I haven’t lost friends per se, but I’ve just been defamed as a bad actor on a message board community I’ve been a member of for over 15 years. My crime? Expressing skepticism that the informed consent model of care has improved transgender health and well-being. Because TRAs on the board can’t handle this viewpoint, the mods have indefinitely banned me from posting on transgenderism. It is surreal.

It doesn’t matter that I was respectful. It doesn’t matter that I supported my opinion with reputable cites. It doesn’t matter that I posted my opinion in response to a thread topic eliciting opinions about how trans are treated. It doesn’t matter that I know a thing or two about medical standards of care. All that matters is that my opinion was considered threatening to the gender ideology cult.

To add insult to injury, the message board’s credo is about fighting ignorance. Suppressing critical ideas only promotes ignorance, but you know, it requires some amount of critical thought to understand this. Newspeak is what the board is about now.

So I’m walking away from that community. Fortunately since JKR popped the cork in June, I’ve found other outlets for my opinionating. I’m posting here now so that I won’t be tempted to post there. But I’m still sad that I will be leaving it behind.

To answer the OP, I wouldn’t go back to any friends that cast me aside unless they apologized. I wouldn’t accept any passive merging back into my life without some kind acknowledgment of what they’d done.