So why did I remove the posts in question? Well, partially because despite them being posted on two separate days, they were written "back to back" - it just happened that one went up right before midnight and one right after. Not that it matters that they were written back to back, but what does matter is that I wrote them when I was still a touch upset over things instead of waiting. I do try and normally hold off on writing things so I can have a less emotional perspective before I share my thoughts and in this case I chose not to do that. Once I did go to bed that night (well morning) and get some sleep I did decide that I would at a minimum go back and edit the posts with more of an objective viewpoint, if not flat out delete them. However, before I was able to get to doing that, a comment was posted on one of them that upset me more than a bit and that's the impetus for this post.
The comment made a negative reference to the state of my marriage to J. I was frustrated when I wrote those two posts and I'm certain it showed as it wasn't a great couple of days for us. However, I would really like to think that anybody who has read much of anything in this blog would know how much J and I do love each other and how much we mean to each other. Since the comment in question was made by someone that I really don't know, but rather only an acquaintance from Google+ - then perhaps they had not read anything prior to those posts and as such perhaps the comment wasn't intended to be mean/hateful (which is how it came across). However, in that case I would like to think that before making the comment that was made that the person in question might have taken a few minutes to read some other entries to get some context on things first. On the other hand, if they had read much else here then I can only believe that the intent of the comment was to be mean/hateful and that really does bother me.
If it would have been from someone from say Facebook - well the friends I have there are honestly almost entirely people that I (or at least J) knows personally. I strongly doubt any of them would have made the comment as they do know one/both of us; but even if they had - well at least I would have known for sure it wasn't made with malice. In this case - well I'm not so sure. That bothered me as the people I'm acquainted with on Google+ are only people that would know me as "Madison" and as a trans-woman and in general those people are normally very understanding and supportive of not just me, but also each other. And I definitely didn't find the comment supportive in the least.
Now this is probably strange to say considering the content of this entry so far; but while the comment did bother me a bit - it really didn't have much of an affect on me. I was at a minimum going to modify the posts regardless and I was considering deleting them anyway. However, it did get me to thinking about other people who have taken down blogs, ceased being active on places such as Reddit or Google+, or in some cases simply went completely stealth.
I cannot being to speak to the reason(s) why any specific person might do those things, and there are a lot of possible reasons. Among the ones that come to mind as things such as:
- Experiences becoming less relevant. I've detailed things here such as my Orchiectomy, but as time goes by that will become less relevant as Dr. Arnkoff will retire at some point so what was specific to him will no longer be relevant. Medical procedures evolve over time, and so on.
- Some people may simply feel that they "no longer have a dog in the fight". To an extent I feel this way about a lot of things. My birth certificate has been changed to show me as being Madison and being "Female", which means that I no longer pay as much attention to the laws surrounding doing something like that. Other common topics such as HRT, shopping, and so on - well it's the same thing. Those are "normal things" for me by now and as time moves on it's harder to think back to how new (and in some cases even "scary") those things were when I first started. I imagine that once I have SRS, I'll reach a point where I'll feel the same about that as well. Even with those things being said, I do still try and be active here and elsewhere; but I can also see how it would be easy to cease doing so.
- As a corollary to the above, some people may simply want to not think about how things were "pre-transition". I don't personally feel that way, but I can definitely understand how some people would simply prefer to forget about or not discuss things pre/during-transition.
However, the comment I referred to above brought another reason to the top of my mind. Be it via a blog such as this one (or a better one <G>), via places such as Reddit or other web forums, or even social media such as Facebook or Google+ - people are choosing to share things. Some more than others and some get more personal than others - maybe even more than they should (probably including me). In doing so, it means opening up for criticism at times and negative comments at times, but it still doesn't mean that I - or anyone else who does open up - likes those.
I'm not saying that people have to be all "rainbows and unicorns" when it comes to comments,etc., but when someone does go out of their way to be mean/hateful/etc., all that does is encourage people to quit sharing and I firmly believe that this happens far too much. I'm all for differences of opinion(s), but it just boggles my mind that some people cannot express a difference in opinion or viewpoint in a civilized manner. Even as open as I am, when I see some of the things that are said to not only myself, but even more to others, it makes me question why I am open and why I do share things. In my case I usually let them roll off my back - as I've mostly done here (despite the diatribe I've written), but a lot of others may not see it my way and who wins when they "take their ball and go home"? I share partially because it's a good outlet for me, but mostly because others have shared before me and it's made what I (and J) have undertaken a far less scary proposition and I truly believe a far easier journey that it would have been otherwise.
Ultimately the people who read this probably are not the people that I'm talking about and I suppose that's a shame, although I suspect most of those people probably wouldn't take any heed of it anyway. But in this case it's made *me* feel better to vent *my* thoughts on it and as such it's been worth the time to do so. So with that I'll wrap things up for now.
- M
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