I would not hold myself up to anything honourable over that, bowl.
I knew I was trans from primary school days and was aware as soon as I started seeing doctors that this was too deep rooted to involve someone else. I could see my family struggling as it was, because in the 1960s there was no public awareness at all like now to even have a point of view.
One of the doctors suggested that I should just be gay and I thought about it, when I met a boy I really liked. I was asked to help him with his O levels in a subject I was good at. I had a few sleepless nights wondering what to do. But concluded that I had no problem with him being gay, if he was. I just knew I wasn't gay myself.
At that moment I knew that this was always going to create difficulties for anybody I had a relationship with so that I would have to determine my own future first as the only fair way to anyone else.
It was not a moral thing, really. I doubt at that age any of us have that degree of morality in us. It was simply that being trans was so overwhelming that no relationship that was fair to both of us could happen until it was resolved.
I told him the truth and he was actually very nice about it - though I doubt he understood what I was saying and probably thought I was gay. The natural default position then.
So really I fell onto this moral choice by accident, but am really glad I did, because later on I could see how terrible it would have been to inflict something this intractable onto anybody else.
I can see why others might have thought differently. It was common then for doctors to just tell you to 'man up' and you see a similar feeling on threads on here - just be who you are, accept biology, live your life. And they might well think the best cure would be to have a 'normal' relationship and have a family and hope it works.
This is why I am not as opposed to children being assessed and helped to transition. I do believe nothing dramatic should be done unless they have persisted in the insistence of their dysphoria for years and no cross sex hormones or surgery until adults should not change from now.
But if we can focus on the kids who really di have dysphoria by finding a test, if there is one to be found, that is definitive, otherwise erring on the side of caution, and letting them be free to explore and change their minds without feeling pressurised to make long term choices impossibly early, then I think it is important.
Because if we can stop any trans child trying to marry and father their way out of dysphoria we save not just that child but potentially several others being innocently drawn into their inevitably difficult future.
Self ID has some merit for me in that regard because it gives chance to experiment and not irrevocably act first and regret later.
My concern over self ID is not it happening. But its acceptance as a path to legal gender change.
That may be the outcome of self ID later on, but it might not. So I see it as a trial run and that if the person feels it works for them that it could be a stepping stone to full time transition via the proper checks and balances of the GRA.
But it should not just be a replacement for the GRA as it minimises the importance of the journey to full transition - which should be hard fought and hard thought out and not just last as long as filling out a form.