Personally I think the problem is that in their enthusiasm to build a strong and diverse community out of what was basically an assortment of tiny populations of very different conditions, the transgender builders defined a term so broad and inclusive that it lost any useful ability to illuminate, and thus lead to understanding of the person to whom it was applied.
The problem with applying such a broad label to oneself is that it carries a great number of firm expectations and understandings, within those who even know what it is, most of which simply won't match the reality of ones life as it has been. So for example if I apply the label, people might assume that I have had some negative feelings about my gender at one time or another, which would be incorrect.
Or people assume that it is an ongoing thing, - which is also wrong, my journey of discovery ended many many decades ago.
Or people assume that I must have had loads of therapy and "issues" - which I haven't.
Or maybe someone might assume that I have faced hostility, prejudice and powerlessness... Well some of that is right, but again in a completely contrary way to the expectation, because as a member of the uk upper middle class I have actually lead a life of immense entitlement, privilege and unfair advantage. So while I have faced hostility and prejudice, it was mainly because of my social class and power, and not because I have ever been dis-empowered or excluded. In short I've been (wrongly) accused of being an arrogant oppressor, but not of being a powerless misfit.
So the problem with the label is that it has so many connotations which simply don't apply that if I were to own it, most people who heard it about me would run away with completely false expectation about what my life has been.
Now once a label gets THAT misleading I think it's probably time to scrap it completely, admit that the attempt to be all inclusive was a bit of a disaster, and go back to smaller and better defined individual labels which allow people to understand the very real differences that exist between the various groups that have been lumped together to form this so called condition.
In other words the aspiration to build an inclusive catch all term dealing with sexual identity and gender expression may have been nobly motivated, but it simply hasn't proved helpful to a huge number of people, and so many of us have simply opted out, as indeed I have (see my signature below).
That isn't intended as any sort of slight, it's merely that I want people who "hear about me" to go away with an concept in their mind which bears some relationship to what my life has actually been like.
In my case I had a glorious adventure when I was young, and with full support and encouragement of my family, I was so ridiculously privileged and lucky that I got to make up my own rules, and choose aspects of my identity, by experiment, which most unfortunate people are simply born with.
That is how I define my experience of developing my sex and discovering my gender. I have not been gender dysphoric so much as gender euphoric, and that I think you will agree is just too far away from the normal connotations of the term transgender for it to be usefully applied. I suspect that many others have similar problems with it, and that is why it is not a popular term.
