What is Trans in 2025?

Hey all. I feel a bit confused about the meaning and identity of trans today.

In a society where many people are identifying themselves and their children as nonbinary if they stray any bit from the gender status quo of much earlier times (a girl who prefers dinosaurs over baby dolls, or a boy who likes to paint his nails), I find it difficult to see and honor many of these identities as authentic.

The other night, I was having a conversation with one of my friends who has recently started exploring his own gender identity. He is a late thirties, male-bodied, Italian-American man who presents very male. He's started painting his nails and using they/them pronouns.

In this conversation, where I was expressing my truth and he his, I told him I feel like the blasé nature of the queer movement (and particularly, in this conversation, the pronoun exhibition) is insulting to historically oppressed groups like black, indigenous, and transgender folks who have been fighting for all of time for basic rights and acknowledgment.

He told me that he both (1) doesn't care about pronouns, and (2) that he is trans (in response to me finding it insulting to transgender people) – and evidently so is his partner who is female-bodied, female-presenting, and also uses they/them pronouns.

When I think of my real transgender friends – MTF and FTM – and what they've gone through their entire lives battling gender dysphoria and the whole emotional, social, and physical experience that being transgender entails, I feel so disturbed that a man could decide that he likes to paint his nails and wants to explore his femininity (part of a duality that exists in all of us) and suddenly he is "trans". And likewise, that a female who passes female but who identifies as nonbinary is "trans".

Seems like one more instance in which the most advantaged can hijack a seat on the ferris wheel of the oppressed.

What am I missing? Before you spew hate, know that I am only conveying what's on my heart, that I am curious, and that I am open to understanding this in a new way. Please share your thoughts, and help me understand!

With love.