It's also not the case about the surgery - I'm surprised you didn't know that over 90 percent dont physically transition, because that is usually the trump card of "see , they just want to steal our rights).
I do know the % of trans people who have surgery is low. I still think it's something to be avoided where possible especially when young. I really don't like the current media trend to celebrate TM mastectomy scars as an edgy and progressive shorthand for LBGT inclusion because it glamourises what is actually significant and radical surgery. (Like most older women I have friends and relations who have had masectomies).
The problem is that people who support trans people and their rights cannot win. We just can't. Everything we say is twisted, reworded, and countered. Your post is actually a thoughtful one, and I find myself agreeing with certain parts, but the sides are so divided now there will never be a compromise.
There can, but the compromise has to involve recognising that there are limits to how far transition can bring one into the realm of the opposite sex and to go beyond those limits, especially for MTF, even if done by a nice and respectful person, is to pass from inclusion and tolerance into appropriation and dominance.
I genuinely think the right answer is separate words for the separate things. Both are real, or at least feelings real enough to be worth naming, and they are clearly not the same thing so why not name both separately and start exploring gender identity in its own right rather than a sort-of-but-isnt cousin to sex?
But it isn't the TRA's asking you to use pronouns in an email, is it? I don't use batshit feminists in arguments so why do you always jump to TRA's?
Actually I do it out of respect for trans people, because I don't want to accuse them en masse of the TRA batshit. However, unfortunately as long as the dominant voices telling society what trans people must have are those of TRAs, that's the arguments we who push back need to engage with.
Why is a human being in an office who wants to be referred to as she rather than he copping for all of this?
Sadly, because she wants to use a word that has significant meaning to other people. I'm sure she means no harm but she is causing harm because she is not an island and whether she admits it to herself or not she is taking part in a social change that hurts women.
In real life yes, I'll probably smile and be polite but I can tell you that smile will be exactly the same one I need when I have to listen to a sexist comment or joke, or get talked over by a man saying what I just said.
You know the smile I am sure. It's the one that says "I do not do this by choice but because society has taken away my right to say no. I know this not fair and but if I say anything about it or even look unhappy about it it will be turned into my problem and it will be painted as my unreasonable reaction to a tiny little thing, because women's right to be angry about men's treatment of them is less than men's right to not be made uncomfortable by women".