You are doing that, but I include you in the list of people you’re impacting. And it’s also something that so so so many of us do. It’s the result of growing up surrounded by transphobia. We will do anything to undermine ourselves and talk ourselves out of being trans or gender diverse. Even if you’re not gender diverse, the framework we exist in makes it really hard to work that out, because you punish yourself for even considering it, for even asking the questions.

In retrospect, my gender abolition was basically a cudgel I used to punish myself for my gender desires, a way to rationalize my gender as a violation of my politics and morality. And it makes a lot of sense in hindsight that the emotional need to repress my gender desires would need to find forms that didn't feel reactionary or transphobic, but instead felt feminist and egalitarian.

If you’re gender diverse, you’re gender diverse already, and the important part is giving yourself permission to accept that possibility, rather than trying to focus on building barriers to the exploration.

This is really great advice, and ultimately similar to what I found helpful for myself.

One rationalization or way of resolving the cognitive dissonance for me was to recognize that whatever moral problems I have with gender, trans people find themselves in a particularly difficult spot, and if there is anyone we are going to give a "pass" to for using gender, it should probably include trans people ... at some point it became clear my need to alleviate gender dysphoria was more directly morally important in terms of how it makes me a functioning and good person in my life, and how being a functioning and healthy person impacts other people in my life, than any theoretical and political argument about how participating in gender or using gender was immoral.

For me at least I also had special rules: I wouldn't have thought other trans women should be seen as immoral for feminizing the way I felt immoral for feminizing, for example. Recognizing I'm not special and I deserve what anyone else deserves was also important to helping me realize my rationalizations were irrational and designed to repress and punish more than they were about being a good person.