It's like with everything else, there's always a bunch of asses giving the larger group a bad name.
1% is the standard theory here, taking off from a reference to a statement by the American Motorcycle Association that 99 percent of American motorcyclists are law-abiding. The association made this statement denouncing a violent incident between two early outlaw biker groups in Hollister, California, in 1947. The AMA denies ever saying this, still it has stuck and spread to other areas.
But that's not who were really talking about. The problem comes not from the asses, since those 1% people - by nature - are not listening to anyone else anyway. Christine Jorgenson, Jameson Green, and Rennie Richards were 1%ers, most pioneers are. They too were accused of all sorts of stuff, including the feared 'giving some group a bad name.'
Nope, this problem comes from those who are seen to be now joining in, piling on, faking it, being some sort of gender poseurs, interlopers, or those who have just absently-minded just sort of wandered in. Or so it would seem.
What you have here is the the problem of listening to those who would take the anecdotal evidence of their own life (hardly a source of objective knowledge) and extol it as gospel, and 'The Way' - and the "Right" way, or "Real" way at that, as someone said on the first page. So statements like: If I had been able to take T two years ago I would not have been ready emotionally, fit in perfectly. Or, two years ago but I have evolved SUBSTANTIALLY.
I mean just because you were not ready 2 years ago what proof do we have that:
a) everybody else was/was not ready in the same amount of time as you were,
b) that two more years made you more ready (would 4 years then have made you 2x as ready?)
c) would ten more years make you ten times more evolved,
- but mostly -
d) what do your very limited (we're talking a set of one), and highly personal experiences have to do with making decisions for an entire group of people?
So, here we are after decades and decades of trying to open up this process to all who would benefit from it now debating making it harder because 'those ->-bleeped-<-s now, they're not like we were, no, they are not as serious etc.'
What funny (at least to me because I worship irony) is that the arguments some people are now using on others are EXACTLY the same arguments that were used on them.
You know what, even if it is trendy (oh do people hate to be told their little rebellion is just a fad), or a bad choice, or a flat out stupid choice (as it's going to prove for a whole lot of people, but then again so are marriage and college just to name two other huge mistakes for most people) we can be sure about two things.
1. It's not YOUR choice.
2. It's most likely not even your place to say.
I wonder - well I do more than that actually - if a lot of what I'm reading above is that as this phenomena (much better word than 'trend') grows (because understanding, services, theories and treatments has both expanded and in many cases been reduced in price so it's open to more people) if the real problem is that as all that happens it becomes less of a thing, less of 'special' deal, and more of an everyday occurrence and that in some way detracts from you being special. And that's the problem, their standing up saying "Look at me" takes away from the number of people who are looking at you.
there are people who transition who would never have even wanted to live as men if they didn't know the option was there.
So we should shut down the net, hide what we know, cut back on education and outreach? I mean, that was exactly and precisely the point of doing all of that in the first place.
it's kind of a "where do we draw a line" question.
Where we draw the line is of much less interest to me than who gets to draw that line - that tends to be the problematic issue. And, the line was drawn years ago - amidst much argument - that 'if you say you are, you are.' That it. That's all. No matter how much or little HRT/GCS you have had, or how much RLT you've lived through - if you say you are, you are.
So now you want to push that back a little? A lot? And who decides? Having given into demand, the TS professional ranks (mostly medical) have grown in both numbers and power, and they tend to be in control over most of the process, should that power be taken away? If so, who should the new gatekeepers be? What would their set of hoops look like?
Sounds a lot to me like the old California distinction between a conservationist and a developer.
The conservationist is the guy who is already living in his house on the hill, the developer is the guy who now wants to build his house on the hill.
Really, y'all are beginning to sound like Gramps prattling on about how back in the day he had to walk five miles through the snow, uphill both ways, just to get HRT when he's not yelling at the kids to get off his lawn.
Be very, very, very careful about calling down others for being 'not real', fake, in it for the wrong reasons, having not 'really thought it out and thought it through', least any of those standards come back to haunt you.
