This is the only article in your series that I have read; however, since this is not a critique of your essay but an address of the meme itself, I don't think that's necessary.
It's not that difficult. From an essentialist point of view, people are either male or female; and, unless something interferes with normal psychological development, biology and psychology will align.
Our critics focus on adolescence for their basic axiom that childhood is a confusing time, and extend this to early childhood by implication. The idea is that young children do not know who they are, and older children are still confused about who they are -- if not all of them, then most of them, and we should not rely on children's interpretations of their own experience as the justification for altering the vector of their physical development.
Very few of our critics go full-bore; most of them give gender dysphoria the benefit of the doubt and are willing to let adults make their own decisions.
This point of view, regarding minors, is a mixture of both right and wrong; and we do ourselves no favors by adopting an adamantine stance in what is a gray area.
Where they go right is in bringing up these facts: (A) Pre-teen role playing is part of the child's natural development, and one shouldn't take a role that a child is playing at a particular point in time and encourage fixing that in stone. (B) Adolescent confusion about identity is characteristic of this developmental stage; and social contagion is a reality in other areas, so why not this, as well? Trans critics often counter this by saying that gender divergence isn't something you can fake; and this is true. But that doesn't mean someone can't imagine they are gender divergent because of an unrecognized, unconscious motivation to be special or find acceptance by their peers, or simply because they are confused about who they are. I suspect many trans people have a knee-jerk reaction to this idea, because it brings up a very personal question: what if I'm wrong about myself? But arguments based on fear are not rational.
Where they go wrong is as follows: (A) Failure to recognize that minors, even very young ones, may have a conviction of gender divergence that is real, or, in any event, cannot be cured. (B) Willingness to throw under the bus any children that cannot be helped without medical and/or social transitioning. They dismiss these children from their minds, because they don't know how to fit them into their world-view and don't want to try (cognitive dissonance).
Saying that teenagers can't be confused about who they are is a ridiculous argument; and saying that any male five-year-old who pipes up one day that he is really a girl must be immediately validated as such is, too. It would help our community much more to admit these things on the front end, while at the same time pressing on the fact that minors exist who believe themselves gender divergent and cannot be helped in any other way than transitioning. Our antagonists are dismissing those children; and by continuing to argue, as we have been doing, that social contagion is impossible or that five-year-olds must be validated, is only encouraging them to continue to ignore those children.
This must be understood: Where there is no communication across the lines, each side is encouraged to conflate the issues; and when this happens, the position taken by any side doing this becomes increasingly distorted from reality. Both sides are guilty of this; and, until people wake up and realize this, there will continue to be no communication across the lines. In this kind of conflict, we will lose, and lose big. It is a mistake to rely on the justice system to protect us; we must win the hearts and minds of the general cis public -- and we've been doing exactly the opposite for years. We must change course.
ADDENDUM: I omitted another glaring disconnect in the arguments of our antagonists. They seem to think that the reason for supporting transitioning by minors is that we are subscribing to their self-concept. Medically-speaking, that's false. From a medical point of view, whether they are "really" male or "really" female is irrelevant, because the purpose of transitioning is to relieve suffering and enhance quality of life. Medical treatment is not based on some existential or metaphysical theory that "boys can be girls" and vice versa. It is treatment, when no other treatment works.
We have helped them to make this error, by presenting transitioning as validation of the minor's self-concept, which is something that cannot be established objectively. Johnny can't prove he's really a girl, and medicine can't either; so, it's silly to argue for a medical decision based on something that is not demonstrable. As I said here, the basis for treatment is the relieving of suffering, not validation of the child's interpretation of it.
