Great question, thanks so much for asking. Personally, if I could go back in time, I'd say this:

1. Whatever you're seeing online, get offline. Do not do anything to "impress" anyone, do not do this to "seem oppressed" or curry favor with online activists. You are never going to see these people again. They do not matter. Do not mess around with your body (you only get one!) to please anyone or be "down." Get offline.
2. It's okay to be a male. There's nothing "bad" about being male.
3. Mammals can't change sex. But you cannot change 2 billion years of evolutionary history if you pray hard enough about it. I'm really, sincerely sorry.
4. If you want to appear more like the other sex, it's likely not gonna be convincing, so your ROI (return on investment) is honestly going to be low. You lose a lot (health, money, time, mental stability, fertility, etc.) to gain a little (looking like a feminised male, etc.).
5. You can do whatever you want, regardless of your sex (in Western countries, anyway, hah). You don't have to go through this whole pain of changing your body permanently if you don't think you'll like what it looks like. Just be yourself. Your sex is the least interesting thing about you.
6. Sexual gratification isn't a reason to change your body. Porn is really bad for males, especially. Don't watch that stuff.

I totally relate to this perspective. Particularly this part:

The lefts obsession with killing tradition and moral relativism is precisely how we got here.

I'm not sure if this is crazy, but I sincerely wonder if it's all about the addiction to the shock value of being oppositional. A phrase I heard in my youth is on my mind here: "a rebel without a cause." Rebellion for the sake of it, rejection of normalcy just to shock people and seem "enlightened," and so on. "I'm not like all of you sheep!" But is being normal really that bad? For a time, I thought it was. That there was virtue in being different--almost for the sake of difference. If being different is something you're seeking, rather than just being yourself, the person you'd be without thinking, without effort, then you're just pursuing a theater, a spectacle. It's a tiring way of living. In many ways, I feel burnt out.

For my part, I understand that there are traditions that are low quality--not all traditions are worth preserving. But I'm sure we can all agree on many of these common sense traditions or departures, or find middle grounds by way of mutual tolerance and shared discussion. The way things are going, right now, I fear that tolerance is no longer a goal for the left. It's all show and pomp and theater and shock value.

It reminds me of religious people. They get very, very, very, very angry if nobelievers speak out. There are some reasons for why they feel this way, but certainly no small part of it is because, deep down, there is a part of them that knows that the detractors are truthful, and what they believe is nonsense.

Thank you so much for sharing this view. It's important. I worry about this a great deal. I am no longer a leftist, and part of it is for exactly what you've described. When I saw the upper limits of the worldview, it all fell apart for me extremely quickly. I tried to keep it all together, for a time, but I sincerely felt as though I was living in the closet.

I want to pursue a simple life, one where I am not extreme in any direction. I'm a simple individual, skeptical of ideology (of any sort), embracing pragmatic and effective solutions/analysis. So much of the transgender community feels the opposite of this. A lot of it feels like a very large friend group, one where we are all radicalizing each other daily. I can't live like this anymore.

It became very clear to me that, like you said, "follow the science" doesn't mean a ton. I thought it did. I thought that the ridiculous assertions were primarily sourcing from the Christian rightwing, making plainly silly assertions that the earth is just 2,000 years old, or that we lived during the time of the dinosaurs, and so on. No one--not even most devout Christians--sincerely believes any of this. It's such a simple thing that it would sound alarm bells to a child's mind. When we say "follow the science" there, it makes sense. What they follow are absurdities. But now we've done the same--by somehow believing that 2 billion years of evolution of sexual reproduction in our species can be changed by simply chanting a few words in public. Are we serious? This is extremely concerning to me. How did I ever walk myself into this extremism?

Yeah, fundamentally, I think a lot of people transition in general because they don't like the stereotypes of their sex or race. For my part, for sure, I didn't want to be seen in the same light as the "oppressors," so this was a way to be "down with the cause," so to speak, and escape those stereotypes. For a lot of girls, I think they want to be seen as intelligent, capable, strong, not just made for babies, and not inferior to males, so many will transition for that reason, out of jealousy for males, who are perceived as the superior sex.

So yeah, I definitely think what you're saying has 100% sense. Some people don't want to live up to the stereotypes of their sex. So they think they can "become" the other one. But that's a whole can of worms...

I totally understand. It's almost like waking up from a religion that's gripped you. You realize you have an option to have a life outside of the religion. You have the option to just live. Freely. Like everyone else. Without all this extra belief that, really, is just noise in your brain that you are inflicting on yourself for... No good reason. It is a relief to wake up from that and realize that you can just be like everyone else, live like everyone else, and not subject yourself to a self conception that isn't even physically real. I've even "misgendered" myself. I didn't have to live in fear of my own thoughts. You can just live truth--not a truth.

On the note of religion, I notice many people who become disabled autistic gender nonconforming trans woman vegetarian LGBTBBQ tend to convert to religions like Judaism and Islam. Not at all targeting you, but your story reminded me of this phenomenon. I get the sense that they want to "collect" oppressions, essentially, as the leftist religion (or worldview/way of thinking, if you like) suggests that you "go to heaven" if you "are oppressed," essentially. The leftist equivalent of being virtuous/"heavenly" is "being oppressed." So, many of the people who develop the mindset you described coming out of tend to pick "minority religions" to enhance their "oppressed status." Just thinking out loud here, feel free to disagree.

Thanks for saying this. I think, at the core, what you're suggesting here is living in a manner that doesn't require you have to seek approval from others. Requiring pronouns or "passing" was this whole lifestyle that never truly agreed with me: at its core, it's about trying to get other people to say/perceive certain things about me that aren't true. Why do I have to live depending entirely on what's basically other peoples' approval? It felt so important to me, at some point, but then one day I just accepted that 1. I cannot change sex, 2. I cannot control other people, 3. I can't make a serious life when I'm essentially living off the approval of others (that they "believe" I am the sex I say I am). After years, I just got tired of living like this. I don't want to live a life where my entire week can be ruined by someone accidentally admitting that I don't look like the sex I want to be. This is putting my entire life in someone else's hands and is absurd.

Thanks for your views.

Have you misgendered yourself? If so, you should report yourself for misgendering and hate speech to the local authorities.

I'm dying laughing! So true!

But seriously, I couldn't agree with you any more than I do! I meant more that I was particularly bullish with people who just didn't want to abide by my pronoun request. That I didn't accept them, and I was basically verbally abusive if they didn't. Looking back, I feel really terrible about it. I knew I was wrong while I did it, but I felt that I had to "put that transphobic thinking to the side," that it's "internalized transphobia speaking," that people who don't want to use the words I prefer are "transphobes," "racist," etc. But it wasn't like that. I was just abusive to the people who had every right to disagree with my request. I was a zealot, and I have enormous regret.

Thanks a lot for sharing!

You speak the truth. There was peer approval here going on multiple fronts--race, sex. The whole "woke community," as you described. The ideology is totalizing. There's this grand scale, this grand hierarchy, and we all fit in. It feels like there is a "god" always watching, in some sense--you're always wondering "is this privileged of me?" ("is this sinful?"), and this kind of constant moralizing about every little choice or utterance in my life, and how it fits into the "intersectional privilege" hierarchy--it takes a toll. Eventually, I felt worn down. It's a race to the bottom, and everyone wanted to win the race by getting there the fastest.

I'm so sincerely sorry for your losses. I would be devastated if my sister developed cancer. Sickness and death in family is always hard, and you have my deepest condolences, can't even imagine.

As for the questions around transitioning, ultimately, you are an adult, and you make your decisions. But I will say that it seems statistically unlikely--in general--that you'll be satisfied with transition. I get the sense that, for the vast majority of people, transition is a very bad decision. Whether it's plastic surgeries and/or HRT, it's just not very likely you'll get the results you'll want, especially considering the cost (not even just financial, but the cost you incur to your health, the risks there, etc.). This is not to discourage you--you have to make the decisions you want to make with what information you have available. But I feel the need to just tell you this because, with any body modification, there can be an unrealistic sense of optimism, that it's like a video game, you can just rerun your character creator and it's just all fine. It's not. Transition is among some of the most risky, physically taxing, and variable (in terms of results) body modification you can commit to. Again, not to discourage you, but it is the truth (in my view).

The most important thing to consider about getting plastic surgeries (or other body modifications) is that you need to go in with realistic expectations. Generally speaking, a great deal of plastic surgeons will not take on patients who believe they can, say, point to a body part on another individual (celeb, etc.) and say "I want that one," as if ordering body parts off Amazon. Another common unrealistic expectation: they may think that the body modification will solve a good portion of their problems. Sometimes it can. But, because these body modifications have large variations in outcome, it might actually do nothing, only marginally improve, or actually worsen, your situation.

Personally, I would ponder a few things (and I have!):

• Do I accept that mammals can change sex? Does this matter to me?
• Would it be okay with me to live as a male who simply has female physical characteristics, or do I need to literally be one? (This is important, in my view, as you can be in a situation where you go in believing you literally can be female, end up getting mixed or okay results after spending money, time, etc., and then be disappointed with the thought that you'll never really be female. Set the expectations for yourself upfront, get that ideological house in order.)
• Do I have other financial goals? How important are they when compared against transition?
• Do I experience sexual arousal when I imagine myself as a female? Is there presence of a sex/pornography addiction?
• What physical changes am I willing to accept, which ones am I not able to negotiate on? (For example: one may want a feminized face, and one might get that surgically--but would you accept imperfections to one's nose that clearly indicate that a nose job has been performed? Some call these "botched nose jobs," but they may not be "botched," just have things like inappropriately sized/shaped nostrils, etc. Familiarize yourself with common outcomes of these surgeries--what imperfections are you willing to accept?)

There are a few other things, but this has gotten on long enough. Thinking of you!