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DiscussionWhat motivates someone to be a TRA?
this is related to a recent post, but approaching the topic from a slightly different angle. so I wanted to make my own post. it's based on some of the comments on the other post.
soemthing I don't think I have a thorough understanding of is why trans ideology is so compelling to TRA-aligned people*. why does it have such an absolute hold over them? why do they support it with such fervor? what drives or motivates someone to be a TRA?
if I could figure this out better, it might give more insight about how to try and break or loosen the hold that it has. I want to know what's going on with TRAs and their behavior in terms of psychology, social psychology and/or sociological analysis.
social psychology: here are a few definitions with slightly different wording - the study of how individual or group behavior is influenced by the presence and behavior of others. the study of how thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others. the study of how people are influenced by the presence of others.
*note/ by "TRA-aligned people,"" I mean people who support trans ideology to any degree, but are not trans-identified themselves. this ranges from the "lukewarm/casual" TRAs who go along with it and maybe give the occasional lip service support, to the super hardcore TRAs where it's like a large part of their personality to be a TRA and they are always going out of their way to say something or other in support of trans ideology .
there's a lot of discussion on this website criticizing trans ideology and debunking various elements of it, and about what motivates people to trans themselves. obviously, all of that is useful and has its place.
but what I don't see as much discussion about is this meta-aspect: why do TRAs feel so compelled to go out of their way to vocally support trans ideology? why isn't it enough to just support it quietly, to themselves, like one might do with other beliefs?
if you've ever talked with a TRA and thought you got some insight into what was motivating their support of trans ideology, please share. I'd like to see others' anecdotes about that. I don't know any hardcore TRAs that closely, and for the more "lukewarm" TRAs I know, I don't talk about trans ideology with them. so I've never been able to really get a good read on why these people support trans ideology.
That's the main part of my post describing what I want to hear your thoughts on. the rest of this is some of the speculation I have on those things I mentioned above, so you can skip this part if you want. it's me thinking out loud basically. some of this comes from other people'ss comments on the other post.
there are probably different motivations depending on the person - some just want to "be kind," others want to feel virtuous. are male TRAs motivated by different things than female TRAs? the forced teaming of trans ideology with the LGB community/rights has been very effective.
being a TRA is a way of fitting in with one's peers so you won't be ostracized/shunned. you want to go along with what seems like a consensus view in your social circle. people are naive/uninformed and think TIMs are harmless.
there's a bunch of pro-trans content/propaganda on social media, and in mainstream media - think about this from your average US liberal's perspective - the media they consume and trust is pro-trans. they think any criticism of trans ideology, is just "right wing misinformation" or some such, so they can easily write it off in their minds.
some points from this comment: I'm mentioning the ones I find most relevant to my angle here, not necessarily the post this comment was on. they want to feel like they're a good person, to feel righteous. it gives them a purpose, almost like a religion. they live in a bubble, in terms of social circle and media they consume. they're in too deep and cannot admit they might be wrong about trans ideology.
this relevant Aldous Huxley quote, which I've mentioned in the past
“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
I think a lot of TRA-aligned people simply haven't thought very deeply about what various elements of trans ideology actually mean.
they just support "trans rights" in a general, overall sense because they think it's the right thing to do and they're surrounded by so much pro-trans propaganda and social pressure to support it. so they repeat and believe whatever applicable TRA mantras without any deeper critical thinking about the specifics and/or the implications of various elements of trans ideology.
being a TRA is apparently very integral to some people's perception of themselves as a good person. or rather, being seen by others as a TRA is very integral... - it's not enough to just support it quietly, to yourself.
I think there's some kind of external validation factor at play here, which is the part that's most puzzling to me since it's not something I can relate to. although I didn't outright disagree with trans ideology pre-peaking, I never saw it as something I needed to be very loud and overt about supporting.
Although this post is super long and you might think I've got it all figured out, a lot of this is still in speculation territory for me. and I'm not sure how much of it is actually correct when it comes to TRAs' motivations. I could be wrong, or missing some things, so that's why I want your thoughts. thanks for reading if you made it all the way to the end!
Trans activism presents a virtue signaling escape for boring folks who want to look morally superior but won't put in the work to improve working class lives.
I think back to Annette Bening saying being the parent of a trans child made her a more interesting person.
I was going to post exactly this.
