I don’t have much time today but I have to touch on the trans children part of your post.
Sorry you’ve agonized over that, because it just doesn’t happen. Nobody wants children to have gender reassignment surgeries but that point has been used to attack transgender rights and healthcare over and over again and it’s not even a real thing. Nobody is actually getting them because it makes absolutely no sense to do it. You can’t do a surgeries like that on a body that is still growing, it will 100% turn out completely botched. The only surgery that could maybe make any sense on a minor may be the removal of breast tissue on transmasc people but that would only be required IF the child hasn’t been put on puberty blockers in time AND is experiencing major distress because of it. Everything else can wait. Hell, a large number of, if not most, trans people will never even get a single surgery. Hormone Replacement Therapy alone is very often enough and it is completely safe.
If it has happened, it was 100% done by a quack surgeon who needs to have their license removed. Literally nobody is going to argue against that except maybe for bad actors/astroturfers or perhaps actually insane people. Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see, please. You don’t even have to believe me but don’t go repeating that shit because it is extremely harmful.
It absolutely infuriates me because people keep repeating that as if it happens and it is being used to deny trans care to children, which is not surgeries but puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. Puberty blockers are used to delay puberty in case the patient is not certain about their gender identity and it is 100% reversible. What isn’t reversible is going through the “wrong puberty” and kids are now being forced to go through that in many states. Not only does going through the wrong puberty actually CREATES the need for more surgeries in the future, it is traumatic. Puberty is already really hard to go through once (Even worse if it’s the wrong one), imagine having to do it twice. I’ve done it, would not recommend if it can be avoided. Especially later in life when the mental anguish, mood swings and everything else that comes with going through puberty are really not “acceptable behaviours” anymore because then you’re an adult, you have way more responsibilities on your hands and by then people have forgotten exactly how crazy puberty was so they can’t even relate in any way. It is very alienating.
Also I don’t remember much of what I typed yesterday, I was basically half asleep but I should make it clear that what I meant by helping is only what I need to do and have been doing personally. It’s going to be different for everyone but for me the number one thing to do right now is to try and heal the divide between people on different spectrums and it is something that I actually have some kind of power over. I believe we really ought to stop wasting time and energy on things we have absolutely no power over as individuals and concentrate on getting people back together. Since I’m trans, well, I feel like it’s my responsibility now to forget about the divide and to be kind to everyone, even the ones who may not have kind thoughts about me so that we may have a chance to actually talk and find understanding. How are we supposed to tell people how things actually are for us if nobody even listens to us in the first place.
That’s from my point of view and something that only really applies to trans people as we have been thrust into this position we never wanted to be in, but I’m sure we all have something “simple” we can do to start taking baby steps towards regaining our power as people. To me, everything else is counterproductive and only serves to create more divide as we are completely unable to find common ground anywhere. How are we to make big societal and political changes without it getting bloody if we can’t agree on or even discuss the stupidest little things.
The saddest part is that in reality we all want the same thing but “They” have us fighting about manufactured issues and differences that don’t actually matter at all.
I recently got a 2021 CR-V Touring and I absolutely HATE this. It hasn’t actually automatically braked on me yet but it has beeped and flashed the BRAKE sign on the dashboard for absolutely no reason a couple times and it freaks me the fuck out every time. For me personally I find that this system is more likely to cause an accident than to prevent one. I wish there was a way to permanently disable it but from what I’ve seen you have to disable it every time you start the vehicle.