I'm starting this new thread to surface some valuable insights hidden away elsewhere.
stealthsquirrelnutkin said People's feelings about themselves and their 'identity' has never been in question. I'm really not sure if this talk of having one's "existence denied" is down to wilful ignorance, or just plain stupidity. This line of thought does not pass the most simple tests of reason or rationality.
I read this recently on GenderCritical Reddit.
"I think when they say "you are invalidating my existence" they really mean it. The woman they "create", and are in love with, only exists through them putting certain types of clothing (makeup, affectations) on and presenting "her" to the world. If you see through "her" to him, "she" doesn't exist."
Which would explain how differentiating between male bodied people with a feminine gender identity and biological women determined to preserve their sex based safe spaces can feel like a "hateful" attack by someone "threatening your very existence".
Ereshkigal responded It's experienced as a "narcissistic injury"
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201608/the-destructive-force-narcissistic-injury
And I was minded of something odd in the otherwise thoughtful blog of a Quaker transwoman Clare Flourish. It is my right to specify how I should be imagined, or how I should not be imagined. I am not a man. I am vulnerable, and suggestions that I am a man can cut to my heart.
It seems to me the exact opposite, that the one thing nobody can control is how others imagine (i.e. think of) them. You can police people's speech (if politeness doesn't get you the validation you crave) but the one thing you cannot police is their thoughts and imaginings. clareflourish.wordpress.com/2018/11/30/are-quakers-transphobic/
So we have a psychological term for a psychic hurt. Is this "narcissistic injury" a technical phrase for what is elsewhere known as the "literal violence" of misgendering?
Can any of these insights lead to better conversations?