Version one of "Iinformed Dissent" was terrific, and I want to thank Sara, Ben, and Lisa for their work there. But this new version two is going to be really special. This brief summary of Lauren's path is powerful, as her voice always is. Thanks to you both for sharing it.
I'm excited about the relaunch of the podcast as part of the LGB Courage Coalition. Clearly, it will be even more of the kind of content that mainstream "liberals" need to hear and that they'll have a tough time turning away from.
The sponsorship has also given us the support of the volunteer team, we will now have assistance with scheduling, booking guests, and running the tech. There is a lot of work that goes into a podcast and so thankful to have that team support.
Was worried about the stopping of the podcast - I was so convinced of the necessity of your voices that I subscribed for a year. Very happy that you are back - will miss Sarah, Lisa and Ben but happy Jamie and Cori are still here and really felt LLL has a story that needs to be told - welcome!!
Wild hare (or is it "hair"?) of an idea here: Get a conversation with Mike Rowe. I am thinking about Lauren's experience working in construction, and the basic problem with youth disconnected from their bodies (and, generally, the material world, living as they do online with very little experience doing ANYTHING material - The popular advice to give such people is to "touch grass," when maybe we should be telling folks to mow it.), which makes them so vulnerable to ideologies based on ZERO evidence (let alone the wisdom accumulated over generations upon generations of humanity's accumulated painful mistakes made while trying to mould the physical world to suit our fantasies). It seems like one ingredient to a person's formative years that might help inoculate them against "gender woo" and the experience of viscerally reacting to it as the crazy that it is, as Lauren describes, is a lot of experiences seeing how one's visions about how to make something in the material work very often turn out to be seriously flawed once one attempts to put them into practice.
Here's my example from early childhood: When I was a little, little kid, I badly wanted one of those dresses with a huge long skirt made wide and "poofy" by a hoop skirt underneath. I would obsessively draw little princess types of girls, all wearing big hoop skirt sorts of dresses. I was too small to be given needles, and the only materials I had access to was paper, crayons and Elmer's glue. So naturally I formed an elaborate plan in my head to realize my "Cinderella" vision by "building" myself a lovely ball gown out of paper (or maybe cardboard, I thought) and glue. I have intense memories of the frustrations of a whole afternoon failing to execute my plan and wasting a great deal of colored construction paper and glue.
Maybe since the advent of the computer as chief supplier of entertainment (worsening an already-existing problem of 24x7 availability of kid-attracting entertainment) has robbed kids of these kinds of learning moments. Maybe a dematerialized childhood has so reduced the average First World Western kid's opportunities to practice resiliency when our hard, cruel physical world simply will not always bend to accommodate whatever wild theories of reality we might dream up, no matter how masculine or feminine those desires might be. In other words, did Lauren's long years' experience working with her hands provide her the innate wisdom expressed via Mick Jagger's unique voice: "You can't always get what you want."?
So here's the wild hare of an idea: Someone ( probably Lauren) needs to be interviewed by Mike Rowe, of "Dirty Jobs" fame, who has been making a dent in the huge corporate University industry's ability to waste the time and money of young Americans with his mikeroweWORKS Foundation. I see a connection between the problem of too many young people being funnelled into useless, all-theory-no-"beef" elementary and high school-to-college majors, which has essentially led to an unsafe portion of the population left with flabby-intellects and living cowardly sheep-like and dependent-on-the-herd lives, unable to be independent in their professions (because they have Bullshit jobs) and therefore unable to be independent in their thinking. This is a sub-narrative that I perceive in a lot of the conversations that Mike Rowe has on his podcast, "The Way I Heard It." And I think pitching something along those lines to him might be worth trying. I do not recall Rowe specifically weighing in on the topic of "trans child," but his response to incidents like this one have for years makes me think he might be a helpful force in spreading LGB Courage Coalition's message to a broader swath of America and beyond. (see https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=844574607026812&set=a.273094757508136&type=3&ref=embed_post )
Great idea. Decade by decade we are rapidly decreasing the occurrences in which our physical bodies have to struggle against the unmoving forces of the external world. And, more professions are defined by linguistic persuasion rather than solutions that can be tested to comport with reality.
