Growing up in a liberal family I've known trans women since I was a kid, and after 5 minutes of awkwardness I just started to think of them as women because that's the way they behaved and they were 100% committed at a time when that was a hard row to hoe. These days it's easy and anyone can put on a bra n' panties and call themselves oppressed, and I think a lot of the obnoxious noise comes from not actual trans people but cross dressers and mentally unstable narcissists with a lust for power.
If they are the genuine article and give a consistent convincing presentation I don't have a problem considering them female, but if it's a pervert with a 5 oclock shadow who wants to sneak into locker rooms and ruin sporing events then I'm certainly not going to stand there and try to defend them when the country finally gets fed up with their antics.
Concur.
I'm fine with everyone living their lives as it pleases them -- until it starts to affect the lives of children or becomes a means to gain power politically or socially.
Someone wants to pretend to be a woman at home, work, school or shopping? That's fine. Same person want's to compete in women's sports? Shower in open bay showers with young girls? Display his/her junk in fitness club ladies' locker rooms? I have to side on the rights of the real women to not be forced into a coed environment where they have to view/be viewed by males.
You can't normalize abnormal behavior. They are free to live their fantasies. Just don't expect me to support and accept their fantasies as normal. If I believe I'm Jesus Christ, how long before I'm committed as mentally ill? So why is a male insisting he is really female so much different?
Funny thing is, most Gays and Lesbians I've met and spent any time around at college and work almost all have a common trait -- they view everything in their lives through the prism of their sexual lifestyle, and they love to talk about it. I had a gay college acquaintance I met once at my neighbor's apartment. About a day later, he wondered into the burger place I was working. I went over to say hi, and he immediately started telling me about some guy he'd met and was lusting over! I figured he probably told everyone he knew about that, because that was the most important thing in his life at the time. Not the most appropriate thing to talk about with someone you barely know -- gay or straight.
Anyway, I've also met a few who kept their private lives private. Their lifestyle wasn't a secret, but neither did they make everything else revolve around it.
Basically, the loud, proud and in your face Gaystapo types give the "normal" gays a bad name IMO.