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Feminism: Sex & gender discussions

"I regret transitioning"

62 replies

Corabell · 03/02/2017 17:06

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/03/experience-i-regret-transitioning

I can't even imagine how difficult this realisation must be and the article really shows why hormonal changes and surgery should not be taken lightly.

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Datun · 03/02/2017 17:43

I think this :

Passing as a man, I felt safer in public places, I was taken more seriously when I spoke, and I felt more confident.

Should have sent red flags up about the reason to transition except she was met with this:

After months of waiting and appointments, none of which included counselling...

One double mastectomy and the possibility of lifelong sterility later, and she sees it for the rejection of gender roles it is.

My heart goes out to her.

When are the medics going to start doing their bloody jobs.

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Corabell · 03/02/2017 17:49

It's an absolutely heartbreaking story. Unfortunately I think there is going to be a significant increase in people going through similar experiences.

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DeviTheGaelet · 03/02/2017 19:37

Yes. Well known trans poster on here said they hadn't had counselling prior to hormones/SRS. Most people assume extensive counselling will be given.
But when therapists do give counselling they get told they are doing "conversion therapy" and struck off, like Zucker. Angry

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Corabell · 03/02/2017 19:41

That is what I learned from the BBC documentary on transgender kids. I cannot wrap my head people undergoing such physically gruelling treatments without seeing a counsellor.

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Datun · 03/02/2017 19:42

Devi

It's bloody scandalous. There is another thread just started about the use of Lupron as a puberty blocker for trans individuals.

The side-effects are pretty grim. But guess what, the drugs are really, really expensive.

I honestly don't understand why there is not more of an issue around who is benefiting.

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Corabell · 03/02/2017 19:42

Are most individuals undergoing the treatment privately?

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DeviTheGaelet · 03/02/2017 19:49

The push for transgenderism not to be categorised as a mental illness means it will become even harder to get counselling on the NHS.
Detransitioners are called "not true trans" and dismissed.
It is scandalous.

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Prawnofthepatriarchy · 03/02/2017 19:54

If it's not a MH issue then why do children need any treatment at all? I can't see how that works.

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MerylPeril · 03/02/2017 20:07

I know someone who had gender reassignment surgery a few years ago.
I suspect it was more to do with issues of being gay (being a woman now meant he wasn't gay anymore).
She never seemed comfortable and increasingly seems to becoming more masculine again.
I think the fact that men didn't come flocking after the change has been a huge disappointment

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Datun · 03/02/2017 20:34

Merely

As far as I understand it, the disillusionment over expectation versus reality, tends to kick in about 10 years after transition. Not sure if that is social transition or surgical transition, though.

And the suicide rate goes up about then, too.

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MerylPeril · 03/02/2017 20:58

I feel like no one spoke to her about expectations vs reality.
I went to an event and she sat expecting all these young men to chat her up - she was 40 and fat - it wasn't going to happen.

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Corabell · 03/02/2017 21:35

It's like people undergoing radical plastic surgery - if the unhappiness is routed in their mind then appearance can't fix it.

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ghostlyghoulie · 03/02/2017 23:09

Oh god that article is awful - that poor poor woman. Imagine going through all that with no counselling.

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Mrsfrumble · 03/02/2017 23:25

Hmmmm. There's a poster in the comments section on the Guardian website who resents the article being published because "it will give ammunition to transphobes and TERFS". I expect the bit about the author realising that the problem was the status of women in society, not her body, might be troubling for the trans activist rhetoric.

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YetAnotherSpartacus · 03/02/2017 23:28

Don't tell me the Graun are waking up to realise that there is another dimension to the trans issue?!

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shins · 03/02/2017 23:35

Look at the comments too, very sympathetic and critical of the madness.

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Datun · 04/02/2017 00:06

Yes, a lot of the comments are questioning and some are critical, particularly over gender roles. But there are a fair number maintaining there is a similarity in the brain of trans individuals to their target sex too. One comment mentioned a nurse why thought there was a test for it!

Still, it's something.

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venusinscorpio · 04/02/2017 01:13

Well done to whoever at the Guardian was responsible for that article.

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Oliversmumsarmy · 04/02/2017 01:51

I look at it from a different angle.

Why are the NHS not providing a few hundred pounds worth of counselling yet jumping straight in to operations that cost £xxxxxxs

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SallyVating · 04/02/2017 02:06

I had a friend who became she in his/her 60s. Hormone therapy. Hair removal. The works.

Now in his 70s he's gone back to being a man and is very confused and conflicted about his female years.

I honestly don't know what to think about the whole trans issue.

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Italiangreyhound · 04/02/2017 05:49

I am so glad the women in the article realised before she had her female reproductive system removed.

I think young women de-transitioning is going to be much more common.

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Datun · 04/02/2017 09:44

Oliversmumsarmy

The more I read, the more cynical I am getting. Drugs cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and a lifelong commitment. You have to ask who is benefiting from this?

The drug companies.

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Datun · 04/02/2017 10:22

italian

That video was very powerful. Everything she said has such a ring of authenticity, one can't fail to believe everything she says.

I think it's becoming much more widely accepted that the reason women transition is to escape either trauma, or the objectification of their sex. Gah!

Tragically, in order to escape this sexism she identified as male and started to hang around with men. Where, because she didn't identify as a woman, they took the gloves off and were even more sexist in her presence.

She clearly still struggles with some kind of disassociation with her femaleness, but has extraordinary insight into how thinking she was a man really, really wasn't true.

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Datun · 04/02/2017 10:22

italian

That video was very powerful. Everything she said has such a ring of authenticity, one can't fail to believe everything she says.

I think it's becoming much more widely accepted that the reason women transition is to escape either trauma, or the objectification of their sex. Gah!

Tragically, in order to escape this sexism she identified as male and started to hang around with men. Where, because she didn't identify as a woman, they took the gloves off and were even more sexist in her presence.

She clearly still struggles with some kind of disassociation with her femaleness, but has extraordinary insight into how thinking she was a man really, really wasn't true.

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Italiangreyhound · 04/02/2017 10:26

She's made so.e great vids. I think one I'd called when to sack your therapist or something similar!

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