this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
415 points (89.8% liked)

No Stupid Questions

36192 readers
920 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world 122 points 1 month ago (5 children)

As someone who grew up in a conservative household in a deep red state, I think that part of it is that a lot of people are letting Lizard Brain dictate their response to transgender people.

Let me give you a personal example. A while back, I went to a social dance, and there was a trans woman there. Before the dance starts proper, the couple that runs it will teach a dance lesson, and we rotate partners while that's going on. Eventually, I was rotated into being her partner. For some background, she was obviously early on in her transition; she still looked like a dude in a dress, she didn't quite have the appearance down yet. But she gets huge props for not only having the bravery to go out as herself, but doing it in fucking Arkansas.

So I rotate over to her, and it dawns on me that she's trans. In my head, Lizard Brain immediately starts screaming. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! THIS PERSON IS OBVIOUSLY A DUDE IN A DRESS, HE MUST BE UP TO SOMETHING IF HE'S DRESSING AS SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN WHAT HE IS! RABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLE"

Keep in mind, where I grew up, you just didn't see trans people, and even now, it still tickles that primal part of my brain that was trained to be uncomfortable around people who aren't white and straight.

The difference between me and many of the people I grew up around is that I recognize that it's happening and try to tone Lizard Brain out when it starts screaming. A lot of other people listen to it and don't care that the person that it's screaming about is exactly that: a person.

[–] fool@programming.dev 35 points 1 month ago

A brave, vulnerably nuanced answer. Suspicious... what are you planning?

[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

This is so real. It takes a LOT of effort and time to train this out. If someone isn't willing to go through that then it makes sense that it would fester.

I had lots of times when i was younger learning about queer culture when i got mad at things. Especially after an overly polite and patient person took the time and effort to explain something to me. Unlearning hate is painful. Learning to liberate yourself is painful.

I think a lot of people feel that pain and decide to run from it and double down on the hate because that way they don't need to learn and change or pry open their mind to an alternative.

Then there's the whole fear of conflicting with your own community as a factor.

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Would you mind sharing what that person explained to you?

[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Many conversations with many different people. I can't recall as this was mostly a decade ago, before it all clicked for me that humans are diverse and nuanced and it's fine. My guess would be pronouns and wide net incel stuff. Not that i was particularly bad but deprogramming a Catholic suburban upbringing in american masculinity culture and propaganda is a monumental feat.

I think the fact that i was willing to listen, think critically, and engage in self doubt is what invited the conversations. Still, they were being very charitable with their energy and time.

I'm really grateful for that, especially after recognizing in not as cishet as i thought i was.

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Excellently said!

The only thing I have an issue with, and it's a small issue at that, is:

Keep in mind, where I grew up, you just didn't see trans people,

You most assuredly did see them. You just didn't realize it because they were forced to hide who they really were.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 7 points 1 month ago

What happened next? How was the dance? Don't leave us hanging!

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago

I remember reading that when people have racist reactions like what you're describing it's like a different part of their brain triggers and then their frontal lobe (for higher logic) sort of suppresses it. I really wish I could remember more about this but I definitely remember learning about this in psychology. Something like when a baby sees someone of a skin color they haven't seen before they get nervous, but when they're older different parts shut it down. The memory is very fuzzy.