@wire_witch like oxygen is kind like, yeah, i like sucking electrons off other atoms a lot, but i can kinda take it or leave it without the activation energy. fluorine will fucking drive a semi through traffic, punch several babies and use them as bludgeons for the chance to form that octet
similarly, most women are okay with being women, but like, it requires that nudge of social activation energy for them to really do it. trans women on the other will fucking tunnel through the hill of social opprobrium to be a woman (and then chill out, their spiritual outer electron layer now filled)