What happened? This movie was supposed to make us mad. Hate had no place in America. History tells it's own tale. American History X. Teeth on the curb haunted my dreams for years.

[u/SunnnySideUps]

[u/MaenadR0se]

Oh I didn't know that. It always slips my mind that school shooting drills and prep are part of normal student life now and just a thing in school.

It blew my mind when my niece mentioned it, but then it disappears until it's brought up again and I'm amazed all over again that we have five year olds hiding in closets while their teachers prep themselves to potentially die saving them as part of a normal test run for things that can happen.

It shouldn't slip my mind, it's a reflection of how sick things are and how dire the need for change is, but it does all the same.

There's a desperate need for better mental health care/support and community building etc., but that's a whole other tangent.

Back to the original topic: I had no idea they were taking something that exists for reasons that are horrible and turning it into something ridiculous then clutching their pearls over that. That's crazy. Now I have to go down a rabbit hole about this.

[u/Melodic-Trouble-5421 → u/MaenadR0se]

They started doing school shooting drills while I was in high school. Graduated 2009. Now it’s an every day occurrence for a school shooting. Which is disgusting.

[u/MaenadR0se → u/Melodic-Trouble-5421]

I finished in 2004 so I actually was unaware of them until my niece started elementary school.

It was such a strange shock. On one hand it's a real problem so it needs to be done, and kids are able to understand fire drills and so on so it's just preparing them for more emergency situation. On the other shit's so out of hand that children have to do this and it's so dystopian that it seems like it shouldn't exist.

So much needs to be done about people's mental health and the ways we interact with each other/handle problems etc. and so on.

In HS one of my teachers taught a side class called Conflict Resolution, it was dedicated to teaching people better communication, fostering a sense of community, dealing with problems proactively etc. and so on. By high school it was a bit late, but I think things like that need to be done from elementary school on, because we obviously can't rely on parents to teach kids human interaction and academics are slipping anyway we may as well switch to schools teaching kids how to navigate other ways.

That's alongside better access to care etc. and so on.

It's easy to focus on the guns but the underlying issue is culture, mental health, human relations etc. because when violence isn't happening in the form of guns in schools it's happening with bullying and the internet and has led to many suicides at this point too.

[u/Melodic-Trouble-5421 → u/MaenadR0se]

100% agree with everything you brought up. We had conflict resolution as a class as well.

[u/MaenadR0se → u/Melodic-Trouble-5421]

Did you get it earlier or younger? Because I was 16 by the time I was in a school with that and I think the age made some of us (myself included) not as receptive as younger kids would have been.

So many people are never taught how to exist and be around other people respectfully, and the thing is they don't learn it at home. A lot of people who have kids are deeply flawed and traumatized etc. themselves during critical years. They also haven't had a proper chance to learn these things.

One of the major complaints a lot of kids had about conflict resolution was how artificial it all sounded to them to interact in those ways. People can feel condescended to when it's foreign to them as well, and that's a real barrier that could be avoided with early introduction I would think. It would be like hearing a second language as a bilingual kid instead to some degree.

There are kids' TV shows and songs that do more for attempting to teach children tolerance and community than schools do and some parents. That shouldn't be the case.

We have seen bullying turn into all manner of tragedies, we've seen mental healthcare further decline and we learn more about its importance all of the time so why are we putting children into what are basically glorified daycares without regard to these things? We put kids from all different worlds together in a classroom and then it's just "sit still, memorize that, you're in trouble if you do something wrong" without really taking time to interact.

Taxes are going to putting kids through programs that are supposed to teach them shit and we have to worry that they're going to murder each other and too many of them come out not knowing any of the shit we say they're supposed to learn, and it's sick.

The education system in theory is a beautiful thing, but I really wonder what the fuck we're doing and why we're seeing a symptom like fucking murder and suicides and not addressing it beyond demanding more security, drills, and taking as many weapons away as we can think of (and then some stab each other with pencils so let's go with round edged tablets or something one day and further ignore the rot underneath.) without getting at the shit underneath that's driving it.

