Right or wrong is rarely as binary as you seem to be imagining. It’s a spectrum. Alignment with reality is contingent upon a habit of seeking better information. If better information comes along, any intellectually healthy person should be willing to accept it and integrate it into their understanding of the world.

Also - cultivate a habit of knowing that it’s ok to be wrong. Your beliefs don’t define you as much as HOW you choose to shape your beliefs.

We have pattern-seeking brains that instinctually crave a sense of certainty that rarely exists in reality. We always have to be aware of that. We also live in a society that unfortunately reinforces this tendency.

Don’t strive to be “right.” Strive to be well-informed.

The mile markers along the road to truth are ideas we used to believe were true.

Further truth can only be obtained by holding currently accepted truth to the highest standards of scrutiny.

Ok, let’s run that thought experiment, what if we’re wrong?

All too often, even if my premise is wrong, I’d get to the same results. Even if I agree with their premise, they are monsters. However you want to marginalize people for different preferences or presentation or not matching their body or skin color or gender, that’s no excuse for the abuse, taking away human rights, taking away normal accommodations for everyday life. Treat people like people.

Equally the thought experiment just proves the original point. Let’s assume there are people who believe the government is full of waste, fraud and abuse, and we need to fix that. They haven’t presented anything to convince us that’s true, their actions cutting people and agencies without investigation, due process, contractual requirements, or regard for constitutional checks and balances is quickly a much bigger problem. Then you have those same people acting above the law, a very suspicious correlation between cuts and personal enrichment of those involved, and you’re firmly in bizarro world territory where the asylum is run by the real lunatics. Even assuming the worst of people employed by the federal government, I can’t conceive of a way this isn’t far worse, proving my original belief

You seem to be obsessed with a certain area of thought, particularly with your own sexuality & that of others. You should get therapy and figure out your own sexuality before examining this any further. There’s something extremely wrong with worrying about other people and where they put their genitals.

Great, go with that, what if?

What if trans people are just mentally ill? Well, if they’re mentally ill then that implies that there’s a cure, we don’t know what that cure is, therefore treating it like an illness is pointless. Instead we should treat it like a condition, i.e. something that the person has to live with. Other examples of conditions are ADHD or Autism, and how do we deal with those? Well, the first step is always for the person to accept that they have that condition and make arrangements so that they can live a “normal” life, these might include taking prescription drugs to normalize their brain chemistry but also behavioral and environmental changes to make their situation more comfortable, including asking people to have leniency on stuff like tardiness which is difficult for them to control. And how is that any different from a trans person taking hormones and asking people to use different pronouns? Why does it matter to me if the person wants to transition? It’s their body, I don’t care if someone does plastic surgery to change their nose, why should I care about their genitalia?. So what if being trans was a mental illness? Until a cure is found nothing changes, whenever a cure gets found then we can reopen the discussion, but unless a person is being a menace to others I oppose the idea of mandatory treatment, so it would be up to trans people whether they wanted to change their body or their minds, and I know what I would choose 100% (I’m a mind, I have a body, changing my body doesn’t change who I am, so that’s an easy choice for me).

What of gay people are just deviants? First you would have to define deviant, but in any sense of that word it honestly doesn’t matter, because what two consenting adults decide to do, deviant or not, is their own business. So why should you care?. The only “valid” answer here that I can think of involves religion, but we live in a secular society, where we recognize freedom of religion, therefore your religious ideas can’t be imposed onto others, so it’s not a valid argument in our society either.

So long story short, what if trans are mentally ill? Nothing changes, they should still be able to choose the sort of treatment they would prefer for their “illness”, and hormonal therapy, surgery and asking people to use different pronouns is a valid treatment. What if gays were deviant? Nothing changes, any group of people where all of them are consenting adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to. So what if you’re wrong? You still should behave the way you already do, so nothing changes.

Don’t stop it. It’s healthy.

Question everything.

There’s one single thing in the entire universe that I’m absolutely certain of - something nothing could ever change my mind about: the fact that it feels like something to be. That there’s qualia, subjective experience. I could be a simulation, a brain in a vat, or something else entirely - but it’s undeniable that it is like something to be whatever “me” is. Everything else is up for debate.

Now, sure - there are things it would take a lot to convince me otherwise about, but I’m also not married to my ideas. I don’t attach my identity to them. I’ve been wrong before, and I’m almost certainly wrong about plenty of things even now. I don’t reject ideas just because I don’t like them. There are uncomfortable truths in this world, and not believing them doesn’t make them untrue. Even politically, it would be statistically absurd to think one side is right about everything and the other side is wrong about everything. It’s a mix. The challenge is figuring out where you are mistaken.

As for the examples you mentioned - homosexuality and transsexuality are human-made labels, ways to describe patterns we see. But like all labels, they’re rough generalizations. The differences between individuals even within these groups are vast - so much so that it starts to put the usefulness of the label itself into question. Personally, I’m just me. Tomorrow I’ll be a slightly different version of me. I don’t even fully identify with who I was yesterday - let alone some rigid label that society wants to stick on me.

If it’s weird, we can be weird together.

The real measure of whether or not an idea is true, at least in personal view, is how well does it hold up to your internal concept of ideal self?

We do not possess a source of universal truth. Sure, there’s math and elaborate painstaking work done by scientists to identify what is true to the best of our knowing, but none of that is a “universal” truth.

After all, 1 + 1 = 2 only works when both of the 1s are the same things.

1 apple plus 1 orange does not equal 2 apples, you know?

Going back to the main point, if your version of your ideal self prefers for other people to be happy so that you can live in a world with as many happy people as possible, then ideally, leftist concepts and trans rights would be a truth for you.

What would matter to you about the lives and sexualities of other people is: are they happy?

If they are, great!

If they aren’t, treat them as they want to be treated in that situation.

I assume that that is something akin to your ideal version of you.

If it is not, I’m not properly equipped to identify for you what is truth.

But I will say this: if you think that trans people or gay people are deviants or messed in the head, what does it matter to you?

If the entire nation of bumfuckistan started having gay sex from 8.30 to 5, Monday through Friday, what does that matter to you?

How are you affected by the actions of other people that you never interact with, that you never encounter, and that you never see?

Even if it is the most degenerate, horrible thing that can ever happen, it’s between two consenting adults.

They’re not going to hold you down and make you watch. You won’t even ever know it’s happening.

So why would you even give the first fucking thought about it?

If your leftist ideals are just that trans people exist and gays aren’t deviant then I would like to extend an invitation to the ShitLib party.

'cause that shit ain’t leftist. It’s just human. I’m a ShitLib and I support LGBTQ+. Nearly all of us do. You don’t have to be a commie.

I do this often and it can feel like the bottom of my existence fell out. But I always end up back where I started after using logic and my understanding of the world. It’s probably good to reality check yourself every so often

no, it’s not weird. you gotta stay open minded.

Those are your only “leftist” ideas? 😅 But no, if it’s still uncertain, it bears examination until it’s not anymore, one way or another, and that goes for every idea.

If you feel crazy because you don’t fit in, it’s entirely possible you’re not the crazy one. It’s entirely possible a large portion of society is on another bender.

I found the book, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” by Charles Mackay helpful.
It was first published in 1841, so it’s in the public domain and available online. I found my copy in a used bookstore for a $1.
Mackay documents many of the public manias that overtook society up to that point. He describes dozens of them and remember, his list stops in the mid-1800’s.
Being aware of this pattern helps me to realize that a large number of humans are highly illogical. It helps me to understand that yes, a large number of people can all go off the deep end. It’s not me, it’s them. Notably, I can’t do anything about it. All I can do is lie low and ride it out.