hi! myself and some of my system members were wondering how transIDs work, if transIDs are like, okay for the lack of a better word, to support or if they’re not. basically if they’re harmful or not.
we’ve tried research based on what they are but the part of wether or not they’re harmful is very…split. everyone has different opinions, which is fair, however we just need like, a baseline of how people see transIDs.
-maiya
Oh yeah, I've definitely seen the insurgence of transID individuals and discussions, and honestly, just like you, I'm a little confused about it too. My headmates and I disagree about all sorts of things, which makes it worse.
But hopefully, y'all can make an informed choice and find common ground. With that being said, I won't give an answer, because it's not my place to tell you what to think, i.e. I encourage folks thinking for themselves. Instead, I will give you tips on how to reach a consensus.
P.S.: people see transIDs in so many diverse point of views that compiling them would require a lot of stamina, in fact, this article took so long to wrote it began with Comic Neue and finished with Hyacin The, but hopefully my advice under the cut would help. (Sorry if we misread your ask or anything, that's on me&) I will encourage people to share their point of view through comments or reposts, then you can compile them.
*insert sexy image to make myself sound like I know what I'm talking about*
Jokes aside, let's get into it.
1. Before arguing, choose an ethical system
The first step to reach a consensus is to choose an ethical system(or multiple), so ask yourselves: what makes something good or harmful?
According to utilitarianism/consequentialism, something is good if it makes everyone happy as a consequence. According to contractualism, it's good if all parties mutually allow it beforehand, etcetera. Make sure to define 'harm' as well, since it has a broad meaning. What may be harmful to you is harmless to another headmate, and vice-versa.
And please, don't bring up metaethics—the importance of ethics. Just please choose something, no matter how little any of you care about morality. It will help you know what aspects of the transID concept to scrutinize and will make sure your clashing values don't impede your consensus-taking process.
2. Now get to the why's
Now that you chose what makes something good or harmful, ask yourself: "why are transIDs harmful?" and "why are transIDs good?," maybe a third nuanced question if you want, like "what are transIDs for?"
Now lay y'alls reasons into pros and cons(possibly a secret third option you can argue on later), all of them, even the ones the rest of y'all perceive as unthinkable. If you don't have strong arguments, ask outsiders for their opinion and write down what you agree with. If necessary, strike out anything you later decide to disregard.
Something I personally like to do is to challenge myself(and my friends) to make an essay about why transIDs are harmless v.s. why they're harmful, and then compare word count to make a point about how "a longer essay was made about why transIDs are good/bad v.s. why they're bad/good, which says a lot." (jsyk the friends were imaginary and I didn't do that fr)
You can do this with your pros 'n' cons table, maybe by voting out or merging entries until you only have a narrow odd number left, like 3 or 5, and going "majority wins." If making a decision is hard, attribute virtues and vices to the entries to help. For example, an entry like "transIDs let folks express themselves" would represent the virtue of "freedom", while an entry like "transIDs glorify crimes" would fall under "cruelty".
3. Final thoughts
If nothing works, you can do a "vote on whether transIDs are harmful or not" poll like all democracies do, but that won't leave room for nuance since the only options will be a hard "yes" or "no".
Despite everything I said above, it's okay not to be a complete pro or anti. It's okay to praise some aspects of transIDs and criticize other aspects, or to just not have strong feelings at all. As long as you can all agree on the same thing, regardless of what shade of grey it is, you're all good.
It's also okay to have a few outliers. Sometimes it's easier to strive for the majority than for collective agreement. But regardless, it's important to give the minority an opportunity to express themselves, such as giving them a sideblog to do so, or literally any other outlet.
For tips on settling arguments, likely this one, I recommend reading the Settling Arguments chapter(page 51) in the For the Many guide.
I briefly followed someone today whose entire account was based on being pro para, right? I expected to see good takes. But instead, I saw them post that transID people don't experience the same discrimination and oppression that cisID people with the same identities do.
I'm trisIndigenous and transLatina. When I go out with my brown, Indigenous dad, who lived in Mexico and speaks fluent Spanish, everyone assumes that I'm Latina and treats me accordingly. Racists don't stop and examine every POC to try to figure out what race they are before they call them a racial slur. That is just not how racism works.
Also, as a cisDisabled person, it helps support the disability community when *anyone* buys or uses a mobility aid. If you're transabled, absolutely use that mobility aid.
The term cisharmful has absolutely zero reason to be used. None.
We have other prefixes for everything that people will bring up to defend the term.
Are you a fictionkin, factkin, or introject who did bad things in your source? Sourceharmful. Or even just transharmful, you’re one of the groups of people that the term was originally made for.
Are you someone who genuinely committed harmful actions in this reality, and simultaneously want to move past it/make amends and still feel connected to it? Vetusharmful.
Are you someone who committed harmful acts or has programming to do so, but it’s not your choice? Your harmful past wasn’t up to you? Forcedharmful.
After that, justifications get ridiculous. No, CNC is not rape. That is horribly offensive to both SA survivors and to those who practice kink. If you call yourself a cisrapist because you do CNC, I will be raising my eyebrows at you and you’ll be lucky if that’s all I do.
Cisharmful was created by a pro-abuse individual. I can reblog with proof if you want. But it is literally designed to obscure who supports real abuse and who doesn’t. That’s its purpose.
