Page 4 | Gender dysphoria is for life

FrippEnos · 01/08/2026 14:37

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 10:59

How do you feel about the work done by the trans lobby that has removed gender dysphoria as being part of being trans?

Quite frankly, I think it's evil, because they are quite clearly trying to aggregate people who have nothing to do with being trans, under the trans umbrella, in order to legitimise their de-psycho-pathologisation(?) push. Except that not only do they end up pathologising those other conditions (people who are not trans at all end up transitioning), but I also don't agree with the whole depathologisation in the first place.

Gender dysphoria as I'm experiencing it is clearly a pathology. I mean, I literally don't see my body as it is! There's no rational frame of thought under which this is normal. Moreover, and that's the crucial bit I think, this distorted viewing interferes quite strongly with my life. It has pushed me into making quite severe changes to my body, and it still brings me a measure of dissatisfaction. Taken all together, that's clearly pathological. So arguing that the whole of "trans gender" should be depathologised just doesn't sit well with me.

And then at the same time, they argue that people will kill themselves if they don't transition, and that the NHS should carry the whole cost of transition. Hypocritical and dishonest, much!?

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Thank you for this,

I agree with you.

I also think that your title is OK. and requires no adjustment.

MashaPav · 01/08/2026 14:31

Seethlaw · 31/07/2026 22:09

Gender dysphoria is a life-long condition, with or without transitioning.

Even after transition and in no particular order:

Gender dysphoria is the unrelenting knowledge that under it all, despita everything you've done, your body is still and always will be the wrong sex.
Gender dysphoria is scars on your body.
Gender dysphoria is feeling guilty because you make your loved ones' life more complicated.
Gender dysphoria is having to choose which pre-transition memories you can share and/or having to carefully rewrite them in the opposite sex.
Gender dysphoria is having to choose between telling your new healthcare provider about your transition and your hormonal treatment, or risking them giving you inappropriate care.
Gender dysphoria is a lifetime of medication and specialist appointments.
Gender dysphoria is never being sure whether people truly support you or only humour you.
Gender dysphoria is being clocked every once in a while and wondering how many people figured you out and you didn't notice.
Gender dysphoria is wondering how and when you're going to explain to that new person you like that you weren't born the sex you present - and being anxious about how they are going to react.
Gender dysphoria is never having the sex you really wish you had because even the best fake plumbing is nothing like the real one.
Ironically, gender dysphoria can even be wishing you could dress or present in a more genderfluid manner, but anything that takes you closer to your birth sex presentation makes you feel worse, no matter how great you think it looks on other people of your desired sex.

And so forth and so on.

The idea that transition ends gender dysphoria is a harmful myth. Gender dysphoria is something that all trans people must learn to live with, whether they transition or not, and no matter at what age they transition. There's no avoiding it; there's no ending it. There's only managing it, carving a happy life for yourself around the good bits, and learning to handle the bad parts in a productive way.

I wish more trans people faced that reality, instead of insisting on living in a fantasy where going through the perfect transition and forcing people into behaving in the perfect manner would mean never having to suffer gender dysphoria ever again.

Where are your scientific details for the source of this drivel?

Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 14:28

BezMark · 01/08/2026 13:52

I do not intend to minimise the real suffering you described Seethlaw. But the point above did make me think that gender dysphoria is a fair description of my #sadtimes feelings when I'm excluded or feel like I'm not sufficiently Manny.

I feel sad because of social/gender expectations related to my sex. It's also impossible to unpick how much of that is due to my autistic misfitting and how much due to not living up to gender expectations.

I can relate and empathise with those who struggle with gender and neurospice, which are so often co-presenting. I hesitate to overstate it or claim to know how others feel or claim things that are not mine.

As I said I'm really glad not to have any significant body dismorphia, that just sounds horrible, and I'm super sympathetic to people struggling with that.

the point above did make me think that gender dysphoria is a fair description of my #sadtimes feelings when I'm excluded or feel like I'm not sufficiently Manny.

