Why do so many people want to be women?

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I was just chatting to my Romanian friend; she was telling me that as a young woman growing up in Communist Romania, when she and her friends heard that in ‘the West’ surgery could make women into men and men into women, they couldn’t believe it. And they thought that if it was true, there must be no women left in the ‘West’ – because who would choose to be a woman? She and her friends could think of a long list of reasons why they might wish to be men, but why would anyone want to change into a woman on purpose? Fast forward a few years and here she is in the ‘West’ and it seems that more people than ever want to change gender and become women. Now it has become much easier and far more mainstream, and practically de rigeur in some circles it seems, and even asking why anyone would want to do that will probably get you branded a transphobe, so while it might be far more common, none of us are any the wiser as to why anyone would do this. A person might choose to become a man – better pay, more opportunities, less household drudgery, greater physical strength, more authority, more credibility, no problems associated with childbirth, no risk of the stagnation of career that so often ensues from having children, no harassment, less fear of assault, no-one criticising you if you have children or don’t have children, no-one scrutinising everything you wear every time you go to any function, less responsibility for looking after family etc. etc. – but why would anyone deliberately choose to become a woman? Can someone please explain?