Such an interesting article about the psychological burden of performing “gender”

202 replies

Cantunseeit · 27/08/2026 09:57

Not sure if this is really a FWR topic but the total lack of compassion from some of our TRA/MRA visitors for those suffering from gender confusion has shocked me recently. Probably shouldn’t be a surprise but it nevertheless has been.

While they are busy pointing fingers at “the audience”, they are not considering the distress their rhetoric props up.

I think this is a compassionate and important article.

https://genspect.substack.com/p/no-intermission-gender-performance?r=1one23&utm_medium=ios

No Intermission: Gender, Performance, and the Distress Nobody Measures

Steve Andrews on stage fright, passing and whether gender-affirming care really is "life saving"

https://genspect.substack.com/p/no-intermission-gender-performance?r=1one23&utm_medium=ios

OP posts:

Northernlightsss · Yesterday 23:54

Heggettypeg · Yesterday 23:47

You have completely missed the point I was making.

Do people have to protect the feelings of a boring person who is very wrapped up in their interests, by pretending they are not boring, or even by trying to persuade themselves that it is their own fault that they are bored? After all, that person is "expressing their authentic self" by holding forth about what interests them, and it may be painful to them to discover this is not particularly welcome.

In other words - without resorting to an extreme example, since you objected to that: Are we entitled to disengage and avoid, or even disagree and complain, when manifestations of people's "authentic selves" are tiresome, objectionable and oblivious to their effect on others?

If so, there is no reason to pussyfoot around just because "it's somebody expressing their authentic self" when people manifest their gender identity in ways that infringe on other people.

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Where? Privately or at work?
How? Does the 'disagreement' rise to the level of harassment?

Maybe if you applied the same standard to trans people as you would to other beliefs you might disagree with like religion or politics that might be a clue on how best to act.

The point that's missed here is respecting another's right to opinion is not the same as agreeing with it.

Heggettypeg · Today 00:25

Northernlightsss · Yesterday 23:54

Where? Privately or at work?
How? Does the 'disagreement' rise to the level of harassment?

Maybe if you applied the same standard to trans people as you would to other beliefs you might disagree with like religion or politics that might be a clue on how best to act.

The point that's missed here is respecting another's right to opinion is not the same as agreeing with it.

Show quote history

You have still missed ( or evaded) the point, which is the spurious use of "I have to be able to express my authentic self" as a supposedly unanswerable argument.

Other people pointed out that prioritising that notion is not a sound social principle, and gave examples. You objected to their examples as being invalid because they were extreme.

So I gave an example, the crashing bore, as a non-extreme example of a social nuisance created by somebody being their "authentic self" without consideration for others.

Transactivists have demanded not only that we let them be their "authentic selves" anywhere and anyhow they see fit, without regard to women's needs, but also that we must speak as though we believe what they believe ( by using required pronouns and not mentioning their sex) and that we should consider ourselves at fault (far right bigots, genital fetishists blah blah blah) if we don't see them as they see themselves. "But it's my authentic self" doesn't give them a free pass for that level of demand.

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