marcela

Extracts from Katherine Cross's Log off: Why posting and politics almost never mix. Pasted verbatim.

It’s worth taking a second to define weaponized sincerity. Weaponized sincerity is where extreme takes are born. It’s a mode that deploys ever more esoteric manipulations of social justice concepts for the purpose of being edgy or controversial, while still earnestly pursuing some noble idea. It’s the 0-to-60-in-two-seconds-flat acceleration of an innocuous bit of posting into a mass callout. It’s being nebulously accused of being X-phobic or silencing Y-group or being imperialist when all you were doing was, for instance, delivering chili to your neighbours.

One evening in 2022, a relatively prominent lefty Twitter user posted the following:

several guys moved in next door, students I guess. and I’ve gotten two confused door-dash drivers for them in the last week, and their trash can was completely overflowing with pizza boxes. i don’t think they cook. i am feeling such a strange motherly urge to feed these boys... They’re incredibly quiet which is a real surprise. I dunno if they’re renting or what but I would like them to stick around. Maybe I will make a big pot of chili this weekend when it gets cooler.

This, somehow, ignited a firestorm. She was accused of coddling “manchildren,” of being “presumptuous” or otherwise rude, of ableism for ignoring potential allergies, and of being a white saviour.

"For the love of god, stop babying men. This is why they learn to take advantage of their wives" went one tweet, apparently blaming this woman for the endurance of sexism and unequal marriages. Another tweet read, in part, "The intent was good, right? No. It was presumptive and stereotypical [white people] shit."

The harassment went on for days.

It was a flaming gout of internet rage that reached into the stratosphere of the mainstream press. Even the Washington Post reported on the controversy — and it got its money’s worth from the world’s most efficient content farm. The article wasn’t just a news report; it was an advice column. WaPo food reporter Emily Heil used the incident to ask etiquette experts for their opinions on how best to share food with strangers.

The social media food fight left us exhausted but also wondering: Have the rules for giving home-cooked foods changed? Does the simple act of baking a casserole or cookies for a stranger have to be so fraught? We asked two experts for guidance.

Imagine the horror of having such an innocuous post lead to three people you’ve never met dissecting your behaviour in the pages of a national newspaper.

In the event, the leftist in question delivered the chili, it was well-received, and the young men helped her fix a fence. Outside the swirling cyclone of Discourse, a rather ordinary and charming exchange took place. On Twitter, this pot of chili had to be saddled with the unbearable weight of some of the most important issues of our time. Even a Le Creuset can’t hold that.

But, worst of all, because most of the Washington Post’s newsroom is on Twitter, they made this sorry spectacle into everyone’s problem. Even New York City’s Fox affiliate got in on the action, with an article entitled “A Chili Controversy? Neighbor’s Good Deed Draws Online Outrage.” Their source was the Washington Post.

I’m talking as if weaponized sincerity was the opposite of shitposting, its natural enemy. And in one sense it is. But, like all true opposites, it’s also a twin. Weaponized sincerity is the horrible second helix that wraps around irony culture, feeding off it and nourishing it in equal measure.

BTW while looking for this I found out she also defines sincerity like this:

One of the things I really can’t forgive social media for is how deeply it has corroded our sense of sincerity, making it uncool to care.

The one rule, if you can call it that, is to not appear to take anything seriously. Sincerity is anathema to shitposting.

So, all in all, I can figure she draws a continuum from irony culture, like people "so deep in layers of irony they don't know who they are anymore" to weaponized sincerity, like, people who will take everything literally to the exteme of its political and ideological severity. She seems to be placing "real" sincerity to a point closer to the center than its "weaponized" counterpart. But I am no expert, I just have seen this happening over lemmy and it clicked, so I think she is onto something.

Also a disclaimer, I am personally more on the weaponized sincerity side.

I think it is rather adding a very purist angle to everything while still having good intentions. This then pushes everyone to a more purist direction. I am bad at keeping track of sources, but I will try to quote the relevant context later if I can.

Weaponized sincerity is a term defined by Katherine Cross ("Log off") as an online behavior opposite to trolling, and genuine in intent, but equally harmful as malicious trolling. The example she herself gives is about a woman who cooked a meal for her refugee neighbors or sth, and after a couple hours people were at each other throats, fighting about her infantilizing immigrants or not. It is ubiquitous in Lemmy and once you learn about it you can't unsee it.

a group of trans women

The collective noun for several trans women is a "triumph". A triumph of trans women.

I mean yeah, these people laugh at the notion of NSFW.

Please don't overthink my response. Your second edit is spot on. Also I sometimes disagree slightly to push the discussion in an already agreed direction, and this is the case here. I hope this clears that up.

