I do think there are people out there who genuinely, deeply feel they've born into the wrong body and those people need care and support.
At the same time, it's become a fashion trend atm. Instead of breaking down the barriers that hold people back, this generation is building more boxes to put people in. If a girl likes wearing jeans, having short hair and playing with cars she must be a boy because they are 'boy things'. We've taken a massive step backwards. It's damaging to women, men and genuine transsexuals.
I have no problem with using whatever name or pronoun someone prefers. It causes zero harm to me but things are starting to go too far now. A transitioning man, is not, in a care setting, a woman as per an existing thread on MN. They're just not. They may be genuine and if so they deserve care, support and understanding but at the same time the teenage DD in question needs care and support. The carer's rights do not trump the rights of the child.
A man in prison who suddenly decides they want to be a woman also needs some kind of help. Let's face it mentally healthy men do not decide to identify as women for any reason. What they don't need is to be moved to women's prison. They're not women. They might look like a woman, they may even feel like a woman and they have the right to look and feel however the fuck they please without discrimination but imprisoned women also have rights. They have the right to feel and be safe.
As far a kids go, I believe there's a fair bit of brainwashing going on either intentionally or accidentally on the part of parents these days (not in all cases but in most of them particularly with younger children). Parents who are keen to be progressive and accepting, as admirable as they are, are doing their children a massive disservice by blindly accepting the child is suffering gender dysphoria and/or inadvertently pushing the child towards becoming transgender in their quest to be accepting.
My child isn't straight 'gender normal' and I also give zero fucks about that. She's a child, she's way too young to be thinking about sex but who she plays relationships with, kisses, holds hands with etc does not matter as long as they treat her with respect and she is happy. Ditto what she wears. She wants to class herself as a gender fluid pans-sexual, so fucking what? If she's happy, she's happy.
At the moment she's happy to keep using her female name and female pronouns. If she changes her mind, so be it. I'll play along. She may or not grow out of this, again I give zero fucks as long as she is happy.
If she asked the school to use a male name (as her boyfriend recently has) I'd play along. I would not be happy with her doing boys PE or changing in the boys changing room. If she asked for that, I'd be seeking help for her because she is not a boy.
If she came to me and told me she feels she needs a male body, I'd be seeking support for her not sticking a pair of boxers on her and telling her she is now a man.
When she tells me people call her a lesbian, I tell her she is a lesbian. Her boyfriend has a vagina. Regardless of what pronouns he uses or how he dresses he his biologically female and to date has no intention of acquiring a penis or starting gender reassignment hormones. Therefore, he is female, they are in a lesbian relationship. I don't stand there jumping up and down and shouting lesbian at her or anything but I don't accept that she is not in a lesbian relationship. She is.
To my mind, she is also gender normal. She likes doing her make-up and hair. She hates dresses and pink and glitter. That to my mind, makes her a normal woman, not gender fluid. She's not a girl when she's sat in front of her mirror doing her make-up and then a man when she pulls on a man's t-shirt and jeans. She's a girl who prefers typically male fashion. I hate that she's making all these boxes to put herself in to explain why she likes what she likes instead of saying, "Hey, I'm a girl and I like these things and that's okay."
As far as post-op transsexuals go, they are closer to their chosen gender than the gender they were born with. They should have the right to live as their chosen sex.
A post-op MtF belongs in women's prison (if they commit a crime, of course) and they should use the women's loos and changing rooms (sports is a separate, muddier issue). Those who choose to live as a woman but retain their penis deserve to be treat as they wanted to be to a certain extent but as they still have functioning penis' they need to accept that there will be limitations on how far they can live as a woman.
Although, I'll be honest, the loos issue has always confused me. There are cubicles, does it really matter? Unless there are security guarding the doors, a man dressed as a man can fairly easily access a women's toilet if they want to be predatory. Ditto changing rooms (with the exception of communal changing areas with no cubicles)