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So if your girlfriend's BFF says "If you break up with her, she'll kill herself. Also, if you don't empty your savings to take her on a fantasy vacation, she'll kill herself. Also, if you don’t post a glowing, thoughtful comment on every Instagram post, she'll kill herself." That's not a threat because it has an extra step? The BFF totally isn’t in on the social engineering, she's just making predictions, honest!
Sorry, doesn’t pass the smell test. If your BFF is that suicidal, you need to be getting them committed under suicide watch. You are very charitably assuming a level of sincerity and decoupled remove that I think is just utterly lacking in evidence. I believe the odds of any given TRA lying to manipulate people is incomparably higher than the odds of some trans person deciding to end it because they were misgendered in a reddit comment.
Well that is the question, you are ASSUMING her intent, you might be right, or you might not. But it doesn't actually make any difference. If she tells me that I'm going to get my gf committed for her own protection. I'm not going to agree to those terms, because they are as you point out unreasonable. Whether the person communicating them to me is sincere in pretending to be disinterested is irrelevant.
I assume sincerity yes, I think that is the best way to operate. Because just because I assume they are sincere does not mean I have to agree or accommodate them. Assuming people are sincere does not wave a magic wand where you have to do what they say. You can just say..no.
Edit: In other words whether the BFF is telling me to try and push me to accommodate the demands or because she is warning me of the crazy demands, neither impacts my ability to decide on the merits. Her motivation is not relevant, so assuming sincerity as a default does not change the outcome but is in my opinion better for the world.
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