Wow, 26 pages long now! You've been busy!! ANd I have some reading to do.... sorry if the discussion has moved on!
Just read this:
Ive been online in communities since 1997 and started to meet people in 1998. Over the years I've met hundreds of people through the Internet, including my husband.
And whilst it's fun and exciting and fills a void, it isn't a substitute for real life contact with people.
I think I first experienced an internet forum in 2002, also quite early. It was surreal. There were about 30 of us and everyone had a made up ID identity and we had these crazy discussions. We were all caught up in a bubble; it was so heady! I remember having this weird feeling that we were at the very centre of life and the whole world was listening in and chuckling along. We had a real microcosm of society, trolls and scientists and evil people and jokesters and mums who pretended to be sexy flirts and what have you. It was so far removed from real life as you could get -- but it felt so, so real and important. But it was nonsense, and fake.
I often get the feeling that the TRAs believe that the entire world is listening in and going along with them -- while in reality hardly anybody cares, and will only wake up when that 6ft bearded man barges into their changing room when they're in their bra and knickers, and says he's a woman too.