So pleased you're back. I'll miss the others, especially Sarah's beautiful cat! But Lauren is a great addition and, speaking as a fellow gender non-conforming lesbian, it will be great to have her perspective. A lot of what she said about her childhood as a tom boy resonated with me. I would totally have been 'transed' if I was a child today.
Follow-up to my "wild hare" comment. Have you listened to Mike Rowe's interview with Riley Gaines? I recommend it; because you may be struck at how masculine her demeanor is and how "boyish" is the culture in which she was raised that she describes. Though Gaines is no lesbian, she sure as sh*t falls in that grey area of gender nonconformity, if what that means is to not perfectly fit the stereotypes of female behavior we're all supposedly "supposed" to live up to . . . Riley Gaines HATES Losing More Than She Loves Winning | The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAlbhHG9V58 There's an underlying kinship I see between Mike Rowe and Lauren Leggieri, two "blue collar philosophers."
As a fellow gender non-conforming lesbian I’m so excited about Lauren joining the cast! But I also have to say I’m relieved that Cori is still around. I’m a fan of Heterodorx and always love hearing what he has to say.
Welcome back, and welcome Lauren! Great episode, and good one to share with friends (those I still have anyway). My husband tells me there is a 20-something suspender-wearing and happily butch lesbian at his work, so while an endangered species, there have been anecdotal sightings amongst the youngs.
I cannot deliver the message as powerfully as Lauren because I'm not a butch lesbian but talking about how this practice is effectively transing gay kids DOES widen the eyes of liberal friends and begins a questioning better than anything else I try, including talking about women's rights to safety and dignity (which has shocked me that they don't care, but it is the way it is). I had a recent conversation where I tried to talk about the other aspects and got the tin-foil look and talks of rabbit holes. But he heard me about transing gay kids. Not a good look for card carrying liberals.
Yes, I think "transing gay kids" might work better with people I know than "women's rights."
My theory: many professional middle class women simply don't imagine that they will ever be physically threatened by a male. They may imagine trans-ID men to be effeminate gay men who pose no threat of sexual violence. So--arguing for preserving women's bathrooms etc doesn't go far with them. And, frankly, before I was peaked, it didn't go that far with me either. Whereas planting a seed of doubt about vulnerable nonconforming children, who they they view as *needing* support, might go further with them.
So far I don't have much success with talking to liberals about transing gay kids. The liberals supporting trans resist acknowledging truth in stereotypes and insist that the kids know themselves the best and why do you care?
I am so glad you guys are back with your firebrand of common sense that doesn't exist anywhere in the wild, not that I'm a collector. I'm not. Just sad about lost friendships with a brother, with trans and gay friends, and a buttload of psych caregivers of adolescents in Minneapolis, and the twisted definition in Minnesota "banning conversion therapy," as if transing kids in inpatient psych and public schools ISN'T CONVERSION ITSELF. Thanks for letting me rant.
I'm a lesbian and can relate to the reception Lauren received when stating the obvious re: transing kids and forcing the activist agenda. I quickly became a lesbian villain for naively stating my concerns and perhaps the anger and disgust I feel with the activist propaganda and the hijacking of HRC, Glaad, ACLU and pretty much anything and everything that used to be my reasonably content LGB life. I really had nothing against trans and wished them all the best until the extremism was normalized and forced down our throats and into every public and private place we had. Clearly, the NGO's were for sale.
I was at the Genspect: Big Picture. It was my first time to be at such an event. I was truly amazed by how many podcasters, writers, celebrities of this gender culture war were in attendance. Very cool and down to earth event filled with people who have purpose and focus and genuine compassion. I saw Cori, Lauren, Lisa, and literally dozens of others. I wish I had struck up more conversation with the many fascinating and inspiring men and woman of all ages and types.
