Friendship ends over my sticking to GC principles

[RealityFan]

First thing to say is I have mixed feelings, but no regrets. Secondly, I am somewhat a "dog with a bone", somewhat culpable, but I also have my pride.

This is a fellow in my hobby, Californian, an online only friendship we'd cultivated over a few years. He's somewhat more intellectual and articulate than me, way better read (retired English Literature professor). And maybe most critically, a self-labelled liberal progessive (although only a small "d" Democrat voter), generally dismissive of all things conservative (let alone Republican, Trump etc).

A lot of our politics meshed, I've moved away from strong emotional connections to Brexit, populism, anti-migration. As usual with almost everyone liberal/progessive I talk to, I'm the one who's moved more centrist on so many issues, yet they strangely have been settled, and there's an underlay of almost snobbish derision ("it took you HOW long to realise Bxt, populism etc are poison?").

The only policy areas that I haven't mellowed on, after massive research and introspection, have been cancel culture/trans politics.

And so as our online chats developed we moved past dry discourse on our hobby, to free wheeling politics and culture wars shibboleths.

And here the fault lines developed. Whether a liberal v conservative or progessive v stable or US v UK disconnect, our heated discussions overboiled.

Strategically, all my fault. I returned again and again despite seeing not much common ground. Even when we did find an isolated patch of grass to share, our definitions around the issue were never agreed, so that seeming unanimity was nothing of the sort.

Culmination of the argument was his insistence on data...show me that damaged kids are not trans and being misled into medicalisation etc.

When I quoted the Tavistock GIDS expose book findings that vast majorities of referrals getting transition services were autistic/ADHD and other co-morbidities/likely gay/self-harming/over half from families with major issues incl abuse, and I gave him the deteriorating narrative from the Dutch Protocol over four decades, and that one European nation after another are putting transition services to teens on hold, he then switched the argument to say I couldnt extrapolate this to all teens, or all those seeking help globally, especially in US.

Well, I kinda lost it at that point. Now a fellow whom I looked up to as a proud rigorous intellectual (he certainly got me being more de-cluttered in certain analytical processes) is shown to be as guilty of closed loop thinking, unable to make the leap to at least starting to doubt his more fixed views. What data beyond Dutch Protocol and Tavistock does anyone need?

Other areas are more subjective (my arguments on the silencing of the female sex class and transing the gay away) and harder for me to nail with a progessive, but on this Tavistock story and data, I expected better from him. Way better than simply the shoulder shrug and demand for me to show him more evidence.

To then after strongly defending myself and for the first time aggressively labelling him as an ostrich (or do I mean lemming?), I get the return compliment of conspiracy theorist, pints swilling pub bore etc.

Final messages of "farewell my sweet" and "is it goodbye or au revoir?"

Now, I've only given a potted history, and he would write a wholly different version to what I have, but the basics are basically right.

How do I feel? Not bothered at all, actually. I'm my own worst enemy for unecessarily dragging an irreconcilable subject out, I provoked the final showdown.

And I've learnt that even certain common ground doesn't mitigate for a drastic chasm in temperament on one of the biggest conundrums of the age.

Yes, I'm sad. But I've learnt that on trans, you're vilified for being emotional/kneejerk, for not getting with the zeitgeist, and then even when you do what you're asked for and show data to back up your escalating misgivings, it's still not enough.

I've spent a year in therapy to help me reconcile and manage reactions to the trans labyrinth. An episode like this 12 months ago would have left me hurt and angry.

Today I'm sanguine and philosophical, proof I'm a more rounded person now, and that I won't sell my principles down the river.

Interested in the collective wisdom of MN on this.

He sounds like a patronising dick and thus nothing of value has been lost.

Underneath it all, he’s just a common or garden misogynist. Didn’t like a woman saying No to him.

he knows you can’t change sex. But he won’t back down when it’s a woman he considers his inferior as his interlocutor.

Sounds like you gave him the evidence but he didn't want to hear it because it went against his preconceived narrative. Not surprising really. Being an academic doesn't exempt you from emotional blind spots (though it may convince you that you don't have them).

You offered evidence in one direction. He should challenge it with evidence in the other direction. You're not his unpaid research assistant.

Sorry the friendship might have ended, are you to blame? Possibly, but so is he for having a tin ear.

Farewell my sweet - yuck

So he was happy to 'educate' you, but not interested in learning from you.

Well, in plain english, he sounds an absolute arse. Switching tactics in the face of evidence is not intellectual debate, it’s a cheap political technique ‘well….we are not here to talk about….’ Er, yes, we are!

He sounds patronising as all fuck. I'm always astounded by the sheer number of men who feel they have the right to 'educate' women on what a woman is.

