves a rung or two higher on the ladder than you, as they are closer to the 'ideal' than you are.
That's pretty much what drives hate. The desire to fit in and be liked by everyone.
And the more people you can pin an 'abnormal' badge on, the more 'ideal' you look to you peers.

Sad thing is that these people need us.
Otherwise they'd have to recognise how low they really are in the pecking order 
[/quote

WOW SO PERFECTLY WRITTEN WOW

[Amazon D]

I have seen some who try to help with what religious beliefs they have and their honest attempt is deemed as hate. I have also seen others that try to help and are just ignorant of many things about the trans issues without knowing they are ignorant of them. These too may be seen as hateful.

yes many times what we see as hate is only peoples ignorance to a subject or due to religous teachings.

[Cody Jensen]

Yep. My family's quite religious... but then my sister is accepting of my MtF cousin. I just hope my dad will still love me and we are still able to do father son things together.

[Hermione01]

Basically it makes people feel better about themselves.
Every social group has a pecking order, with people at the top, middle and bottom. When you're at the bottom, you do your best to climb higher so that people like you more and give you more respect. The easiest way of climbing is to make someone fall lower than you on the pecking order.
The pecking order is based on a sort of 'ideal' human being and the closer you are to this ideal, the higher up you can climb. However, the further away from this ideal you are, the lower you will fall on the pecking order.
Obviously being trans is not seen as very normal, therefore it pushes you away from the 'ideal'. Others who are low on the pecking order will see this 'abnormality' as an excuse to push you lower on the pecking order, thereby establishing themselves a rung or two higher on the ladder than you, as they are closer to the 'ideal' than you are.
That's pretty much what drives hate. The desire to fit in and be liked by everyone.
And the more people you can pin an 'abnormal' badge on, the more 'ideal' you look to you peers.

Sad thing is that these people need us.
Otherwise they'd have to recognise how low they really are in the pecking order 

This is true and so, so sad. 

[annette]

Caitj
I couldn't say it in a better way than you did.
You've picked the words right out of my mouth.
Great.

hug
Annette

[Amy1177]

Hate is most often bread from Ignorance.  And considering that it's amazing just how many stupid people there are in the world that relish in the dumbness.

[tekla]

Face it. Without the garbage man (or waste disposal technician) the brain surgeons and corporate C.E.O's would die of disease.
These things remind me of Hitler's master race where the perfect people were all alike. No garbage men, janitors or cashiers but all highly educated professionals that glorify the country they live for and while they secretly contemplte suicide because they don't think they are worthy by man's standards. The American Arien.

You are a lot safer, a lot more accepted, or at least left alone a lot more by people who are educated.  That's not a bunch of CEOs and college professors attacking that poor girls in the McDonalds.  And among the first place that gave protections to TG persons were college campuses.  Truth, rational thinking and objective knowledge, the foundation stones of Western Civilization, were denounced by Nazi's in favor of mysticism, speculation and collective thinking toward a common goal.  They were not highly educated, but led by a 'self educated' high school dropout and among their first targets were the professors and artists who were indited of teaching 'decadent' theories and producing 'decadent' art.  They purged the universities of the most educated class of people in the country, leaving the universities to be run by idiots.  The educated classes were also the first people to flee Germany and Italy, interestingly enough depriving Germany of exactly the people it needed to win the war.

And brain surgeons and CEO's would figure out how to get rid of the garbage faster than the garbage collectors are going to learn brain surgery or corporate management and logistics.

And I'm sure you meant "Aryan" not "Arien".

[chloe savannah]

People hate because they dont understand our feelings, according to them and what they have been taught by peers man/woman everything else is wrong, they are under the impression that  they we must be gay  if we want to be a cross dresser, TS, TG, Intersex etc.  If we can Educate at school then maybe they will be more acceptable and hopefully be able to pass the knowledge but in the mean time Josh T you have all our love and support on these boards love chloe savannah xxxxxxxx

[Megan Joanne]

There's always going to be ignorance, every single individual in this world is ignorant of something, but each handles it differently, those that handle it with hostility are just bad people to begin with, the way I see it anyway. Even though fun was poked at transsexuals by family long before I came out of the closet, it wasn't hostile, just jokes shared in the privacy of our home, this usually regarding the circuses that some talk shows put on with their transsexual or cross-dressing guests (the ones that most ignorant people stereotype trans people as being like), I remember well before I came out to my family, we didn't know much regarding transsexuals (didn't start really watching documentaries about this until after I came out to them), even I didn't, but yet somehow I felt there was something in me that was like them from what I did know, and it was also my own ignorance that keep those feeling inside for a time until I realized that just because I felt like a had a closer connection with being a woman didn't mean that I was going to be an outcast, not if I just continued to be me.



One time, this being shortly after starting to live full time as a woman (but prior to hormones), at work, one of the new guys working in receiving, as I was coming downstairs from the upstairs stockroom with some boxes, for some reason he thought that he had to say something cruel to me, this being in the company of one of the workers that had been there long before I started, I think to make himself look cool. He called out to me, "hey ->-bleeped-<-", I tried to ignore him, he continued to call me a ->-bleeped-<-got, and since I had yet to start hormones I still wasn't handling things as I should, also being young still, mid 20s, I tended to let things get to me too easily, so I turned around and challenged him, I know I used the 'F' word, among some other things, actually challenging him to a fight as well. The reality is that he would've seriously messed me up, but he wasn't interested in actually fighting me, just wanted to hurt my feelings, and to boost himself up in the eyes of the other male worker there, he very much succeeded, but that's only because I let him. Anyway, I was a mess, nerves were shot to hell, this was still all so new to me and while I knew what I was getting into, I still wasn't sure whether I could handle it.

I had walked out of the building, over to the side parking lot and started balling my brains out. One of my other coworkers saw me, he was a young guy, maybe late teens, was really concerned about me, I told him what happened through all the sobbing, he did what he could to try to help me get myself back together again. Once I stopped crying and pulled myself together I went back inside, one of the managers wanted to talk to me, said that I threated and cursed at that guy in receiving, I told him what happened, what that guy said, he just told me next time come and tell them if someone is bothering me, lots of good that would do because those ->-bleeped-<-s didn't like me either, it was a lost cause either way. Anyway, that guy didn't get in trouble or anything, later every time he saw me he'd smile or laugh or whisper to another nearby coworker, but thankfully he didn't last long there, was a lowlife and didn't do crap for work anyway. After that incident I learned to handle things better, I had to be able to, otherwise I'd get nowhere. Now, I don't let things like that bother me, I don't even know why I did then, afterall it was just words, and not even true of me to begin with.

What I've always had a hard time with is trying to comprehend how people can be so cruel to others, whether it just be pure ignorance or to boost themselves up with their peers, because I've never been like that, if I ever say anything that I know I deliberately said to hurt someone it ends up hurting me, eats away at my conscience, which makes it so hard for me to wonder how anyone can live with themselves each day treating people different from them like crap, be it someone a different color, a different religion, gay or trans, someone weaker physically, or just something as minor as one wearing glasses (remember all the name calling that children used to do to those that wore glasses long ago, "four-eyes"). I think most people don't know how to deal with their own weaknesses, so feeling like victims to their own inner turmoils, have to find something to take it out on, that means finding themselves a possible victim who they can unleash their frustrations and anger onto, and that usually means someone that is different from the majority.

[Lisbeth]

A part of it is that it's the way they were taught.

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

You've Got to Be Carefully Taught from South Pacific