Yeah, this is pretty much it. Survival strategies for most schools are to lay low, don't draw attention to yourself, and definitely don't give the bullies easy ammunition.

In my small town, a three-letter f word slur was employed regularly by pre-teens who had no understanding of what that word meant. You knew they learned it from their parents, because what fucking kid learns that kind of language in the 80s and 90s without the internet?

Of course people didn't hear about trans kids. Because if you did, they would have been bullied so much that they'd either leave, or just be a legendary target forever.

I swear, people forget what it's like to be in school with aloof administrative staff and shitty peers.

Yes. That is all.

And America wonders why there's so many school shootings and suicides.

I never even had a chance to say I was Trans as a kid before being relentlessly bullied for acting myself. Judged for the smallest things because it didn't fit into "my" gender role. For people who knew me closely or the people who judged me, my transition was pretty obviously coming. It just took a decade of living as a husk, depressed and suicidal before getting the finances, strength, and confidence to fight past my childhood trauma.

Too bad I have to live with the consequences and dysphoria of a puberty that I did not want.