comment: >
  
  All I see from the anti-trans side is a belief that gender is unmutable and unchangable, to the point where they see any gender affirming treatment as a fool's choice and a sign that society is about to destroy itself (but, in the case of the UK, transphobes in parliament opt for a constitutional crisis rather than respecting the Scottish gender recognition act). I've seen transphobes say things along the lines of "under all those surgeries, you are still male!" as if gender is an intertwined soul or something. It doesn't help that a lot of transphobes spread lies about gender affirming care (ie the claim that neovaginas smell like poop, claims that trans people all regret hormones and surgery, that trans people are the biggest users of adult diapers, etc).
  It's just base, emotional hatred of a group of people. Adding on to what you said, a lot of transphobes do not acknowledge intersex people exist. Like, you show them studies about how many people are intersex and what their bodies are like, and they pretend they didn't hear you. It's ridiculous.
  Personal disclaimer: I'm trans. I've been on hormone replacement therapy for almost 4 years now. I had male-to-female bottom surgery last year, the results have been fantastic and I am so much happier with myself than I was before transitioning.
context: Is this simple hypocrisy on the past of hyperpartisan politicians, or is there an actual reason that these carve-outs and exceptions should exist, and if so, why is that missing more or less entirely from the public debate?
  
  The issue is that being trans is complicated, even for trans people.  I am not trans, but I consider myself an Ally, and I have had lots of trans friends who took great pains to answer my questions and explain what was going on with them.  Even now, years later, I still don't understand the finer details of it all.
  What I do understand, however, is that trans people know their bodies the best, and along with their doctors should be entitled to any procedures that make them feel more comfortable in their own skin.
  Meanwhile, conservative politicians who also don't understand trans people, not even a little bit, are convinced that anyone who is supportive of a minor transitioning is a child abuser, a groomer, or some combination of the two.  So they pass laws that restrict minors from being able to transition, or restrict doctors from performing the necessary procedures, because they think they are protecting kids from themselves or the liberal parents who indoctrinated them.
  It is also a cynical ploy to gin up anger in the conservative voting base because they can't get angry about Roe vs. Wade anymore so they have to find a new wedge cultural issue to use as a distraction so they can keep cutting taxes for their wealthy donors. >
  
  That doesn't explain carving out these exceptions though. If we're really going to approach the topic from 'stop mutilating children's genitals', then surely conservatives should be just as opposed to the mutilation without consent of infants, who are then forced into a binary that might not even match their chromosomes or normal hormonal development. And so the politicians write every more carve-outs into the law, allowing intersex children to be forced into a gender they did not choose through the same HRT that trans children who are making an active choice are denied. >
  
  See the issue is you're trying to ascribe logic to people who perceive logical thinking as a sign of moral failure.
  It's not about being consistent, it's about making tans-folks hate living because the people who write these laws and who are so invested in forcing a "debate" about if these procedures should be legal don't have any cause but fighting to any end societal acceptance of identities they find disgusting.  
  Because then society might find them disgusting for not also accepting people with those identities, and there is no thought which inspires more fear and anxiety to the conservative mind.  
  These laws are crafted out of no principal, no reason, no precedent, other than social conservatives just hating trans people that much, and refusing to a violent degree to be left behind on this latest front in the march of civil rights.
  Today's god fearing advocate of family values and tradition, tomorrow's history piece villain.