Tribalism | Diary of a Trans Popstar

Anywhere you go, there's just too much tribalism out there these days. It turns everything into an us-vs-them fight, and makes people unable to rationally discuss anything. This means, ultimately, nothing gets resolved, and nothing gets done.

I think the best antidote to tribalism is a healthy dose of independent thinking. Don't just believe what your peers say, or your supposed heroes tell you to believe. Follow your own conscience, and think about every issue carefully. You might come to some surprising conclusions.

Haters | Diary of a Trans Popstar

As the saying goes, the haters are going to hate. And I really don't care, to be honest. Life is too short to care about them, you know.

The thing is, people have different opinions about things all the time, and there are always going to be people who don't like you. The important thing is, to cherish the people who love you, and the people who might one day come to be your friends.

Instead of caring about the haters, I think we should win over as many friends and supporters as possible. For every person who has decided that they don't like you, there are many other people out there that you can potentially win over as new friends. Why dwell on the haters, when you can focus on potential friends?

The Key to Winning Trans Rights | An Asian Trans View

Today, I want to talk about an ugly truth: there is a trans moral panic out there. People are scared that trans people and trans issues are going to upset the order of society. It's like how there was a major moral panic around gay marriage back when I was in college, which saw the majority of US states, as well as other Western countries like Australia, moving swiftly to ban gay marriage. Luckily, the gay marriage movement was able to overcome this moral panic relatively quickly, which ultimately led to the vast majority of Western countries legalizing gay marriage over the next 15 years.

So how do we deal with the trans moral panic? I think it's important to look at what causes moral panics. I believe that, at a basic level, all moral panics are caused by a fear about damage to social institutions, commonly held values, and ultimately what keeps the social consensus going. In sociology, the theories that examine social consensus are called 'consensus theory'. They used to be dominant, before the rise of conflict theory in the 1970s. I believe the neglect of consensus theory in Western sociology in recent decades has contributed to an inability to examine and overcome moral panics.

There are many forms of consensus theory, but the most famous and influential school of consensus theory has to be Talcott Parsons's functionalism. Indeed, back in the post-war era, sociology and Parsonian functionalism were almost synonymous. Parsonian functionalism examines society using a functional lens. It is based on the idea that society needs to fulfill certain functions, namely adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and pattern maintenance. Parsons showed how institutions and social norms allowed society to fulfill these functions. Although Parson's analyses were criticized for being too focused on the 1950s middle class, I think we can apply a similar analysis to today's problems and learn a lot from it. The thing I like most about functionalism is how it understands that every society needs to fulfill certain functions, how complex systems are required to make it all work, and how important it is to appreciate things when they work well.

I know it's unfair that we have to face this current moment of backlash, but if we want to advance trans acceptance and trans rights, it's up to us to find a way out. I think if we want to overcome the trans moral panic, we need to show that we are able to work with society, and the complex components that maintain it. We need to show that trans rights will not damage things people hold dear. And it's true: trans rights do not pose a threat at all to these things. Postmodern ideology might pose a threat to these things, but it's actually completely separate from trans issues, and we need to make that clear. At the end of the day, the marriage equality movement was able to convince the public that gay marriage wouldn't harm families and marriages. I guess, now, it's up to us to show that trans rights, similarly, wouldn't harm things people hold dear. And learning a bit of consensus theory could help us a lot in this regard.

Why The Trans Echo Chamber is Unhealthy | An Asian Trans View

Today, I want to talk about why the trans echo chamber is so unhealthy for trans people. I think it comes down to the fact that the trans echo chamber is saturated with ideas from the trans activist establishment, and their thinking can cause a pattern of negativity, especially when combined with our inherent cognitive biases.

Let's start with this. One thing I often criticize the trans activist establishment about is that their thinking is full of critical theory, particularly postmodern critical theory. If you study the history of critical theory, you will know that it is heavily influenced by the old-school psychoanalysis of Freud, and perhaps others like Lacan. That's why there is so much emphasis on unconscious thoughts and beliefs. It's why people can be said to be unconsciously transphobic even when they don't mean to be transphobic at all. It's why even well meaning compliments could be seen as a 'microaggression' instead. This deeply negative attitude towards everything, is not helpful for anyone.

