I can't pretend to know what a trans person is thinking, but I can try to imagine what it would be like to feel so out of place with your body that you'd rather transition and put up with all this bullshit just to feel like yourself.
I don’t think anyone is denying that this is a real thing or that people who feel that way need help. The question is what the right help to give them is.
As Rushy has pointed out, medical consensus changes over time and this is a relatively new thing - new in the sense of it being a recognised condition.
There are all kinds of conditions where people feel that they aren’t right the way they are. Anorexics believe they are too fat when they are dangerously underweight. The treatment isn’t to help then lose more weight.
People with body dysmorphia believe they have flaws in their appearance which don’t exist. The treatment isn’t plastic surgery.
It seems that this is the only condition of this nature where the “right” thing to do is now seen to be to pander to the person’s delusion.
It’s emperor’s new gender. He’s saying he’s a woman and instead of people going “hang on, what’s with the Adam’s apple and cock then?” people are just going along with it.
It's not like no one tried therapy, the same you'd get for anorexia. But the outcomes typically showed that the symptoms didn't diminish or even got worse.
Lots of people get plastic surgery for body dysmorphia and there aren't laws trying to ban it or people saying they've mutilated their bodies.
If an MRI shows that a trans woman has a brain functionally and structurally comparable to other women and different than mens' brains, what would you suggest for the treatment? If that were the case it wouldn't mean they're "deluded" but that there is a real inconsistency with their bodies.
In the meantime, I'll let my friends know they should hate their new lives because some guys on the internet think it's weird and harmful like lobotomies. And that they shouldn't play sports because they might be taller than 5'4.
But I'm tired of talking about hypothetical people in their different treatments and journeys to healthier lives with people who are not doctors. Not all trans people have reassignment surgeries and for some it's a necessity. They shouldn't have to wait for someone to figure out a miracle cure that may never come when there is a fix that could help.
Not all trans athletes show up in sports and dominate the field, studies and reports have shown otherwise. Their advantages are not assured or that extreme to make a big difference.
In the more than eight years since the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) began allowing high school athletes to compete as the gender with which they identify — regardless of what they were assigned at birth — there has not been a single case in which a trans female athlete has been dominant enough to stir protest.