There’s the saying you shouldn’t talk about politics or religion at family gatherings, but apparently no one in my family has ever heard of it because whenever we all get in one room we start talking about Israel.
We don’t even disagree but there’s still usually a lot of shouting.
As someone whose favourite pastime is explaining to the world why their (third world, majority-black, ex-colony) country sucks, this is annoying. Why yes, my Canadian classmates, you can admit that the fact that my country has fucking sodomy laws is a bad thing!
*nod*
Not being from a third-world majority-black country myself, I tend to get it from the other direction (one not within the OP’s scope, but it does seem like the other side of the same coin): more-or-less-harmless customs that would be considered totally valid if they were in some other culture, but because they’re ours they’re suddenly worthy of complaint.
(This especially comes up at this time of year. “It’s perfectly fucking valid to have a culture where eating food somebody else prepared is a big expression of trust in that person, not done for just anyone! Stop whining about not being allowed to give kids you barely know homemade treats for Halloween!”)
Tags:
#reply via reblog #last week I went for a walk and changed the path I was planning to take #because my culture has a superstition about walking past cars stopped by the side of the road #with engines running and people inside #I’m willing to believe it is no better than other superstitions #but it is also not *worse* #I’ll also tag this #in which Brin has a food poisoning phobia #as I suspect I wouldn’t defend that particular custom *as* strongly if it didn’t align with my natural paranoia #still a legitimate custom though
There seem to be significant class gaps in the use of “anger” vs. “frustration”. Specifically, it seems like using “anger” as a personal emotional descriptor is more common in lower-SES (American) conversations about emotion and that “frustrated” replaces that at higher SES.
People in both categories (in my limited experience) will describe a situation as making them “feel rage” in the moment, but when we talk about it more, one will say “I am still pretty frustrated” or “it makes sense for me to be frustrated because,” while the other will replace that with “anger/angry”.
Do you do this? Do you distinguish between frustration/anger? Regardless of the answer to the second question, how comfortable are you describing your emotional state as angry?
*This is interesting to me because I once had a therapist point out that I was using “frustrated” repeatedly and asked why I wasn’t angry.
**My SES measure is not fine-tuned here, I’m mostly using Has College Degree vs. Does Not Have College Degree.
I [in process of getting college degree] view frustration as a sub-type of anger, and mostly not a distinction worth making. When I do specify an instance of anger as being “frustration”, I mean that it was directed at an impersonal force rather than an agent. However, the sensation is the same, and the response is the same*, so I usually just refer to both sub-types as “anger”.
My mother [has college degree] thinks this is weird, as she experiences anger and frustration as being entirely separate things.
(I suppose that explains why she doesn’t snap at the first person to ask if she’s okay after she stubs her toe or accidentally causes a frozen food avalanche in the freezer. For me, the target-less frustration!anger tends to latch on to the first target that presents itself, if one presents itself quickly enough.)
As for describing my emotional state as angry, I think I’m fairly comfortable with that. (I had roughly the opposite experience as you: I was talking about my emotional reaction to something and Mom said that I was using “angry” a lot more than she would have. This is how I learned about her anger/frustration distinction.) I’m not angry as often as I was this time last year, but that’s not because of a change in my capacity or definition, but rather because I’ve put more work into avoiding things that make me angry when I don’t have reason to think it will be worth the unpleasantness. (I am not one of those people who enjoys anger.)
*Theoretically the responses are different in that I can punish an agent but not a force, but in practice punishing either is equally impossible.
Tags:
#reply via reblog #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see
Imagine you have just been presented with a magic red button. When pressed the button will change you into the female version of yourself. It will also change the memories of all those you know and love so that they will have always known you as a woman, and regard you as such now. Would you press the button? What if you could only press the button once, and never be able to change back. Would you still press it?
If you were presented with two magic pills, one that would turn you into a woman, and one that would take away your trans feelings and make you into a “regular boy,” which one would you take, and why?
If you were to wake up tomorrow with the body of your desired sex as if you had been born that way, how would you feel? In a month? Year? Decade?
If you were to wake up tomorrow 3 years post-transition, any surgeries or changes you desire completed, hormones taken full hold, a full wardrobe, etc., how would you feel? Month? Year? Decade?
Would you rather be a rich, successful, attractive person of your current sex, or an average person of your desired gender?
If you were married with kids which sounds more appealing, being a husband or a wife? A mom or a dad? A gay man, a straight woman, a gay woman, a straight man?
Which gender would you prefer to live as on an island by yourself? Alone with Family? Friends? Strangers?
How would you feel if you saw a therapist and they told you that you were trans? How about if they said they could tell you really weren’t trans and should never transition?
If there was a test you could take that accurately guessed the taker’s gender, and you were to take it, which answer would you be hoping it gave you?
Well, ouch.
