You misunderstand completely. To explain: Epstein, and many of his clients/cohorts, were part of a loose ideological/philosophical “movement” (I hesitate to call it a movement when it appears to only consist of a few dozen very rich people plus a handful of disgraced scientists and intellectuals, but I can’t think of a better word) which believes in all sorts of nasty things like eugenics, Nietzschean will to power, and “race science”, on top of the pedo apologia and general misogyny. Some of them, Epstein included, believed that trans women should be locked out of legitimate means of transition, and instead should be forced to transition via underground means in exchange for being sexually exploited. While ignoring trans men as usual. In other words, it was an unusual form of transphobia where it was acknowledged that some people are sexually attracted to “shemales”, but considered that such things should *only* exist in the context of porn fantasies and sex work. At least some of them might have also been considering it a valuable source of blackmail material (keep in line or we’ll reveal your degenerate porn tastes!) though I admit that’s speculation on my part.
It’s not that Epstein et al were part of an evil global cabal coercing men into believing that they were women for nefarious reasons (among all the other imaginary stuff said cabal is accused of doing), but that they saw an existing “subhuman” class to potentially exploit for power and profit. …Though you *could* argue that they were a “global cabal” in a sense, they were (mostly) not doing any of the usual conspiracy theory nonsense.
@Anon-e-moose #248966
Technically at least one, if you count an AFAB non-binary person, who was one of the victims. I know that’s not what you meant, just pointing that out.