If you're wondering why the contemporary gay movement is losing youth who now prefer to identify as trans or queer, I think there is a pair of elements everyone needs to be aware of regarding so-called "normality"...

A number of gay adults have a powerful and explicit sense of wanting to correct their experiences with homophobia through being seen as "normal"- that socially, their sexual orientation and the life they live on its basis becomes an unremarkable variant of human life...

Some take very specific steps to make themselves appear more socially typical (in career, presentation, partnership choices, child raising decisions, etc.) as to not trigger other judgments related to homophobia. Others wish their "against the grain" life just wasn't so...

When we look at the cohort of young people most vulnerable to picking up transgenderism as an explanation for their lives, we see remarkably that many are autistic or have ADHD, may have experienced early trauma, or have unusual, chronic "othering" events in their lives...

For example the number of detrans women I know who've had broken schooling experiences (being pulled out of school repeatedly, moved schools 5+ times, chronic truancy or experienced educational neglect, had to leave school for mental health treatment etc.) is enormous...

This group of young people is extremely aware that "normality" is not really achievable for them. They often have many ways- some explainable under oppression or psychiatric frameworks, some idiosyncratic or with no clear name- in which they're distinctly atypical...

We also have to remember that the cost of social abnormality is exceedingly high in modern social environments where kids are both socially monitored intensely by the adults around them (i.e. interference in natural play, over-structuring the day, etc.) and by their peers...

Young people have few respites from the social world, since it lives in their pockets 24/7, and the cost of "fucking up" socially means having a permanent record of minor embarrassment (i.e. "doxxing", "receipts" shared widely online) accessible by literally anyone anytime...

While some oddball youth have always found a home in counterculture movements, some have experiences or atypicalities that will alienate them near universally. This is more poignant the more socializing is expected of you & the more others choose to avoid/ostracize you...

While many of these young people are also gay or bisexual, being gay/bi is not even close to the only way in which they are "left out", and it often compounds their other alienation to render their social exclusion unbearably complete...

When you look at young people's rationale for choosing vague, othering language to identify themselves (from "queer" to asexual variations to bizarre gender microidentities) it's clear to me that they have a real need to name that they are not normal and perhaps cannot be...

Many trans kids (and even some adults who seem to lack social maturity, perhaps b/c of chronic exclusion, neglect, or trauma) seem to want to double down on their low social position and send a message through classic "antisocial" behavior. They've become hopeless...

The fact that some gay adults wish so badly to be normal, & insist that they are fundamentally normal despite the gay thing, is often totally unrelatable to these young ppl. They often harbor immature resentment for those who think they can achieve normality...

More charitably, these young ppl feel hopeless since they've been yet again excluded from a model of alternative adult existence due to their social issues, which may be resolvable or part of a lifelong struggle or disability, but are overwhelming them w/no recognition...

Recognizing these young ppl as "just gay" but gone down a wrong developmental track is both incomplete & invalidating. It isn't fully wrong in many cases, but these ppl's development also must include integrating their differences in other domains...

It also has to include a model of gay/bi identity development that recognizes their differences & their potential divergence from "mainstream" gay communities. Gay adults MUST realize many of these young ppl have rejected the gay community b/c it has legitimately failed them...

Gay adults have to recognize many of these young ppl might be better served in safe, outsider LGBT communities & have the skills to differentiate between toxic, exploitative gay communities & those that welcome and celebrate creative differences...

These young ppl are more complex than we give them credit for. Their blue hair and bad fashion don't just point to a group of embarrassing "crazy" "weird" kids who are rightfully ridiculed. When we do this we just prove their point about themselves and drive the problem deeper.