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if you've ever watched a movie with your film buff friend and chatted about it afterwards, that friend might have pulled hours more of conversation out of the same 90 minutes of screentime, and wondered how the fuck they did that - it's not raw intelligence, it's a skill that's been honed. And I learned a lot about film from talking to friends who knew about film, and reading critique by film scholars

literature works exactly the same. so if you want to get more out of your reading, there are things you can do to train that. Find a book or short story you think you've got a pretty good grasp on, preferably from a widely read & respected author like Ursula K Le Guin or Ray Bradbury (if you're new at this don't swing for the Toni Morrison or the Samuel Beckett yet unless you feel very comfortable with the complexity of the text - the point is to develop a complicated new skill on good foundations). Then go to JSTOR, create a free account, and look up criticism on the story you've chosen. Find something that looks readable to you and at least somewhat interesting. Read that article, and look at what that writer got out of the same story you've read that you didn't get. Do you see the critic's points? Did they teach you something about the text? Go reread that story and see if the criticism has changed how you read it. Are you seeing more? Are you thinking about the implications of a line that you hadn't noticed before? Does the story feel richer now?

you don't have to read more deeply if you don't want to (but i'd recommend it, i genuinely think it makes you a better person)

if you want to learn to read more deeply, the resources are out there. try to find critical literature (that is, academic writing that analyzes the text) on works your familiar with so you can get a sense for how to do that analysis too

learning to deep read literature can help you deep read many areas of your life

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Plenty of transphobic cis folks are green. Virtually every trans-positivity account is red except for the ones who are unapologetically transphobic to at least part of the community. Countless trans women who vocally uses the term transandrophobia are marked red. Several trans women who dont even use the term but have at least on one occasion defended or sympathized with trans men are red. Several trans women who are bigender/NB/Etc with inclusion of any "male" or masc terms are red regardless of whether they seem to have anything to say about trans men.

It is BLEAK. I've been trying to remove reds and greens as I assess, but it is really really gross that it was a pretty well-known soft rule a decade plus ago that you didn't mark trans people red at all even if they were shitheads, unless they were actual proud terfs, because the flagging was guaranteed to isolate them from community.

Inability to assess risk and a total aversion to narratives that contradict what you assume to be the case for others is getting people into a lot of trouble.

and everyone is posting their 4th of july manis

except this year its very few american flags and red white and blue and stars.

and a LOT of pond scum inspiration