Ok, you've said a lot of things I'd like to respond to. We've have some good dialogs in the past though so I'm going to take some time to respond here.
If gay and trans have nothing to do with each other, why do they group themselves together in the LGBT-Q community?
Because there is a lot of overlap between homophobes and transphobes. It's like that quote;
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
It makes sense if you are a minority to work as an political and advocacy block with other minorities. At this point it's just a general civil rights movement. Hopefully that makes sense.
People accepted someone was serious when they voluntarily underwent castration and female hormones to math their bodies with their mind.
Now transgenders are in large number op-hesitant, meaning they have no intention of having the surgery. Many do not even use hormones.
This is because transgender is a very broad term. Some have body dysphoria, which is a medical condition where getting surgery as treatment necessary. Medically and socially transitioning is very important to reducing the suicide rate in this group. These are who people normally think of as transgender.
Then, there are people that feel happiest presenting as and carrying out the social roles of the opposite gender but are happy with how there bodies are mostly. They may or may not take hormones and if they get surgeries it's usually just to look closer to how they are socially expected to and not because they have dysphoria.
Nonbinary people are also trans and may or may not take hormones/get surgery though many I know irl just like to dress and behave in a variety of ways.
Finally, many simply just cannot afford any medical treatment. That is the reality for a great many transgender individuals.
My opinion only, but to me that isn’t transgender, that’s just cross-dressing.
My opinion only, but why does it matter what it is? It seems to make people happy, it doesn't hurt anyone else, and whatever label we arbitrarily decide to try and apply to it is irrelevant.
I respect their right to make those choices. I would fight for their right to make those choices.
In the end, that's all that really matters.
But I respect the rights of others not to use their preferred - but fictional - gender pronouns
Well I mean legally they have a right to be able to do that. What I would argue is not using their pronouns is unnecessarily cruel. Especially with teens, their suicide rate is very high pre-transition. If anything the people who don't look like their preferred gender are the ones for whom it is most important to use their pronouns.
Finally, I have a few thoughts about gender theory you might find interesting. I know I know, it's lib shit. Fair enough. But some of this stuff is pretty interesting. At the core of trans issues is the question about what gender is.
We assign all these behaviors to people totally arbitrarily based on their sex. 100 years ago pink was considered strictly for boys and blue strictly for girls. 200 years ago it was traditional to dress young boys in dresses until they came of age. 300 years ago kings wore dresses, heals, and makeup as an expression of their wealth and power. The point is that gender (the roles and appearances we have in our society) and sex (our biology) are totally separate things. All our pronouns are "fictional." We can describe what it means to be a man biologically. But socially what does it mean? Well, that seems to change overtime. So the social roles are clearly arbitrary and socially derived. So there doesn't really seem to be any reason to restrict them to one sex.
globalnews.ca
health.clevelandclinic.org
www-insider-com.cdn.ampproject.org
