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Amy's avatar

Hello Lydia! Enjoyed this post. Ruth sent it to me because I went through this from about 2019-2022.

My first disillusioning issue was pediatric transition and other extreme positions on trans issues, in 2018 and 2019. With the trans stuff, it wasn’t just that I disagreed with trans activists on the merits of these issues (which I did), but also that I sensed danger for LGBT rights as a whole. I knew the craziest trans stuff would generate a backlash that wouldn’t leave gay people out of it and unfortunately I was right! I was on a fairly well-known podcast under a pseudonym in 2021 as a “lesbian against child transitions” type story, and posted about my views on Facebook, but otherwise I just had to sit and watch this all happen like a train wreck. It has sucked. I was also called transphobic, lost some friends, etc. And for the record, even though being ACTUALLY transphobic is totally in style now, I am not and have never been anti-trans. I am anti-nonsensical, destructive, and self-defeating political movements.

My second issue was COVID. I realized REAL FAST we were destroying society and fucking up everything with the COVID craziness. I genuinely tried to tell everyone I know lol. Like literally, I talked to everyone about it. Ruth and I spent like two years shouting into a void telling everyone we were making a huge mistake and that we would come to regret the school closures, business closures, and general social unrest that contributed to things like the riots you describe. But it didn’t matter and it was so frustrating.

So I get the Team Blue frustration, been there.

I think at this point my affiliation with Team Blue is simply a matter of understanding that as a married lesbian with kids, it doesn’t matter if I don’t agree with Team Blue on everything — these are the people who want me around and treat me as an equal, so Team Blue world is where I live and work and raise my kids. Also Team Blue is on pretty good behavior at this moment, having been chastened by the election, while Team Red is…authoritarian and scary.

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Jeff Giesea's avatar

Thank you for sharing this. I went through a similar chapter and wrote about it here. https://open.substack.com/pub/jeffgiesea/p/a-letter-to-myself-in-2015. You are not alone in experiencing toxic forces on both sides of the spectrum. I still consider myself center-right, but I’m resisting tribalism.

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