Fantastic. I dropped by to say most of those things.

The "if you don't accept trans people as their chosen gender, they'll kill themselves" argument is so manipulative and insidious, and it's really all they have. Every libfem I've met recognizes that "if you don't date me, I'll kill myself" is an intimidation. It's clear that (a) the person saying it is using suicide as a bargaining chip to get the recipient to do what they want and (b) that a person threatening suicide is not likely to kill themselves, because people who actually do want to commit suicide don't give others a chance to stop them and see no other options. It's just straight-up emotional manipulation. So they've come up with empowering tactics to counter this abusive trash, not a single one of which involves giving in and dating the guy to keep him happy. But all that great intuition goes out the window when TRAs start threatening suicide if they don't get what they want.

Not only that, but you could rephrase

We are aware through our work with families that there have been cases of self-harm and even attempted suicide following J.K.Rowling’s statements and the public response on social media and in the press.

as

Nobody has killed themselves in response to JKR's statements.

And I also take issue with

J.K. Rowling rightly speaks of brave ‘detransitioned’ young women. Yet, does she consider trans people, living openly in spite of public hostility, less brave?

Their arguments don't so much rely on misinformation (sans the gaslighting about biological sex) as they rely on controlling which narrative the public sees, and here's an example of them using faulty logic to do just that. First, the faulty logic. They seem to have interpreted JKR's statement as "If a young woman has detransitioned, she is brave," and the following paragraph responds to this as if JKR had said "If a transperson did not detransition, they are not brave." That's the inverse. That a statement does not imply its inverse is fifth-grade-level logic. Nothing JKR said actually reflected poorly on transpeople, but they're deliberately misrepresenting her statements to make it seem that way.

And misinterpretation is all they have here because they can't reveal what the actual purpose of this tactic is: silencing dissenters. Oppressors tend to create a one-way system where the oppressed are expected to have empathy for the other party, but they do not have to have empathy for the oppressed; and that the oppressed should be held responsible for their actions, while the oppressors should not. Both parties have emotions and both parties sometimes do problematic things. Someone who cares about truth and can empathize with both sides would readily admit that. A person who does not care and just wants to push their side will be incapable of acknowledging the other party's feelings and incapable of taking responsibility for their wrongdoings. An attractive strategy for these people is to keep drawing attention away from the information that doesn't serve them---the other party's emotions and their problematic actions---and towards the information that does---their emotions and the other party's problematic actions---in a way that looks fair, balanced, and true, but is actually betraying that their position is not based on fact, and that they fundamentally have to ignore information in order to hold it.

Since I used a break-up as an example above, I'll use one here, too. Consider the following exchange:

A: I'm sorry, I don't think we can be together anymore. What you said at the restaurant hurt me too deeply.

B: But my feelings were hurt too. When you broke up with me, it hurt me.

A: I understand that the break-up is emotionally stressful, and it is for me too, but I just couldn't go on.

B: But I'm hurt too. I'm hurt by you painting me as some kind of monster.

A is acknowledging B's feelings; B can't acknowledge A's. A is acknowledging the consequences of their own actions; B cannot. A is able to empathize with B. B is not able to empathize with A. So because both A and B see B's side but only A sees A's side, the narrative will keep getting pulled in B's favor. Unless A exposes what B is doing. (If it's a private discussion, A needs to cut it off because just continuing the discussion itself is allowing B to pretend A can still win, when really nothing A can say will convince B because B's not listening.)

So if we go back to their statement:

J.K. Rowling rightly speaks of brave ‘detransitioned’ young women. Yet, does she consider trans people, living openly in spite of public hostility, less brave?

What is actually happening here is that JKR is saying "We should listen to detransitioned young women" and they are responding with "But what about the people who don't detransition?!" Classic misdirection. JKR has clearly and repeatedly expressed empathy for trans people, so her statement from the beginning has been "We should respect and listened to both transitioned and detransitioned people." And what Mermaids is really saying here is "don't listen to detransitioned people," but because saying it outright makes them look bad, they try to redirect any discussion about detransitioners by interrupting with "but what about US?!"

Because they don't have another choice. Detransitioned teenagers are living, walking proof of their wrongdoing. Even acknowledging their existence challenges their incredibly weak claim that anyone with gender dysphoria is trans. Even if they were to pretend to empathize with detransitioners and say "We know detransitioners have it hard," I can all but guarantee you that the next word will be 'but' and the subject of the next clause will be transpeople.

This paragraph reads alright to most people but clearly exposes that their argument is selfish.

Ugh. I'm trying to write an essay about how crappy these arguments are and how to counter them, and it's so hard to not call them out when they pop up.