I did want to state that most men in tech that I've worked with are generally decent people. With a very few exceptions I have been treated very well by my male coworkers once I've displayed my competency. A lot of them are socially awkward but I am too so it generally works out.

The fact that I've been married for my whole career probably helped, honestly. Even the more incel ones grok the concept of "she's taken".

I guess understand though that when you're bullied severely over time, you reach a point where you wish you could be someone else, anyone else. The goal isn't even to get people to be nice to you, it would be enough if they would just leave you alone. I think there's a dissociation from self there, further exacerbated by the fact that often, our refuge is to literally escape into being someone else... through books, through video games, through imagination if other options are unavailable.

So when someone says you can literally become someone else, and maybe you secretly already are and that's why you're in so much emotional anguish... it's tempting. So very very tempting.

Add to that the general social awkward (when everyone around you mocks everything you ever do it's difficult to figure out how to properly relate to other people), and the fact that the only girls they've been allowed to observe or interact with without ridicule are in anime and porn, well... spreads hands