Just out of curiosity, what's the average education level of these people who identify as transsexual and also as CD/TV/DQ? How much time do they spend on the internet? Who are their friends? What culture do they come from? How much did their families equip them to deal with the world, and what kind of support networks do they have?
It would seem that a lot of these women act like that because they think they're expected to act like that. I know cisgender women who act just like that. Meaning, sex is their livelihood, so they'll abuse their body and mind and spend their lives miserable, pretending to be people they're not. If such women could grow penises, some of them might would consider it even if they subconsciously hate the concept, because they feel they have to put their job above everything else.
In addition to feeling they need to do it for sex work, some of these people really just might not know much about transsexualism, transvestisim, crossdressing, performing in drag, being genderqueer or androgyne or bigender, or that there's a difference. I mean, I have an M.A. in history and am transsexual, and I didn't know all the categories until recently, and even though I consciously knew it wasn't true, subconsciously I had internalized "transsexual = tranvestite so I couldn't possibly be transsexual, right? I don't even care about clothes all that much." Not to sound arrogant, but I've actually studied LGBT issues academically a little bit, and I didn't even know all this. I imagine that a trans girl raised in poverty by an abusive family and then kicked out on the streets when she was sixteen might just have a hard time understanding if she's really trans or if she's something else.
Also, with the cisgender women like this I know, there's often a lot of mental illness and/or drug addiction involved, and it heavily impairs their judgement. Some of them honestly are just greedy people who knowingly engage in risky behavior, but most really don't seem to know any better, or are so depressed and screwed up that they lack the ability to avoid it, or are actually not in complete touch with reality and haven't been diagnosed or can't get the medicine they need.
So, basically, a lot of these people are ignorant and screwed up, but it's not necessarily their fault. When you're surrounded by screwed up people, it's hard to keep things in perspective, even if you have every educational advantage in the world and no severe mental illness and don't need to do sex work. If you actually are poorly educated, severely mentally ill without treatment, and desperate for money, it's even harder to think about things that many educated, middle-class trans people are focused on.
(Similar issue: a lot of homeless gay people aren't exactly concerned with the right to marry or some offensive stereotypes on Desperate Housewives.)