We have a pandemic of virtue signaling and TRA is easy and low cost.
I was personally always asking clarifying questions on trans topic to try to understand it, why is it included in sexualities like LGB, never fit and I didn't understand why gays would align with trans when they were totally different topics... So I never really bought into it but I still low level supported them.
I thought trans people "existed" and that since I didn't have that experience I must just be ignorant and should accept they exist and have been so marginalized nobody knew about them... Which seems to defy that they were being actively marginalized if no one knew about them, who has been oppressing them?
I "supported" the ideology by accepting there was a class of people that exists that have problems I can't relate to and I felt sorry for them.... FFS! STILL MAD AT MYSELF that I didn't research more about it but it wasn't impacting me personally and they were not wanting access to our spaces at the time (that I knew of)...I was hanging out with a "woke" group of parents regularly that also normalized this thinking, lots of BLM, critical race theory, and what I understand now as queer theory... But I thought this was all good stuff, acceptance of differences and different experiences..ugh...
Ignorance and misplaced empathy was my low level TRA support. Some white guilt likely motivating me. If I was still in that social circle I don't think I would have peaked yet. I was in Texas, which has had a large influx of Californians and tech industry workers for at least the last twenty years and I wonder how much of that migration spread and normalized the ideologies. Physically moving shook me up mentally and I started examining my relationships, impact of patriarchy, sexualization, women's struggles... And I am coming out of the fog, seeing men for who they are and not who I wish they were.
Many women wish all men were as "good" as women, selfless, thoughtful, empathetic... and it's as though they see these TIMs as the good men when really they are some of the worst.
thank you for your comment and insights.
yeah, the "I never really bought into it but I still low level supported them" is a good description of what I was like too.
I wouldn't say that I felt sorry for TIPs exactly, but back then I just didn't have enough information to make me think "this is something I should actively choose not to support." and like you, it wasn't impacting me personally.
but since it was just a low level of support for me, once I did finally come across gender critical stuff and read further about it, I changed my mind aka peaked fairly quickly. it wasn't a deeply held belief that I was changing/losing, so I guess it was easier for me to change my mind. compared to other TRAs, who may support trans ideology as a much more deeply held belief.
it's interesting that you say moving and changing social circles is part of what led you to peak, since that wasn't the case for me. I live in the same area and have the same social circle that I did prior to peaking, though now I see their support of trans ideology as... misguided, I guess, but they don't know any better. I look at it with sort of a "bless your heart" or a "you sweet summer child" perspective, if that makes sense.
A need to belong for a lot of them. They will go with the crowd because humans are hardwired to know that ostracism means death, or used to for our ancestors. You only have to look at how TRAs attack the workplace specifically to try to cut resources off from ‘TERFs’ so that we can’t survive in our society
Some are opportunists. Some are mediocrities who see a chance to climb the ladder. Some think that they’re being kind. Many hate women and homosexual people. A range of motivations, really.
I have arguments with one of my brothers Facebook 'friends', He's a gay man who appears to have no empathy with women. He pretends he's involved in a fight against 'segregation' where women are silly Karens prudishly, meanly, and 'ignorantly' (that's a word he uses often) being all neurotic about their spaces. He thinks he's the smartest guy in the room but is dumb and his conversations are full of logical fallacies and dishonest positions. I suspect he doesn't mix with women very much so really cannot (or pretends not to be able to) relate to women. We are just annoying harpies and he feels virtuous being a TRA.
I also think most people, TRAs included, don't know what it's all about. A third of people polled in Britain thought a 'Transwoman/Transgender woman etc is a woman (as they say, 'born as a woman'). I reckon most people thinks its like DSD/Intersex.
No-one know what 'gender affirming care' means, but it sounds nice, doesn't it?
thanks for your comment and anecdote about this TRA gay man. I know at least one gay man who is a TRA, though from what I can tell, his motivations aren't the same as the one you describe. for the man I'm thinking of, it seems like maybe it's coming more from the forced-teaming of LGB and TQ.
I agree with the second part of your comment, that most people, including TRAs are just very uninformed about all the finer points of trans ideology. they just support it in a general, overall sense because they think it's the right thing to do. plus a heaping dose of social pressure to support it, because of course they don't want to be seen as an anti-trans bigot.
Not all of these apply to all TRAs but some combination of at least a few of them do. Sadly, this is human nature for the vast majority of people. It's why everything is so fucked up.
In my case, I just really wanted to be kind. I had a rough childhood so knew what it was like to be bullied and had been indoctrinated from my early teens to believe trans people were poor souls "trapped in the wrong body" so I felt truly heartbroken over the thought of them not being accepted. I also had a few FTM friends at school who'd been attacked for their gender non-conformity so that made me feel extra protective of trans people as a whole.
I actually started having panic attacks when I first realised none of it made sense because I was so terrified of being a "bad person" who hurts others. You see this a lot with the tumblr crowd especially, who have been brainwashed into this cult-like mentality. Many of them are also autistic and have mental health disorders like OCD (same as me) which lead to very black-and-white thinking and intense fear around thinking/saying the wrong thing.
I know many TRAs are just doing it for attention or to feel righteous or as a way to openly spew hate (especially lefty men 🙄) but there are definitely a lot of women out there who are well-meaning, sensitive idiots like I was. They're very hard to reason with since it's all purely emotional and they'll label any dissenting voice as hate-filled lies because the reality - that this is a movement driven by dangerous, misogynistic male fetishists and doing measurable harm to mentally ill children - is horrible.
I think it's too easy and not particularly realistic to dismiss all of the people we're arguing with as narcissists which is something I see here over and over again.
The thing is that you can still be kind and well meaning without being hate filled and vitriolic to people who are gender critical, which is what I imagine you were more like.
It’s the intense bile expressed to gender critical people that is so unique here among TRAs.
I touched on this, or something adjacent, in my post.
I wasn't only referring to the TRAs who express the most unbridled hatred towards "terfs", but they're included under the umbrella of all TRAs. there are TRAs who don't necessarily engage in that kind of severely hateful language, but are still very TRA because they're proclaiming support of trans ideology All. The. Time.
so I'm asking about what motivates TRAs, whether they express their support of trans ideology in a hateful way or not. there are different subtypes, so to speak, of TRAs, and I want to talk about how and why their motivations might differ.
Well for the non vicious ones, it’s mostly misguided kindness and virtue signalling.
thanks for your comment and insights.
I might've thought about something like this but I didn't mention it in my post here or comments on that other post. some TRAs could be motivated by wanting to stand up for outsiders/misfits (TIPs, in this case), because they feel like they can relate to being bullied and not accepted, like you said.
and yes, I do think that a large portion of TRAs are well-meaning in their support of it, even though they might also be doing it for attention and/or to feel righteous as well, and possibly other motivations I haven't thought of yet.
the part about it being purely emotional for these people is a good point too. that's not something I'd really thought about before, because I can't/couldn't relate to that aspect of supporting trans ideology.
I was never a hardcore TRA, although I didn't outright disagree with it prior to peaking. I just kind of accepted it and went along with it by default, because it is/was treated as something you're just supposed to support as a liberal/Democrat/etc.
I supported it in a vague and peripheral sense because I personally didn't find it all that important. I never saw it as a topic I really needed to go out of my way to support strongly, vocally, overtly. I figured that other people could be the strident supporters if they cared about it so much. so there wasn't any strong emotional component there for me.
but there are definitely a lot of women out there who are well-meaning, sensitive idiots like I was
I'm sure it's just unserious self-deprecation from a comfortable enough place to do so, but just wanted to say that you weren't being an idiot. It's a really good quality to see people you believe are being mistreated and stick up for them. I think that's how most of us got our start on this. It's another good quality that you're able to accept new information, even when uncomfortable, and detach yourself from the previous stance.
I think it's too easy and not particularly realistic to dismiss all of the people we're arguing with as narcissists which is something I see here over and over again.
I think this is a very important point that I need to consider more often. I try to remind myself that so many of the TRAs or TIM's online, if they're not bots, are frequently going to be very young. Like legitimately, they might be literal children, and likely on the spectrum.
Behind the Japanese anime waifu avatar might be a real person and I should err on the side of caution that it's a confused child. The double-empathy problem makes things difficult, too.
why do TRAs feel so compelled to go out of their way to vocally support trans ideology?
So this is going to apply to a small subgroup (close friends and family members of "trans" people) -- psychological enmeshment. In the face of such unrelenting dysfunction, some family systems and close social networks will basically capitulate to "trans" demands because it's the only way to keep the family or group intact, avoid meltdowns and narcissistic rage, even avoid censure from the outside. Part of "trans" ideology involves vocal support and advocacy, so it goes along with the enmeshment dynamics.
thanks for your comment! honestly, any insight here is valuable to me, even if it only applies to certain subsets of TRAs. I don't think all of them are motivated by the exact same factors or in the exact same ratios of those factors.
since I don't know any hardcore TRAs closely, I'm not sure if this dynamic is applicable to anyone in my social circle.
do you think this happens often with close friends and family members of TIPs, or if it's more rare? some TIPs are more emotionally/mentally volatile (i.e. dysfunctional) than others. whereas other TIPs might be more easygoing and not necessarily as likely to cause the dynamic you describe among their close friends and family members.
Good question. It's impossible to get numbers at this point, but I'd venture a guess that it does happen often, based on reports from trans widows and families-of. At minimum, the people around the "trans" person are required to affirm and support a fiction. Because there's a fair overlap of mental health issues and "trans" identity, there's likely to be coercive control and manipulation involved, personality disorder-related behaviors, potentially even SA. And paraphilias escalate by nature, so if AGP and festhism are involved, there really isn't going to be a liveable status quo going on for very long.
At minimum, the people around the "trans" person are required to affirm and support a fiction. Because there's a fair overlap of mental health issues and "trans" identity, there's likely to be coercive control and manipulation involved, personality disorder-related behaviors, potentially even SA
(emphasis mine) yes, this is a good point. It seems like in your comment you're primarily referring to friends/family of TIMs, though theoretically the dysfunctional dynamic could also occur with friends/family of TIFs. though maybe it's more common to occur with TIMs?
I was thinking more about your earlier comment and an alternative scenario. instead of a highly volatile and dysfunctional TIP, let's say there's a TIP who's a more easygoing type and a decently pleasant person.
the other people in their life could feel motivated to support trans ideology out of goodwill towards their pleasant TIP friend or family member, instead of feeling like they have to support trans ideology to placate/keep the peace with a volatile, dysfunctional TIP.
in the case of the pleasant TIP, perhaps a friend of theirs thinks "[TIP] is my friend, so I should support trans rights to be supportive of them/because I care about them, etc." Not supporting trans ideology could feel like a betrayal of their TIP friend/family member, and the TRA might feel guilty if they didn't support trans ideology, and by extension, their TIP friend/family member.
Oh, totally. In a scenario where you're not being held emotionally hostage to be supportive, I can see the support coming from a place of humanity and concern. Again, I don't have numbers, but I'm guessing there are far more TRAs in this experience pool than in the enmeshed family/close friendship pool.
I think the scenario I describe is a factor in why my sister is a TRA. she has a few TIF or NBIF friends. notably, she doesn't have any TIM friends - I'm not sure if she even knows any. and actually she has no male platonic friends that I know of. I guess the TIFs/NBIFs she knows are pleasant (I don't know any of them) and therefore she wants to be supportive of them by supporting trans ideology in general.
If a TRA is motivated by humanity and concern towards a pleasant TIP friend/family member, do you think it's possible for them to be convinced to rescind their support of trans ideology, without feeling like they're betraying or being unsupportive of the individual TIP(s) in their life?
because I think the betrayal aspect I mentioned is a strong factor preventing a TRA like this from giving it up. and it'd be hard to convince someone like this that trans ideology is bad, actually, if the TIP(s) they know is someone they like and want to support. it's too much cognitive dissonance or something for them to realise and accept that trans ideology is full of holes and false.
I want to thank you again for engaging in discussion of this with me. I'm really interested in trying to delve into this beyond just a general, surface level.
Of course, this is a thoughtful conversation, thank you for thinking it through so deeply.
Yes, I do think for TRAs who are friends-of and who've had mostly positive experiences with those friendships, it can feel like a betrayal to be critical of "trans." The TQ has been so firmly welded together with the LGB through activism and misrepresentation that it can be difficult to sort out, and of course the captured portions of medicine and psychology have been advancing it as a pathway to end suffering -- who wouldn't want their friends not to suffer?
On a personal level, this is why I aim the majority of my anger and frustration at the institutions enabling this that should have known better. Of course there are fetishists and narcissists and violent TRA protesters wreaking havoc. But at a more granular level, especially in the earlier days, people have been tracked into "transing" as a response to legitimate suffering that was not properly acknowledged or assessed to begin with. And so many young women being swept up in this most certainly says something about the awful societal pressures of being female, and also of being a lesbian or bisexual young woman or gender nonconforming, while trying to navigate those pressures.
