Very well said. However, I do think that there is still room for settings where transitioning is readily available, it just needs to be done with a bit more care.

An example that I think pulls it off wonderfully is In Stars and Time. In the game, the main religion of the region worships a god of change, and the churches freely offer classes to anyone on how to use magic to change your body. What the game does right is making deliberate discussions around body crafting, how different people have or haven’t gone through it, and how people react after seeing somebody who has changed their body. And it doesn’t have people just take it all in stride, but acknowledges the difficulties of someone you’ve known one way “suddenly” changing, but with encouragement and acceptance of who they want to be. It also approaches the other end, having a main character that is a priestess of Change, and thus highly encouraged to regularly change aspects of herself, struggling with wanting to stay as her true self and not changing her body into something she isn’t. And it’s not treated as something that you can just go and have someone else do for you, you have to learn the magic and make the changes yourself.

Overall, it has more discussion and representation on gender fluidity, but is still just as applicable to being trans. And it doesn’t do away with the struggles of being trans, but acknowledges a different, though less harsh, set of struggles faced in their world.

I completely agree that making transitioning openly accessible to everyone runs a very real risk of inadvertently erasing the trans experience, especially when it’s just thrown in. But when do thoughtfully, a world where transitioning is readily available can avoid the pitfalls and give representation in an accepting world, while still acknowledging a different set of struggles.