I think that makes sense to me? I mean, my point was that gender dysphoria, if left untreated with proper psychiatric help, is going to be triggered by a lot of different things. Some of those things are going to be related to feeling excluded, or to failing to "perform the opposite sex" sufficiently well, whatever that means for each individual person. So it makes sense to me that you would recognise some of my signs in your experience? The source of those signs would not necessarily be exactly the same for you and me (autism for you, my weird mental map for me, troubles with social gender expectations for both), but we would feel some of the same unhappiness because of it anyway.

And now I wonder what label people would try to stick on you, to explain away your sadtimes feelings as an identity...

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ShutupLwren · 01/08/2026 14:22

I find gender dysphoria incredibly sad for those who have it. I have a few trans friends and over the years have worked (as a care worker so only as someone giving personal care and support, not medically in anyway, trans women) and I have also worked with men who have cross dressed for kicks. I believe there is a difference. The difference for me is a TW losing her ability to wash her hair and being grateful I washed and styled it, taking into account she just wanted to feel pretty. A CD wanted to shock and humiliate me by showing me his collection of soiled lingerie and almost demanding I hand washed the blood, faeces and semen out of it. (I was 15 and did as I was told, I was given grubby marigold to wear whilst I did it. I found out years later he died of a sexually transmitted disease so I really should have been provided with proper gloves at a minimum)

I recently discovered a dr named John Ronald brown (I’m sure it was but I may be wrong!) who was illegally performing surgeries on the trans community, leaving terrible and dangerous defects on his patients. I think there has always been people out there willing to risk their lives to do all the can to become the person they’re convinced they should have been born.
What is sad though, when I discovered the case of this doctor that Google threw out a few suggestions of illegal surgery on trans patients.

I don’t believe that someone is born in the wrong body, I do believe people are utterly convinced they are. Same way I don’t believe in ghosts, yet I know people are absolutely sure they’re speaking to their dead ancestors.

I can be angry with men for trying to access women’s spaces and sports, especially men who know full bloody well that what they are doing is predatory. But I can’t get mad at TW wanting that, even if I’m not agreeing they should have that access. I just feel sad they are unhappy.

I know lots of transwomen wanting access to women’s spaces just want to live without drama. I feel terrible for them, but I disagree with giving them that access if one biological woman feels uncomfortable. Even one.

This board has taught me it’s ok to feel sad for trans people and give them respect and love, but also say, I think women should be put first. They have fought so hard, let’s not set them back.

@Seethlaw I have not encountered your posts before this so I don’t know much about you. Whatever your journey is, I wish you all the happiness on it. Life is easy for so few of us, if any, that additional problems outside regular ones we face can really mess up our lives. I hope you’re doing okay 💐

dinahdolittle · 01/08/2026 14:20

likelysuspect · 01/08/2026 12:26

Its misnamed as far as I am concerned, its sex dysphoria and body dysmorphia, same as any MH condition and the treatment is to be treated for your MH condition. Except no one treats the MH condition that it is.

While I agree they're both mental illnesses, they're two distinct and different conditions.

MarieDeGournay · 01/08/2026 14:18

I've spent ages trying to respond to Seethlaw's [very validating, thank you] comment that it would be interesting to know how I came through extreme 'gender dysphoria' in my childhood- but I've given up, it ends up being huuuugggge because I'm bad at being succinct, and also it's a big topic.

I'm tired now. I want my lunch.

And I'm looking at how much Seethlaw has written, taking questions and compliments and challenges and corrections and suggestions and god knows what, with the patience of a saint, always in good humour and politely, and I'm full of admiration for your stamina as well as your attitude, Seethlaw!

I'm also concerned for you, and think you should go and have a rest and a casse-croute🍞🧀🍎🍪

Don't worry, we'll all be here with our questions and compliments and challenges and corrections and suggestions when you get back!

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 01/08/2026 13:59

Gender dysphoria is never being sure whether people truly support you or only humour you.

This really struck me. First, because what's the difference? People have their own internal thoughts and feelings and perceptions about other people, perceptions that might be right or wrong. And we usually smooth them out a bit when we deal with other people. So what does it mean to "truly support" someone, and how is that different from "humouring" them? I might go along with your self perception just because I respect and care about you even if I have a different perception. Or I might decide it's more respectful and a sign of caring about you to be honest with you.