I am completely unaffiliated with any organization and am a retired lawyer - I became obsessed with this topic about three years ago and talked about it to everybody all the time. I now lead a very quiet life befitting my outcast status!!! Though my guess is most of the lesbians I used to hang out with don't even remember the details of my alleged sins. Sins like being horrified by the concept of "gender affirming care," and puberty blockers and pronouns and men in lesbian dating sites and locker rooms and on and on... It really is the cultural significance of this break down in civility and human decency that continues to concern me. It is a form of madness and eventual chaos.
I'm rambling. All of your efforts and courage are much appreciated.
Was worried about the stopping of the podcast - I was so convinced of the necessity of your voices that I subscribed for a year. Very happy that you are back - will miss Sarah, Lisa and Ben but happy Jamie and Cori are still here and really felt LLL has a story that needs to be told - welcome!!
Wow, this was superduper. Such a lovely surprise, the podcast coming back so fast and so well.
I have a ton of thoughts--will sail out a few brief ones.
1. "Luxury beliefs"--credit obtains to Rob K. Henderson.
2. I think with those proto-gay boys and young gay men fed into the trans machine, internalized homophobia is definitely salient. With proto-gay girls and young gay women, I think good old-fashioned internalized *misogyny* does the job nearly all by itself: maybe loving the womanliness of other women but despising it in oneself, or feeling like one isn't "good" at the sort of femmy stuff that one may wrongly imagine womanhood requires...
3. With the Klein-y (Kleinish?) types maybe we can say, "Hey Ezra! You like gays? You like nonconformists? You like arty, edgy people who go their own way? How 'bout not requiring them to have their genitals cut off?! K thx bye."
4. The new podcast crew is now all gay, and in an excellent position to showcase harms to gays and lesbians. But we want to make sure that we (both crew and audience, gay and straight) do not simply place this issue into a gay basket. Transmania harms everyone and information about its harms needs to reach the 95% of people who don't necessarily check the gay basket for new info about the world.
5. Lauren's working-class sensibility is EXACTLY what the doctor ordered. Yep, Mama's and Nana's generation recognized the Laurens in the eighties, and the sixties, and the forties und so weiter...
And I would join those fairly straitlaced Mamas and Nanas in noting that Lauren has pretty eyes, and go back to stirring my pot.
Welcome Lauren! I recall seeing you in Albuquerque this past weekend.
Thank you both for being bold NBS women.
Ezra Klein and MSM censorship--I think this goes to the top, the editor of NYT opinion page. What is the backstory there?
Ezra undoubtedly knows someone who calls themself trans, perhaps even a child. Knowing someone who "is trans" brings up the righthink armor.
No child should be medicalized. Thank you all for fighting this fight.
As for GNC, we need to make room in society for people who are naturally GNC, and those who have medicalized.
GNC is a fuzzy term. We know what an effeminate boy looks like--leave him alone to grow up as he will.
Tomboy is an even fuzzier term--it is widely used (and many of those girls are not GNC). Debra Soh discusses personality in her book, "The End of Gender."
Looking forward to your new launch.
I will miss seeing you with Ben, Sarah, and Lisa, but will continue to follow the others via their platforms and books.
The moment you realize no one's "born in the wrong body" you realize that there's no such thing as a "trans child" which means there's no such thing as a "trans person." It's an ideology inside a house of cards built on quicksand.
This didn’t peak me, because what about disabled people, they’re born in wrong body in objective terms of functionality. Add to that the strong belief in mental health being equal to physical health and you get people born in the wrong body due to strong subjective discomfort.
There is no other body into which one can be born other than the one you have. "Rightness" and "wrongness" are really not relevant -- one's body just "is." Sure, disability can be incurred due to environmental factors beyond our control but we are ultimately (though not only) our bodies, irrespective of our abilities in relation to the norm. The moralizing of our corporal existence is what confounds our ability to discuss this objectively.
I do want to add that there is the odd kid with gender dysphoria that isn’t gay. Not the most common ones but I would have been one, if I had been born some decades later. Stella O’Malley is one. There can be people where the gay part isn’t the main issue also as not all gay kids grow up in homophobic surroundings nor have much internalised homophobia. I do get that these are not the majority but still.
