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---
title: Some random log about transphobia and rationality
date: 2023-08-25
---
<details>
<summary>
This page is a mess. It is too emotional, some of the content hasn't
been vetted properly before I wrote them down... it's probably not a
worthwhile read. Expand the summary tag if you really want to read it.
</summary>
Content warnings: Science mysticism, bigotry, transphobia,
vomit, Descartes, Hegel, questioning existence, rationalism,
intuitionism.
Yesterday at my summer school we were watching a spiderman-related
movie. I have no idea about how these works relate to each other, so
that’d my best effort at describing it. I wasn’t paying full attention,
but I heard a school teacher teaching that there are many parallel
universes in a quantum physics class. This is likely a reference to the
Many Worlds Interpretation. It’s an *interpretation* and teaching it
as “the truth” bothers me a little, but I suppose that’s not too bad on
its own. But later in the movie there was “time traveling through
dimensions” where the “dimensions” are described as parallel universes
under Many Worlds. I don’t understand quantum mechanics, but this is
still utterly senseless in my basic understanding thereof, i.e. the
non-communicating nature of “branches” (although I dislike this
terminology I find it intuitive) and it breaks energy conservation laws
(though arguably this is not really a law, prohibiting actions which may
bring empirical evidence to falsity it). We also discussed, in the light
of Dr. Davies’ lecture, on how most films prematurely depict characters
into a structural binary opposition between the benevolent and
malicious. We didn’t finish watching the movie, but it was an
interesting discussion.
Further content warning: Things are about to get much worse.
I was coming out of the classroom, the other groups who went shopping or
on tours came back at around the same time. I was going to the place
where we check-in to being on-campus. Near the steps of the cafeteria I
heard A saying to B, that A believes that B is a right-wing extremist. B
is my roommate who holds relatively different political beliefs than I
do, such as antifeminism. Without much context, I told A that saying
people are “right-wing extremists” is ad hominem and should be avoided,
even though I knew that I would probably disagree with whatever B was
talking about.
I was tired of politics for the day. I already took four US Letter size
pages of notes during the day, in two precepts, one seminar, and three
lectures, most of which were about political philosophy. So I just
listened in to what another group were talking about, which if I
remember correctly had to do with their shopping trip and was not
political. Then I heard B shout, loud enough to frighten me quite a bit,
that “IF YOU WERE BORN MALE YOU ARE MALE, IF YOU WERE BORN FEMALE YOU
ARE FEMALE, IT’S COMPLETELY INVALID TO CHANGE IT.” and “THERE ARE ONLY
TWO GENDERS”.
Before, when talking peacefully, I was fine discussing about my opinions
(clearly completely opposite from B’s), and considering B’s arguments on
traditional family values, even if I consistently believe that these
values have no merit in contemporary society and are inherently
misogynistic, which was also encapsulated in his express support for
patriarchy. But this time, when I heard it shouted out loud, I couldn’t
take it anymore.
I felt sick. I almost threw up immediately; I went to a bathroom and
vomited, not a lot, but I still did. It’s a weird feeling of bring
completely alienated, worse than any normal dysphoria that I could
conceive.
I asked a random member of staff, if they had vomit medications. They
said no, asked me if I knew why I was feeling sick, and offered to chat
with me for a while after I explained the course of events. They are
also nonbinary, and had similar experiences. We agreed on the argument
that cisgender people who do not experience gender dysphoria or euphoria
cannot soundly assume that the trans condition is fake and made up, as
it is a personal experience, not a external trait.
Gradually the conversation shifted to whether it’s necessary to prove my
own existence. (This deviates from the transgender-related discussion;
proving my own existence in terms of my mind, is different from proving
my, or the general concept of, transgender experiences, but it’s
nevertheless a topic we landed on.) I mentioned Descartes’s Cogito Ergo
Sum, and we discussed what “existence” means in this context. The
conversation moved on to other parts of the Meditations. They
interpreted the Third Meditation as not an argument for God in the
religious sense, and described it as something resembling that, in my
opinion, resembled my understanding, from today’s precept, of Hegel’s
absolute spirit. He stipulated the existence of an entity that is the
state of the world which could be interpreted as either ideal or
current, rather than a conscious coherent person-like entity being the
deity. I’ll probably have to re-read Meditations with this caveat in
mind (or perhaps with a literal s/god/something/i and at least try to
understand Hegel which would be challenging.
Later on, I explained my argument that in general I do not accept
assertions that are unreasoned, and I suppress the “gut intuition”, even
for seemingly basic assertions such as “I exist in a physical world”.
The teacher explained why they believe that rationalism is an
inconsistent theory, and importantly, that personal experiences cannot
be rationally deconstructed and attested, nor do they have to be
rationally proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
And perhaps this is when things start clicking for me. Perhaps I could,
under my own conscious will and conscience, whether free or controlled,
loosen my grip on rationality, logic, and proof.
</details>
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