+I picked on this poll as my first exhibit just because the poll question was _so_ explicit, and the sample size _so_ large, but once you stop being blinded by the Narrative, this stuff is just _not hard to find_.
+
+I bought famed trans activist Julia Serano's _Whipping Girl_ in 2007, when it was new. Again, back then, I didn't think _I_ was Actually Trans—didn't think Serano and I belonged to the same natural category. I was just the kind of straight boy who
+
+It was a _shock_ reading it again a decade later and seeing [how many clues I missed](/2016/Sep/apophenia/). Serano writes—
+
+> There was also a period of time when I embraced the word "pervert" and viewed my desire to be female as some sort of sexual kink. But after exploring that path, it became obvious that explanation could not account for the vast majority of instances when I thought about being female in a nonsexual context.
+
+I don't doubt Serano's report of her own _experiences_. But "it became obvious that explanation could not account for" is _not an experience!_ I [don't _expect_ anyone to be able to get that sort of thing right from introspection alone!](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/).
+
+-----
+
+If I sound angry, it's because I actually do feel a lot of anger, but I wish I knew how to more reliably convey its target. A trans woman I know thinks I'm suffering from false consciousness, that my pious appeals to Objectivity and Reason are [just a facade](https://sinceriously.fyi/false-faces/) concealing my collaboration with a cissexist social order via scapegoating instincts: "I'm one of the good compliant ones—not one of those weird bad trans people who will demand their rights! _They're_ the witches, not me; burn them, not me!"
+
+I have [no grounds to fault her for not taking my self-report as unquestionable](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/), but I still think she's reading me wrong.
+
+[agree that scapegoating is real]
+
+acknowleding my complicity:
+/2017/Mar/interlude-ii/
+/2019/Feb/interlude-xviii/
+
+"notice when I succumb to anti-gender-variance social pressure in real life." /2019/Aug/a-love-that-is-out-of-anyones-control/
+
+-----
+
+[You "can't" define a word any way you want, or you "can"—what actually matters is the math]