To be clear, I'm not saying that no one experiences dysphoria/dysmorphia with their sexed bodies and/or the gender role expectations that may come along with that body. That could theoretically happen at any age, although I would argue that it doesn't happen to pre-pubescent children without undue influence from an adult. The misconstruing of this dysphoria/dysmorphia as evidence of an instrinsically incongruent gender identity is understandable by your average do-good liberal, but that's why it's a convenient tool for TRAs to use in pushing an otherwise easily falsifiable narrative.
I can recommend you to listen to an early “Gender A Wider Lens” episode with the Evans. They’ve talked about what drove kids to gender identity disorder before the Dutch protocol came along and drove this craze together with changes in the SOC and the extreme turn of the WPATH. The kinds of trauma that drove kids to this distress are not always related to sexuality.
Well this is a thing many people don’t understand. The sexed part doesn’t come in until pubescens. In that aspect you’re right. But what is now called gender dysphoria isn’t always about our sexed bodies but can be because of other kinds of trauma totally unrelated to sexuality too. This is something that was known by people that helped dysphoric kids before this craze came along. As the craze-normalising people took over, these roots to gender dysphoria were buried as they don’t want psychological treatment models and thus they covered them up with the glossy paper idea that they were “born this way”. Which also led to people seeng, behind that cover, their adult and quite dissociate sexuality. This makes people think it’s all about strange sexuality when in fact, dysphoria was before this craze often seen in pre pubescent people, and helped off with getting to the root cause, some kind of childhood trauma, sometimes but not always sexual.
Version one of "Iinformed Dissent" was terrific, and I want to thank Sara, Ben, and Lisa for their work there. But this new version two is going to be really special. This brief summary of Lauren's path is powerful, as her voice always is. Thanks to you both for sharing it.
I'm excited about the relaunch of the podcast as part of the LGB Courage Coalition. Clearly, it will be even more of the kind of content that mainstream "liberals" need to hear and that they'll have a tough time turning away from.
I'm a grateful fan. ❤️
The sponsorship has also given us the support of the volunteer team, we will now have assistance with scheduling, booking guests, and running the tech. There is a lot of work that goes into a podcast and so thankful to have that team support.
I’m happy that you’re back!
Was worried about the stopping of the podcast - I was so convinced of the necessity of your voices that I subscribed for a year. Very happy that you are back - will miss Sarah, Lisa and Ben but happy Jamie and Cori are still here and really felt LLL has a story that needs to be told - welcome!!
Wild hare (or is it "hair"?) of an idea here: Get a conversation with Mike Rowe. I am thinking about Lauren's experience working in construction, and the basic problem with youth disconnected from their bodies (and, generally, the material world, living as they do online with very little experience doing ANYTHING material - The popular advice to give such people is to "touch grass," when maybe we should be telling folks to mow it.), which makes them so vulnerable to ideologies based on ZERO evidence (let alone the wisdom accumulated over generations upon generations of humanity's accumulated painful mistakes made while trying to mould the physical world to suit our fantasies). It seems like one ingredient to a person's formative years that might help inoculate them against "gender woo" and the experience of viscerally reacting to it as the crazy that it is, as Lauren describes, is a lot of experiences seeing how one's visions about how to make something in the material work very often turn out to be seriously flawed once one attempts to put them into practice.
Here's my example from early childhood: When I was a little, little kid, I badly wanted one of those dresses with a huge long skirt made wide and "poofy" by a hoop skirt underneath. I would obsessively draw little princess types of girls, all wearing big hoop skirt sorts of dresses. I was too small to be given needles, and the only materials I had access to was paper, crayons and Elmer's glue. So naturally I formed an elaborate plan in my head to realize my "Cinderella" vision by "building" myself a lovely ball gown out of paper (or maybe cardboard, I thought) and glue. I have intense memories of the frustrations of a whole afternoon failing to execute my plan and wasting a great deal of colored construction paper and glue.
