With regard to my comment history: yes. Similar to OP at the root of the thread, I created this account specifically to ask questions that I have about our collective approach to helping trans people in need. At the time I wrote that other comment 9 months ago I had concerns about feeling shut out of the progressive movement entirely because I have doubts about some of its principles. Today I'm here to try to understand better why those principles are so ironclad.
I want to help make a difference in people's lives, but I live in a deep red state and know intimately what kinds of rhetoric would work to accomplish which ends. I want to know what I can share with the fiercely conservative people around me that would best help people like you, and for that I need to understand your goals and needs.
I'm here trying to collect information to better understand people's perspectives on this topic, and so I really do appreciate your feedback. It sounds like for you reducing the rigidity of the binary and freeing up people to be male or female in whatever way works best for them would not be sufficient, and that's good to know. Thank you.
It's an "easier sell" of a different thing.
I'm not seeing a "we" forming here as far as "trans acceptance" is concerned.
Judging from your comment history, your perspective on this seems to basically be grounded in an objection to (more generously: apprehension about) transgender healthcare practices. On purportedly scientific grounds, while ascribing a "politically-driven" motivation in terms of groupthink to people who support these practices. So I think your motivation to ascribe this to a "cultural thing" is grounded in a desire to decouple it from the healthcare thing, because you think it serves an overall political project better.
I'm with you on loosening gender roles. I'm not with you on reducing trans acceptance to that.
> why are we doubling down on gender binaries and talking about switching genders instead of creating a campaign that would both get at the root of the issue and be easier to swallow for a larger portion of the country?
In my personal life, I am probably about as far from "doubling down on gender binaries" as anyone you are likely to encounter. In my experience, I find many more people who are genuinely working past "doubling down on gender binaries" in transgender spaces than I do outside them.
My not-doubling-down-on-gender-binaries approach to it is not an easy pill to swallow for a large portion of the country. It may not even be an easy pill to swallow for you. (E.g. "which" bathroom do you want me in? How easily do you think the rest of the country will swallow that?)