I should have known you were a debate team kid too!

I should have known you were a debate team kid too! That absolutely tracks -- we always find our people, ha ha. I am so glad you brought up your experiences, as I think trans-exclusionary folks really have no answer for them at all. If gender socialization makes women soft and men hard, what about the men who have made it through our homophobic, transphobic world with their femininity intact? Socialization does a real traumatic number on all of us but it can't smooth out every wrinkle, can't beat every queer thing about us out of us, even when it tries to do it literally. And of course a lot of TERFy folks understand this about gay desire, but can't imagine it's true about gender... even when generations and generations of gender non-conforming gay people are staring them right in the face.