(grammar edit)
I'm a little disappointed that there weren't more people here who want to discuss these questions more deeply like this. Or maybe they are here, but they just didn't see my post or didn't have time to respond with a thought-out comment. once again, thank you for your comments and participating in this discussion with me.
in any case, it seems like the betrayal aspect is something I haven't seen discussed as much regarding why TRAs support trans ideology. there are a lot of motivations intertwined in a perfect storm like others' comments have said, but I don't think I've seen anything examining the betrayal angle before.
I was never a huge TRA (even though I wasn't explicitly against trans ideology either, prior to peaking), so I just can't really understand the mindset and motivations that the hardcore vocal TRAs have. Other comments have said that being a TRA is a purely emotional thing for some people, which I also can't relate to. There was never a strong emotional component for me regarding trans ideology, nor did it feel like I was personally betraying anyone during the process of peaking.
all in all, there's just such a thorny mess of factors here keeping various TRAs entrenched in their support of trans ideology. and it just seems so hard to break the spell or hold that being a TRA has on them.
and yes, I agree with your last paragraph too. My feelings about individual TRAs I know are sort of like a "bless your heart" or "you sweet summer child" perspective -- basically that it disappoints me they support this, but they don't know any better and most likely aren't open to changing their mind.
Of course there's also the questions I have about why exactly these people feel so driven to support trans ideology, which is the whole point of my post and comments here. like how did we get here, to this point where TRAs support trans ideology in the very dedicated way they do?
And I guess I also feel some degree of annoyance towards the TRAs who are always going on about some pro-trans ideology thing or other, since I honestly wish they'd just shut up about it, at the very least. This goes back to the point in the OP, where I was asking why isn't it enough to just support it quietly, to themselves??
How did we get here . . . That's likely to be a series of posts in and of themselves. Another perfect storm of factors, most likely. Though I do keep circling back to 2009, the first year of large-scale social media as we know it. In part, I think that's a new factor of influence, the sheer scale and scope of it, the immediacy of it. Those are my thoughts, at least.
I feel it's salient to this discussion to mention that polling about trans has indicated for a while that people who know a TIP personally are less likely to support trans than people who know none. This stands in stark contrast to polling about the LGB over the years where knowing a gay/bi person usually increases support. So, while some non-trans TRAs might have a really nice, pleasant trans-identified friend or family member, that doesn't seem to be norm.
Great point! Thanks for bringing that up.
oh, I think I may have seen that mentioned before but I didn't remember. it does surprise me a little that polling indicates that knowing a TIP means someone is less likely to support trans ideology.
I'd want to know more about the demographic information here, like the political leanings of the respondents, which may have been collected in the poll. additionally, though it may not have been asked in the poll, I'd want to know how closely the respondents know the TIP (if they do know any) and if the person knows TIFs, TIMs, or both.
I think it's possible that could be split along political lines? like if a liberal/Democratic-leaning person knows a TIP who is seemingly a decent person, they might be more likely to support trans for reasons I described above. whereas if a conservative-leaning person knows a TIP, perhaps they see that TIP as living evidence of why trans is bad.
additionally, if someone knows a TIP but not that closely, maybe they aren't as exposed to the TIP's potential dysfunction/off-putting behavior as much or at all, so they're able to maintain a positive opinion of the TIP and therefore continue supporting trans ideology. whereas if someone knows a TIP more closely, they might be more likely to witness off-putting behavior from the TIP that could cause a person to start questioning their support of trans ideology.
at least that's my logic here, which is based on how the liberal/Democratic/lefty/etc types I know who support trans ideology usually seem to know at least one TIP. I'm curious to hear others' anecdotes though, if anyone has something to share about this: do the TRAs you know have friends or family members that are trans-identified, or do they not seem to know any TIPs?
whereas if someone knows a TIP more closely, they might be more likely to witness off-putting behavior from the TIP that could cause a person to start questioning their support of trans ideology
Just to add -- there will be gradations of off-putting behavior as well. My own family experience didn't involve fetishism per se, but was heavy on untreated bipolar and trauma-related symptoms -- serious emotional and cognitive dysregulation. I'd put it in the middle-tier of "bad experience" -- there are far worse experiences among trans widows, parents, and survivors who've experienced SA, financial hardship, custody battles, and worse. I was financially independent, somewhat geographically distant, and able to go no-contact, and those were huge advantages.
