No, it's not parties that are entrenched, it's laziness and complacency. America could have a viable third party, the status quo could be shaken. But it would require a bit more drastic measures than just canvassing and making YouTube videos. It would require an election boycott campaign to shake the legitimacy of your democracy (and with two parties that serve the same corporate master, just how legitimate is it in the first place?), it would entail a period of instability with perhaps something even worse than Trump emerging for a while...

But by and large, Americans are comfortable. Despite the economic downturns, despite the drug zombies in the streets, most Americans are not ready for the hardcore sacrifices that are necessary to drastically change a political system.

So you trudge along, always choosing between two piles of shit, carefully weighing which pile is a bit smaller and stinks just a bit less. And you say, this is democracy in action!

First of all I want to thank you for writing this out and taking my questions seriously. I know it can be hard to put these feelings into words, so really thanks.

I kind of get where you're coming from in terms of gendered socialization. Growing up a small eastern european village as a gay boy and teen, I definitely felt I was pitched very strongly the "right way" to be a man and a "wrong way" to be a man.

What's interesting to me is this talk about labels. I hope I am reading it right, but you seem to be saying you needed the label before you could do things. Why? Why is a label necessary before you can engage in behaviors? For me, I knew I was gay long before I applied the label to myself and in fact, applying that label to finally accept I am gay has been a source of a lot of friction and anxiety in my youth.

What I am saying is, do you not feel when you say

But I still feel masculine from time to time and have many ‘masculine’ traits like the desire to protect, an appreciation and love for cars and mechanics, a desire to be bigger and stronger than the person next to me, and a number of other traits considered to be ‘manly’.

That you are actually reifying gender? Why are these traits masculine? I may be coming to this from a very "second wave feminism" perspective, but to me and many people in my generation, gender "liberation" was about erasing these boundaries and decoupling stuff like cars and strength from either masculinity or femininity.

I'm not saying that all trans rights activists do this, but there is a strain of it I noticed that really does seem to be want to define gender for everyone and then enforce these new gender standards on everyone. I have some stereotypical "feminine" interests too. I like fashion, I like to talk about my feelings with my friends for hours. But I don't feel in any way like a woman because of it.

To me, gender liberation was about learning that my homosexuality doesn't make me "less of a man," that I can still enjoy "masculine" pursuits, but really that I can be any kind of man I want to be without having to adopt any new labels or identities.

In fact, I felt, and many gay men of my generation do, that to accept a new and separate labels means also accepting that we're not "proper" men.

I suppose that's a source of a lot of misunderstanding because it seems to me that current gender theory is diverging from this idea of gender non-essentialism into a new form of gender essentialism where if you like stereotypical "male stuff" then you're not a "proper woman" that is to say you must be either trans or non-binary in some way. And vice-versa. I'm interested in your opinion on this.

The second thing that jumps out at me is your claim that if we're cis we cannot understand you. While it is true that we can never fully grasp the experience of the Other (regardless of identities and lived experiences) I still believe empathy is possible and necessary for building solidarity.

When I hear this, I think I hear two things: one, that there's a fundamental disconnection between us that cannot be remedied; two, that the only way for me to support you is to put myself in a subordinate position to you and simply as some activists say "shut up and listen."

And with all the respect in the world, I am not prepared to accept the second condition. Gender concerns me as well, even if I am cis, and I cannot accept that there should be a group of people, in the current progressive view these are trans and non-binary people, who should have sole authority to define gender and to whom we all need to genuflect.

This isn't about respecting your gender identity, which I do, this is about a society-wide discourse on gender that we're all subject to whether we want it or not. I want the freedom to talk about gender, my own and gender at large, without being shouted down and called a bigot every time I disagree with the current progressive consensus on it.

Anyway, thank you again for your extensive write-up, it's important to hear the actual experience and thoughts of people and not just theories.

That's part I understand. What I don't understand is

a role that does not reflect who you are

how you see yourself and how you want to be.

In the context of gender, where do these feelings come from? How do I know if a role does or doesn't reflect "who I am?" Where does how I see myself come from and where does the desire to be how I want to be come from?

You haven't actually answered my question, sorry to say. What I'm asking is where does the feeling of being "forced into a role" come from? How do I know the role is not right for me?

I always want to learn more about things. To be totally honest with you, what I'm having the most trouble understanding in the current gender discourse is how can gender be both a social construct/abstraction (in the famous words of Judith Butler "an imitation without an original") but then also gender identity is a deeply-seated innate feeling that people have that then enables the feeling of "my gender is wrong and I need to change it."

I really don't want to be transphobic or even enbyphobic or anything and I will use whatever pronouns people want to be nice. But just on an epistemological level, I'm having trouble understanding it.

If gender is fake why is gender identity so important? If gender is fake then how some people feel they’re the wrong gender? If gender is fake why is it so important to learn about someone’s gender because using the wrong pronouns will give them trauma?

Get your story straight on gender challenge for leftists (IMPOSSIBLE)

Cope, seethe, dilate. New Trek sucks. And not just cause it openly takes one side in every cultural dispute but because it's uninspired and generic. Ooooh, green evil alien lady! We eat our own shit lol! Gene the scum cleaner! Non-binary ghosts! Jan 6 caused WWIII!

You had to pay for OS X updates before, but they changed that around 15 years ago. I remember paying I think $60 to upgrade from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion.