This was already explained to you earlier in the thread. “Male” and “female” are, biologically speaking, not distinct and mutually exclusive categories in humans. This is the case naturally, and the terms become even less useful once you account for those who modify parts of their biology, whether by surgery or by artificially triggering natural biological processes, to bring those parts into congruence with other parts of their biology.

“Biological male” is a slur. It has no basis in science. It’s a term coined by bigots to misgender trans people with sciencey-sounding words so their abuse looks reasonable at a glance, in much the same way that proponents of Scientific Racism use pseudoscience in an attempt to legitimize white supremacy.

Also the term is referring to their original status pre-hormonal or other gender affirming care so no.

We already have a far less problematic set of terms for that: Assigned Male at Birth (AMAB) and Assigned Female at Birth (AFAB). “Biological male” is a scientifically misleading phrase that bigots invented to slander trans people and it should not be used by anyone.

They’re not talking about natural monopolies. A natural monopoly is when there’s some barrier to entry that prevents competitors from entering the market, like a need for prohibitively expensive infrastructure.

What OP is talking about are situations like Walmart opening a store in a new location, operating it at or near a loss to drive the local competition out of business, and then jacking up prices once no competitors remain. The government isn’t forcing them to do that.

The child abuse and fear mongering are things that they’re proud of and believe are justified. Trying to address it just makes them feel more powerful.

Calling them “weird” works because their whole ideology is based on them being the normal ones. If you take that away, you also take away their entire (false) claim to authority.

Is there a rule that daydreams have to be visual? Spending lots of time thinking up extremely detailed strategies for unlikely hypothetical scenarios definitely qualifies as “elaborate daydreams”, in my opinion.

No mention of trans people, which is odd given that Florida is a Do Not Travel state for its government’s efforts to criminalize being transgender.

It’s because the furry fandom, when it was founded back in the late 70’s by a gay polycule of sci-fi fans, was one of the only communities in existence that accepted openly gay and trans people. (And the only non-fetish community.) For many queer people, the furry fandom is the first place they ever feel welcome.

Yes, I meant no negative or unintended consequences.

Thank you. It doesn’t feel like I’ve done much journeying, as I was essentially trapped in emotional stasis for most of my life and circumstances have so far prevented me from doing anything with my newfound knowledge, but at least I know which way is forward now.

If you feel like a man, like being a man, and enjoy having man parts, you’re probably a man. Your interests are not your gender, and dancing isn’t exclusive to women. Even ballet has male dancers.

Still, a little bit of exploration never hurt anybody. If you are trans, if living as another gender would make you much happier, wouldn’t you want to know sooner rather than later? And if you aren’t trans, you might still learn a thing or two about yourself that you never would have discovered otherwise. Most people go their whole lives without ever questioning their gender or closely examining what it means to them, and I think they’re missing out. There is power in truly knowing yourself.

Do some thinking. Ask more questions. Not just to others, but to yourself as well. What do you like about being a man? Can you imagine not being one? How does that image make you feel? If you could instantly become anything, with no rules or consequences, what would you pick? Don’t shut anything down; there are no wrong answers. Allow yourself the freedom to explore.

It may help you to stop thinking in the binary terms that society imposes on us. Gender isn’t just a question of Male or Female; there are many different kinds of men and many different kinds of women. There is a large area in between where the two overlap and the lines get fuzzy, and even places that aren’t on the same spectrum at all. I myself am a demigirl. My gender identity is mostly female, but also a little bit male and a little bit something else. You don’t need to feel obligated to be what anyone else is.

As for how I found out, I’ve already posted that elsewhere in this thread. It looks like you’ve gotten a lot of answers from others as well. I wish you good luck in wherever this journey takes you.

This was my experience. I was raised in a very conservative, very religious community where I was never exposed to the concept of transness. I was fully convinced that I was a boy and could never be anything but a boy. And yet, I could tell I was different from the other boys.

As I got older, that feeling turned into an ever-present sensation of wrongness. My body felt tainted, somehow. Unclean. Contaminated. It possessed an inherent grossness that could never be washed away. I lived with that feeling every day for 25 years. No medication, no counseling, no hard work ever did anything to alleviate it or the severe depression that was my typical mental state. Then a bunch of things happened all at once, and I started questioning my gender. A few days later I shaved off my beard and rediscovered what joy feels like. That’s when I knew.

I was never a boy.

Remember the NYPD who were jumped by a gang of illegal immigrants?

No, but I do remember the NYPD harassing a small group of migrants that were just minding their own business on a public sidewalk (without blocking it), ordering them to leave, and then assaulting one of them while he was attempting to comply.

Old media has become such a minefield because there’s just so much awful stuff that went over my head at the time. I’m scared to recommend anything that I haven’t rewatched/reread in the past few years.

