Honestly, I find the whole culture somewhat sick and sad. It’s sick in that it’s the most glorified and demented form of secondary gain society may have ever conceived of and it’s sad in that it’s essentially attached itself to gay and lesbian issues, making it difficult to support peoples’ right to live and love as they please without having to talk about “trans issues”. The whole thing rubs me the wrong way. In essence, I think the truly trans people are just basically insane. And that’s tragic. But what’s sad is the generation of flighty young pretenders who have become so rampant.

One problem is the issue of identity and entitlement. Whereas gay culture largely revolves around peoples’ freedom to conduct themselves and their relationships as they please without antiquated laws holding them back, trans issues so often involve you, the third party. You need to respect, acknowledge, and validate the trans child on their deeply personal but pronouncedly public journey. Since when is anyone entitled to an identity? Women have to work extremely hard to achieve the level of beauty and femininity that society expects of them. They’re hardly even regarded as whole people if they don’t adhere to the regimen to at least a certain degree. Men are doomed to be ignored and demeaned by women and men alike if they don’t form themselves into something strong and masculine. That identity is earned— no one can just polish off a box of Oreos a day, walk around in a bathrobe, and tell everyone they identify as a hottie. That’s not how identity works. You wish to be regarded as the opposite sex? Work hard, spend big, and pass 100% and then you win. Don’t just tell people to use different pronouns— that shit is lazy. You are what society says you are, just like everyone else. I get that you feel sad if people don’t treat you or view you the way you want to be. Everyone does. Grow the fuck up.

Another problem is that of individuality. The gender merry-go-round seems to be, in so many ways, a categorization fetish. I’m no philosopher, but I feel that this might have something to do with us being brought up in a world where we’re reminded of the homogeneity of our culture and insignificance of our identities so overwhelmingly. It’s so hard because our narcissistic parents raised us all to be special snowflakes and our individualistic culture demands that we be different and be ourselves in order to be valuable. In the face of finding that that are thousands upon thousands of us that think, look, and act so similarly… that teenagers and 20-somethings are just all so indistinct, what better way to realize the impossible dream of uniqueness than to invent and pursue new forms of humanity that didn’t exist until you dreamt them up 5 minutes ago— I’m not the same as other people, hell, I’m a different species! In the land of Facebook, forms and advertising categories are the very definition of self. You are a public entity. Whereas identity and gender and love should be something deeply personal, it becomes a sloganized, polarized, clusterfuck of a social movement grown legs and turned into an unquestionable, untouchable mound of smugness and liberal dogma. Educate yourself on this extremely thin body of weak research, pay attention to our echo chamber of personal crises that for some reason are just as important or more than real problems in the world.

Fuck it. The whole culture is a fucking joke and it saddens me that it’s going to reinforce the completely religious belief that human’s bodies can be “right” and “wrong” into the next generation. We’ve shed a theological prison for our thoughts, feelings, and behavior for another even more absurd one.