Echoing what's already been said here: I was one of those awkward, late-blooming young women who 100% would have been sucked into the gendercult had I been just a little younger, more online, or raised by more permissive parents. I'm now more selective (read: transphobic) about who I hang out with, but in college I befriended some pooners and they/thems as we shared geeky girl interests.
I hit peak trans when two of them started having serious adverse effects from testosterone. One who had already had lifelong mental and physical health issues became completely nonfunctional and had to move back in with her parents, and another ruined her singing voice (she was a professionally trained soprano) and spent months surprised pikachu coping/mourning about it. But don't you dare suggest medicalisation was anything less than lifesaving for either of them! They just needed to get used to these wonderful new body changes, was all!
It broke my brain. #DropKiwiFarms was hitting the mainstream just as friend #1 was starting T. She was vocally supportive of Keffals, of course. I had nobody in my life to share my doubts with, and what do you know, the evil alt-right website was actually saying the things I was afraid even to think! Now, reading this thread is strangely cathartic for me. I sometimes question how I wasted years of my life uncritically supporting this shit and cutting off people who didn't, but this thread reminds me of how cultlike and pervasive troon thinking is. And laughing at tranny Ls keeps me sane and terfy, of course
