I pretty much just want to lock this again. Derailing takes many forms. Not all a divergence from the subject. Some derail with a sort of self righteous indignation that poses as argument or discussion. At that point discussion ends. Discussion has a certain grace and acceptance of what is. Argument and steamrolling do not.
So I am going to lock this thread and this is the last word ... I hope ... in this thread.
I don't generally have any problem listening to another's pov. I sometimes do not agree and try to gauge how well that person might wish to hear about my disagreement. That was why I made a four paragraph intro to that OP.
I was really hoping that people would understand that I knew that not everyone, maybe not anyone, was gonna agree. I suppose I should have requested that posters try to maintain a sense of their own dignity and that of others as well. My bad, I didn't.
In my life, I don't particularly look for agreement. I simply desire, from time to time, to air my opinion and have it at least listened to.
Which is what bothers me about some of the replies. No sense, that I could see, that the writers even got that an opinion is just that, an opinion. More that they feel it, the opinion, IS an identity. Huh?!!
Some people seem more than willing to load their language to attempt to totally dismiss any opinion they do not possess. THAT I find objectionable, rude and narcissistic. I do not find that disagreement. I do find it disagreeable and misanthropic.
I would be willing to bet that people who do such things are very sensitive to their being treated with some respect. The smallest empathy with another might, thus, be in order. But, in their own sense that their opinion is their identity, they cannot do so.
If someone feels that her view need be the only one available, I understand that as a really deep insecurity. I may not be right about the reason, but that is what I chalk it up as and try to move on.
Lookit, I do staff meetings with some regularity, and classes with some regularity, where there are people who do that. They seem to wish to storm over every objection or pov that doesn't fit their own. I am uncomfortable with that. Given reactions from others, they are not comfortable with it either.
There seems no need for it, IF someone believes that they have a better way. Say that, support that, but do so with some grace, some decency.
To simply dismiss and malign another to get their point across is not only rude; but, I think, an admission that if others do not buy their ideas then maybe there is something wrong with their ideas. It speaks to me of a profound loss of self worth that needs constant bolstering with everyone else's agreement to a proposition. Hence the effective stance of: 'Shut up!'
What I object to is being told that I should take my opinion elsewhere and 'shut up.' I have been told to 'shut up' since before I was four. Every time I attempted to explain my soul to them, my parents told me to 'shut up.'
I try not to say that to others. It's hurtful and simply means to me that this or that view undermines what the person saying 'shut up' believes in and that they require total agreement with that belief in order to feel validation.
I really doubt that my experience is incredibly rare among transpeople in general. Thus, I would rather not inflict it on others, knowing how badly I have been hurt by that.
