I’ve always been baffled about people who care about it. Just for a hot second sit down, and think how many times you’ve even talked to a trans person in your life. Like it’s such a tiny percentage of people that extreme majority of people will literally never have a conversation with one in their entire lives. But for whatever reason it occupies the minds of a good chunk of people throughout entire political spectrum.
Even as a person who has a lot of gay friends, I’ve only known one trans woman. And as far as I know she’s kind and decent. I think you’re all outraged by invisible humans and arguments that never happen in the real world. Then it somehow occupies a good chunk of space in your brain.
They're not as rare as you think. In a class of 100 students I have 1 or 2 trans students every semester. My pharmacist is trans. You have probably interacted with trans people before without even knowing.
That is… very rare? 2% of college students, and a… pharmacist?
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely interacted with them probably hundreds of times through similar venues. But again, it’s just such a tiny percentage of people. And from what I know from my gay circles, trans people tend to live in areas where they feel safer. Just like the gays did until recent times.
My general moral guideline has been to judge people by their actions. And trying to stick to it without thinking whether a person is straight or whatever. I just never cared, and hope others don’t either. If someone is just an awful person, I exclude them from my life for their actions, rather than who they didn’t choose to be.
1% is not rare. That's 1 in 100 people. In a customer-facing service role, at that frequency you'll encounter multiple trans people daily. Something that happens daily to people everywhere is not "rare".
> My general moral guideline has been to judge people by their actions.
That's really great, I mean it. But in the year 2025 when it's being mandated from the highest office in the land that trans people don't exist under the eyes of the law, your friends and family who are trans are depending on your affirmative support more now than ever. It's going to be very easy for you to deny their existence, and what would that action say about you as a person?
And before you say "I have no friends or family who are trans", I would respond "that you know of". At the very least, if you work in the tech sector, you likely have several trans coworkers, as trans are overrepresented in tech.
> It's going to be very easy for you to deny their existence
And why would I do that? I think you're misunderstanding my point. All I meant to say is trans people are people, and I treat them as people not as trans. Same applies to literally any person I encounter. If someone comes out to me as trans, I'll have to reply with "ok, cool, I hope you're happy", because I just don't care about people's identities? And then continue on with our conversation.
Trans people exist, but bringing this topic up on every political issue, I think, makes it even worse for them. Bigots and assholes exist, and they will always try to pin their misfortunes on vulnerable people. Yesterday it was the gays, today it's trans people. On Tuesdays, it seems to be Indian immigrants and so on. The best I can do is treat people as people, vote for people who don't rally on hate towards others, and continue with my life.
In my social and professional circles I personally know several individuals who have a trans identity. Getting to know them a bit was actually what shattered the gender identity illusion for me.
If you consider the issue as a whole from a women's rights perspective, it should hopefully be less baffling.
Honestly, I literally never think about it until it comes up on Twitter or HN and I get reminded of it. It's totally ok to not to have opinions about things that are very much not relevant and have zero consequences to yourself and people around you.
More to the point, do we really want men like the author in the women's bathrooms? Just because they desire to be women.
We all need to take a step towards respecting women's boundaries by collectively telling these men: No.