After considering your points and some others my friend made, my opinion has changed quite a bit. I still think therapy first and foremost is the correct approach. To summarize my new opinions;
1. There are distinct categories of trans individuals.
A. Truly trans. People whose consciousness is indistinguishable from a gender different from that of their body. Their "spirit" is, was, and will always be mismatched with their body.
B. Mentally ill trans. People who fully believe they are a different gender than they were born as.
C. Misinformed or confused trans. People who think they fit in with other trans because they experience gender envy or gender dysphoria but who don't exhibit the distinctions of the previous two categories.
I personally think most of the trans population falls into category c.
2. Yes, this means I do believe there exists real trans people, and yes, I now believe space should be made for them, including safe spaces and rights. However, not everything the trans community asks for should be given to them. Namely, anything involving minors (especially any form of cosmetic surgery. Honestly all children cosmetic surgery should be banned if it's to take them beyond standard, like kids whose parents make them get nose jobs to look prettier.), or rights allowing trans individuals to unfairly compete against a gender their body doesn't match, due to biological bias like muscle mass, etc. this doesn't mean it can't happen, I just think separate competitions should be made with this distinction. lastly, trans individuals should not be allowed to use a bathroom or any other private room like it that does not match their body's gender. I can't think of other things that should be denied atm.
3. We cannot, for the most part, distinguish individuals between the categories externally, due to the distinctions being unrecognized. Trans will even shift between categories, making it harder to determine which they are. First and foremost, we should use therapy to help them settle into a category. I don't even know if it's possible, but I think we should try. Then, we should treat based on category:
A. Truly trans. It is not 100% possible yet to make their bodies match their spirit. Therefore we should try to make them comfortable with the body they do have. They should know and understand they are exactly a mind with a different gender than their body. It is sadly not possible for them to engage in activities that require the gender matching their mind. Trans women can't get pregnant, and can't have a period. Trans men can't produce semen, and can't make someone pregnant with their body. There are still prosthetics that can imitate these processes, and if a trans individual so chooses, they can sort of get closer to their mind gender through use of these prosthetics. Therapy should be for them like therapy for a burn victim. A burn victim receives therapy to become comfortable with their scars, scars they wish they didn't have, instead wishing for pristine skin. They understand that they are scarred, and the scars don't make them any less of the person they were before. The only way to prevent scarring from burns is through drastic and painful treatment, and it's usually never perfect. Gender affirming care will also never be perfect, but it will somewhat bring an individual closer to their desired gender. During gender affirming care, however, we should refrain from performing surgery that doesn't improve quality of life. Top surgery is ok, but the body physically can't handle bottom surgery. A trans female who receives bottom surgery will spend the rest of their life dilating their vagina so it doesn't close and applying medicine and taking antibiotics so it doesn't get infected. The body treats it like a wound and tries to close it, and because it's made from skin with pic in hair follicles, it will grow hair internally like crazy and itch to hell and back. This will not in any way, shape, or form improve quality of life, and it is irreversible. At most, surgeons can rearrange it so it closes and heals, but they can't get their balls back, so they will have to manually inject the hormones their testicles produce to avoid severe illness. They will have to pee out of a hole that will need regular cleaning and they will still have to take antibiotics so that it doesn't get infected. Further prosthetic surgery could improve this, but it will never be the same. There is no concept of bottom surgery for other kinds of trans besides male affirming or female affirming, like demisexuals or gender-fluid. Top surgery is fine since secondary sex traits are determined by hormones and do not play critical roles (to the extent of my knowledge) for the body, and it is proficient enough to have little to no side effects or surgical upkeep required, besides preventing infection. Gender affirming care should only be used if they have shown little to no signs of improvement from therapy after a significant period of treatment with multiple approaches. Therapy can and will upset a lot of people or make them more uncomfortable or any number of things because everyone reacts differently to treatment. It doesn't mean it should be discarded, just refined with criteria developed through research.
B. Mentally ill trans. I'm not sure what to do with these people. At the very least, the end goal of treatment should be that the individual either understands the difference between their mind and body or that their mind and body do match. None of these individuals should leave treatment until they understand they are not physically a different gender from reality. This is probably the category of trans that would be scrutinized in monty python skits or movies.
C. The last type. These people, since they don't exhibit the defining qualities of the other two categories, should be able to understand that they don't with either basic education or further therapy if needed. When they understand they aren't truly trans, they will probably stop defining themselves as trans.
4. It will not be possible to determine which category someone falls into without investigation. This process should be voluntary. Those who refuse investigation into their category, however, cannot really be credited as part of the trans community, since to all the world, we can't tell if they are truly trans or not. Trans related crimes may involve involuntary investigation for an individual if their defining category would determine the verdict.
5. transmysnic or transphobic arguments should be discredited if they don't make the categorical distinction either (basically if you're stupid, you're stupid). This will account for most of them, from my experience.
6. In any case, parents, despite their opinions, should have their children try therapy before any other action is taken. Therapists should be thoroughly examined for bias before being approved to provide therapy (in general). They should be examined by unbiased individuals as well. There should be a prior period of therapy with multiple approaches as a criteria of any application for gender affirming care outside of therapeutical experimentation, even if just for chest binders provided by a medical provider. It would be almost impossible for an individual to make up their mind about what they are in a safe manner without perspective from multiple unbiased individuals.
7. As far as public acceptance goes, trans individuals should learn how to forgive deadnaming or misgendering. Humans derive information from physical information, they cannot determine what someone's gender is past physical appearance, so they are often bound to get it wrong if their consciousness gender doesn't match their physical appearance. It's not their fault. It's not my fault that I have adhd, so people who have to deal with the consequences of my executive dysfunction should learn to be more forgiving of me since I'm trying my best, just like people try their best to get gender right. People are indeed people, and empathy and understanding should be practiced by everyone. We should all be trying to get it right, though.
8. Gender roles are different from gender. I suppose I should have been saying sex instead of gender the whole time. You're right, there's no reason to hold onto gender roles. Anybody can be the breadwinner, and anybody can be a stay at home. Anybody can be responsible for shopping and anybody can be responsible for defending a family. Women don't have to have children, there's plenty of other people having them. There doesn't even have to be a man and a woman at the head of a family. Man and man, woman and woman, trans and trans, it's all fine.
9. Everyone is entitled to moral skepticism
I think that's all I've got. I would hope people seeing this won't be mad at me for changing my opinion, I'm entitled to that and that's what I came here to do.