Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

> Generations identifying as trans:

Is this surprising? 20 years ago in many parts of the world the only way to survive as a trans person was through prostitution. You would be forced to live as an outcast, far away from "normal people". There were barely any legal protections, you could often not change your legal sex, finding any information about what this is or its treatments (not a fetish, something that millions experience, can't be "converted away", hormones exist, etc) was nearly impossible. Most people would see you as a freak.

> A lot of it has to do not with the label itself but with the industry. Where someone in the past would be called a “tomboy” or “femboy” today they would have a different diagnosis, the DSM-5 would be consulted, etc.

This is not true. Trans people don't go to a doctor and ask them if they are trans. Rather trans people generally arrive at the realization of what they are by themselves, usually before seeking any professional help about it. The DSM is not consulted (and if it is, it's done post-facto by someone acting as a gatekeeper and trying to fill boxes).

Many people who called themselves femboys in the past ended up transitioning after becoming more informed about the whole topic and realizing that transitioning their sex and living as their true self is an option rather than something they had to do in secret.

They're doing it now because it gives them power and social status now.

The same story has been repeated dozens of times; An individual is bullied/ostracized for some hobby or characteristic, years later they find the same bullies now going all in said hobbies and characteristics.

I'm a bit dual about this thing. I see it around social media and in people talking. I got diagnosed almost two years ago, and it has been a relief in a way because it finally explained a lot of the struggles I had, helped being less blameful about myself and learn physiological keys around how I am and why. At the same time, I really don't think it would have helped me knowing this much earlier in my childhood, and sometimes the tentation to use this as an "excuse" is strong like described in the article.

I wouldn't wish an earlier diagnostic to my kids, and try to approach things with an empathic approach instead.

I am interested in this topic, but I do sometimes find the compatiblism argument difficult to distill down to its essence without still leaving a sense of unfulfillment.

From my understanding, compatibilism boils down to accepting that everything may be pre-determined, but people are still free to make choices as long as they are uncoerced.

The argument from that quote above is a little bit subtler and aligns with my thinking. I don't believe we have free will in any sense, either everything is pre-determined, or it is random, and I can't even think of a definition of free will that would make sense (just like the compatiblism one does not to me). But clearly there is a feedback loop going on, and so it is inherently in the species best interest to hold people accountable for their actions, because the act of holding them accountable forms part of the inputs that lead people to make choices. Not doing this is not a great survivability trait overall. Doing so, we survive a bit more.

But I'm not sure that is strictly necessary to call oneself a compatibilist.

Unfortunately (but given the slant of all her other articles, most likely intentionally), the author suffers from one major oversight:

The absence of labels is just as much of a marketing gimmick as their presence. Even anti-identitarianism will be weaponized. Even nothing is something. Eliminate all the labels and concepts and redundancies, and you are yet left with a "natural, unspoken, normal default" state of being.

And as it turns out, there are plenty of forces out there willing to exploit that appeal towards the "the unspoken", for either financial or political gain. The question remains, then: who or what gets to determine this unspoken part of life?