I think I understand where you are coming from. And empathising with vulnerable people is at the heart of many of our positions on this issue.
I’m the parent of a young woman who identified as male for more than 6 years. I spent days at her bedside in hospital after suicide attempts, begged and pleaded with social services, CAMHS and the ACMHT when she aged out, my MP and even the CEO of the local NHS trust, for support. However, I think there is a line between understanding the devastating impact of gender dysphoria on a vulnerable [largely, but not solely female, autistic] population - demographic that makes up only a very, very tiny portion of the ‘trans’ community because it has become dominated by AGP and other fetishists - and advocating for unquestioning trans inclusion and acceptance. Especially within safe spaces for women, prisons and clinical settings. In those spaces we should no more advocate ‘understanding’ for AGP trans persons than we would for pedophiles - most of who are also vulnerable, damaged, mentally fragile and often victims/survivors of pedophilia in their youths.
Mine, and I think others’ perspective, is shaped by the overriding need to put the wellbeing and safety of those who cannot advocate for themselves - children, autistics, confused LBG, and/or mentally ill and fragile teens of both genders - at the top of our hierarchy of needs. I can understand that gender confused, adult males also have needs, but it is difficult outside a clinical setting to distinguish between those that I have met who have a lifelong battle with their sexual identity and reconciling the often devastating childhood trauma that underpins their agony, with the AGP/sexual fetishists that take delight in postioning themselves in our sports and changing rooms. The underlying tenets of safeguarding is that we simply cannot know which adult males presenting as female fall in each category. Am happy to support, empathise and care for these people in a trans exclusive space where vulnerable young people are not put at risk, but where needs and compassion compete, I have to put the safety of those people above the ‘viewpoint’ of these men. It doesn’t mean I do not care, it simply means that I care a hell of a lot more for the young women and children that are negatively impacted by this.
it’s a difficult line to navigate. I’d like to say a fine line, but the more I grow to understand my child’s trauma, the more I see the horror of seeing peers of her age having their breasts removed and chemically damaging their bodies, on the NHS no less and despite having been inpatients at youth psychiatric hospitals, the more I feel hardened to the male demographic of the trans community. I want to be a caring compassionate person with a bottomless well of empathy, but I am not that person. My well is running dry. My passion and energy has to be focused on young, vulnerable people. And the fact that young women like my DD are seeing the abject abuse and oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan, making inferences about what this means to be a woman when the west is being horrifyingly silent, just calcifies my feelings towards trans identifying males even further.