Imagine you have just been presented with a magic red button. When pressed the button will change you into the female version of yourself. It will also change the memories of all those you know and love so that they will have always known you as a woman, and regard you as such now. Would you press the button? What if you could only press the button once, and never be able to change back. Would you still press it?
Um, altering other people’s memories without their consent is morally wrong. I’d have to figure out who all the affected people would be and ask for their consent.
But after that’s taken care of? Absolutely; no doubt.
If you were presented with two magic pills, one that would turn you into a woman, and one that would take away your trans feelings and make you into a “regular boy,” which one would you take, and why?
Oh, wow. Hmm. Younger me would probably have opted for “make me normal”, since that was my most salient desire for a long time. But now, I think I value being me more than being acceptable. Especially now that I’ve been mostly accepted. As such, I think I lean more toward making my body fit my brain than the reverse.
If you were to wake up tomorrow with the body of your desired sex as if you had been born that way, how would you feel? In a month? Year? Decade?
Holy shit what’s everyone going to think!? Will my teachers, classmates, friends, or parents even recognise me? Are any of my IDs valid? What would I need to do to convince them I was the same person?
Well, whatever. I can worry about that when I get out of bed. In the meantime: I can sing! I love my voice and everything is perfect; even though the rest of everything is broken.
I think after the first month I’d have sorted out most of the problems, so strictly positive by then.
If you were to wake up tomorrow 3 years post-transition, any surgeries or changes you desire completed, hormones taken full hold, a full wardrobe, etc., how would you feel? Month? Year? Decade?
Same as above, I think?
Would you rather be a rich, successful, attractive person of your current sex, or an average person of your desired gender?
Average how? I really really don’t want to be average intelligence (especially not the global average). I’d rather lose my gender than My People. And how rich is rich? Or average? I’d love love love to be as rich as the average American. I’d have struck gold. If I have to be as wealthy as the average person from my own country, fuck no. I don’t even expect to be that poor if I stay. I’m rich where I’m from, but my Canadian friends are blown away by my poverty. I am not going deeper.
But if I get to be an average member of my in group, then yes. Definitely. No doubt.
If you were married with kids which sounds more appealing, being a husband or a wife? A mom or a dad? A gay man, a straight woman, a gay woman, a straight man?
Wife, mother, and gay woman; of course. I already intend to be all of those things.
Well, that one was easy. Moving on….
Which gender would you prefer to live as on an island by yourself? Alone with Family? Friends? Strangers?
Female, female, female, feeeemale. Next…
How would you feel if you saw a therapist and they told you that you were trans? How about if they said they could tell you really weren’t trans and should never transition?
To the first: No shit? To the second: I’d want to know what they meant by “trans”. I sure as hell experience dysphoria. I’d want to know on what basis they think transition would be bad for me. I’d want to get and third opinions.
(However, if even one therapist said that, my faker feels would be exacerbated for the rest of my life.)
If there was a test you could take that accurately guessed the taker’s gender, and you were to take it, which answer would you be hoping it gave you?
Female. Definitely. The alternative is dysphoria-inducing as all hell.
Am I the only one weirded out that people are actually answering this quiz?
I mean, when I read through it the first time and got to that last bit:
If there was a test you could take that accurately guessed the taker’s gender, and you were to take it, which answer would you be hoping it gave you?
I thought “Oh, I see. That’s this test. All of the other questions were red herrings intended to get you hoping one way or another: this is the only real question on the list.”
Am I in the minority on this interpretation, or are people just answering them anyway for the hell of it?
(I have been having trouble with reading subtext into things that the writers didn’t actually intend, so it is very possible that my interpretation is not what I was supposed to come away with.)
Tags:
#gender #reply via reblog #this is not actually the sort of thing I did #when I was performing the semi-mandatory gender screening that all Tumblrites are expected to undergo #I didn’t actually go in with the intention of doing a screening at all #I was reading about the effects of transitioning because Knowledge #and I noticed #’hey’ #’my visceral reactions are consistent with there being a part of me’ #’that’s convinced my body is the Objective Best Body’ #’and is confused and horrified by the idea of people altering their bodies to be less like mine’ #'(and nods along like ”well of *course*” when presented with the idea of people altering their bodies to be *more* like mine)’ #’I bet this probably qualifies for my semi-mandatory gender screening’ #’something to point to when someone asks if I’m’ #'(or rhetorically asks if people in general are)’ #’*really* cis or if I just haven’t thought about it enough’ #’well that’s one thing off the to-do list’ #(I suppose that test doesn’t rule out the existence of a purely social thing) #(but tbh I don’t think I’ve got any of that either) #tag rambles
I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY SINCE COMMENTS ARE NOW GONE Feel free to reblog one of my posts with your comment!! I don’t mind! And feel free to reblog this if you are okay with this too, so I can get a mind of who I can do this to and whatnot!!
Tags:
#reblog if #yeah it looks like the ‘reply via reblog’ tag will be getting more use now #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse
