I was in high school as the whole trans thing started to really take off, and back then I was more of a "live and let live" guy. It wasn't really a big thing yet, but I could see it taking seed when a few of the more weird kids started to troon out or go down the non-binary path. And as time went on, I started to get skeptical about it, but I mostly kept it to myself. So anyway, 2016 rolls around and I graduate right as the Trump era starts and the troon epidemic is starting to take off, and with that comes the debate about puberty blockers and "gender affirming care" for fucking children starts to come up, and even back then I was pretty against it. Like what the fuck does that even mean? Why do you have to "Affirm" something when you're deadset on mutilating your body and injecting yourself with horse piss hormones? Regardless of all that, eventually it started to happen to a couple of friends of mine who started trooning out when we were all in college. Pre-troon, they were both just some nerdy guys who were into art and surface internet culture (the latter part makes a lot more sense to me now since groomers lurk everywhere on the sites they were into). So as time goes on and they start drinking more and more troonshine, they were very quick to throw me under the bus and label me as a "fake ally" because I didn't think as black and white as they did. These were people I went back years with, and seeing how quickly they threw me under the bus just really fucking hurt
So I thought to myself, "Maybe I'm wrong" but that idea quickly went out the window when it seemed like anyone and everyone started gargling tranny dick and affirming textbook delusional behavior. It was at that time that I really started to get some insight into just how fucked up it all is, and when I started having to explain myself for my views such as "I don't think these people should get to be in women's spaces and sports" to friends, I lost them and became a social pariah among people I'd spent so much time getting to know and love because "The hormones change their bodies enough", after which I shot back "So you're saying women are inherently weaker?". Made me feel like I was disposable, yanno?
So later, I move to NYC for a job, and I start to make friends there slowly but surely. And while I was initially under the impression that my views would get me slapped with a hate crime there, I was surprised when I learned that all of them despised the whole thing, and I guess the feeling resonated with more people than I could've ever imagined. Meeting them made me reach peak trans, and it was one hell of a wakeup call
The first part is very similar to how it happened for me. My friends trooned out and became entitled shitheads, and I got tired of seeing mentally ill grifters and pornsick men in spinny skirts prey on confused kids, fill their heads with gender cult bullshit, and convince them to ruin their bodies, all while telling them it will make them happy. The "A HA" moment for me came during a discussion with my mother about my middle and high school years. I'm a bisexual woman, and for most of my teen years I hated wearing form-fitting "girly" clothes and doing feminine (at the time) things; I was also severely depressed, and hated my body. As I looked back on it, I was struck with the realization that in the present, I would undoubtedly have been pushed into transing. (And, ignorant and out-of-touch as my parents were, they probably would have allowed it.)
Now, I can't get the thought out of my head; I keep thinking about all the girls out there like me who are growing up now; how many of them are going to have their bodies and lives ruined by TRAs, who will never truly have the chance to grow, to develop, work through their issues and discover who they are as people; who will never get married, never have children, never have any chance at a normal life. Troons preying on women in bathrooms and in prisons is evil; troons preying on kids is on a whole other level.
There were a few other moments for me, but they mostly involve people in a D&D campaign (and no one wants to listen to me sperg about that for multiple paragraphs). I haven't fully peaked; I do know some good, sane trans people, and Blaire White and Buck Angel are pretty based (despite Buck's history in porn). I also don't have a lot of love for TERFs (or radfems in general); the hateful anti-male narratives, and the bullshit they direct at women who don't despise men (or have any kind of positive relationship with a man) are deal breakers. (As was a female friend, a cancer patient, being harassed after they mistook her for trans.) But it will be a cold day in Hell before I ever support the disgusting, annoying, irritating, willfully ignorant, repulsive, grooming, narcissistic perversions of nature parading as "trans activists".
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