When you put your thumb on the scale

Fabricated models trying to sell gender variance as dysfunction tended to work backwards. They knew the answer they were looking for and proceeded to gather evidence to support the hypothesis. The reason was simple: gender variance wasn't a desirable thing for society and they needed to discourage it since it didn't fit the desired script.

Therefore the unhappiness of transgender people and their higher than average suicide rates were explained away as suffering because of their nature rather than the suffering caused to transgender people through society's rejection. This was one way of manipulating statistics to sell a different version of what was really happening.

Today there are more transitions than ever and yet the regret rate is still relatively low despite the far greater ease of access (normal plastic surgery has a higher regret rate). Of course there are going to be people who err but that is expected as a result of such an impactful decision if it is not reflected upon sufficiently.

The point is that gender variance in all its forms was seen as unnatural instead of as a naturally-occurring variant of humanity that it has always been; the same way that homosexuality has always been a variant.

But when you work backwards from a flawed premise you end up getting caught with convoluted models and inconvenient facts can be tossed away. When Ray Blanchard ignored female born transsexuals (trans men) in the 1980's, he simply assumed they were not a thing and stuck with his now arcane two-type taxonomy of male to female transsexuals which has aged about as well as yogurt left out in the sun even if right wingers and the hopelessly ignorant still love it.

People have agendas and when we put our thumb on the scale this is what tends to happen.