Thank you, Arlene
I used to get terribly upset over this age old battle.
One day while standing in the checkout line at the grocery store I took a good look around. It was then I realized 99% of the world doesn’t know or care about any of this.
When the day is done the only people that continue to fuel this fire are those that live to see things burn. I prefer not to be one of them.
She’s absolutely right, of course. Online debate is the literal “tempest in a teapot,” especially when most of those involved in it are not involved in anything else relevant to the topic. This is something that people who care about me keep reminding me, whenever I get too caught up, and confuse the screen with the world.
Mercedes may be right. I don’t think I’m quite ready to pack it in yet – I have a few things yet to address, and not all of them related to the Trans Wars – but I think this may be a strictly limited phase.
There’s an assumption in there that I don’t particularly care for. Or an implied assumption. That is, “that it takes two to tango,” or that responding means you just want to keep the fight going.
I also think that on some level, there’s the belief that online discussion is irrelevant, and that what happens online has no bearing on the real world, which I don’t find to be exactly true. I’ve participated in several online communities which have become, in many ways, real world communities, and no matter whether you’re dealing with people face-to-face, online, or both, you’re still dealing with flesh and blood people, and anyone who reads what you write is also a flesh and blood person, and they continue to live in the real world.
Anyway, when I see someone say something about me or people like me that’s categorically wrong, I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with countering that. Perhaps not countering it over and over again, but certainly at least responding. The idea that responding at all is wrong or pointless strikes me as counterproductive.
Admittedly, my interest in the HBS feud is limited, and I posted the one time specifically because it had spread to Heart, and Heart decided to stick her foot into something that didn’t concern her. I also did respond several times to individuals who express fundamentalist, separatist sentiments about transsexualism and transgenderism in ways that I morally and ethically object to – like, say much of Susan and Leigh at TransAdvocate. But, I’d love it if this nonsense blew over.
I suspect that I’ll end up responding to certain bloggers, who seem to feel that the best way to be trans is by running down other trans people (Hello, Cathryn Platine – were you really gullible enough to buy into the radfem line that ENDA with gender identity protection would override Title VII? Don’t you know that the women who came up with that will say anything to discredit trans women? Are you really so willing to participate in your own oppression that you’ll defend keeping trans women out of women-only spaces?).
Ah, anyway, yeah, there is limited mileage in the arguments, but I don’t think it’s pointless to address them at all.
It certainly is not pointless to address them. But I think that the perspective is still valid, and is something I easily lose when I get too involved.
I’ve seen too much damage. It’s important to me to not get so invested that I need to wear rhinoceros hide to survive. The stuff doesn’t flex, you know.
True that, sister.