Why I stopped ‘being kind’

[BewaretheIckabog]

Partially inspired by another thread.

When I first ventured on to FWR I had seem some dangers of the modern gender ideology and conflicts between TRA demands and women’s rights.

I did think some contributors on here were anti-trans and far too outspoken. I genuinely believed the balance was to be kind to individuals and respect pronouns etc.

I do consider myself a critical thinker and realised the dangers of queer theory but was so bloody naive about gender ideology.

I really thought I could straddle the two camps and support people with dysphoria whilst defending sex-based rights.

I can’t believe how long it took me to realise using their preferred pronouns Eddie Izzard and India Willoughby may be kind to what they want. Unfortunately while being kind to these individuals feels nice, buying in to the myth is horribly unkind to gender non-conforming kids.

It’s not kind or liberal to tell children that they can be something that they are not. It’s not kind to pretend you can change sex.

Using preferred pronouns may seem benign but being kind in an unthinking way is dan.

Shh remember.
You can't say that sort of thing !

I’m less inclined to be kind altogether. I feel proper radicalised by all this. Just stuff like the way that TRAS Come on here and patronise and generalise and quite unthinkingly adopt the role of moral arbiter. Just fuck off with all that stuff. Just because I spent years keeping other people clean and fed and pretending their pictures were fabulous, doesn’t mean I can’t also have views. And I do. And I’m pleasing myself these days.

I don't have to "be kind" to men who think I'm shit. No. Fuck off.

I highly recommend the netflix series "Be sweet, Pray, Obey". Funny how the kindness the supportive emotional validation train always flows in the same direction. Different day same old shit

Be kind = do as you’re told.

If men want to claim women’s spaces, deny women’s truth, enter women’s prisons, have admission to any and every women’s group in existence - shut the fuck up and be kind, because men rule the world, you bigot.

Ugh 'be kind' just sucks. Why should we? Why should anyone just be kind blindly? Switch off gut instinct, critical thinking? Nope.

This goes for a many things. It's disempowering and not what I teach my daughter.

I don't think I've stopped being kind, I've just stopped being a mug.

Kindness is not a negative to me, but I agree it isn’t the same as pandering to someone else’s fantasies. I would not consider that kind at all.

This.

The way I see it, I am being kind. Kind to women and girls and gender confused young people. If men don’t like that, well too bad.

I work with kids, and I’m expected to be kind by my employer, but I do sympathise with the teens who are learning who they are.
Grown men with penises who expect me to think they are a woman is a different matter.

This. Strangely enough when people talk about being kind, they're usually not talking about kindness to women and girls at all.

I started questioning the be kind message when I saw that other people wanted to use that to manipulate women to do what they wanted. I like to think I am still kind to people, but it comes from within and is not a reaction to a demand from other people.

I teach my DDs that they don't have to be kind, but not to be unkind. Neutral is just fine. I see little girls' t shirts with it on as a slogan, never on boys'

The demand for people to be kind is everywhere - on posters, tee shirts, tote bags, adverts. It is absolutely contrary to all the very good advice to build up boundaries and safeguarding to protect yourself and others......

Kindness is also ill defined and can be so easily manipulated. Be kind and give your colleague a lift turns into an obligation. Be kind and don't reject the guy who is really persistent turns into harassment. Be kind and lend your pal a tenner turns into one of those looking threads about how to ask for money back without upsetting anyone....

I would teach every child this:

Kindness is an earnt intimacy. No need to be rude, or aggressive, or thoughtless, or cruel, but kindness is for people who have proven to you that you can trust them.

I stopped being kind when I realised no kindness was never enough, it all went one way, and only women were being told to be kind, usually to men. I decided I’d rather be thought of as unkind than as a gullible fool

My 'be kind' has evolved to 'do no harm but take no shit'

This sums it up for me.

I don't personally give a rat's arse if someone wishes to express themselves by identifying any which way they want. Where what you want. Whatever. But the second some predatory males use this as a loophole to gain access to vulnerable women and children and the second they use it to exploit and further themselevs in society in any which way, and the second they start advocating the medical mutilation of chidlren to further their own ideological agenda is the second I say fuck right off.

The problem with kindness is the way it overlaps with having a net negative effect on the individual. Some kindnesses are genuinely ‘no cost’ to the neutral but a very many involve putting someone else’s needs above your own.

The examples above are good - the being kind to the guy who always oversteps the boundaries in order to spare his feelings results in prolonging and sometimes escalating that behaviour; being kind and giving someone a lift can escalate into always having to drive that person somewhere.

as children many of us were conditioned to be kind and as a result we struggle to put in good boundaries. I personally find it really difficult to put myself first and it often makes me feel awful.

If freedom means anything at all it means being able to tell people things that they do not wish to hear.

George Orwell.

It is not kind to tell others to be kind.

It is patronizing.

Kindness is spread through actions not words.

@IcakethereforeIam - speaking for me, there

It’s not kind to encourage teenage girls to cut their breasts off.

I was kind until a TRA poster here argued for teaching primary school children about sex toys and anal sex 🤮. And obviously called me a bigot.

This is lucid.