Maybe since the advent of the computer as chief supplier of entertainment (worsening an already-existing problem of 24x7 availability of kid-attracting entertainment) has robbed kids of these kinds of learning moments. Maybe a dematerialized childhood has so reduced the average First World Western kid's opportunities to practice resiliency when our hard, cruel physical world simply will not always bend to accommodate whatever wild theories of reality we might dream up, no matter how masculine or feminine those desires might be. In other words, did Lauren's long years' experience working with her hands provide her the innate wisdom expressed via Mick Jagger's unique voice: "You can't always get what you want."?
So here's the wild hare of an idea: Someone ( probably Lauren) needs to be interviewed by Mike Rowe, of "Dirty Jobs" fame, who has been making a dent in the huge corporate University industry's ability to waste the time and money of young Americans with his mikeroweWORKS Foundation. I see a connection between the problem of too many young people being funnelled into useless, all-theory-no-"beef" elementary and high school-to-college majors, which has essentially led to an unsafe portion of the population left with flabby-intellects and living cowardly sheep-like and dependent-on-the-herd lives, unable to be independent in their professions (because they have Bullshit jobs) and therefore unable to be independent in their thinking. This is a sub-narrative that I perceive in a lot of the conversations that Mike Rowe has on his podcast, "The Way I Heard It." And I think pitching something along those lines to him might be worth trying. I do not recall Rowe specifically weighing in on the topic of "trans child," but his response to incidents like this one have for years makes me think he might be a helpful force in spreading LGB Courage Coalition's message to a broader swath of America and beyond. (see https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=844574607026812&set=a.273094757508136&type=3&ref=embed_post )
Great idea. Decade by decade we are rapidly decreasing the occurrences in which our physical bodies have to struggle against the unmoving forces of the external world. And, more professions are defined by linguistic persuasion rather than solutions that can be tested to comport with reality.
So pleased you're back. I'll miss the others, especially Sarah's beautiful cat! But Lauren is a great addition and, speaking as a fellow gender non-conforming lesbian, it will be great to have her perspective. A lot of what she said about her childhood as a tom boy resonated with me. I would totally have been 'transed' if I was a child today.
Glad to see you back, Jamie, and welcome, Lauren! I’m a fellow longtime obsessive on this topic; I also remember reading 4th Wave Now back in the day.
Anyway, curious to hear about your experiences of the recent conferences. Looking forward to “Season Two” of Informed Dissent!
Follow-up to my "wild hare" comment. Have you listened to Mike Rowe's interview with Riley Gaines? I recommend it; because you may be struck at how masculine her demeanor is and how "boyish" is the culture in which she was raised that she describes. Though Gaines is no lesbian, she sure as sh*t falls in that grey area of gender nonconformity, if what that means is to not perfectly fit the stereotypes of female behavior we're all supposedly "supposed" to live up to . . . Riley Gaines HATES Losing More Than She Loves Winning | The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAlbhHG9V58 There's an underlying kinship I see between Mike Rowe and Lauren Leggieri, two "blue collar philosophers."
Wow, here I am seeing that on Oct 14, he had on that podcast a guest who talked about the men in women's prisons travesty
Welcome Lauren! Let me know if you want any help spreading the word about your home improvement business out in Delco.
As a fellow gender non-conforming lesbian I’m so excited about Lauren joining the cast! But I also have to say I’m relieved that Cori is still around. I’m a fan of Heterodorx and always love hearing what he has to say.
Welcome back, and welcome Lauren! Great episode, and good one to share with friends (those I still have anyway). My husband tells me there is a 20-something suspender-wearing and happily butch lesbian at his work, so while an endangered species, there have been anecdotal sightings amongst the youngs.
I cannot deliver the message as powerfully as Lauren because I'm not a butch lesbian but talking about how this practice is effectively transing gay kids DOES widen the eyes of liberal friends and begins a questioning better than anything else I try, including talking about women's rights to safety and dignity (which has shocked me that they don't care, but it is the way it is). I had a recent conversation where I tried to talk about the other aspects and got the tin-foil look and talks of rabbit holes. But he heard me about transing gay kids. Not a good look for card carrying liberals.