Poor man, he has terminal Californian Mansplaining Syndrome, incurable, the patient ends up with their head so far up their arse they are talking to their appendix.

Sounds like he is asking you for impossible proofs.

”Culmination of the argument was his insistence on data...show me that damaged kids are not trans and being misled into medicalisation etc.”

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It should be enough to cast doubt on the processes and demonstrate the possibility of/potential for harm and I have no doubt you did that.

In these arguments, I often reached a point where the discussion became difficult because the situation has already been allowed to progress, unchecked, into dangerous territory. It ultimately comes back to the fact that the other side is advocating experimental treatment and changes to policy that should have only ever been made with full oversight and a strong evidence base. They were not, but that (false) progress puts us on the back foot every time.

He doesn’t sound like much of a loss, which is good. Much more painful if it’s family members and close friends.

You’ve made him think.

As you’ve said, you didn’t want to agree to disagree (“I returned again and again despite seeing not much common ground”) - you wanted a real discussion and a real argument. But the risk to him of that is very high. A California liberal retired professor can’t just become gender critical with no consequences. If he agrees with you, he risks losing all his real life friends.

My guess is that his intellectual curiosity will eventually stiffen his spine. He will reflect on the arguments you both presented and will eventually conclude that his were worse. He will read up on the issues, educating himself to argue his case better, and will realise to his shock that you were telling the truth.

He will start to talk to his friends about what he has learned, expecting them to be interested. Instead, most will shut him down, and if he persists, they will reject him as he rejected you. He will protest that he is an ally, and has been misunderstood, but slowly he will come to understand that he is a gender heretic and has been excommunicated from the kingdom of the gender saved.

Gradually he will realise that intellectual freedom was worth the price. One day he may even end up here telling us about his mountain climbing journey. And whether he tells you so or not, it will be because of you.

I thought this would generate some reactions, lol.
Things were way more nuanced than this, but to say I was deflated to hear him state, well that's the Tavistock and Dutch Protocol data, but that doesn't mean one can extrapolate to all or even most teen transitioning, I mean that's poor by any estimation.

He's happy to extrapolate conclusions from global warming and Brexit data, just not here.

What may have particularly stung him was when he said it was unfair I lay the blame for this solely at door of liberal/progessives in US.

When I mentioned no other nation has a president/PM who leads like a trans activist as Biden does, or has a health secretary that pushes the trans suicide ideation propaganda line like Dr. Rachel Levine does, or has leading civil rights organisations petitioning for the "trampled" (yeah, right!) human rights of raping and child abusing scum as the ACLU did recently, this would have stung him.

Yes, my tactics were wrong to push on a subject he was never gonna meet me halfway on. But I feel totally justified in how I handled things in the end.

And from a personal growth POV, that I don't feel angry or frustrated with myself, is massive. I've always shouldered the blame for personal fallouts. Not anymore.

Oh, my God I don't know how you can bear to talk to him. What a patronising piece of work he is. I would grab this opportunity to stop talking to him altogether.

Haaaa, ha, ha...😁

Appreciate the sentiment, but you give him too much credit. He knows what I know. Not that he doesn't care, he chooses not to prioritise.

There may also be a US v UK thing. The phenomenon has more traction in the US, there is less calling it out (no American version of JKR, fewer Kath Stocks about).

He also point blank dismisses the likes of Wesley Yang, Jesse Singhal etc as "captured" themselves, as biased narrative spinners.

Yes, he can see "some" issues, yada yada. Normally when they impinged on his freedom eg attempts to cancel colleagues in the past.

My framing as existential just left him disliking me more and more.

I lost my core friendship circle through not budging on my ethics and political views. And it wasn't like I pushed them on others. I'd been friends with these people for five years or more and one day one of them (the newer one) said some derogatory things about people who held certain views and I calmly said "you're talking about me, there. That's what I believe." Queue irrevocable collapse of my social group and exile for me. And not at a particularly easy time in my life. The sheer lack of compassion, tolerance and gratitude (I'd done a lot for these friends over the years) severely damaged my faith in people. Which has had plenty of lingering effects. I'm glad for you that you have been able to shrug this off (mostly).

There are those in this world who want to be right, and those who want to be "right". I've never found a good correlation between education and those either way. Some people just use their intellect and education to justify their position rather than inform it.

But what really takes the biscuit is the smug certainty that they are in the right. Whereas you evidently have and still do consider both sides and question yourself. Such people are insufferable.

In my experience there’s nothing worse than a man who thinks he’s cleverer than everyone else. He thinks he knows everything and understands everything much clearer than all those plebs below him. There is never any chance of getting through to anyone like that.