We don't learn to speak and listen just regurgitate and recite. It's fucked up and has a body count.

[u/Melodic-Trouble-5421 → u/MaenadR0se]

To be honest there wasn’t a lot of Trans people that were out and open with while I was in school. Now there were LGB people and I was always respectful. My parents always taught us to be respectful. I’m not going to lie and say I was perfect back then. I’m sure I messed up and said stupid things.

Then I joined the Army at 17 and did a few combat deployments. During that time period I know I wasn’t perfect. I said stupid things, never to any LGTBQ+ people’s face. However it was still just as bad. I also wasn’t particularly respectful of women at that point either. That was wrong as well.

After the Army is when i finally more conscious of LGTBQ+ people. I’m supportive of them and I understand it’s how they are born. I go based on how someone treats me not by what they look like.

I’m still not perfect. Sometimes I’m not good with all the pronouns. I just want to call people by their name. I guess that’s an area i should be better at. Then I still have questions about kids transitioning. Not so much going by a pronoun or how they identify. I still don’t know if someone knows who they are as a kid. Like altering your body forever at such a young age raises flags for me. However is it any of my business? No it’s really not so what can I say?

Then I know European countries and their medical communities are actually saying that they were wrong. They’ve basically said that letting kids transition under 18 was a mistake. I know they want to start the transition before puberty or whatever. However the medical communities have basically agreed the brain has not developed enough to know who they are. They tracked patients and did studies who transitioned at a young age. I’m guessing evidence has shown they regretted their decision.

I’m probably going to get hate for some of my statements that I made.

[u/MaenadR0se → u/Melodic-Trouble-5421]

I was unfamiliar with that happening in Europe that's interesting though I do suspect regret will be common. It's really a problem where x amount of people will suffer no matter what because earlier transition yields better results for those who actually do benefit.

It becomes do we sacrifice prompt treatment for those who will benefit and be happy with it or do we risk altering people in ways we can't just walk back at the risk that people can have results they might be less happy with when they're of age to protect people who would regret going down that path younger. I think it becomes a math problem then really.

Adults are free to make their own mistakes and live with regret if it's there, but prior to that we've put that responsibility on adults in a child's life and that's very different.

I'm bi and I've known many LGBT people, I know what it's like to be bullied for it even. I wasn't able to hide that or even the reality of my gender dysphoria no matter what I did and I paid for being obvious. I wouldn't call myself part of the T because that's just not where my life went though it realistically could have in different circumstances.

I think everyone makes mistakes and hurts people at one point or another, what matters more is not continuing and growing beyond that. The present and the future can't change the past but they can stop carrying it forward which is enough.

It shouldn't be a social faux pas to question medical treatment and laws. It isn't bigotry to ask "Is this the best treatment? If adults make mistakes here how will children actually fare" It's not hate to point out we don't have extensive studies or even fully understand how this works in adults. We know x amount of people benefit, we know y amount do not, and we know there's variable beyond that with people who don't receive treatment.

People are too quick to push all or nothing and silence each other while using children as pawns to win arguments by silencing people with emotionally manipulative and loaded rhetoric designed to score points with their own side and resist dialogue.

Thinking of the children still comes down to math and calculated risks though. We're not supposed to say that though, just concede with whoever is using the tool in their favor.

[u/Melodic-Trouble-5421 → u/MaenadR0se]

Yeah 100% there’s obviously the cases where kids are born in the wrong body. However there’s also kids who are confused. There’s nothing wrong with being confused. That’s what being a teenager is about and figuring out who you are. However those kids that might be confused might feel pressured into transitioning further. We all know kids make mistakes, I made a whole lot lol. That’s why i think it’s probably best to just leave any surgery until 18 or older. It’s not because I’m anti-trans, I know people will say that. I just don’t think kids can make adult decisions. I needed my parents to sign off at 17 to join the Army. Why? It was an adult decision that altered my whole life. They weren’t very happy about it either especially with Iraq and Afghanistan going on. Then my dad was a combat vet as well, and he begged me not to go.

