March 3, 2022
Recently, politicians have been attempting to ban various forms of treatments for trans people. An oft-repeated remark is if only these politicians could experience what dysphoria feels like from the inside, they would instantly begin to believe in the wrongness of their opinion and begin to support gender-affirming treatments. While the sentiment is in the right place, I wanted to argue against it, that people ignore feelings stemming from themselves all the time, and therefore this would not change their minds, as much as it would be helpful.
I understand the frustration; it is difficult to get someone to know an internal feeling in its entirety. I’m sure many of you have been wronged, and when confronting the person who wronged you, have become tongue-tied trying to describe why exactly you were so hurt. And that’s for a simple feeling. Thus, we naturally have the want to get our ideas across.
But, like I said before, people ignore their feelings. There is misattribution error, where one goes throughout their day, annoyed about something, only to realize that the world isn’t the issue but rather some specific event. There’s the issue of thinking feeling is one thing, only to realize that its another. And, most powerful of all, there’s repression. Someone can experience an emotion and simply refuse to address it, preferring to let it sit on them, building and building, weighing them down. This is the most effective form of ignoring one’s feelings. Oftentimes, the weight will never be so great as to completely crush them, and they’ll go to their grave with that emotion on their sagging shoulders. You can go so far without acknowledging an emotion – what’s a few more weeks? You’ll get to it when you get to it. And weeks turn to months, and months to years, and still yet you have not responded to this nagging emotion, until it becomes familiar to you; you wake up, put on your glasses, don’t address that feeling, and go about your day. Sure, it’s heavy! But it’s a weight you carry. This is why wishing someone could feel your pain does not work – people get used to pain. These people you wish it on could choose to ignore it.
So why not you? My thesis is that you too can carry this pain. However, it feels so much better to walk with light shoulders and a bounce in your step. Personally, this is a stronger answer than wishing one could feel your pain, for these people have no right to tell you what to carry.
On February 27, 2022, I thought it would be a great idea to create some sort of content - writing, art, coding, etc. - every day of the next month. Luckily, the alliteration worked out. This should be the third post in the series.