I have been trying to figure out how to explain to a friend why people get so mad at her when she helps.  She thinks people are just ungrateful.  (note: yelling at her to mind her own damn business is not "ungrateful", it's "totally pissed off")

Name changed to protect the guilty, here's a dramatization of  asking Mona to do you a little favor.
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You're hanging out with some friends, and talking about things to do, when Mona mentions that a friend of hers has this big portable grill that ten people could cook on at the same time.  You know a lot of people who think they grill the best burgers, and think it would be fun to have a cookoff in your back yard.

You say to Mona, "Could you ask your friend if I can borrow or rent that grill? I could set up a really fun weekend for everybody!"  She says she will ask.

You and your friends talk about this for a bit.  Everybody has ideas... maybe get a band, or belly dancers, a beer fountain, hire Chef Ramsey, ha ha... not really planning, just tossing ideas around.  Then conversation moves on.

When you get home, you look up all your grill fanatic friends, and tell them about your cookout idea.  They like the idea, and if you can get the big grill, are eager to come have a good time. 

You don't hear back from Mona for a few days, so you text her:

          Have you talked to your friend yet about me borrowing that big grill?

Plans have been falling through, but I found some performers.

          What?  I was asking about that big grill.  Is your friend willing to lend or rent it?

Oh, I spoke to him the next day,  he loves the idea, but he's so busy with this lawsuit about his neighbors' claim that he had sex with their cat, and the jugglers are vegan, but I'm sure we can work it all out, I'm going to look at the grill tomorrow.

          Ok, whatever you're planning sounds interesting, but I need to talk to this guy about the grill.

We're going to look at the grill tomorrow, you can come if you want to

By this point in the conversation, you are filled with a creeping dread.  Who is "we"?  What has Mona been doing and saying in your name?  Did she take all that batting ideas around seriously? Is Chef Ramsey going to turn up in your yard?  Why didn't Mona tell you right away that her friend was willing to lend you his grill?  WHAT IN MIDAS' GOLDEN BUTTHOLE IS GOING ON?

After much texting, and some phone calls, and mysterious paragraphs about her friend's lawsuit, and what really happened with the neighbor's cat, you extract contact information from Mona, and call the guy, now two weeks later.

          "Hello, I'm the person Mona spoke to you about borrowing your portable ten person grill."

"Oh, the grill isn't portable.  It's set in concrete behind my restaurant."

          "I see.  Sorry to bother you then, there has apparently been a misunderstanding."

"So you don't want to rent it after all?  If $2000 for the weekend is too much, we can work something out."

          "No need, it's not really suitable for what I had in mind.  Thanks for your time. Bye."

You disconnect the call with the quivery feeling of having climbed out of an arroyo just before the flood came down.  To make sure you are safe, you send one more text to Mona: I AM NOT HAVING A COOKOFF.  I DO NOT WANT TO BORROW YOUR FRIEND'S GRILL.

Later that night, as you are sinking into exhausted sleep, the full terror strikes you.  Sitting bolt upright, you wonder, what if you hadn't followed up?  What if, not hearing back from Mona in the first place, you simply decided to do something else?

What if she hadn't been stopped...

And Mona wonders why people scream at her.  

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Two thoughts just collided in my head.

One:  The crisis of China not wanting our trash any more. We haven't actually been recycling stuff, just selling it to someone else.  Millions of tons of it.

Two: The crisis of landfills filling up.  If you think about it, this translates to "We're running out of holes in the ground." 

Collision results:

If our trash is worth shipping to the other side of the planet, it's worth shipping somewhere closer. 

Like, some place that still has holes in the ground. 

So we can put the carbon back in the ground where it came from.

EXACTLY where it came from.

Commentary:  I don't know if I'm brilliant or stupid this morning.  I'll finish my coffee now.

There's a reason why cis people don't understand what trans people get so upset about pronouns.

I'm here to break that, so we can stop hurting people. 

Now, before you cis types get all defensive, saying, "But I don't mean to be rude, it's just a hard habit to break." let me tell you this.  Misgendering someone by accident makes it worse.

If you have read any of my other posts on social issues, you know that my prescribed cure for ANY ignorant attitudes is to get to know people.  Get out there, meet people, talk to them, and especially, listen to them.  

I have gotten to know some wonderful people, who don't fit any stereotype, he, she, they, mugwump, and more.   I concentrated on using correct pronouns to be polite.   That's the wrong reason to get the pronouns right.   It's not about being "polite".  Listening to trans people talking among themselves, I hear them objecting to pronouns, not because of the implied social role, or a sense of discrimination, but something much deeper. Let's dive.

When we try to understand someone, we look for a point of contact. We do this by asking ourselves how we would feel in a similar situation.

"How would I feel if I wasn't allowed to marry the person I love?"

"What would I do if someone wouldn't hire me because I have freckles, and the courts backed them up?"

"Could I cope if all my tax forms were in braille, and I couldn't get them in plain text because nearly everone else could read braille?"

So, we naturally ask ourselves, "How do I feel when someone calls me by a pronoun I don't identify with?"

But that's the wrong question. 

The cis answer to that question varies from "Can't that idiot see I'm wearing a dress?", to "How dare they call me a girl!"   Most often, though, it's not an extreme reaction. 