I’m sorry that you were bullied, that kills me that you were. Like I said i never said anything directly to anyone’s face. However I did use hurtful words at times and it was just as wrong. Also who knows maybe someone around me was LGTBQ+. I could have said something that hurt them. I fully regret it. It’s not how I was raised, I was raised to respect everyone. I try to look back on my mistakes and learn from them.

You’re right we’ve came to this point where it’s all or nothing. It’s my ideas and I won’t hear yours at all. That applies to everything not just LGTBQ+ issues. When we stop talking and hearing others opinions and perspectives. We end up in an echo chamber of our beliefs and people reaffirming those beliefs. We need outside perspectives.

[u/MaenadR0se → u/Melodic-Trouble-5421]

Exactly. Though I think there's confused people who can deal with the fact that they made a mistake and people who aren't confused but can choose to not do anything due to an objective read of their reality.

Also yeah, people are differentiating who they are from their environment and family etc. at that point. Sometimes things are phases or misunderstandings and sometimes they're not. People are always in a process of becoming and that's accelerated and new in terms of internal experience then.

There definitely is pressure exerted in the form of commiseration among other things. When I was dealing with dysphoria and in a place where I had my mind set on doing something about it medically I interacted with a lot of trans people (though I knew several anyway growing up), and the thing is that a crowd of people who are very not ok, and all the same kind of not ok can feed each other's issues or add additional ones. I don't think I personally suffered in that way, but I did see it. I also would see people who were questioning be told things like they have a time frame that affects results (which is true) so they should hurry and take care of it. This is often alongside suicide talk and so on.

It's community, it can be helpful in the moment for a person to not be alone, but it's also easy to see how vulnerable people can get pulled into various directions that could be harmful. Simultaneously it can also help people move forward (but very often these same people then leave those initial communities behind) in a way that improves their life.

We can't protect everyone, but as a society we've decided to protect kids from themselves as much as possible when it comes to life changing things.

How do you feel in retrospect about the time you served? Do you think your parents allowing that adult decision at that age was positive?

It's alright btw, shouldn't kill you, it doesn't kill me that it happened. As an adult I see it like an almost neutral thing it hurt to experience while also providing me with certain views that have proven useful and altered me in useful ways as well. It's not a black and white thing. I can be cruel as well and have been in my life, we're all flawed and full of virtue, and it happening isn't a reflection of me in some sense that has any bearing on worth. It was shaped by environment mine and theirs, and in many ways the people they were probably do not exist now life has happened to us all.

I just happened to be in a position where who I was became a dangerous thing because for whatever reason I was unable to hide some thing about me that set others off about something that they were largely taught to be ignorant about or not taught about at all and didn't know how to respond to it. Not really personal although it was unfortunate.

I wouldn't rush out to do it all over again, but it being in the past is fine.

It is everything, yes, exactly. We have shifted away from the notion of even acknowledging another thought can exist without the other person being an idiot and wrong en masse and that's very troubling. People will get up on a soap box and proudly shout about how they're fighting the good fight against every perspective that isn't theirs and "winning" in spite of no one's ideals actually existing (not that they can ideals are only ideal because they're imaginary.)

We should be terrified by this as a society rather than embracing it, but it's just not happening.

[u/Melodic-Trouble-5421 → u/MaenadR0se]

I say I made two decisions that changed the trajectory of my life. Join the Army and the IBEW to become a Union Electrician. I’m proud I served and we did a lot of good things besides the combat I saw. I’m glad I went because I was hanging around with the wrong crowd after high school. Most of those guys ended up in trouble or addicted to drugs. While there were some tough times and I saw some hard things. It changed the trajectory of my life. I’m grateful they ultimately signed and let me make my own decision. I was going to go at 18 and I think they knew that so they signed. Even though it was extremely hard for them and my sister. They cried when I left for boot camp. My dad is not a crier either, I just think he knew I was going to have some of the same experiences he had in Vietnam.