It wasn’t all bad, though. One of my favorite TV shows is Babylon 5, a 90’s sci-fi that I watched as it aired but hadn’t seen again until late last year. All I really remembered were the cool space battles and devious political maneuvering, but it turned out to also be an incredibly progressive show. One of the main characters is first introduced while wearing robes that appear to have been partially made from a trans pride flag!

First, I would move into my own place so I don’t have to deal with the constant stress of conforming to the expectations of my bigoted family members. Then, for a while, I would probably do nothing. I’m burnt out and have a lifetime of shit to process and heal from. I need time to pick up all the parts of myself that the world has forced me to throw away.

Eventually, when I’ve gotten a little better, I’ll probably start wanting to accomplish things again. Nothing so ambitious as the dreams I used to have, but they were probably unrealistic anyway. And with my basic needs covered, I would be free to do what I find important and fulfilling instead of spending all my time making line go up for some asshole billionaire.

I’ve always wanted to write stories. I used to draw and paint, a long time ago before the depression got really bad. I’m starting to learn 3D modeling and gamedev, and it would be nice to do that just because I want to, not because I’m unable to work a regular job and am flailing for a way to pay the bills.

Maybe I would just organize get-togethers with my friends where we play tabletop games and eat food I cooked for them using produce from a little garden I made.

There’s no shortage of things to do if I’m free to pursue them.

I used to believe the “shitpost that got out of hand” excuse too. Let me tell you about something I witnessed a few weeks after that story first blew up:

I was watching an Overwatch esports stream because I still played back then and Blizzard was bribing us players to inflate viewer counts. It was a home game for the Dallas Fuel, so the match was taking place in Texas. Unsurprisingly, this meant the vast majority of the in-person audience was young white gamerbros with a conservative aesthetic.

It also happened to take place on International Women’s Day, so between rounds they would have one of the women who worked on Overwatch give a short speech or interview. These were generally focused on their experiences as a woman (and often racial minority), the value of diversity and tolerance, etc. I remember one of the people they brought in to speak was Anjali Bhimani, an American of Indian descent who voiced the character Symmetra.

Every single time they announced one of these presentations, a large number of audience members (Remember: white gamerbros in Dallas, Texas) would immediately raise one arm, make the OK sign with their hand, and wave it around rapidly while frowning. I had never seen anything like it, and given the context it was obvious what they were doing it for.

Blizzard banned use of the gesture during esports matches a few days later. The subreddit was predictably full of posts like yours, downplaying what had happened and ridiculing the ban as an overreaction to a stupid prank. Maybe it really was just a prank at the start, and I don’t know if they’re still doing it now, but there was definitely a time when fascists were using the OK sign as a dogwhistle and relying on the “media fell for a 4chan prank” story for plausible deniability.

My father pulled that “just ignore it” shit, too. Somehow it wasn’t the bully’s fault for attacking me, it was my fault for being such an entertaining target.

Conservatives are still quick to suppress speech they don’t agree with, though. Their criticism of censorship isn’t a cause, it’s a smokescreen.

That gay and trans people are all disgusting perverts who hate me and want to destroy everything good. My queer friends provide more emotional support in a day than I ever got from my family, the church, or anyone else inside the Evangelical bubble I was raised in.

That people in “The World” (those outside the church) are all evil or unknowingly controlled by Satan and will always try to hurt me. Textbook cult programming from the people who were emotionally abusing me.

That God is speaking directly to me through a voice in my head, except when that voice says I’m a girl, then it’s actually a demon or something. (It was likely undiagnosed DID as a result of childhood emotional neglect and repressed gender dysphoria.)

That scientists are all part of a massive satanic conspiracy to trick people into leaving the church.

Dungeons & Dragons being a satanic conspiracy. Satanic Panic stuff in general.

Lots of anti-evolution propaganda that turned out to be misrepresentations of science or complete fabrications.

That they actually believed in all that stuff Jesus said about loving thy neighbor, helping the poor and the sick, and being kind to immigrants, instead of spending their whole lives voting to hurt all of those people as much as possible.

The medical consensus already exists. This isn’t some experimental drug; puberty blockers have been widely prescribed to children for decades. We know how they work, we know they are generally safe, and we know that blocking access to them will result in needless suffering and death.

Here are the “huge questions” you should really be asking:

If these drugs are so dangerous, why are people only bringing it up now and not sometime in the 40 years since they entered widespread usage?

Why are people suddenly claiming that a drug we’ve been using for decades has “too many unknowns” and “not enough evidence” for its safety?

If all of this controversy is really genuine, and not the result of a moral panic rooted in bigotry, then why is nobody proposing a ban on puberty blockers for cisgender children? How can they be “dangerous” and “untested” for one group of children but safe and effective for a different group of children when both groups are taking them for the same purpose (to delay puberty)?

If you really care about the welfare of trans people, then you should support giving us the healthcare that we and our doctors say we need.

It implies that living with gender dysphoria is so painful that people would rather have the surgical complications.