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The thing is being a victim if a self-fulfilling prophecy. You have no idea what it's like to be another person. But if you are told that "people like you" will find it harder and will be the victim of more hardship then you will naturally attribute any hardship whatsoever to that fact.

The truth is that everyone has their own problems and hardship. Yes, even white men. If we really want to look at which group of people have, statistically, the hardest lives then we'd start by looking at suicide rates.

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> The thing is being a victim if a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don't agree. I think it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But the only way it could always be one would be if everyone single person's life contained an equal amount of good and bad. But life's not like that and some people get unlucky hands at the start of their lives and during their lives. Some much worse than others [1].

Also, note that in the notion of 'victim' I'm using here, being a victim of something has nothing to do with how you respond to that. It doesn't mean you have to act all victimised all the time and let it consume you.

[1] regarding "The truth is that everyone has their own problems and hardship. Yes, even white men", I think that statement is too vague. It comes across like it's saying since everyone faces problems/hardship then no-one has it worse than anyone else. Regarding the second sentence of that, I definitely agree that white men, and even straight white men, can face terrible problems and hardship. I really wish we, as a society, could recognise statistical points about certain groups statistically facing greater levels of certain hardships without also treating this as meaning therefore all members of the other groups always have it better.

That's not entirely true. Philando Castile, for instance, would not have been helped out by simply believing he was not a victim. In situations like job interviews and office experiences, it's certainly optimal on an individual level to expect (pretend?) that you'll be treated fairly -- it helps you carry yourself with confidence and increases the chances that you will be treated fairly. But it's irresponsible to put all your chips on just believing that you won't be treated unfairly.

For instance, I was recently confronted with an upcoming medical procedure in which 90% of patients in the US are treated with what I believe (and the evidence supports) is a riskier procedure than necessary, with longer recovery times. Simply believing I wouldn't be treated that way would be foolish -- it's hospital policy most places! So I did the work to find a place where I could be treated in the way I wanted, according to evidence-based guidelines. That was not trivial.

Looking at suicide rates is really interesting, although one should look more broadly at life expectancy. (Suicide rates do after all have a paradoxical relationship with some kinds of danger, like war.) Life expectancy for US men has decreased for the first time in recorded history outside of times of war, and it's almost solely due to drug overdose ("accident" in the data). The data tells some very interesting stories; when I find the study I'll add a link here. Anyhow, Native Americans win the "hardest lives" award by miles if we look at suicide or life expectancy, but white men have recently moved up in the standings, which might explain some of the current zeitgeist.

I think this whole claiming that being a victim as a self-fulfilling prophecy is flawed. It's hard to say a trans woman who's been murdered or raped had it coming. Or to say that an effeminate gay man is responsible for the actions of those who assaulted him.

I know that might not be what you mean but that is what violent perpetrators will use when it comes to court. They'll argue they panicked or that they felt an overriding urge to murder as if they went insane. This has been the common defense tactic used in criminal cases under the gay/trans panic defense. I don't know of a case where it's been entirely successful but it has mitigated sentences. So I think I'd rather have to deal with people perceiving themselves as victims but are not truly such than deal with mountains of corpses of true victims of our inherently violent cultures.

>I don't know of a case where it's been entirely successful but it has mitigated sentences.

If true this is remarkable...disturbingly so. Can you cite some cases where this has happened?

Wikipedia has some cases where the defense was used, but it's hard to ascribed the cases where there was a conviction on a lesser charge (or sentencing decisions) specifically to the use of the defense.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_panic_defense

Seems that rational action to that defense tactic is to not allow it. Given the usually high bar for insanity pleads, the gay/trans panic defense is lowest form I have ever heard.

There were recently a case here in Sweden where a psychiatric patient had gone out of his meds, tried to get himself committed but got denied because there were no beds available, and then decided to commit suicide and brought his new born baby to a ledge. He throw the baby over, but then backed out on committing suicide himself and got charge with attempted murder (the baby survived). The court decided that while the episode was part of a psychiatric breakdown, it was not enough for a insanity plead.

If a person with no psychiatric problems can claim insanity when assaulting a gay or trans person, then thats seems like a extremely poor excuse.

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