Broadly speaking, you probably agree with the large majority of the views commonly attributed to whichever group you identify with - what are the exceptions? Something that if you mention without a caveat immediately makes people jump to conclusions or even attack you?
Well I guess it’s that I have a difficult time understanding trans folk. My belief is that we should be working towards accepting and loving our bodies regardless of how they are formed, with all of their flaws intact. I feel complicated towards cosmetic surgery as a result of this belief.
Obligatory caveat: I still love trans people, you’re ALL valid and I continue to learn from you.
I would expand that to body modification in general. Tattoos, piercings, hair loss/removal treatments, shoe lifts, fake nails. Heck, you could even expand it to clothing and fashion.
For me it comes down to cost-benefit analysis. For me personally I find it pretty easy to change my mind, so that’s usually “cheaper” than trying to change my body. Or you could say that I don’t see much “benefit” to such changes to my appearance. To let go of my desire to appear a certain way, to stop caring about how others see me. Some might call that cis privelege, but I would argue it’s something most cis people (at least in the US) struggle with too.
With the people I hang out with, i’m usually the only one without piercings to tattoos. Often I’m the only person with naturally colored hair (I do hope I go grey before losing it because it would be pretty cool to look like an old wizard, but if I lose my hair first I’ll just embrace it).
At the same time, you could extend the conversation the other way to things like prosthetics. I just saw a meme on Lemmy yesterday about a closeted trans person who had a car accident with a moose and needed extensive surgery afterwords. So rather than restoring how they used to look they took the opportunity to fully transition. From my perspective, the opportunity cost of transitioning was lowered in that case.
I want to see humanity continue to pursue technology to reduce these costs though. People have been writing fiction for centuries about gender-swapping, even just for a couple of days. If there really was some magical pill that could swap your gender for a day or two, or was easily reversible, or if you could just transfer your brain between artificial bodies, I could see that leading to a lot more empathy in the world.
the thing is you won’t/don’t notice most trans people. they are living their lives not bothering anyone.
it’s just the extremist nutbags that get attention and kind of paint a poor picture of trans folks. i’ve known some very miserable and shitty trans people who are hard to forget, but i met a lot more i odn’t even remember because they never got in my face and bothered me or said crazy shit. but they are the same as any extremist/nutbag of any persuasion or identity who thinks anyone different than them is subhuman and they are the model for some master race.
People that live as their chosen gender are happier. People who don’t are much more likely to kill themselves. Hard to argue with that.
I mean yeah, hard agree, but Trans people ain’t a monolith and I would like to learn more about them.