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

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

As a trans person, I have various mental illnesses. None of them is ‘being trans’, but it’s likely some of them are related, particularly gender dysphoria. In regards to your actual question, I’m so glad you’re evaluating your beliefs! Everyone should deconstruct and know why they believe the things that they do - and if there’s no good reason, to stop believing them - regularly. It’s the sign of a curious and humble mind.

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

It’s a good thing to question your beliefs every once in a while. Sometimes people get things wrong, and sometimes ideas need re-evaluated.

The way I look at gay/trans/etc is to take MLK Jr’s advice: judge people by the content of their character.

It’s good to be unsure. The worst people are the ones who think they know everything. The only universal absolutes should be respect and love for others. Other than that, keep thinking and enquiring and learning.

It’s pretty normal. There’s a graph that plots confidence as you gain new skills or knowledge, and it sounds like you’re on the down-slope of Mt Stupid and coming into the Valley of Despair.

I have spent my life learning for fun and if I can be said to have learned anything about the process it’s that the more you learn the better you understand just how vastly complex everything is, how many ways you could be wrong, and how insufficient your earlier simple assumptions were. Like yeah, maybe trans people are just mentally ill because there have been a few cases where that seems to be the case. But does that make it okay to deny all of them the agency and dignity of being able to decide who they want to be? Even if we define gender-affirming care as ‘harm’, we seem fine as a society with people harming themselves with stuff like cigarettes, why are we not fine with people ‘harming themselves’ with gender-affirming care?

At the end of the day the question you have to ask yourself is: would you rather never be made uncomfortable by this realization that things are more nuanced htan you thought, or would you rather have the most accurate information about the world that you can get? Because you can’t have both. Moral/intellectual certainty is a pipe dream, that way lies true evil, because no one cares less about others than someone who is absolutely convinced that they’re right/just.

It’s important to question your beliefs when presented with evidence. My views on pacificism have loosened a lot, for example.

But the two view you mention are ones where the left is objectively correct. Homosexual behavior is a biological fact in almost all animals and non-binary gender systems exist across the breadth of human cultures.

Any belief system which serves as a permission structure for brutalizing others can safely be rejected as false.

Daily, but on a much smaller, pettier scale. What if I’m wiping my ass wrong? Nobody taught me exactly how to do it, and it’s not like anybody is around to notice and say “hey, you know you do it like this?”

I try not to think about my own opinions on big picture stuff as I can spiral fast.

It’s a symptom of having been raised at the peak of a deconstructionist age. Doubt is how we reinforce our beliefs. I’d say you can absolutely stop it, but wouldn’t you somewhat doubt that you can absolutely do much of anything if you meditate on it long enough?

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.

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?

I sometimes wonder if my parents are actually my kidnappers and that one time I ran away from home is actually when I got kidnapped and this could be a suppressed memory.

Or they might be actors and I’m in a truman show.

Or this is a simulation.

Or other people aren’t real, this is my imagination.

So yea, I have a lot of “conspiracy theories”, but confidence in those theories is less than 40%, so it kinda just lingers in the back of my find, its just those unprovable theories that I like to think about. I don’t like actually believe they are true, but its just something I keep in mind as a possible explanation of reality.

I sometimes to wonder about the anti-vax conspiracy. I’m like 50% skeptical of them. Not exactly antivax, but like I’m not gonna be the first one to get it, I’ll wait a bit to see if anyone dies first.

Now, about what you are saying. Nah. I concluded that it’s very a bad idea to judge someone for being something they were born with. My reasoning is, if I were born as a [Insert Race/Ethnic group here], I wouldn’t want to face discriminayion. As with sexuality, I ask myself: “What harm does two men or two women being together have on me?” Can’t think of any, so yea do whatever you want, life is short, go fuck whoever you want, as long as you are all consenting adults. Same with gender identity. I mean, I think separating bathrooms by genders is just ridiculous. I mean, why is someone watching me washing my hands a problem if they are the opposite gender, but not for someone of the same gender? Like… stalls are locked anyways, why is there even a gender separation. Just make every bathroom unisex, done. What even is the problem with this “culture war” BS.

So yea, I don’t really don’t really doubt my beliefs in egalitarianism.

Of course not everyone is born equal, some have disabilities, the point is to treat people as equals.

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.

Question everything.