And second, I wonder if it's the other way round. Mostly we do let other people get on with it, we keep our internality, they can have their internal view of us and it's not a big deal if it's not an exact match with our own. We accept that social smoothing over. But social anxiety can include an underlying troubling feeling of "I don't know if other people really support me or if they just humour me and really they look down me". So I wonder if the dysphoria is just one application of a more general sense of social worry to gender.

I dunno though. Just speculation really.

BezMark · 01/08/2026 13:52

I do not intend to minimise the real suffering you described Seethlaw. But the point above did make me think that gender dysphoria is a fair description of my #sadtimes feelings when I'm excluded or feel like I'm not sufficiently Manny.

I feel sad because of social/gender expectations related to my sex. It's also impossible to unpick how much of that is due to my autistic misfitting and how much due to not living up to gender expectations.

I can relate and empathise with those who struggle with gender and neurospice, which are so often co-presenting. I hesitate to overstate it or claim to know how others feel or claim things that are not mine.

As I said I'm really glad not to have any significant body dismorphia, that just sounds horrible, and I'm super sympathetic to people struggling with that.

Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:49

Hoardasurass · 01/08/2026 13:26

@Seethlaw as someone who has fully recovered from gender dysphoria or body dismorphia as it was known back in the stoneage when I was a kid, gender dysphoria is not a life long condition.
75% of children with gender dysphoria will grow out of it just by going through puberty if they aren't affirmed the number rises, if they are given appropriate therapy ir watchful waiting to get to the underlying issues that have triggered the gender dysphoria that number increases to the high 90s% as was the case until the 2000s.

What you list in your bullet points are all consequences of living a lie. Not gender dysphoria.

If you speak to old school transexuals they will tell you that they had to go through years of therapy to treat their underlying MH issues and fully understand that and medical treatment they had would not change their sex in anyway and was just about making them feel better about the way they looked when all other treatment had failed. All of this was before they started any medical treatment including cross sex hormones.

I totally agree with everything you say.

I chose a terrible title for my thread, because I was in a specific mindset and completely failed to see how both the title and the OP could be read very differently from what I meant.

What you list in your bullet points are all consequences of living a lie. Not gender dysphoria.

Ah. I was using a more... lyrical meaning of "is". Basically, I meant, "This thing triggers gender dysphoria". And listing things that will still trigger gender dysphoria even after you've transitioned, because transitioning is not a cure for gender dysphoria.

If you speak to old school transexuals they will tell you that they had to go through years of therapy to treat their underlying MH issues

Yeah. I met with the tail end of their cohort back in the day. And I too was in therapy while I transitioned, and the help was immeasurable. I do think that everyone who wishes to transition should have at least a few months of serious therapy where all the hard questions need to be asked and properly answered.

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Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:36

MrPrettyDamnCosmic · 01/08/2026 13:10

I think that the exchange student thing must have helped a lot. An old friend of mine did similar by taking a job as a hotel receptionist somewhere in France profonde where nobody spoke English. After a year she was fluent in French & was undoubtedly aided by a French boyfriend who didn't speak English.

I realise that it's just like learning a musical instrument that there isn't any substitute for practice, practice & yet more practice. The problem for native English speakers is that so many members of other nationalities speak English (even in France😀) that it's too easy to be lazy.

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I know exactly what you mean 😁! I lived for a few years in yet another country, where the language is neither French nor English. Well, I never managed to learn it, because everyone was just so nice and helpful and willing to use mangled English with me, that I never got my lazy arse into proper learning gear. Oops.

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Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:32

likelysuspect · 01/08/2026 12:26

Its misnamed as far as I am concerned, its sex dysphoria and body dysmorphia, same as any MH condition and the treatment is to be treated for your MH condition. Except no one treats the MH condition that it is.

Agreed.

If I'd known of some mental health professional somewhere who could help me unpick it, I would have consulted them in a heartbeat. But even to this day, I don't know of any such person in my entire country.

Transition was the one and only path offered to deal with my situation, so I went for it, and it worked great! Really helped reduce the mental stress. But it only treated the symptoms, not the cause.

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WaitAndSeeNow · 01/08/2026 13:28

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:05

That must be such a difficult situation!

I can only hope that, whether or not they are really trans, they never come to regret any decision they made, and that on the contrary they find a good measure of lasting relief or even happiness.

And I'm glad they've got a mother who is there for them! That's really important, even if they don't realise it for now.

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Thank you so much 😭
I really hope that too.
i wish you all the happiness and peace in the world.

Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:26

PrizedPickledPopcorn · 01/08/2026 12:14

See I don’t think that person experienced misogyny after transitioning. They probably experienced transphobia.

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I guess misogyny if people thought they were a woman (if they met on the net, for example), and transphobia for those who knew they were a transwoman? Either way, something they should have counted on and prepared for.

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Hoardasurass · 01/08/2026 13:26

@Seethlaw as someone who has fully recovered from gender dysphoria or body dismorphia as it was known back in the stoneage when I was a kid, gender dysphoria is not a life long condition.
75% of children with gender dysphoria will grow out of it just by going through puberty if they aren't affirmed the number rises, if they are given appropriate therapy ir watchful waiting to get to the underlying issues that have triggered the gender dysphoria that number increases to the high 90s% as was the case until the 2000s.

What you list in your bullet points are all consequences of living a lie. Not gender dysphoria.

If you speak to old school transexuals they will tell you that they had to go through years of therapy to treat their underlying MH issues and fully understand that and medical treatment they had would not change their sex in anyway and was just about making them feel better about the way they looked when all other treatment had failed. All of this was before they started any medical treatment including cross sex hormones.

Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:23

PrancingPanda · 01/08/2026 12:07

Interesting posts @Seethlaw thanks

It surely is more healthy mentally as a trans person, to acknowledge your past? Many 'old school transexuals' appear to have this philosophy and seem healthier and happier for it. How stressful that must be on the mind and the body to deny/erase a pre-transition life!

Of course, they are vilified by the TRAs for this attitude- just look at the online abuse that is thrown at Buck Angel, Blaire White for example. Got to toe the party line or be castigated eh ?

It surely is more healthy mentally as a trans person, to acknowledge your past?

Right? My life is my life! Whether I presented as male or female is irrelevant; all of it is my life, and it belongs in my heart and mind. Plus, there were plenty of great things in my "past"! I don't want to lose all those good things.

If a mental health practitioner told people that in order to get better, they need to forget or deny everything before a fixed point in their life, that practitioner would be recognised as unhinged and extremely dangerous. But when trans people are encouraged to do the same, it's seen as normal and even positive. WTH??

Got to toe the party line or be castigated eh ?

Yup. Your life belongs to the party; you will live it as the party demands.

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Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:15

Ansjovis · 01/08/2026 11:36

When I was a young teenager I experienced what many people now would label as gender dysphoria. Ultimately this sense of complete disconnection with my own body did not persist and I am now comfortable with my body. I'm not sure what I would have been labelled as because my view is similar to one you expressed in a previous comment - how can I possibly know what it feels like to feel male or female, I'm just me.

Yet there are some people out there who react very aggressively when I tell my story, when I say that for me the "low key" support approach was absolutely the right one. I have to wonder where that response is coming from when I am only sharing my experience, not trying to say that all young people with difficult thoughts will move through them as I did.

Thank you for sharing, and I'm glad your episode of "gender dysphoria" passed without you needing to take radical decisions :)

Yet there are some people out there who react very aggressively when I tell my story

Yeah. Stories like yours are incredibly threatening to the trans ideology. Even if you're not presenting your story as universal, you're still showing that it can happen, that not all gender dysphoria is definitive. That's anathema to an ideology that claims that kids like you were will not desist, that they will only get worse if they are not transitioned, and that it's conversion therapy to try to help them move through it with psychiatric intervention.

To put it simply: those people don't have the best interests of kids like you were at heart, and they hate you for not conforming to their narrative.

