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The clips I've seen of Kirk have him doing exactly that - expressing compassion towards the trans person, but suggesting counseling over transitioning. Are there examples otherwise? I'm sure the grave dancers can provide you with plenty, assuming the exist.
But I'd like to take this opporunity to sketch out a story. Imagine you're a smart kid, smart enough to figure out that you're smarter than your parents, and you might even be right about that. Your family might be Republicans, but you swing leftward, because a cursory glance at the culture bombards you like Hiro-fucking-shima with the idea that this is what All The Smart People do.
Then you go to college, first step of being a Professional Smart Person Who Is Obviously Left and you bomb out in one semester. You spend a few years pickling in existential crisis, gripping harder and deeper onto things that let you externalize the sense of failure. Radicalized by the university? What is this, the 60s? Wake up grandpa, it's the Roaring 20's, and we can mainline weapons-grade radicalism 24/7 from the box that lives in our pocket, and Discord is full of leftists that make Bill Ayers look like Mr. Rogers, and the ideology is basically designed to foster an external locus of control and shift blame for personal failings.
You tell your family that you're going to be an electrician because that's something they'll find respectable enough to get off your back, and it's one of the more intellectual blue collar trades, so it offends your sensibilities less.
Eventually the identity crisis stabilizes, but it settles into a horrible valley. You conclude that you're cooked, that you'll never be a real intellectual, and eventually you're going to have to actually become a tradesman or deal with your family. But you still think you're smart - smart enough to see what could and should be done. And you're basically expendable, right? What's a human life worth, really? Maybe you quote Che's final words to yourself.
Why not trade that horrifyingly mediocre future to eliminate a major node of enemy coordination and memetic production? Why, it's practically the most valuable thing you could possibly do with yourself! And the target in question isn't 110% pro-affirmation for trans people, which is Doing A Genocide, so it's basically self-defense even!
Based on currently available info, my best guess is something vaguely along these lines. Bro failed out of college, had an identity crisis, latched onto extremist politics to cope, went full hicklib, and then suffered a tragic outbreak of agency.
Thank you for the good engagement!
I don't think this is what happened. The guy had what, a 34 on the ACT? That's a very high score. Like, Harvard-tier. If he bombed out, it certainly wasn't for lack of ability.
But yes, clearly something odd happened, because he did drop out. Maybe he just didn't get along with the people there. Whatever it was, some sort of internal crisis of the sort you describe makes more sense to me than the simplistic "he fell for a bunch of libtard indoctrination."
That story had elements of "there but for the grace of God..." I had a near-perfect SAT and it wasn't enough to help me when my spectacular test-taking started writing checks that my work ethic and discipline couldn't cash. The fact that he had such high ability is exactly why failing would cause a personal identity bluescreen.
My hypothesis is more that he needed some kind of answer for the crisis, and he already leaned pretty left (purportedly), so it was easier to slide down the slippery slope of that brand of radicalization. Abundance Dems don't have a thalamic answer to that crisis. Far-leftists do, i.e. "Of course you were hampered by the buzzwords we live under! Once we destroy The System, then your genius will have a chance to flourish!"
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