Yes, I think "transing gay kids" might work better with people I know than "women's rights."
My theory: many professional middle class women simply don't imagine that they will ever be physically threatened by a male. They may imagine trans-ID men to be effeminate gay men who pose no threat of sexual violence. So--arguing for preserving women's bathrooms etc doesn't go far with them. And, frankly, before I was peaked, it didn't go that far with me either. Whereas planting a seed of doubt about vulnerable nonconforming children, who they they view as *needing* support, might go further with them.
So far I don't have much success with talking to liberals about transing gay kids. The liberals supporting trans resist acknowledging truth in stereotypes and insist that the kids know themselves the best and why do you care?
I am so glad you guys are back with your firebrand of common sense that doesn't exist anywhere in the wild, not that I'm a collector. I'm not. Just sad about lost friendships with a brother, with trans and gay friends, and a buttload of psych caregivers of adolescents in Minneapolis, and the twisted definition in Minnesota "banning conversion therapy," as if transing kids in inpatient psych and public schools ISN'T CONVERSION ITSELF. Thanks for letting me rant.
I'm a lesbian and can relate to the reception Lauren received when stating the obvious re: transing kids and forcing the activist agenda. I quickly became a lesbian villain for naively stating my concerns and perhaps the anger and disgust I feel with the activist propaganda and the hijacking of HRC, Glaad, ACLU and pretty much anything and everything that used to be my reasonably content LGB life. I really had nothing against trans and wished them all the best until the extremism was normalized and forced down our throats and into every public and private place we had. Clearly, the NGO's were for sale.
I was at the Genspect: Big Picture. It was my first time to be at such an event. I was truly amazed by how many podcasters, writers, celebrities of this gender culture war were in attendance. Very cool and down to earth event filled with people who have purpose and focus and genuine compassion. I saw Cori, Lauren, Lisa, and literally dozens of others. I wish I had struck up more conversation with the many fascinating and inspiring men and woman of all ages and types.
I am completely unaffiliated with any organization and am a retired lawyer - I became obsessed with this topic about three years ago and talked about it to everybody all the time. I now lead a very quiet life befitting my outcast status!!! Though my guess is most of the lesbians I used to hang out with don't even remember the details of my alleged sins. Sins like being horrified by the concept of "gender affirming care," and puberty blockers and pronouns and men in lesbian dating sites and locker rooms and on and on... It really is the cultural significance of this break down in civility and human decency that continues to concern me. It is a form of madness and eventual chaos.
I'm rambling. All of your efforts and courage are much appreciated.
Was worried about the stopping of the podcast - I was so convinced of the necessity of your voices that I subscribed for a year. Very happy that you are back - will miss Sarah, Lisa and Ben but happy Jamie and Cori are still here and really felt LLL has a story that needs to be told - welcome!!
Wow, this was superduper. Such a lovely surprise, the podcast coming back so fast and so well.
I have a ton of thoughts--will sail out a few brief ones.
1. "Luxury beliefs"--credit obtains to Rob K. Henderson.
2. I think with those proto-gay boys and young gay men fed into the trans machine, internalized homophobia is definitely salient. With proto-gay girls and young gay women, I think good old-fashioned internalized *misogyny* does the job nearly all by itself: maybe loving the womanliness of other women but despising it in oneself, or feeling like one isn't "good" at the sort of femmy stuff that one may wrongly imagine womanhood requires...
3. With the Klein-y (Kleinish?) types maybe we can say, "Hey Ezra! You like gays? You like nonconformists? You like arty, edgy people who go their own way? How 'bout not requiring them to have their genitals cut off?! K thx bye."
4. The new podcast crew is now all gay, and in an excellent position to showcase harms to gays and lesbians. But we want to make sure that we (both crew and audience, gay and straight) do not simply place this issue into a gay basket. Transmania harms everyone and information about its harms needs to reach the 95% of people who don't necessarily check the gay basket for new info about the world.