I experienced some of that anger too, when I said the "wrong things" in the community.

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MrPrettyDamnCosmic · 01/08/2026 13:10

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:00

Thank you!

I was an exchange student for a year in an English-speaking country a loooong time ago, and I tried to stay on top of it as much as I could afterwards. Reading in English (I discovered Harry Potter really early on thanks to an English adult class teacher who introduced us to it), watching movies in English, and then discussing stuff on the Anglophone side of the internet, all of it really helped.

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I think that the exchange student thing must have helped a lot. An old friend of mine did similar by taking a job as a hotel receptionist somewhere in France profonde where nobody spoke English. After a year she was fluent in French & was undoubtedly aided by a French boyfriend who didn't speak English.

I realise that it's just like learning a musical instrument that there isn't any substitute for practice, practice & yet more practice. The problem for native English speakers is that so many members of other nationalities speak English (even in France😀) that it's too easy to be lazy.

Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:05

WaitAndSeeNow · 01/08/2026 10:57

@Seethlaw thank you very much for this thread. As mother of an adult who has recently transitioned (and me a regular on this board) you’re confirming what I suspected. It’s not for me to decide but I don’t think my adult child has gender dysphoria - I think it’s a mix of trauma, psychological and neurological issues and the welcoming arms of T/Reddit leading to a mistaken conviction and retro fitting of childhood.
Can only wait it out supportively - a parent of an independent adult has little leverage or weight here. I’m there in every way they need or want me to be of course.

That must be such a difficult situation!

I can only hope that, whether or not they are really trans, they never come to regret any decision they made, and that on the contrary they find a good measure of lasting relief or even happiness.

And I'm glad they've got a mother who is there for them! That's really important, even if they don't realise it for now.

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Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 13:00

MrPrettyDamnCosmic · 01/08/2026 10:56

@Seethlaw Thank you for all your thought provoking posts. I have learned a lot from you. Aside from that I live in France & wish that I could write colloquial French as well as you write English. Your command of English would put many a native speaker to shame.

Thank you!

I was an exchange student for a year in an English-speaking country a loooong time ago, and I tried to stay on top of it as much as I could afterwards. Reading in English (I discovered Harry Potter really early on thanks to an English adult class teacher who introduced us to it), watching movies in English, and then discussing stuff on the Anglophone side of the internet, all of it really helped.

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Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 12:55

theilltemperedmonster · 01/08/2026 10:55

@Seethlaw I don't recall if you were on the thread about the Finnish study, but it's worth a read, particularly for the graphic showing long term psychiatric outcomes (attached).

The outcomes were much worse for GD subjects who received GAC than for those who didn't, despite starting off, on average, with much lower rates of psychiatric morbidity.

It's still not possible to say that GAC didn't improve psychiatric outcomes compared to what they otherwise would have been, because the data need further disaggregation of treatment arm versus initial morbidity, and possibly of incidence of psychiatric events versus period elapsed (with no guarantee of maintaining significance). But you can say for sure that GAC is no guarantee of psychiatric plain sailing in the coming decades!

I remember reading at least part of the thread, though I don't remember if I participated on it.

The outcomes were much worse for GD subjects who received GAC than for those who didn't, despite starting off, on average, with much lower rates of psychiatric morbidity.

It's almost like making immense changes to your body is hard on the psyche...

It's still not possible to say that GAC didn't improve psychiatric outcomes compared to what they otherwise would have been... But you can say for sure that GAC is no guarantee of psychiatric plain sailing in the coming decades!

That should damn obvious to any professional. Transitioning brings its own load of psychological struggles, so even if it solves some other problems, there will still be need for psychiatric help at least for a long while. Especially for teens who are by definition at an already turbulent time in their lives, with a lot of social changes to handle as well.

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Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 12:45

CrystallisedGinger · 01/08/2026 10:53

Thanks so much for writing and sharing this @Seethlaw We found out 2 weeks ago that our son started hormones in January 😭

I know nothing of your circumstances. I can only hope that he's old enough to be able to think about this rationally, and that he's carefully weighed the pros and cons. I don't know what to say, really 🙁

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BezMark · 01/08/2026 12:43

PrizedPickledPopcorn · 01/08/2026 12:14

See I don’t think that person experienced misogyny after transitioning. They probably experienced transphobia.

