It’s hard to think of a reasonable example to compare your discussion about disdain to. But let’s say someone needs to hurl invective at people. He claims he has no choice, because he is mentally ill, and this is the only thing that makes him feel better. He knows it hurts people, but he chooses to do it because the alternative is that he would get depressed and might well end up killing himself.
Psychologists tell us this is true. He has no choice. So, we pity the poor fellow, and secretly disdain him. Same as trans people.
Both would die were it not for the intervention. In one case, the intervention is to transition to another gender. In the other, the intervention is to swear at everyone constantly with vile invective.
Would anyone do these things if they didn’t have to? Would people have recreational sex change operations? Would people swear at all and sundry just for fun?
What makes us legitimate? Accepted?
I don’t know about transexuals, but in my example, the answer is that there is nothing that will make this person acceptable. Not even a psychologist saying this guy has to behave this way or he will die. No one will believe it. They think he’s faking. It’s an excuse.
I think that having no choice—that you were made that way and you can’t change it—helps other people accept something. I don’t think you have a choice, because the alternative is to say you want to change genders just because you want to. It is merely a quirk. A flavor of the month.
In order to say this is so powerful that you have to do it, you really have to say you have no choice. And that means people will pity you for being born in the wrong body. This is not something that most people can accept as a lighthearted choice. But as a serious thing, they can accept it, and that doesn’t mean they will pity such people or hold disdain for them. It means they can respect the struggle. That’s how I see it, anyway.
I hope you are wrong in the way you see it, because if you are right, then there is no hope for many of us. There are many people who will live with differences that will make them second class citizens, or maybe not even citizens, forever. It will be a kind of racism. Saying it’s not a choice is not a copout. It’s not relegating people to pity and disdain. I think it is a door opening to the possibility of respect, although that door is only open a crack.