"Belief...allowed them to pretend" - History's my bailiwick. We use "phenomenological essentialism." For example, when I study the prophet and his Qur'an, I assume that Muhammad actually believed what he said. This approach ultimately solves many more problems for historians than it creates, whereas the opposite view creates more problems for the historian than it solves. I take the 'trans identity' believer at their word that they believe it. I am not obligated to believe them just as I am not required to believe the message of Islam. What matters is that for some reason, they believe it. I have been approaching this topic from an historian's view and I see some parallels, for example with patent medicine fraud, flagellant cults, Skoptsy cults, and the 19c vivisection debate. Psychology has always suffered from being a soft science that trends towards "soul-knowledge." The therapeutic profession became a substitute priesthood. Meanwhile, institutional religion is completely out of fashion while the intutitional, Oprah-language of self-knowledge (gnosis, really) is universal. There is a great psychological history to be written out of this tragedy.
"Belief...allowed them to pretend" - History's my bailiwick. We use "phenomenological essentialism." For example, when I study the prophet and his Qur'an, I assume that Muhammad actually believed what he said. This approach ultimately solves many more problems for historians than it creates, whereas the opposite view creates more problems for the historian than it solves. I take the 'trans identity' believer at their word that they believe it. I am not obligated to believe them just as I am not required to believe the message of Islam. What matters is that for some reason, they believe it. I have been approaching this topic from an historian's view and I see some parallels, for example with patent medicine fraud, flagellant cults, Skoptsy cults, and the 19c vivisection debate. Psychology has always suffered from being a soft science that trends towards "soul-knowledge." The therapeutic profession became a substitute priesthood. Meanwhile, institutional religion is completely out of fashion while the intutitional, Oprah-language of self-knowledge (gnosis, really) is universal. There is a great psychological history to be written out of this tragedy.