I Quit.

[thedapperdan]

I have found, through two communities, that the internet is not a safe place to find support, nor is it a smart place to look for intelligence. While there are a few smart people here and there, the vast majority of the internet appears to be made up of insecure, mentally ill individuals who are severely socially starved. I've come to realize that

Comments

[aureantes]

Sounds similar to my online experiences, though it's far more common for my pragmatic logic to run into someone else's PC-policing -- transfeminazis, to be precise, as well as transguys who don't want anyone actually saying that FTM bottom surgery tends to be less-than-satisfactory, and privilege-hawks who nitpick for any comparison to anything in the way of oppression, struggle, etc....the "ivory hot tub" (towers being too phallic and male-identified) mentality of gender academia divorced from the real (that is, cisnormative) world, let alone trying to communicate with it and persuade it to acceptance on less-than-hostile terms

Erratum

[aureantes]

Meant phalloplasty & metoidoplasty, not general bottom surgery.

[thedapperdan]

Yeah... I'm finding that I can't really talk to transpeople in groups. I am fine when it's one on one, but when they have an audience.... they tend to get really stupid, really fast.

[aureantes]

Yeah, nothing like a whopping dose of mob mentality to make online community ever-so-appealing...

I think that (getting sociological here) that's probably a common phenomenon among people who know themselves to be marginalized/in the minority -- they become obsessive about creating their own majority party-line and enforcing it/punishing and harassing those who don't toe it.

Whether it's political radicalism, ethnicism, religion or fringe phenomena like vampirism and otherkin (sure, you can pry), there's a lot of in-group aggression that tends to go into manufacturing solidarity -- or creating orthodoxy at the expense of actual solidarity. And it's the more vehement the more that people feel themselves to be dismissed/oppressed by the majority of society (and are actively fighting against that), as they tend to allow themselves and each other far less 'wiggle room' of dissent and individual expression than those who are secure enough within society that internal heterodoxy won't threaten them as a whole

[thedapperdan]

You see what I'm talking about? These people won't leave me alone. They followed me to every community I joined and now they're even coming to my journal. They're fucking crazy.

[thedapperdan]

You've done the right thing by not involving yourself, because if you did, you'd surely be next.

[lherelenfeline]

Dude, seriously, you're not the only one. Not at all. I've been burned by the language police and so have many many others. Check out free_speech_ftm. FYI I think most of the schoolyard bullies have been banned other there for , well, bullying. There are still basic rules of civility imposed, but overall, no nearly as many instances of mob mentality. I won't say I agree on everything with everyone over there, but thats what makes the place fun.
As for the distinction between virtual interaction with FTMs vs IRL, I would urge you not to be rash. I've had both good and bad interactions in both environments and it's possible to find friends over the net. It's just that most of transmen I choose to associate myself with, virtually or not, tend to identify and live their lives as men. Not as transmen, not genderless, not transgender, but as men. There's a real world outside the "ivory hot tub" ( I love that expression) of gender theory, and those of us in it tend too be busy living to participate in pointless flamewars.

[thedapperdan]

Yeah, I have seen others go down by the hands of the language police. But it seems like I went down particularly hard, and in my case they were particularly vicious. Probably because I stood my ground. Hmmm, I'll definitely check out that group.

Yeah, it is possible to find good guys online... but they are certainly harder to find than the morons. I think most transguys would claim they live as men, and loudly proclaim their uh, manliness. I find that just as irritating, so I really only like guys who live as men and don't make a big deal out of how not-trans they are.

[lherelenfeline]

Thats the whole thing about being a man- why shout over the rooftops about it? If you need to proclaim it every two minutes, you've still got stuff to work out.

When I was first starting out, I did it as self affirmation, but the longer i live the leaa of the point it is. I'm a guy, and that just the most visible part of who I am. There are obviously unique challenges that come with being trans, but to build ones entire identity around this one aspect just seems dumb.
See what i'm getting at?

[thedapperdan]

Definitely. But I won't ignore my trans identity, either. I was born female, and lived as a girl for 17 years. That part isn't going to go away and I can't deny it. I'm not going to forget about the obvious advantages I have over other men for having been born this way. For instance, I really, really understand women in a way a cisguy can't. I definitely don't build my identity around being trans, but it is a large part of my identity, at least for now in my early stages of transition. Perhaps after I've had chest surgery and am certain I will not have to fight for hormones (right now, it's a struggle) I won't need to think about it as much.

[parthenogenic]

Dude, I saw the various jumpings on that you got in the trans comms and I wanted you to know I think it was a bunch of bullshit. You showed some insecurity about your looks during transition (the he-she stuff) in a way that I thought was pretty funny. But, apparently people go nuts on the Internet and just look for excuses to get offended.

You're right: you are NOT the problem.

[thedapperdan]

Yeah... I mean, when I said the he-she thing, it wasn't a hateful statement. I wasn't trying to imply that there is anything wrong with having both genitals. I was just saying that is what I look like to the untrained eye. Most gay men are not familiar with transsexual genitals.

[parthenogenic]

I totally got what you were saying. My reaction was "damn, that sucks, I know how you feel" not "ZOMG EXTERMINATE THE INFIDEL YOU HAVE QUESTIONED THE WONDER AND SPLENDOR OF TRANSSEXUALITY AND AMBIGUOUS GENITALIA."

Apparently, though, the trannazis didn't want to see things that way. A friend of mine (also FtM) got told off in the trans megathread on Something Awful because he used the word tranny. Apparently, only MtFs can use that word, from anyone else it's a word of hate.

Life is too fucking short to be tiptoeing around and being politically correct. And, frankly, we've all got a lot of shit to deal with without creating shit for one another. Somebody joking around on the Internet is nothing compared to being hassled on the street or thinking I might spend the rest of my life alone because I'm terrified every guy I could ever like is going to run screaming from the vag.

I really enjoyed your posts and what you had to say. You were a breath of fresh air amongst all that wankery.

[thedapperdan]

I totally agree. I think it's ridiculous that people will lose their freaking minds because of my choice of words.

I think it's funny that a lot of transfolk cry for people to be politically correct when a lot of the gender movement is actually about breaking down those walls.

It's nice to know somebody can understand what I'm REALLY saying, instead of freaking out and ignoring everything I've said because they didn't like a word I used.