Sophia Burns
1 min readJun 18, 2021

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I'm so sorry you've been through so much pain and rejection. For what it's worth, I can empathize - even before I transitioned, being gender nonconforming and openly queer in high school was horrible, and some of that pain still exists for me even all these years later. I felt like I had to take that pain and turn it into a drive to eradicate prejudice from the world, but when I tried to do that on social media I just ended up seeking out people who were also looking for a fight and ending up in shouting matches. And in that setting, everyone takes up the most extreme, hostile position they can, just to stick it to the other person. It's terrible, but that's what the format encourages. And by being part of that cycle, I wasn't making the world better, but I was making my own life worse.

I feel like Aria is right. Disengaging from social media was a really healthy decision for me, and even though the culture is changing way, way too slowly, at least in real life it is changing. Things are easier now than they were a decade ago, and while that doesn't make the suffering you've been through OK, I think it does mean that you can give yourself permission to step away from those fights whenever you're in a position where you can. The most important thing is your well-being, you know?

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Sophia Burns
Sophia Burns

Written by Sophia Burns

Paganism, Buddhism, Classics, philosophy, LGBTQ culture, and the art of living well. Former activist; I don’t trust culture war. http://patreon.com/sophiaburns

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