If they truly believed it themselves, they wouldn’t need constant validation and agreement.

I’m a man. If someone calls me a woman, by mistake (happens quite a lot as a male teacher) or for any other reason, it doesn’t change what I know about myself. I expend zero time, other than the time I spent writing this post, thinking about my man-ness or how I would feel if someone disagreed with my man-ness.

The fact that these people require other people to agree with and validate them—often, loudly and in public—tells me that they know the truth.