5. Lauren's working-class sensibility is EXACTLY what the doctor ordered. Yep, Mama's and Nana's generation recognized the Laurens in the eighties, and the sixties, and the forties und so weiter...
And I would join those fairly straitlaced Mamas and Nanas in noting that Lauren has pretty eyes, and go back to stirring my pot.
Welcome Lauren! I recall seeing you in Albuquerque this past weekend.
Thank you both for being bold NBS women.
Ezra Klein and MSM censorship--I think this goes to the top, the editor of NYT opinion page. What is the backstory there?
Ezra undoubtedly knows someone who calls themself trans, perhaps even a child. Knowing someone who "is trans" brings up the righthink armor.
No child should be medicalized. Thank you all for fighting this fight.
As for GNC, we need to make room in society for people who are naturally GNC, and those who have medicalized.
GNC is a fuzzy term. We know what an effeminate boy looks like--leave him alone to grow up as he will.
Tomboy is an even fuzzier term--it is widely used (and many of those girls are not GNC). Debra Soh discusses personality in her book, "The End of Gender."
Looking forward to your new launch.
I will miss seeing you with Ben, Sarah, and Lisa, but will continue to follow the others via their platforms and books.
Every most committed trans ally has in their life trans person they want to protect
The moment you realize no one's "born in the wrong body" you realize that there's no such thing as a "trans child" which means there's no such thing as a "trans person." It's an ideology inside a house of cards built on quicksand.
This didn’t peak me, because what about disabled people, they’re born in wrong body in objective terms of functionality. Add to that the strong belief in mental health being equal to physical health and you get people born in the wrong body due to strong subjective discomfort.
There is no other body into which one can be born other than the one you have. "Rightness" and "wrongness" are really not relevant -- one's body just "is." Sure, disability can be incurred due to environmental factors beyond our control but we are ultimately (though not only) our bodies, irrespective of our abilities in relation to the norm. The moralizing of our corporal existence is what confounds our ability to discuss this objectively.
I do want to add that there is the odd kid with gender dysphoria that isn’t gay. Not the most common ones but I would have been one, if I had been born some decades later. Stella O’Malley is one. There can be people where the gay part isn’t the main issue also as not all gay kids grow up in homophobic surroundings nor have much internalised homophobia. I do get that these are not the majority but still.
To be clear, I'm not saying that no one experiences dysphoria/dysmorphia with their sexed bodies and/or the gender role expectations that may come along with that body. That could theoretically happen at any age, although I would argue that it doesn't happen to pre-pubescent children without undue influence from an adult. The misconstruing of this dysphoria/dysmorphia as evidence of an instrinsically incongruent gender identity is understandable by your average do-good liberal, but that's why it's a convenient tool for TRAs to use in pushing an otherwise easily falsifiable narrative.
I can recommend you to listen to an early “Gender A Wider Lens” episode with the Evans. They’ve talked about what drove kids to gender identity disorder before the Dutch protocol came along and drove this craze together with changes in the SOC and the extreme turn of the WPATH. The kinds of trauma that drove kids to this distress are not always related to sexuality.
Well this is a thing many people don’t understand. The sexed part doesn’t come in until pubescens. In that aspect you’re right. But what is now called gender dysphoria isn’t always about our sexed bodies but can be because of other kinds of trauma totally unrelated to sexuality too. This is something that was known by people that helped dysphoric kids before this craze came along. As the craze-normalising people took over, these roots to gender dysphoria were buried as they don’t want psychological treatment models and thus they covered them up with the glossy paper idea that they were “born this way”. Which also led to people seeng, behind that cover, their adult and quite dissociate sexuality. This makes people think it’s all about strange sexuality when in fact, dysphoria was before this craze often seen in pre pubescent people, and helped off with getting to the root cause, some kind of childhood trauma, sometimes but not always sexual.
Welcome back - makes me happy! FWIW, when it comes to the label "gender non-conforming," I prefer instead "gender-stereotype non-conforming"!