Like. Look. Listen. I have taught introductory quantum physics at a university level, and I need you all to incorporate this into your trans advocacy: There are situations where you need to make a decision to prioritize being comprehensible to your target audience above being The Most Unassailably Correct.
You can try to teach a toddler about germ theory or you can get them to wash their hands because "yucky"
Teaching a toddler to wash hands because yucky when the Ethics Understander crashes through the roof. "STOP RIGHT THERE," the Ethics Understander shouts at me. "The disgust response is not a legitimate substitute for a considered value judgment, and in fact, weaponizing disgust instead of grounding those judgments in a more rigorous framework is fundamental to reactionary rhetoric!"
The toddler looks at me. "You are a fascist, auntie. I have seen the light and will now go eat chewing gum from the pavement, unless you can educate me on a rigorous framework on the microbiology of pavement chewing gum this very instant."
This is a hyperbolic example but here's a more real one:
You are trying to explain the trajectory of research on trans issues, and how the informed consent model came about as a wildly successful alternative to the gatekeeping model because time and again, people with clinical experience who actually cared about their patients found that just letting trans people transition was easier and the fear that it would lead to something bad was unfounded.
The Principle Understander is shouting at you that the medicalization of trans people is inherently unjust, and even the informed consent provider is still a gatekeeper, just a more lenient one.
You are already aware of this.
You are talking to someone who, as a first priority, needs to know what the worse gatekeeping model looks like.
The person you're talking to is asking "but isn't it good to give patients more time to think before making irreversible changes?" because they didn't hear the part where you explained that asking patients about their masturbation habits has nothing to do with anyone's safety. They missed it because the Principle Understander was on a tangent about the necessity of abolishing capitalism because paying for medication is bad, which again, yes but this is really not the time or place for that.
This has the funniest name btw.
There's an Emily Dickinson poem about this:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind—
This can also be understood as "speaking their language" or "meeting them where they are." And not to sound like I'm shitposting, but you want to know one of the best examples of this that's ever been posted on tumblr.com?
"What the fuck do you think freedom MEANS, Earl?"
Earl could have gotten an earful about gendered clothing colors being a social construct or how the queer community has its own clothing subculture, and he wouldn't have heard or internalized a word of it. But for the kind of redneck who goes to tractor-pulls? Yeah, "what the fuck do you think freedom means" really only touches the most superficial layer of Mister Pink John Deere Hat, but Earl heard that. And maybe next time he sees a guy dressed like Daisy Duke chilling at a tractor-pull he'll remember it and think "isn't it great to live in a free country" and mind his business. Maybe he'll even ask where the guy got his pink hat and learn something more.
