There were signs they were becoming delusional from the get-go. In the early days of the modern trans movement there were people questioning if it could continue to coexist with the rest of LGBT. The contradiction that first appeared was the problem of being "born this way", where someone is innately gay rather than it being a learned behavior. I think it all started when Marxism infected the movement and inserted the "social construct" idea into the mix. That would mean that even being gay, lesbian or bi would also be a social construct.

So I'll just jump to the end: wouldn't that mean that the religious fundamentalists were right all along? Being gay, lesbian, bi, or trans are all social constructs, learned behaviors, and therefore "lifestyles"? And doesn't that also mean that you are allowed to criticize the "lifestyles" that are inherently unproductive, in other words, produce no children?

We were much better off when each of these letters in the LGBT movement were considered subcultures with their own unique characteristics. Each one was internally consistent and content to be separate subcultures. Now it's melting into a glob of crazy shit that no one can make sense of.

They can test for all kinds of conditions, including brain diseases, tumors, chemical imbalances, electrolytes, do encephalograms, echo-cardiograms, MRIs, Cat scans, CT scans, Pet scans, examine everything from saliva to feces to urine, detect heart valve defects, aortic aneurysms, ulcers, internal bleeding, gastrointestinal malformations, lung abnormalities... but not whether you're trans or not, which is pretty convenient, don't you think?

I don't know what your life is like right now, but I think I can safely say that you did it because the people around you insisted it was a good idea. There might be reason why they thought it was a good idea, but I don't know what that might have been.

In the meantime, you've probably got a lot of confused feelings, but if you can, please don't go through it alone.

I'm not saying this towards anyone in this subreddit, and it's something I say all the time.

"These are little kids or teens. You're the grownups. What do the kids know about anything other than what you tell them? Why are you blaming your kids for the things that have gone wrong?"

The answer to that is they want to deflect responsibility off themselves onto anyone else. Anyone else. Parents do it all the time when their kids don't turn out like they wanted. In their minds they can't be wrong because that means they are responsible.

By the way, I had to learn to say that to my mother. "I was the kid mom. You were the grown up. How all this turned out is your fault. Stop trying to blame me because I wont accept that anymore."

This has always sounded to me like the "no true Scotsman fallacy". It works like this. "No Scotsman hangs out with a Londoner!" Then someone says, "my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he hangs out with Londoners." Then the Scotsman says, "No TRUE Scotsman hangs out with Londoners".

It's also moving the goalpost. It's a way of cheating. Like when they say you can't just be Gay, you have to have the correct political stance in order to be Gay.

"No Gay person would vote republican".

"Dave Rubin is Gay, and he votes republican".

"No TRUE Gay person would vote Republican".

Some asshole asked me if I identify as a girl So I spiraled

That's the reason all of this is so dangerous. Making people question the fundamental reality of who they are is so hurtful it's mind boggling. "Do you identify as..." Why even ask? It keeps people off balance and tears their sense of self all apart.

You look fine and I can't understand why someone would think you weren't a girl.

Back after I was diagnosed with "autism spectrum disorder otherwise not specified", which was long for Asperger's syndrome, I found out that if you attend an "Adults with Autism" group, you find it loaded with "self-diagnosed" and activists. You could even find self-identifying trans people at those meetings. I got into it with people about this self-diagnosing situation because I believe that it robs real people with real problems of resources.

Imagine there's a finite amount of a cancer cure, but for someone reason people who don't have cancer want to take the cure, using a lot of it up and leaving real cancer patients with nothing. What's going on right is some of the most selfish shit I could ever hope to see, and it's not showing any signs of getting better.

And they say we're the hateful ones.

I took a break from this as well, only to find when I come back it's way worse than it was before. I'm the transphobe because I want to live my life the best way I know how? I'm the bad guy because it didn't work out for me? WTAF?

Abusive people are generally abusing everyone they meet. I'm sure the guy has more problems than just he's transphobic, especially if he left without demanding his money back.

I work close with people who have behavioral health problems. That's quite a group of people who don't know how to get along with other people, even if you were to threaten them with bodily harm. I have a coworker whose dad fits the description of the guy you talked about, and his dad, at one point, even tried to run him over with a car.

I try to remember that after someone has treated me like shit, they not only have a trail of people they've already mistreated behind them but will mistreat more people today until something makes them stop.

I know, right?

You can't even be a disister without encountering abuse. I'm on my second Reddit account here, basically on my second life. I used to be in those communities, and as long as you agreed with the group you were fine. Question the group mentality, and all bets are off.

To be honest, these days you find this in a lot of circles. One example I could use is talking with anti-science types. If I point out that they are using a science-based device to claim that science is fake, they deliver abuse. This attitude is across the board in domains that you wouldn't expect it to be. It's in sports, in gaming (board games and video)... it's in quilting, for crying out loud! The day I saw that quilters were having arguments and abuse was being dished out... IN THE QUILTING 'COMMUNITY'... I thought, what the actual hell? Are they actually telling me that people who create colorful and artful bed coverings are actually attacking each other over quilting beliefs?

It's doubly worse in the hottest hot-button topics because the stakes are so high. When you base your core identity on something where social, material, and monetary domains are all stacked on top of each other: where your friendships, your body, and money are all at risk at the same time, it gets hyper-dicey. Still not an excuse to abuse people.