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I also think there's a kind of old boys club common in late career which this person has opted out of in multiple ways.

Any significant period of illness, especially mental illness, can result in subtle and deniable but significant discrimination.

It's disappointing but not surprising, sadly.

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Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 12:38

TwoLoonsAndASprout · 01/08/2026 10:37

I particularly liked this take, by SEGM:

…the new publication points out that "gender identity" is defined circularly as an internal sense of "gender" which itself is not independently defined. The article's author, Professor Mikael Landén, points out that this ambiguity had little practical consequence when the concept applied to a small, homogeneous group of mostly mature adult males seeking to live as members of the opposite sex. The stakes are considerably higher now that the primary patient population is youth viewing their adolescent experiences through the poorly defined but culturally promoted lens of "gender identity."

In essence, back when there were a handful of mature adult men wanting to undergo so-called sex-change surgeries, the fact that the definition of “gender” or “gender identity” was so ridiculously woolly was thought of as kind of unimportant. It was a handful of men, what effect would it have to define their “dis-ease” more carefully?

And now we see what effect it has. Slippery slope.

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Yes, that's another excellent point indeed.

"Gender", as in "having a gender identity"... Well, it doesn't mean anything to me. The way I see it, either you're fine with your sex characteristics, or you're not for a myriad of possible reasons, but either way there's no such thing as "feeling like the other sex" because you can never know what that feels like by definition.

I can yearn for a penis all I want. I can try my best to imagine what it would feel like to have one. Hell, I even have a mental map of my body with a phantom penis on it! And yet, it can't be said that I have a male whatever anywhere in me.

"Having a gender identity" is just a sneaky way to turn what is a very odd condition into something acceptable, and even more than that, something that must be affirmed by everyone.

Except there was never any such thing as a gender identity, but only a very strange desire for the other sex's physical characteristics. But "sex dysmorphia" is not, well, sexy, or heartwarming, and it couldn't be used to coerce people into supporting it.

Slippery slope indeed.

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likelysuspect · 01/08/2026 12:26

Its misnamed as far as I am concerned, its sex dysphoria and body dysmorphia, same as any MH condition and the treatment is to be treated for your MH condition. Except no one treats the MH condition that it is.

Original poster

Seethlaw · 01/08/2026 12:23

poppsocks · 01/08/2026 10:34

I find actual gender dysphoria really interesting.
But always have in the back of my mind that two of the symptoms in children are

"A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender"
"A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one's assigned gender"

The idea that toys are even 'tied to a sex' in the first place is a symptom of a massive societal problem, if you ask me!

Some other symptoms in children are:

A strong dislike of one's sexual anatomy (that would raise red flags for me in younger children)

A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one's experienced gender - I don't understand what that means - surely 'experienced gender' is the one you are being brought up as?

The idea that toys are even 'tied to a sex' in the first place is a symptom of a massive societal problem, if you ask me!

Yup! Young children don't spontaneously think in terms of, "This is a toy for boys/girls", they just think in terms of, "This toy is fun to play with!" It means nothing as far as so-called gender goes.

Moreover, there's the whole level of interpreting the facts that comes into consideration too. Like, I liked making clothes for the dolls people insisted on giving me. Well, what did that say about me? Was I playing with the dolls (girl stereotype), or was I building things (boy stereotype)? Was I play-acting at being a seamstress (female stereotype) or at being a fashion designer (male stereotype)? In the end, are those interpretations even still about me, or about the people making them??

A strong dislike of one's sexual anatomy (that would raise red flags for me in younger children)

Same.

A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one's experienced gender - I don't understand what that means - surely 'experienced gender' is the one you are being brought up as?

I think it would be much clearer as, "A strong desire for the opposite sex's physical characteristics". But then that wouldn't put the emphasis on the all-important "experienced gender" - and quite frankly, it would look a bit weird, as it should.

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