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.