Is the world today leaving us here behind?

[Mayo]

I thought there were forum rules against religious and political discussion.

• Politics, with the exception of TG rights in the Media Section
• Religion of any sort, no exceptions

I'm not entirely sure what constitutes a 'political discussion', though I have a feeling it means mentioning specific real-world groups and explicitly advocating for or against their positions.

[N]o social movement, construction or organization is fully comprised of activists only [...] yet only a few participate actively of the political debates.

Many people will often support a cause but remain silent and leave the work to the activists on the front line. Often the challenge of activism is to get these voices heard, in a voting situation or in terms of financial support for the cause or just to stand up and be counted. If the silent majority stays silent, it doesn't count for anything. If you oppose how certain groups are treated in public or in the media, for example, but don't speak up about it, such treatment will continue because 'nobody objects'. Silence is approval.

For the most part, y'all aren't out, don't participate in trans activism, and gain benefit from efforts to make sure you have access to public facilities en femme because of the efforts transsexuals and non-binary trans. Sure, I know some CDs who fight the good fight. Most of you don't.

Agreed. CDs don't have much representation in the general activist community. I myself confess to being mainly an 'armchair activist', though I do attend several rallies each year (mainly in support of Indigenous peoples' issues and against racism and violence against women) and occasionally sign petitions and write letters to politicians.

But, in order to engage, one needs to find agreement among a group of people who will then be willing to join in the vehicles for change.

Exactly. If marginalized groups don't stand up and make themselves visible, they'll continue to remain marginalized and invisible. Asexuals and bisexuals are gaining visibility to combat the myths about them, as are trans (TS) people and bigender/genderqueers. There's no reason CDs can't get together and do the same, if they wish to. At a minimum, people who want to change the status quo need to agree to engage in activism.

I understand the activism part as in feminism,trans whatever but some activists can be rude as all get out and super pushy demanding you acknowledge them.

Sometimes you need to be 'in your face' in order to get your message across. Being nice and polite often means you can be ignored by the establishment because you're not causing any problem and therefore they don't have to deal with you, then when years, decades or centuries of being ignored erupts and there's rioting in the streets you get vilified. Many conservatives appear to object to gay rights because they just 'don't want to see that'. I agree that it's a difficult line to walk, but advocating for one's right to exist involves some discomfort for all concerned.

In order for this forum to survive, a prevailing attitude has to be, "live and let live".

We need to respect each others' positions, and that includes acknowledging that some people would rather be left alone to mind their own business. But 'live and let live' doesn't mean you can't take an activist role. Acquiring or defending rights doesn't necessarily mean taking them away from someone else. People (both within and outside this forum) may disagree about the right course of action, but there's no question that discussion is needed. Naturally, threads dissolving into flame wars is not 'discussion' - sometimes people need to 'agree to disagree'.

So if you’ll take a suggestion, whenever you do find a blog, article, etc that you feel merits discussion, please do post it in the Media section. It will not be deleted, but often there will not be a lot of participation. And of course you will get a lot of discussion about any transition-related topics in the TS section.

I would certainly be in favour of seeing some more explicitly activist threads.