I do not think anyone genuinely feels they are the wrong gender. My thoughts on the subject, from reading the various accounts of so-called transgenders, are that there are two things going on here. One, is that the person is terribly unhappy with their life. When people are unhappy with their circumstances, they want to change something. "Transgenders" identify the most fundamental aspect of their existence as the problem that needs to be changed. I know that there is a doctor retired from Johns Hopkins who has addressed this issue; he used to do "gender reassignment" surgeries, until he determined that the fundamental problems did not disappear once the body was mutilated and pumped up with hormones to superficially resemble someone of the opposite gender. As this doctor--often referred to on FR (but I don't remember his name)--discovered, the belief that one should be the other gender is not the problem, but is merely a symptom of a deeper problem that needs to be addressed. Sadly, the ability of the medical profession to fix mental illnesses is quite limited, but that does not excuse mutilating people on the basis of superficial symptoms of a deeper problem.
Another issue going on with "transgenders" is a desire for attention. I think a lot of that is going on with this girl who sued the school; she just wants the attention. And there is a lot of power in victimhood; the left has built their whole culture on manipulating people through feigning victimhood.
One more issue is the parents and other "open-minded" liberals who have influence over the child's life. Many children engage in activities that are stereotypically reserved for members of the other gender. In some cases, I think, their liberal parents or other adult who has been hypersensitized to "transgenderism" assumes that because the child is engaged in opposite gender activities, the child must really feel that he or she is someone of the other gender. Then the parent/responsible adult goes overboard treating the child as if he or she were really a child of the other gender. Thus, we have the situation where an active girl who likes "boy" activities is assumed to be a "transgender boy" and treated differently, instead of just letting her do the activities she enjoys without trying to force her into some unnatural gender role. I thank God this transgender fad was not around when I was a kid--I was left alone to play with my slot cars and erector set, and climb trees and do all the other "boy" activities that I loved, and no one tried to force me to pretend to be a boy because of what I liked to do. I think that the inability of liberal adults to accept that some girls like to do boy activities and vice versa is also a contributing factor to this girl's fascination with pretending to be a boy.
One last factor in "transgenderism" that I saw discussed in an academic paper someone on FR linked to a few months ago is that some people get sexual arousal from pretending they are someone of the other gender. And some of these people go to great extremes to indulge in this fetish, up to and including "gender reassignment surgery."
In any case, this fad is one that really needs to settle into the dust of history. It is destructive to anyone who gets caught up in it, regardless of their role in it.
Leftist trans genders and their resume-enhancing educators have been brainwashing and now providing hormones to change my lovely youngest daughter into a man. She is gone to me, she was mentally ill and suicidal for a number of years, Now I realize that she killed the young woman that she was becoming, for attempting to change one’s sex is a kind of suicide. Unfortunatly the underlying issues of mental illness are still there. And that is not being treated. She is an adult now and pumping in, from what I am told, enormous quantities of testosterone. She told me once that she didn’t care if turning into a man killed her. You see it is another suicide. Only these poor misguided people actually can suicide twice.
I pray the wrath of God on the leftist, pompous twisted people who lead these poor souls to their deaths and disfigurement.
There is much pressure on boys to be men. They are groomed from an early age to be tough and strong. To be able to defend not only oneself but others too. To be providers for the family. Also, to shoulder all the physical hardships that go with being a male. Small case in point: When my brother and I were growing up, we were the ones that had to go outside in the cold to shovel the snow, chip the ice off the gutters, and whatnot while our mother and sister watched from inside a warm house. It was just the way things were. Also, we had to register for the draft and go off to war (if called). I actually enlisted and then had to still register after my active duty was done!
A woman has choices but a man has obligations.
I think that's why so many boys decide to try and become girls. They essentially "wimp" out at being a man and think that putting on a dress means that they will always be taken care of and won't have to be responsible for anything (especially true for them because they will never get pregnant and have babies).
There are much fewer girls that try to become boys but I think the general principles of the above still apply. They essentially suck at being girls. They may not be as feminine as other girls and so feel out of place. They feel pressure to be girly but can't bring themselves to it. So they think becoming a boy is a better path. Think about it, almost all the "girl-to-boy" types are very butch and masculine looking to begin with. Maybe there are scared of having babies or finding a man to have babies with. You very rarely hear about a beautiful girl/woman who suddenly decides to shuck it all and become a man. At least I never heard of such a case.
So basically, this all comes down to either sex feeling inadequate in their birth sex role and thinking that becoming the opposite sex will take the pressure off.
However, it never ends well. I have yet to hear of a case where a sex change person is truly happy. It almost always ends in self-loathing and even suicide.
Unfortunately our society encourages this kind of self-destruction and mutilation of sex organs in order to achieve something which cannot be achieved.
When I was growing up and a boy started fancying himself a girl, he was set straight right away. No parent would even entertain it and as for peers, forget about it. Classmates of mine were beat up for even acting a little bit like a sissy. It just wasn't tolerated and yet we all seemed to grow up okay and adapt to our biological sex roles for the most part. For there really is no other choice. No biological man can successfully become a biological woman. And vice versa.