The problem with the Freudian influence is, old-school psychoanalysis was very much not evidence-based. It is therefore considered questionable in modern psychology. Instead, we may want to draw on a more modern approach to psychology, one that has a much more empirical, evidence-based, and hence scientifically sound, approach. And from modern psychology, particularly from cognitive psychology and cognitive science, we know that our brains are prone to particular cognitive biases. That is, we are all prone to seeing things in biased ways, due to the ways our brains are programmed. The cognitive biases I'm talking about are many, and they can often interact with each other too.

The trans echo chamber amplifies our inherent cognitive biases because it encourages us to see transphobia everywhere, and because it reinforces the idea that transphobia is everywhere. And from what we know about cognitive biases like congruence bias, confirmation bias, the framing effect, and the bizarreness effect, this can certainly lead us to seeing transphobia where there is none. And this is not helpful for anyone. Most of all, it is not helpful for trans people, who end up with lots of negative thought patterns, which they seek, and shall surely find, confirmation of in the world around them. We all know that positive thinking breeds success, and negative thinking does the opposite. This is why the trans echo chamber is so harmful for trans people and the trans community.

Why Gender Performativity Is Wrong and Anti Trans | An Asian Trans View

Today, I want to talk about why the idea of 'gender performativity', the idea that gender is a performance, is wrong, and also transphobic. Gender performativity is part of the wider set of ideas that consider gender to be a social construct, and I have, in the past, repeatedly argued that the idea of gender being a social construct is wrong. But today, I will specifically focus on gender performativity.

Firstly, there is no evidence to support the idea that gender is a performance. In other words, this idea is not evidence-based, it has no observable evidence in the real world to clearly support it, and it is therefore incompatible with the spirit of empiricism. This is the problem with the 'academic left' in the late 20th and early 21st century West: a lot of their theories simply lack a solid foundation of observable evidence to back it up. This, in turn, reflects a rejection of the importance of empiricism, which is partly caused by the rise of unempirical philosophical schools like critical theory and postmodernism.

Secondly, I think it is reasonable to argue that a 'performance' is only a 'performance' if it is being deliberately 'performed', which implies that there must be a personal choice in it. The fact that trans people suffer from gender dysphoria is proof that we cannot choose the 'gender' that we 'perform'. Therefore, the very existence of trans people basically disproves gender performativity.

Finally, I believe the idea of gender performativity is inherently transphobic, at least to some extent. Firstly, it is simply incompatible with the trans community's long standing belief that gender identity is innate. Under gender performativity, a person is always, simply the gender that they are performing. Therefore, a trans person, before their social transition, is of their birth gender. Furthermore, there is nothing more to social transition than to take on another performance. Given that it is all a performance, there is nothing 'authentic' about either gender performance. Hence this could also imply that transition is no more than a lifestyle choice. This is why I believe that gender performativity is inherently transphobic, even if the people promoting this idea may not be transphobic themselves.

How This Trans Person Sees Trans Jokes | An Asian Trans View

Today, I want to talk about a controversial topic: trans jokes. Let's get some background first. People have been saying trans jokes, like, forever. I mean, stand up comedians essentially recycle the same jokes again and again until they aren't even funny anymore, that's just what they do, right? Based on this, I thought that trans jokes were just going to eventually die out simply because they're not funny for anyone anymore.

But somehow, trans jokes have become a big controversy, in the stand up comedy scene, in a way I honestly never expected. Just like I never expected we would have two consecutive US Presidents older than the one before. And just like I never expected that one day people would become addicted to their phones. And honestly, it's not what I wanted to see, either. I mean, there are enough controversies around trans issues, I don't think we need this too. I'm sick and tired of being a political football. Or should I say, political basketball, because we are thrown around quite a lot these days.

