Thank you for this response as you bring up a point I was trying to make, but clearly failed to. By saying everyone has a gender identity, I am NOT saying everyone has gender dysphoria. My very point, and the place where I believe you and I agree, is that everyone benefits from the freedom to make their own choices around how they identify and choose to live and present their gender. In fact, I am beginning to think that the lessons on gender and sexuality in schools take the wrong approach by presenting these as issues for a minority of the population. Why not highlight the ways that gender roles and standards affect all of us?

This is a really important distinction to make. Most people who do not experience gender dysphoria do not spend much time thinking about gender, but they do get swept up in gendered expectations. Especially during the teen years when young people are discovering so much about themselves and their role in the world and their attractions to others, gender education should go beyond respecting the rights of trans and non-binary people. It can allow all students to embrace their own gender identity and critically examine how they choose to live it. There should be a place for young people to examine the aspects of gender that get labeled things like "toxic masculinity" and the "passive/submissive female role." Education should acknowledge the historical power dynamics between men and women and the struggles that have ensued. Everyone who wants to be a man in the world should have the opportunity to choose what kind of man they want to be within the context of that understanding. Everyone who wants to be a woman in the world should have the opportunity to express their womanhood in light of the current and past movements as well.

It's time we stop trying to hide these things from young people. Why are parents and school boards afraid of their children hearing the truth about hard things? I'm not sure what you refer to as hyperbole and bile. I am not about indoctrinating. I believe we should empower our youth to do their own critical decision-making. This is the opposite of indoctrination. In fact, things like book bans and regulating what can and cannot be taught are a form of indoctrination because they want young people to continue to conform to traditional gender roles without critically examining the power imbalances the social entrapment that comes with those traditions.

Ultimately, the few of us who have experienced gender dysphoria have already become master students of gender roles and how they affect us. It's the rest of society who stand to benefit from the opportunity to study and embrace the complexities of gender, and along with that learn about those of us for whom the traditional roles simply do not work.