Like many of you, seeing through the trans thing has caused me to question a lot of the liberal tenets I once thought were obvious. Lately I’ve been questioning the actual merits of the identity politics idea that insular communities for different minority groups are basically sacred. While of course I understand wanting to practice your culture with others who share it, and that advocating for your group’s rights can absolutely be needed, I have noticed that in practice people who take these things too seriously do not just become more confident about being a member of the group they were born into, but start to value members of their group above others. Which leads me to think, of course we should respect these kinds of gatherings, but shouldn’t we also treat them with earned suspicion if they seem to be taking people away from the universal?

I’ve been going through this with a close friend right now, and the growing sense that I would be more important to her if I was born into the same group as her might be the death knell for a relationship that was already suffering from my no longer being liberal. How can that be progressive? Yet I know most liberals would cheer her development as a member of a group she hardly engaged with at all growing up as beautiful self-actualisation. Yes, I absolutely agree that good things can come from this kind of change, but we need to talk about the bad too, without slamming everyone who sees the negatives as prejudiced. I’m sick of the emotional blackmail that says that you can’t talk honestly about the problems with these communities without being a bigot. If we want to fight bigotry, can’t we admit that basing your life around a group you are born into is actually a great recipe for feeling superior? I don’t know what I think the answer to this is, but I’ve begun to question the social justice narrative of it being purely good to want to advance your minority group, and now I wonder: Doesn’t it cheapen the dignity of humanity to be more invested in developing people based on what in the grand scheme of things should be a small part of what makes a person, instead of their needs and merits as an individual? If you have come to the conclusion that you have no choice but to favor your own to ensure a livable future for the members of your group, why can’t you admit that it’s an ugly thing born out of necessity? And why can’t you understand that the many people who genuinely have nowhere to go because there’s no one who wants to help them in a way that’s more dignified that tossing them charity, if they can even get that, will see this and feel cheated in life to the point of resenting your group?

Which brings us back to trans. Part of the nightmare of this social contagion taking over the culture has to have been liberals promoting being part of an insular minority community as this solely positive experience of sophistication and belonging. The main conflict in these communities will be with the outside world; the righteous good fight. I can understand why a lonely kid in crisis would crave this. Many people are just abandoned in this world. Liberal institutions created a perverse incentive by offering lost (and sometimes fucked up) people belonging as members of (often totally dysfunctional) LGBTQIA+ groups. The argument on here is so often that this is offensive because they’re imitating life as a real minority by taking advantage of these opportunities, but the liberal popular idea of life in a minority community seems to be a lie that at minimum cuts out a lot of nuance, so I’d argue really they’re chasing an experience that hardly exists, if it does at all. Certainly the opportunities exist to be part of a group based on who you were born as, but the purity? Can I still believe in the image of people who were in it for their own group alone as the height of human moral achievement? I don’t know what to think anymore. Maybe it’s time to admit that becoming obsessed with your group beyond what’s necessary to survive and/or enjoy your culture is actually not such a good thing.

I know a lot of people are going through this process of unpacking identity politics right now. How do you see it?