The idea that some people will believe anything is hardly new. Sadly, lives can depend on getting the facts correct.
People are being told that human gender variance is an idea that has been made-up recently and is being used to dupe the citizenry. Because some who have recently come to power need a soft target, they are making up falsehoods to justify draconian actions. Conflating gender-variant people with criminals, such as pedophiles and rapists, is the real crime here.
Of course, the people making up stories about us don't really want to get their facts straight. We, who have to deal with gender variance and dysphoria daily, should be able to tell this important part of our story correctly to those who might care to know the truth.
We are not some new idea just made up. Further, we were not rejected or persecuted until fairly recently.
Documented references to gender variance go back to Greek and Roman times. Instead of going on and on citing references I shall let you read for yourself in this peer-reviewed article from Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 2021, Vol. 23.
The terminology, around trans-related issues, is relatively new, only about 100 years old. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), a physician who practiced in Germany, founded two organizations committed to the support of homosexuals and sexual minorities. It was Hirschfeld who coined the term ‘transsexual’ in 1923. This word would only catch on three decades later with the publication of the groundbreaking 1966 book The Transsexual Phenomenon by Harry Benjamin (1885–1986).
Enough of the history lesson. Please be assured, we are not deluded or insane. We are a vulnerable minority - an easy target.
Please, love yourself while doing your best to love others as well.