For men, the bro code; they know TIMs are men. And it is a respectable way for them to exercise mysogyny in a way that makes women's lives worse and treats women like shit. But it is also wanting to distance themselves from the creepy mentally disturbed men pretending to be "women" so that no one ever puts them in the same category as those other men.
Women are TRAs because of the "be kind" brainwashing of female socialization. Because they are afraid of the invading male TIMs, who are unspeakably predatory and just as aggressively male as all other men. And because of the female socialized habit of making excuses for whatever men do.
I thought it was very telling how men revolted against Budweiser after their trans ads yet are silent about trans impacting women. Mess with their beer no way, but the women? Who cares.
Tribalism.
Also a socially acceptable way to bully and be misogynist. Racism is out these days, as is direct misogyny (due to #metoo) but the “terf” thing, much like the “karen” thing, has created a new way for people to enjoy bigotry freely and not only without criticism, but actively with praise.
Same with ageism and the “boomer” thing which is also considered socially acceptable - even desirable - for young people to engage in.
I have many thoughts about this, and I think the motivations are a perfect, complex storm, but I want to focus in on one thing, which is this: a highly individualistic culture, such as that in modern Western nations, really feeds on and pushes children differentiating themselves from their parents.
From what I’ve seen amongst my “TRA-aligned” friends and acquaintances is a strong individualistic streak that is on par with that of anarcho-capitalists, but in a group that thinks of itself as being the *exact opposite *of anarcho-capitalists.
These are people trying really hard to push back against their parents and the “old way” of doing things, while still wanting to appear to be prosocial. By being vocal activists about any issue on the left, but especially any issue that isn’t widely supported, they can feel good about themselves as being progressive and modern, without actually having to give up their earthly comforts. And on a similar note, by labeling poor people - and their own family members - as “right wing, uneducated nut jobs,” they don’t actually have to do anything to help them, but they can pretend to help them by insisting that the government help them. They don’t actually want to babysit for a poor mom struggling to make ends so that she can go to work. They don’t show up for their friends, either; they just offer “I’m so sorry this is happening to you,” and maybe a Go Fund Me donation. They don’t actually want to build community. They don’t want to stop driving or stop traveling or do anything that will actually help stave off climate change - they want technology to save us. They don’t actually want to have any responsibility for other people; they just want the government to do that.
They talk a lot about “Family of choice” over “family of origin,” but they wouldn’t pay off their friends’ electric bill in a crisis, or let them sleep on their couch for six months.
Honestly, I am further left (but on the libertarian left rather than the authoritarian left - see the political compass) than most of my friends, in theory, but before I peaked on trans issues, the absolute arrogant snobbery and self-righteousness of my left-leaning friends - most of whom are well into the upper middle class/creative class - and their willingness to throw under the bus anyone that their echo chamber tells them to - was already pushing me down and out of the Democratic Party.
agreed, especially with "the motivations are a perfect, complex storm." I want to try and analyze that perfect, complex storm the way a meteorologist studies a hurricane.
I think there's some variation among different TRAs' "perfect, complex storm" of motivations. I'm trying to figure out what those variations are, and possibly see how they apply to individual TRAs, sort of like a case study.
for me, I'm not sure if I've noticed the same thing as you about the "strong individualistic streak" among TRAs. or maybe it is there and I just haven't picked up on it.
I'm also not sure if the "wanting to differentiate themselves from their parents" thing applies to the people I'm thinking of. for example, my sister is a TRA and has gotten our mom on board to support trans ideology. in this case, it wasn't a major struggle for my sister to convert our mom, since we're all generally liberal/Democratic-leaning/etc and therefore predisposed to support trans ideology, though obviously I peaked and am here (no one irl knows I'm GC).
I'm not saying you're wrong; in fact, I find your thoughts here insightful. thanks for your comment and insights. it's just that maybe what you said doesn't apply as much to the TRAs I'm thinking of. there are some other parts of your comment I'd like to respond to as well, but I don't have time right now. I will come back later and get to that though.
fwiw, I took the political compass test and got a result basically right in the middle of the green, lower left quadrant, for left-libertarian.