Hey Kiwis, long time listener first time caller. Thank you for your blunt and amusing commentary about a subject that is essentially verboten anywhere else. <3
Without going into any powerleveling, I wanted to run an idea by ya'll that's been growing in my head after reading this read for months and from many IRL case studies I've encountered regarding the major typographies of troons. Blanchard was on the right track, especially regarding AGPs, but seems to have left out a critical aspect of a lot of transitioners: trauma. That being said, it seems like there are really three main categories your average troon would fall into.
Physical abnormality/mental illness: Intersex conditions, hormone or chromosome abnormalities, and mental illness not caused by external forces.
Trauma response: Often physical or mental abuse victims. Going trans as a form of Disassociative Identity Disorder and desire to be "not youself" rather than to be another gender. The explosion of teenage FTMs we are seeing would fall into this category as a backlash to having binary gender roles forced upon them by parents or the community at large. I would also put Blanchard's HSTS in this category because even in this day and age being openly gay can cause a lot of trauma in a young persons life. "Better trans than gay" is an extremely real and depressing sentiment.
Fetishism: AGP/AAPs, transformation fetishists, sissifiction fetishists, etc. You know, most of this fuckin' thread.
Any of these three can be comorbid with each other, but in general I feel sorry for the first two types because the circumstances are beyond their control and any practical solutions are thrown away in favor of this absurd "movement". The fetishists, however, are the type that have begun to create a massive amount of dread within me. They are so obviously co-opting the struggles of gay folks as well as the mentally ill to push acceptance of a blatant fetish and actively recruit innocent, likely gay, young people into making horrific and permanent changes to their bodies because it gets them off. And they've done such a good job of it you aren't even allowed to discuss the idea that this might be what some of them are doing without being immediately labeled a TERF and having death threats rain down upon you. How can we go about combatting such vicious thought policing? Must we wait until countless young people have wrecked their bodies before folks finally wake up and stop catering to a handful of sick fetishists?
Sorry to ramble but its been stewing in my brain for too long and I had to get it out somewhere. As indelicate as this forum is most times I really appreciate yall for being one of the few places to talk about this stuff. Cheers to you autists, keep up the good work.