We should never have let this term become a thing.
“But real abusers wouldn’t use the trans/tris/cis prefix system anyway!” Oh, they wouldn’t? Are you sure about that? Do you genuinely believe that there are no abusers in the transid community that use transid terminology? Do you believe this community is 100% safe? Because I don’t.
So I sometimes see beings talking about how identity terms "shouldn't" be used out of self hatred, low self esteem, internalised -misia or similar because it encourages these mindsets or that identities founded in this reasoning aren't genuine and to that I say:
Bodily automny includes the right to stay in mindsets like this, if the hate/-misia is purely internal then it's not hurting anyone else so beings have the right to stay that way if they so choose. Plus some beings may not even be able to get out of these mindsets.
Even in cases where the being plans to work torwards no/less self hatred, higher self esteem or no/less internal -misia, it is not "encouraging" to simply identify and label the feelings one is having in the meantime. They should not have to wait for that work to be done before getting to label themselves.
The feelings of those with self hatred, low self esteem and internalised -misia are just as valid and genuine as the feelings of those without, the cause of the feelings does not make them any less real.
The fact that the feelings could hypothetically go away if the mindset wasn't there anymore doesn't make the feelings any less real and valid in the moment, especially if that hypothetical is never going to happen because the being won't/can't get rid of the mindset.
To anyone out there who does identify with a term because of self hatred, low self esteem, internalised -misia or similar, you are valid, your feelings are real and you have just as much right to describe your feelings and identity as somebody who doesn't have those things.
Do you trust radqueer ( - adjacent ) s when they say they are ___ / are from ___ / have ___ / went through ___ ? Immediate trust, or are you hesitant , doubtful at first ?
I noticed I've been distrustful of this community , built on encouraging lies , supporting assumptions and non-consensual harm if someone doesn't entirely share your views . . . You might say cis- / trans- would help to understand from one glance , but not really , especially since there are tris- / muto- / inter- / faux- / etc.
Jumping in on the “cherid” discourse. As a fleuraison (the coiner supposedly coined it for the fleur community or something).
Obviously it excludes transharm identities. Which sucks. But that’s been talked about constantly. Can I talk about how aggressively pro-psych it is?
“Whether or not an identity can belong in the cherid community will be based on scientific consensus”
“I’m going to be excluding transharmful identities until I run the concept by mental health professionals to make sure it’s not an unhealthy way to identify”
“I want studies done on the regret rate for transid transitions to see if that transid is valid”
“Transgender transition should be allowed because the regret rate is so low” isn’t an argument that works on me because I am literally part of that regret rate. Yeah, I wish I never took HRT. I think the downsides outweighed the benefits long-term. For me, at least. Transgender transition should be allowed because you own your own body absolutely and can do whatever you want with it. And the notion of bodily autonomy is not one that most mental health professionals believe in. So why does “cherid” need to hinge on their approval?
Do some transharmful identities make me uncomfortable and feel iffy? Yeah. But I am not ever joining a community where approval of my transids is contingent on the approval of psychiatry as an institution. You know, my fucking abuser time and time again. I have so many fucking stories from facilities. Of so many instances. Not that I should even need to bring up my trauma whenever someone doesn’t understand why I don’t like mental health professionals.
Anyway, cherid is transid for when you still want approval from mental health professionals. Which I don’t need. I’d rather have to occasionally block an edgy transharmful whose posts make me a little bit too uncomfortable than have to wait for psychiatric studies on my very identity to “see if it’s healthy to have”.
okay so this is going to be sorta heavy? as in talking about radqueers and transids
screenshot of an ask mentioning rape, suicide
so to be honest, yes we are uncomfortable with radqueers and most transids but we sorta understand where some of it may come from. Be it trauma, not feeling ‘valid’ enough, and looking for a space that talks and accepts typically taboo things.
We won’t say we’ll let radqueers necessarily interact with us we’re still uncomfortable.
Continuing with this we got an ask a week ago
link to the ask this anon was talking about(same trigger warning as the one before the cut)
I agree the definition i sent in the other ask about what radqueers are is definitely biased and i agree that attraction doesn’t equal action. But that doesn’t account that there are stories out there of people getting hurt by the radqueer community.
I’d say transids could be used in a way that puts a label on atypical feelings without meaning that you’ll hurt anyone. We cannot and won’t change people’s mind about using these labels and we won’t try to stop them but i will say, use these labels just don’t hurt anyone and other particular transids should be left to consenting *adults* not anyone 18 and younger.
Yes i know that kids will probably still be in the radqueer community despite that and that kids can know and talk about mature things. It’s just we speak from fear of younger kids being hurt more than they might already be and fear of us being hurt.
In any community there will be people with varying opinions and tolerance and there will be some who try to take advantage of others, unfortunately that probably won’t ever stop. But we just wanted to talk about this while we have a clear head and is able to discuss about it without getting heated like we did.
I really didn't want to get into this discourse. But I'm so tired of people saying that people who are anti-Nazi don't "support" transnazis.
I support transnazis because I fully believe that they are who and what they say they are. Transnazi is a valid transID -- everyone who says they're a transnazi should be believed.
I just don't agree with bigotry in general, so I have a problem with transnazis who transition. This is completely different than not supporting them!