Another thing is, some things are like, the least said the better. There's this old saying that you shouldn't rub salt into a wound, or something like that, right? Perhaps those people, who aren't trans themselves but make a big deal out of every perceived trans injustice, should take note of that.

So, how does this trans person see trans jokes? Well, as long as they are not intentionally bigoted or harmful, I personally don't have an issue with them. The bigger problem is that, I don't find them funny at all. But then again, I don't find most stand up type jokes funny. Maybe I'm just a no fun person after all. But maybe, just maybe, there really ain't anything funny about being trans, especially after you get used to it. Like there's nothing funny about the sun, the sky, or the rain. Trans people are just as natural as those things after all.

Why People Like American Idol | TaraElla & Friends #9

TE: Welcome back to TaraElla and friends. Today, we have my friend The Clarifier again, and we will take a break from talking about LGBT issues. Instead, we will talk about, well, why people like American Idol, seeing that it is in its 19th season. I mean, not many things make it to 19 seasons! So it has to great, right?

TC: So let's start with this. Why do you like American Idol? Why do you still watch it after already having seen it so many times before?

TE: I mean, there's the music, but ultimately I guess it has something to do with the idea of Dreams and Dreaming Big. Idol and similar shows are all about dreaming big, after all. It's about music, personalities and performances, but ultimately it's about dreaming big, and I think that's where the appeal is at. We all need a regular dose of revitalizing that dreaming big part of ourselves, especially since many of us don't get enough of it in real life, after becoming adults. You know the unspoken social expectations, like, dreaming of being president is reasonably acceptable when you're 10, dreaming of being a style icon is sort of realistic when you're 20, but when you're 30, almost any dream is a bridge too far. That's why we keep coming back for things like Idol.

TC: So you think the adult world is lacking in this dreaming spirit then?

TE: Well, yes, I guess. I mean, I think it's sad that dreaming big seems to only feature much in movies set in high school, but unfortunately that's the way it is. From classics like Hairspray, to more recent hits like Ryan Murphy's The Prom from last year, the personal dreams of teenagers can not only be realized, but also help change the world in the process. The sad thing is that, even Hollywood seems to tell us that everything is possible when you are 16, but not when you are 36, for example. That really doesn't make sense, right? Shouldn't you be able to dream twice as big, now that you're twice as experienced?

Anyway, let's talk about two movies from the past few years that had me thinking a lot afterwards: Mistress America starring Greta Gerwig, and Brie Larson's Unicorn Store. I really liked those movies, but not so much their endings. Did Mistress America mean to say that Greta's character was immature for trying to live her dreams, and that she should snap out of it now that she was 30? Because I got that feeling, and it left a bit of a sour taste. And why did Brie Larson's character have to give up on her unicorn in the end? Excuse me if I interpreted those movies wrong, but I felt a bit sad that they couldn't unequivocally celebrate people who want to dream big, and still dream big in their adult lives.

The other thing is, I actually think this cultural separation of dreaming big from adulthood has social implications. And these are not very nice social implications, to put it mildly.

TC: So what are these social implications of dreaming big, or lack thereof?

TE: It basically says that, part of growing up and becoming an adult is that you have to just be okay with the status quo, even if it is objectively bad. I mean, there is a cultural expectation that the mature thing to do is to just suck it up. The world is unfair, and you've just got to suck it up. And sorry, I just don't believe in that. Let me repeat it: I just don't believe in that. I mean, I am not a utopian, but we do need to be able to envision a better way, if anything is to improve.

This is why I believe we should make a point to uphold all those who continue to dream big, despite having grown up. Now, you may ask what do personal dreams, like those portrayed on American Idol, have to do with social or political goals. But the fact is, it's all linked. There's the basic ingredient of being able to dream big, saying 'no' to the skeptics, to begin with. And then, once you starting going for your personal dreams, you start to discover the ways in which the world is flawed, and you start to seek to improve it. This is why, if we want to dream big for the world, we need to dream big for ourselves first.