I used to think the whole "trans women are women" thing was legit. At least in the sense that they genuinely had a female brain and experienced consistent distress at their body and consistent improvement when that body was changed to match their brain.

Then I saw some transbians speculating on tumblr (of course) about how to unlearn the male gaze. This was years ago and would never be admitted to today, but I was confused: if you're a bona-fide female with a female brain, how do you have the male gaze? If you're gay, you don't "unlearn" straight behaviors. You might stop mimicking them to fit in, but you always had an innate sense of who you wanted to be. So the idea that some people had to forcibly train themselves to be less male instead of exposing their "true self" troubled me.

I notice that the general PR image of transgender people is the HSTS, meanwhile the AGP runs the TRA agenda. Then the RODG/NB types support it without (as I see it) the greater context. The NB thing really got me as I could tell these were straight women, often troubled with mental illness, chopping off their hair and insisting on special pronouns.

I started to feel uncomfortable because I couldn't have a debate in that environment without getting ostracized. People would blow up and scream on social media over much less. I felt I was being forced to validate a fantasy that I didn't believe in. There's no such thing as a non-binary brain, as brains and brain structures are not binary. It seemed that if they had dysphoria it was self-cultivated in the sense that by obsessing on their gender and tying their validation to their pronouns, misgendering and similar behaviors became an act that struck their ego deeply. If I see myself as an amazing musician, and everyone around me also told me so, if someone said bluntly that my music sucks my ego would be devastated. The conflicting statements of "it's just about decency and respect" and "if you don't do it, they'll kill themselves" especially drove me nuts.

I remember a comment from a female NB about how she wanted a PHD mostly because "Dr" is a gender neutral title. Perhaps that woman thought it was proof of how actually non-binary she was. But I just thought it must be a miserable existence to be so obsessed with how other people see you that you would devote years of your life to something you're not otherwise interested in.

The TRAs got bolder. Trans periods, truescum/no dysphoria to be trans, support of children transitioning, etc. Around then was when I started hearing TERF thrown around. People were treating terfs like those evil dirty stupid republicans, and I'd learned long ago that was hate propaganda. So I had a look. I don't agree with most radfem beliefs but it seemed that we shared concerns about free speech, about liberal sentiments that weren't actually helping people, and some actual good data about transgenderism, ROGD, and medical transition. Looking at things like the ratio of TIMs/TIFs, the problems with puberty blockers and hormones, the stories of detransitioners whose sexual trauma had made them hate their bodies, helped me go beyond the simple "born in the wrong body" narrative and understand how complex this thing actually was.

You won't be long on GC before you hear about AGP and check out itsafetish, and then it was pretty much over Trans Everest. I knew itsafetish couldn't last - it was too revealing to show AGP TRAs speaking honestly. No one would look at that stuff and see a woman, because AGPs are not women. And then seeing that for some TIMs, the fetish isn't just them but also enacting feminization on young people, I was done with all of this stupid shit.