Thoughts on the new Patch (Patreon)
Content
Alright, as soon as Bloodfiremage showed me the content of the new patch I told myself "Ok, I'm going to shut up, I'm not going to lose money over his again.", turns out... I can't. I can't shut up about stuff I think are potentially dangerous in a game played for the large part by kids, and only promoted to make money in a mindless propaganda to "support minorities".
I support the minority I want to support which is the one I belong to.
I picked some screens because there is nothing better than actually showing instead of wasting too many words on it, but don't take my word for granted, go and see for yourself if you're really interested, and formulate your own opinion with your own head. Just please be respectful, don't put ideologies above people. This isn't about proving who is right or wrong, it's about showing the other side of the coin, one that often activists don't want to see and don't want others to see.
Now, if you're interested in hearing my story here it comes:
First of all I don't regret the therapy, in many ways it was a journey I had to do and a transformation I needed to make.
I've known my idea of myself didn't match my biological body since I was 3yo, it wasn't a problem for me until the beginning of adolescence when society started to expect me to grow out being a tomboy and start behaving like a female. The distress brought me to isolate myself from friends and family, but back then proposing the HRT to children wasn't a thing, and my family was (luckily) skeptical about it anyway. I started considering going on T only in my twenties, after a dramatic failure in conforming to the female gender role that was expected from me that brought me to an emotional breakdown. A therapist suggested me that it was the only way to fix my problem, I believed it and started taking testosterone.
Nothing changed. Nothing changed because on a social level, I wasn't socialized to be a man, I was still an outcast with women and men. On a personal level, changing my body didn't really matter to me, I only did it for the sake of being seen the way I see myself.
What I really wanted was to go back to the freedom to be what I wanted to be I had experienced during my childhood when my behavior and way to dress was at least tolerated without asking sacrifices from me.
Changing my body was a sacrifice I was making for the sake of society, I realized this when doctors started asking me to proceed with the surgery, concerned about the long term effects high levels of testosterone have on the female body (which include cancer), so I dropped the therapy and decided to seek for an answer inside and not in the outside world.
After going on and off hormones for a couple of times, I found that answer that was: I'm myself regardless of what society thinks and I'm not going to mutilate my body, be a slave of a therapy my whole life, and potentially causing myself health issues, for anyone. I still behave, dress, and see myself as a male, nothing ever changed but my point of view.
But I was an adult, I was capable to take decisions for myself and see the long term consequences of what I was getting into as I was capable to separate myself from society and be confident on who I am without heavily relying on external validation. Children and especially teenagers aren't capable of doing this, during adolescence especially, external validation plays a huge role in affirming your identity, For this reason I think what was officially added into The Sims by the last patch is dangerous. For this reason I think promoting the HRT as the only solution to teenagers is dangerous.
And I know Maxis doesn't care because they only care about supporting the "minorities" as long as it brings them money without critical thinking involved.
Thanks for reading this wall of text.