Let me highlight some bits of your message:

I clearly have attitudes that being trans is monstrous

Exposure therapy has been helpful, and my overall distress from trans people is much less now than it was at the start.

But surgeries do not resolve trauma and setbacks formed through years of closetedness, dysphoria, and denial.

I am beginning to feel like this is one of the biggest sources of my continued distress - it's not just that I am trans, it's that I lived so long as a man and what that did to me (physically yes, but mentally is what I mean).

But I have get across other people who like you have gone through surgeries to find something to be desired at the other end.

I do think this is the right take-away, the fact that neovaginas are lined with skin that will never be like or function like a natal vagina is a technicality - the bottom line is that vaginoplasty has excellent outcomes and are totally worth it. (Even if it's not quite as good as you mentioned.)

Let me start by that last part. I meant that a bit differently. I meant that I have met people who have undergone SRS and then they want to be done with gender dysphoria and the trans label. A person might develop dysphoria later in life about a facial feature for instance, but fails to realize it is dysphoria, because she is "done" with surgeries, and done with "being trans". This is related to the misconception that HRT and SRS eventually "make you cis". Because supposedly they define transness as the presence of dysphoria, thus relieving dysphoria makes you not-trans anymore. That is why I prefer (and WHO) to base the definition on gender incongruence, or simply "being trans". It might also be based on an individualist and assimilationist approach to transitioning. And it is rooted in internalized transphobia, in your case with a prominent disgust/aversion element.

This might also make you want to be singled out and not be lumped together with the category of trans people. You framed your exposure to us as exposure therapy. This might come off as a bit dehumanizing. It is the solidarity and community with other trans people that is a substinence and steadfastiness parameter, the opposite of individualist assimilationism. It is very important for marginalized groups to come together. Come to think of it, I was active in support groups both online and IRL, and that also helped me get through transition. Actually this is a reason I sought out to be a member of this community, solidarity among trans women must be a given. Just being together with other people like you is something of itself. I always feel relief and sisterhood in the company of trans women, not that I hadn't been disappointed or betrayed. I have.

I tend to think that psychology is just not a matured discipline and operates on poor theories, and at the very least most psychologists leave the field ill equipped to deal with the kinds of issues I had.

This is the closest to the possible reasons I intuitively thought that would be a barrier for you to be helped by therapy. I think you are in error about this on multiple levels, the first is that I don't see a direct link from academic psychology to therapy practice. But some of it is related, and there are studies that show that therapy is effective. The school of thought of therapy is not significant, it seems that the critical factor is the relationship with a therapist and the process itself. So it is a process. These attitudes, together with rationalization, might have been barriers for you to be helped.

Of course it goes without question that the therapist must be knowledgable in gender dysphoria. I also see that you feel like your problems are to specific and particular to be handled by just any therapist, or the field of psychology itself. I don't have an answer for you right there, but I have seen it before. I don't know what it means, but I know that it has hindered people from starting therapy or make them postpone it till their problems become overwhelming. Of course you said you have tried therapy consistently, but you might have been looking down at psychology as a discipline and at the same time not trusting it to understand your specific situation. Rationalization and possible neurodivergence also may be part of it. Your eclecticism (eg PhD psychologists) might not be helpful, I don't know the Southern US situation well, but a PhD could be too sterile academic work. You need someone with relevant field knowledge, clinical experience, and a good fit to you personally. All these are more important factors than PhDs.

To continue a thought from before, this is a way you're setting yourself up to not be helped by therapy. You already bring up yourself several issues that you need to process within a relationship and within a community. So you are smart enough to see that your nightmare and following post here was literally the tip of the iceberg, and there is a bullet list of topics already, internalized misandry, internalized aversion to transness, being unprepared for your new normal, and then the self-esteem issues and being made redundant, which is stressful in itself. Also, this is already too personal and you should not be so open about it on the internet. It belongs to therapy, or other trusted setting. There is also this community's matrix which has encrypted channels and an emotional support room. Best of luck!

Great work, and rich resources. Please archive, for those who know how.

That's ten in base-based. /joke

Edit: Perhaps this was more correct some years ago

I mean this only happened two days ago. Skimming through the comments it seems like it was written by Matt Walsh; it was the BBC.

Did you forget yet about how we wrote that there might be data showing that trans people should be more likely to get arrested? What if that were true? Or what if non-binary people are ten times more likely to traffic infants? What if puberty blockers are a kind of sex crime? What if doctors are climbing through windows to suture penises to sleeping cheerleaders? The next time you see a trans person, you ought to ask yourself these questions.

Oh dear that last phrase is the bollocks. ROFL

Nice find. I love the color palete and the humor. Definately following this artist.