But, the trans folks I know feel very deeply about it.  These aren't hysterical people.  They're not the sort to freak out because someone bumped them, or demand free coffee because their name wasn't spelled right.  These are just regular people, who get along as well as anyone else.  Seeing a trans man tear up when he tells how his "supportive" family still refers to him as "she", I have to find the right question. 

When someone tells me I can't fix a car because I'm a woman, they're not denying I'm a woman.  When my doctor dismisses my pain because I'm fat, they're not denying I'm fat.  What similar situation then, can I imagine for transgender?  

Calling someone by a word they know in their soul does not apply to them...

How about, if someone snaps their fingers, or whistles to get my attention, as though I were an animal?

I think that is the right question a cis person should ask themselves about pronouns.

"What if everyone talks to me and about me as though I were a dog?"

That's why cis people don't get so upset by pronouns.  We haven't been treated to a constant background of this sort of treatment.  We get misgendered once in a while, by individuals we can easily dismiss as assholes or idiots.  Trans people have been misgendered constantly, by the entire world.  Even though the message might be "Good dog!" it's still the wrong words. 

Which gets to why doing it accidentally makes it worse.   

Once someone has told you their pronoun, they have basically told you they are not a dog.  If you use the wrong pronoun in the future, even though they keep correcting you, you are essentially saying, "Of course you're a person you cute little doggie!"  

I want to thank all the patient trans folx who put up with my cis shit, you're good friends, I love you all dearly.

I know I'm approaching wisdom, because I feel really, really stupid right now.

.

First, the source of the question.

part one: I complained to my eye doctor about a twitching eyelid.  She asked If there was any pain, and I told her there wasn't.   Examining my eye, she found an eyelash growing downward, scraping across the surface of my eye, causing ulceration and scarring.  She plucked the hair out.  I would have sworn I was not feeling pain, but I felt the relief immensely.  

Part two: I have been diagnosed for years with depression, the symptoms being crying randomly, and lack of motivation or physical activity.

The Question:  I am aware that emotional issues can manifest as physical pain, is it possible for that to work the other way?

In other words, is it possible that my "depression" is actually physical pain from something I am percieving as a mere annoyance, like the eyelash? 


.

 ---
"We have a choice of whether we are hurt by words."

I heard someone say this about an hour ago. 

I see their point... but the idea makes me uneasy.

There are certainly times when it's pretty clear that the speaker did not intend to hurt.   Forgetting that a name or status has changed.  Misreading someone's social flagging. Customary word usage that means something different in another culture.*  Those are cases where there is certainly a choice of whether or not to take offense. 

But, some words are meant to hurt.  They aren't just a slip or an error, they are a deliberate poke.  Surely the choice is different in those cases.  If someone calls me a "***", should I just blow it off?

 I don't think so. The choice would be what to do about the insult,  not whether to be hurt.

This is what bothers me about the idea.   I tell the toxic person not to call me a "***".  They then fall back on, "well, it was your choice to be hurt about it." or "I didn't mean that as an insult, it was supposed to be a joke."  They can then feel righteous, while I have been insulted a second time by being accused of being over-sensitive.

It's the difference between someone making punching motions with their fists into the air, and someone actually punching you.   One, you can laugh at, but the other really does hurt, and you really need to do something about.  At the very least, put that person on your "do not call" list.
 ---

* There was an interesting kerfuffle when a British friend offered to "come 'round and knock you up"

What most people need for home defense isn't a handgun, it's a taser.  I'll tell you why.

A taser won't put a hole in your woodwork.

Very few people who buy a handgun for home defense train with the gun.  (Some of you sensible people do, but most people don't)  So, they're more likely to miss the intruder than hit them.  There's a chance the intruder will take the gun away.


After all, home defense is about making the intruder stop intruding.  They don't have to die to do that, laying down and twitching is just as good.  Plus you don't have to pay for having the carpet cleaned by a special hazmat crew.

If your nosy teenage kids try to impress their friends by showing off your weapon, there's less likely to be a tragic ending.

Certainly, there are special cases, and individuals who have special security needs, but these people have access to tools and training.

For the average suburban homeowner who just wants a weapon for home defense, a taser is much more practical.

Besides, it's quieter, and won't get complaints from your neighbors.

IT'S HATE SPEECH!




IT'S HATE IMAGERY!

I have been seeing videos of people behaving badly being shared "to shame the bad people".  The preacher who burst into a children's storytime to rail about transgender; the lawyer in the coffee shop yelling at someone not speaking English; the woman attacking a black teenager at the swimming pool.
These videos are a trick to keep thoughtful people inactive.  We feel like we have done something by posting a negative response to these.  What is really happening, is that images of these behaviors are being seen by more people.  The masses of individuals who don't think deeply just see the video. That's what sticks in people's minds.  The negative commentary doesn't.
You know this, if you think about it.  YouTube is full of idiots imitating stunts badly, and making their own versions of popular videos.
Sharing or commenting on hateful videos SPREADS THE HATE.
Don't post, share or comment on these videos.  Report them, flag them, take them down.
We're being tricked into promoting evil.

Stop now!