This site is a pretty good demonstration of the spectrum of people who fall under the general "transgender" label from once in a blue moon fetish dressers on the one side, all the way to TS folk who have been transitioned for 40 years already.
It was already an uneasy Alliance. In truth, in many cases the only thing we all have in common is that to the uneducated general public we're all the same thing. Except of course that we aren't the same thing at all ... Except to the uneducated masses.
Then in the US, marriage equality was upheld by the Supreme Court, and polls reflected that a majority of the public supported this opinion.
Except, unlike LG and B, the term "T" is kinda like the word "smurf" ... It can mean a whole lot of completely different things depending on context.
So now we have an extremely well funded and well organized political offensive against us. But the general public doesn't know in any specific way, who we are. So what you get is the news running all out 24/7 painting all of us with the same brush.
Our uneasy alliance is being tested. regardless of where we find ourselves on the spectrum, we all find ourselves under attack, and the natural human response is to try to mount a defense.
One logical possibility for mounting a defense, is to attempt to more rigidly define the term "transgender", and in that way try to filter out certain subgroups as targets (i.e. "splintering"). While I don't necessarily think that's a good idea, I can understand the logic.
But ... Any way you look at it, at an individual level, each of us has been made fairly powerless in the face of this onslaught. Phychologically, we need a release ... We need a way to feel like we're putting up a defense, and so we come here and let it all out. Sometimes all we need is someone to argue with ... We don't even need to be right, LOL
