To be honest, I don't know. I'm a skeptical scientific type (who struggles with their very pagan hippy dippy beliefs as a result haha) who says twaw, tmam, enbies and gender queer folks are valid. It doesn't mean I deny biology.
13 years ish ago I had a fling with a woman who was born a man and fully transitioned. So to me, I was up close and personal to her, minus clothes, it's amazing what can be done by clever and skilled surgeons. To me, she was she, she only missed ovaries and a uterus which can't be seen from the outside anyway.
Twenty years ago I dated a guy who was on the fence with his gender identity but who wore a lot of feminine skirts and tight tops (I'll never not find that a little hot, I think, he really rocked his outfits) and at that stage at least, yes, under the pants his biology screamed dude.
But there genuinely is a very bizarre but scientifically journalled spectrum of sexual biology. And it's something I wish they'd taught us at school. I wish I could link people to the information. Someone made a long meme out of it but I read history at uni and I'm a stickler for my journals and papers.
I think what I'm trying to say is that I just want everyone to somehow get onto the same page where by everyone from the fiercest of GC folks to the fiercest trans advocates is actually able to hold conversations about the whole subject, but also actually make progress towards outcomes which treat all parties equally, respect everyone's rights, and this does mean being able to accept that there will always be trans and gender queer people, there always have been.
It's just not every GC person has the same goals in mind, and some are just so very vile and intolerant of folks like me even existing - and a lot of my most cared about friends are some of the louder trans advocates who simply won't take no for an answer anymore. I genuinely understand where some people's issues with trans people in women's spaces comes from - a friend of mine started going down the GC route and came back, but still has her reservations and reasoning. It's she who explained to me why it's such a genuine problem for some women (this is without mentioning the few dodgy predatory trans women - whether they actually were trans women or just saying they were - I'm putting that box aside for the moment and concentrating on the vast majority of trans women) to encounter someone who still looks very male, or not quite female enough, in loos or changing rooms etc. Her perspective helped me a lot.
I have experienced sexual harassment and assault numerous times over the years but have been around 'gender bending' goth types for a good 25 years and it just doesn't faze me. Where as a male optician or dentist right up in my face gives me a panic attack and certain kind of women who behave a certain way trigger me thanks to the last arse who assaulted me - twice at that. This stuff makes sense to me and is why I want that conversation to be able to happen.
But people need to stop saying we are a movement, or grooming kids, it's not an ideology, it's not some evil conspiracy. Kids are the main focus of posts I see, folks genuinely don't seem to realise how many adults of very varying ages actually have gender incongruence. Kids being kids, things will appear to become trendy. Whether it's having that goth phase, or that emo phase, or that lesbian phase, or that vegan phase, or the mad rush to get into D&D... Kids are kids.
Most kids who come out gay or trans or whatever, they're just experimenting, finding themselves, some drop it, some don't. For kids who genuinely are distressed about puberty, blockers buy the family time. I've read so many posts online from youngsters who just aren't coping with puberty, with a very developed body which feels alien. Our trans kids are seriously suicidal. They need support, they need validation. A hand hold at least. Like I said, some get through it and don't ever take hormones or have surgery. But whether someone wants to wear a binder, or take hormones, or end up with surgery later down the line, or present typically opposite to their birth sex superficially - our bodies, our choices.
Some GC folk bang on about mutilating perfect bodies'. But I can tell you now, my body is very, very imperfect and always was so imperfect that because i wasn't even able to get a reduction on the NHS, my upper spine is absolutely fucked. My chest skin is difficult to describe. My posture is going to take a lot of training and physiotherapy to ever get better. There are so many other people like me out there who don't just have gender incongruence but who have very badly behaved bodies which genuinely benefit from the relief granted by full radical top surgery. Our bodies, our choices, our autonomy.
I could fly my son out to another country in a year's time and get him top surgery. Well, if I had the funds which I don't. But I wouldn't do it. I firmly believe he needs to go through that decision after he's a legal adult in his own right. But if it's the choice he makes, I'll never think less of him. It's choosing a socially difficult path but it's easing an otherwise difficult life.
Kids are talking about it more because education is important - I grew up with a lesbian aunt who wasn't allowed to sleep in my room unless another visiting relative was also staying in my room. I absolutely hate that that's even a thing - or was a thing - because it came out of the idea in the eighties that gays were automatically paedos or perverts. Yet I can't talk to her about my surgery because she's GC.
Sorry for yet another epic saga of a reply. I hope my paragraphs have... Paragraphed? Like I said, I don't know. I don't have an answer which would change anything, right now. I think just accepting that we exist and letting us be 'seen', validated, cherished as much as any other human alongside us, that would be good. We are all humans and we shouldn't be fighting each other.
I need food and sleep. Oh my everything, I've been awake nearly 32 hours. Thanks for being kind in your correspondence. And I've probably not answered anything.