Reminded me of this article Reality:
https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/why-smart-people-hold-stupid-beliefs

What this means is that, while unintelligent people are more easily misled by other people, intelligent people are more easily misled by themselves. They’re better at convincing themselves of things they want to believe rather than things that are actually true. This is why intelligent people tend to have stronger ideological biases; being better at reasoning makes them better at rationalizing.

This.

How you view such things is up to you. The fact that you have made sure you are well informed is great, but in the end, your opinion is as valid as his.

He doesn't sound like much of a friend if he cannot accept a basic difference of opinion. He's no loss.

I'm very sorry to hear that.
"What doesn't kill you...," etc.

What I hated more and more was that my messages to him were mixtures of data, misgivings, but vitally my striving to look at the big picture, not a shred of hateful attitudes (no 70s 80s style "fuck those pervs!" polemics), a genuine interest and worry in the direction of society.

I was made to feel borderline weird for being so animated (his attitude skin to "you've got no kids, not a woman, you've got no skin in the game, why are you so beside yourself?...whereas I've got two daughters, and not really worried for them").

And of course the more confessional you become (revealing my CBT to counter this issue and what it's done to me), and the more you show light and shade in your argument, the more the other person appears fixed and stable.

But straws and camels' backs finally and inevitably loom into view, and being told Tavistock and Dutch Protocol data and conclusions are "interesting", but extrapolating any broader conclusions is naive and conspiratorial, was like catnip to me (maybe I'm Cat Gender).

Yes, my language can be colorful and overly pertinent, but don't fucking call me a pub bore conspiracist.

I'm not your Piers Corbyn/David Icke/David Koresch fantasy figure, wearing a tin foil hat, downing pints and shouting to anyone to listen to me.

Bloke here. Yes this subject seems to give certain men an opportunity to - as they see it - move back onto the moral high ground. And lecture women about not being progressive.

The US context is important here too. I have a very longstanding friend in the Southern USA , we also bonded over a hobby. Slight difference is we are both left wing. Except she posts a lot about trans rights.

We never argue on the FB public pages but have had discussions on messenger about it. You have to bear in mind she is literally surrounded by hellfire preachers , Maga hats , anti abortionists and people who think the late Queen was a cocaine dealer. It's all so tribal any disagreement on the liberal side seems like treason.

We've basically agreed to differ on it. I have a shorter fuse with Irish and British tras . They have no such excuses.

If it was a woman in your circle, I think it'd be sad and I was going to say that it might be possible to salvage a friendship through never mentioning the issue again, I don't think I every talked about it for 50 years, then BAM the last three years, I have disagreed with people on the subject. And it's been tense, but I did not want to lose friends.

But this is .. s o m e ...... b l o k e --- off the internet. He's not in your real life.

Perhaps reflect on why you find it so important to convince a man on the internet that your position on this subject is correct, instead of ignoring him or changing the subject.

To me, he sounds awful. Just the type of man I actively avoid speaking to, and certainly not getting into a debate with. Why do you care what he thinks?

The Queen a purveyor of Charlie?
Well, that's true in one sense (our new king), but not the one you mean, lol.
New one on me.

My ex bud is in liberal haven Cali, so I felt no need to rein in, other than general rules of politeness.

My mistake, and it was a mistake, was to feel my trigger would be shared more than a base level "that's weird!" level.

And when told to drop it, resurrecting it at intervals.

Additionally, online relationships and friendships are of course nothing of the sort. In the real world, we'd never have gravitated to slugging back Bud Light after Bud Light, cheering Dylan Mulvaney falling tits (?) over arse in a Nike sports bra video.

So the dalliance ended as it started, artificially.

Can't remember where I came across the Queen is a coke peddling lizard @RealityFan . She's in league with the Vatican too ? Together they will rule the galaxies !

Sounds like your ex friend attended the University of Please Yourself California. Copyright © Eric Idle.

One does have to be a bit careful about over sharing online. I've changed settings etc. Personally couldn't care less - but I have family in the Arts and Media and its nasty out there.
Still I hope he thinks on what you said Reality.

Well, the first comms on this was that "don't you understand different genders, I've taught Shakespeare, and gender bending was all the rage in his works".

I could have said I've done 4 years medical training, and I know genders end at Male/Female/hold my beer.

But I didn't...my natural instinct not to crow or run noses in doo doo. And how that backfired in the end.

Because of course after three years of emotion and pleading, when I went cold data, I'm told my data isn't the right sort of data, or proves nothing.

Where I have pleasure in all of this, as a fucking heathen and barely literate non afficionado of Shakespeare, a guy whose working life was predicated on language and linguistics, was dumbly ignorant of the linguistic sleight of hand that TRAs perpetrate on the language.

Give me the child, I'll give you the trans.
He who controls language controls the outcome.