Okay….. now switch your amygdala off for a second and think. Where else on Medium do you find Conservative Christians and Trans-women respectfully reading the same articles? Where else but a liberal, centre ground toned piece are you going to actually facilitate discussion? Where are people going to actually exchange ideas?

Because I don’t even need to click your profile to know you’re writing in an echo chamber for the LGBBTQ+ community, I imagine you’ve go widespread support from other trans-writers and the occasional conservative bigot comes in and calls you a man in a dress.

So, here’s the thing…. The point of you will. I write in the centre. The dead centre… and then I do my best to ensure everyone reads everyone else respectfully. And guess what, if you’d led with ‘hey, so here’s the actual rules of self-id, and it’s different from what a lot of people think, I guess most people don’t know that, but I’m kinda an expert because it happened to me’ - then holy fuck you might just have won some followers, you might have changed some minds. But you didn’t.

You just confirmed the expectation of moderate reluctant conservatives that trans-people are dangerous radicals who go on the attack. Now I don’t believe that for a second, and I’d love to move society towards a more tolerant and respectful place - but fuck me, commenters like you make it difficult. And then call it tone policing.

Think. Actually think about what this piece is for and look at the comments section. Compare and contrast with the comments section of your work. Compare and contrast with the comments section of most right wing conservative work. You can either get on board with conversation or you can sit in a trench full of other trans-activists telling each other how shit JK Rowling is, how awesome you all are, and yelling insult after insult into an uncaring abyss.

It isn’t that you’re wrong about self id, it’s that you’ve missed the point.