There is a limit to what people are able to understand without direct lived experience though. I agree that we shouldn’t shy away from educating people — in saying that, I hold my experience as a cis person who learned about gender by being in community with trans people close to my heart. However, although I can “simulate” gender dysphoria by imagining how I would feel if living as a man (something I have reflected on a couple of times due to experiencing misogyny as a woman in science), it can’t give me the perspective of someone who had grown up experiencing it, for example.

I think there’s a balance to be struck, where we can educate and explain things to people, but we must also not expect that this will always be possible. It’s okay to sometimes shrug and say “I don’t get it, but I don’t need to”. Through understanding and internalising this, we can leverage the power of relevant situated perspectives.

To give an analogy, most of my scientific expertise is in biochemistry, and I don’t know tons about most topics in climate science. Having a background in the sciences means that I’m probably more able to quickly parse the scientific literature than most interested laypeople, but this barely scratches the surface on some incredibly complex topics. However, it’s not necessary for me to understand all of this in order for me to be able to understand where my expertise fits into the big picture (and when I would be wise to take a step back and yield the stage to someone who knows more than me)