Here's what I was trying to say: If you genuinely recognized and cared about the negative impact beliefs like yours have had on the lives of trans people, then even if you could not control the fact that you have those beliefs you would refrain from airing them in any public forum, no matter how ephemeral, where there is a non-negligible chance they will be read by trans people or by cis people who know and love trans people. The utility boost you get from posting those comments, if any, is dwarfed by the expected harm. You not only expressed those beliefs, but when startling clearly indicated he found them offensive, you proceeded to double down on them.
startling was not clear to me, but I have a more important problem with your comments and point of view:
I think you are quite wrong in your claims about utility and it is arrogant of you to presume to know what value I do or do not get out of IRC.
I am hard of hearing; no other medium lets me express myself as fluently or freely or easily or (let's call a spade a spade) thoughtlessly as IRC. That is why I spend so much time there, because LW, email, forums, personal spoken interactions, telephones - all suck for me. My verbal jokes are unappreciated spoken; I am always a step behind in conversation, assuming I didn't mishear someone; abstract discussions and subtle points go poorly; etc. And that's if I even can find anyone to discuss these topics with, as I am nowhere near a LW meetup or a good university and live in the rural sticks.
On IRC, my fast reading skill means I am never a second behind everyone else and can talk faster and more clearly than anyone else; the people self-select for interesting conversation; quotes and references can be added; puns and written jokes go through without issue; and every problem mentioned above goes away. I've been on IRC ever since I learned of it as a kid, and as my previous statistics indicate, I talk a lot on IRC.
Nor am I the only IRCer who is hard of hearing - at least 2 other regulars in #lesswrong are hard of hearing too, and I believe those advantages are part of why they keep showing up too.
Putting a filter on myself destroys part of the value of IRC for me, in much the same way that people are complaining that LessWrong is over-moderated: filters and moderation always reduce ease & quantity, and increase fear & latency.
I cannot surgically excise the part of me that has issues with transexuals; I also cannot watch myself like a hawk 24/7 to catch that 0.001% or whatever of my comments that would offend anyone without destroying part of IRC's value for me.
So when you get on your moral high horse and talk about what I should do if I 'genuinely' repent and this and that, all I can think is: you really don't know what you're so cavalierly asking of me. You're asking me to damage the medium of most value in keeping me sane and reducing my social isolation, what keeps me going each day as I deal with the consequences of my handicaps and problems.
This seems like a red herring to me. Fine, IRC gives you the same kind of socialization opportunities that most people can get in meatspace, which you can't get there, and so losing it would be particularly painful. But nobody is suggesting that you should lose it that I've seen; all you're being asked to do is apply the same sorts of filters that people are expected to apply in any public social situation, or as pragmatist said, "any public forum".
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.