ngl most movements that have “positive” in their name come from a good place but what we should always want is “neutral”. Sex positivity might if taken to the extreme not be able to encapsulate Problems like sexually transmitted diseases for example, or the detrimental effects that porn addiction might have. The problem is people seem to mistakenly think that having a neutral analysis means having a neutral outcome, which is how you get stupid people like centrists.

Honestly, I think the positivity movements are a great example of what I hate about aesthetic leftism, because it's such a safe and easy position to have, regardless of either its validity or helpfulness for the peoples lives who are at stake.

E.g. body positivity, while having a great underlying sentiment often just ends up being a subtle way to deny lookism, and leaves the bodypositive person able to completely deflect any criticism that e.g. being unpassing has any negative influence on your life. I think such a notion is quite transphobic in fact, because it denies the fact that many people that don't pass struggle immensely, and even if that feels arbitrary or unfair or just made up, it's still a made up system that people live under, conventionally attractive might not make sense to these people, but it still can literally mean life or death, it can be the guiding hand of oppression.

That is NOT to say that I think there is anything wrong with not passing, I think not passing is cool, even more so if it's a deliberate thing, but I feel it is wrong to tell someone that clearly doesn't pass and is fully aware of the fact that they do, or diminishing the consequences of that. Most of the time, people just do that because they feel it is gonna be an uncomfortable situation, and I do sympathize with them because in some way it is also a bit rude to ask cis people that question, but at the same time, they do somewhat deserve that uncomfortable question because it's one many trans people have to exist with.

I guess I'm just trying to say that the sentiment behind positivity movements are mostly healthy, but when they become dogmatic they become toxic, toxic positivity.

When the “positive” person says “that it's gonna be alright, it's not that bad” and so on, what they are really saying is “Your life might be shit because of actions that made my life easier but look on the bright side, I can avoid acknowledging that by making that a personal flaw you have, thus not only benifiting from the thing that started the problem, but also perpetuating it and not even acknowledging your real pain.”

That's not to say that we should all be doomers, we really shouldn't, but the solution is not to pretend that everything is alright, the solution is to acknowledge what is wrong and seek to change it. Being stoked about something awful makes you awful.