Therapy and/or hormone treatment certainly might make enough difference to not require surgery anymore.
Let’s not pretend that the act of transitioning is something that should be taken lightly. There are trans people who have been wholly unprepared for actually living life as the opposite gender and kill themselves. For example, I’m seeing cases of Female to Male trans saying they were completely unprepared for how lonely it is to live as a man compared to a woman. So for some of them that negative feeling of loneliness ended up being even more detrimental and unpleasant to them than the original dysphoria.
I don’t want to minimize the experience of detransitioners, but they’re extremely rare. They just get platformed more, it’s a narrative that the media wants (especially the “Irreversible Damage” narrative - that trans men are little lost girls mutilating ourselves in response to misogyny). The vast vast majority of people who detransition/regret usually do so because of societal factors - eg, that transitioning can often cost you your job, social support network, put you in danger…
I’m entering middle age and have been on testosterone my entire life. I have still had doctors try to talk me into going off. Heck - to even get started, I had to lie about my sexual orientation - no one was giving me shit if I didn’t start off with “when I was four years old I threw a fit every time they made me wear dresses and only ever play with GI Joes.”
Yeah and even more people have killed themselves over the dysphoria and the world not listening to them or validating their right to make a choice.
Yes there is a complex mass of issues that can be difficult to separate out. But I ultimately think 2 things:
a trans person’s certainty about their body is more important than my doubts about their mental state
the complex mass of issues is partly created by a world that doesn’t validate their choices and condition. You can give them as much information as possible but then you have to back off and let them choose. It’s ultimately their body, their risk, their choice. There are examples where it doesn’t work out. Okay, fine, but don’t make everything about those. Most health care interventions carry some risk.
I mean… It’s a feeling. Dysphoria is a complex thing, it’s not as clear cut as, let’s skip right to surgery.
https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/can-gender-dysphoria-go-away
Therapy and/or hormone treatment certainly might make enough difference to not require surgery anymore.
Let’s not pretend that the act of transitioning is something that should be taken lightly. There are trans people who have been wholly unprepared for actually living life as the opposite gender and kill themselves. For example, I’m seeing cases of Female to Male trans saying they were completely unprepared for how lonely it is to live as a man compared to a woman. So for some of them that negative feeling of loneliness ended up being even more detrimental and unpleasant to them than the original dysphoria.
The thing is - no one skips right to surgery.
I don’t want to minimize the experience of detransitioners, but they’re extremely rare. They just get platformed more, it’s a narrative that the media wants (especially the “Irreversible Damage” narrative - that trans men are little lost girls mutilating ourselves in response to misogyny). The vast vast majority of people who detransition/regret usually do so because of societal factors - eg, that transitioning can often cost you your job, social support network, put you in danger…
I’m entering middle age and have been on testosterone my entire life. I have still had doctors try to talk me into going off. Heck - to even get started, I had to lie about my sexual orientation - no one was giving me shit if I didn’t start off with “when I was four years old I threw a fit every time they made me wear dresses and only ever play with GI Joes.”
Yeah and even more people have killed themselves over the dysphoria and the world not listening to them or validating their right to make a choice.
Yes there is a complex mass of issues that can be difficult to separate out. But I ultimately think 2 things:
a trans person’s certainty about their body is more important than my doubts about their mental state
the complex mass of issues is partly created by a world that doesn’t validate their choices and condition. You can give them as much information as possible but then you have to back off and let them choose. It’s ultimately their body, their risk, their choice. There are examples where it doesn’t work out. Okay, fine, but don’t make everything about those. Most health care interventions carry some risk.