that just goes to show why attempting to ‘change sex’ is so futile and bound to fail and why post-transition suicide stats are so much higher; you cannot change reality, you can only learn to accept and deal with it.
Yes. I had a light bulb moment when I read something that @Qcng posted on another thread.
When it comes down to it, they are entirely dependent on the opinion of strangers to prop up their entire sense of self.
Now that I've realised that, I'm noticing that nearly every description about being transgender centres around how people are treated by others, and almost never about an internal sense of self. So people who are talking about being their 'authentic self' are doing nothing of the sort. They are trying to make the world see them as something they are not and treat them accordingly. It's all about how society treats them and absolutely nothing to do with their own internal identity which is not dependent on external validation.