I don't really find it that funny. I don't think the correct response to everyone being upset by this (from many different angles) is to stand back from it and laugh at it.

Some people feel that wokeness is ruining the world. I can't really speak to that position because my political initialization was on the other side of the cultural gulf in America.

The way I have come to understand transgender issues is very much shaped by the political left, but also by a religious upbringing (Catholic, Jesuit). On the left, I am told that this is a human rights issue. I am inclined to believe that transgender people have a hard time in life. I am also inclined to believe that it is not a mental disorder, and I came to these conclusions through conversations with transgender people I have worked with in the past, as well as through what I learned in my psychology classes in high school and college.

I am a white male who was born that way, but I definitely know what it feels like to be ridiculed, to not belong and to feel that there is no right place for me in this world. I have been abused, made to feel small, ostracized and bullied. Those experiences have given me a pretty deep understanding of what suffering is, and how it can be caused. It has also softened me and made me pretty empathetic to others who feel they don't belong in this world.

As an example, I was once at a comedy show where a comedian made a transgender-adjacent joke. The humor of the joke was all in a stupid pun, and I thought it was pretty funny because I like stupid puns. But there was a transgender woman in the audience who got immediately angry. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of "That's not funny, I'm sick of people like you shouting at me in the street!!". If I had to go though my life having people shouting at me in the streets of NYC because of how I looked vs how other people thought I should look, I may have responded in the same way. I thought the joke was funny, but for her it touched on some deeply painful memories of abuse, dragged them to the surface, and activated a lightning-quick temper. Perhaps if I'd been abused for as long as she, and in the same way, I wouldn't have thought the joke was funny either.

I understand people don't like being corrected, or told that they're wrong or that they're hateful. I don't think that is a productive way to bring about change; and yet, I have found myself picking fights with my parents, and getting generally nasty when they have failed to understand some value I have learned that I did not learn from them. That is obviously a bad thing, because the message they come away with is "what a jerk!" or "those damn lefties!". What I'd rather have people come away with after they hear me speak is something quite different. It was only after raging at my parents enough times that I decided I just wouldn't talk to my parents about politics. There is more right about my parents than there is wrong about them; they are getting older and their bodies will decline until they die. Most likely it will happen to them before it happens to me, at a time when I am able in body and mind, so I intend (even though I sometimes fail) to spend the rest of our time together as peacefully as possible.

I offer this earnestly in good faith. Sometimes the message gets muddied in the delivery, or because I get upset when I perceive (or sometimes, misperceive) that someone is being uncaring for those who are already suffering enough. I think I react that way because of my own history of abuse.

I am also open to hearing the other side of this story. I have attempted not to misrepresent $OTHER_SIDE's view of things. I am only speaking to why I have such strong feelings about this issue. I am sure others have equally strong feelings on another side, and I am open to hearing what that sounds like, provided the viewpoint is offered with respect.