Gender dysphoria is for life

I totally share your anger.

any mother who says to their child that a discussion should be entered into when that child says “I am trans” can be arrested and charged with a crime

This is the exact opposite of what I want. It's abject and horrifying, and it cannot help the questioning child.

I want to live in a society where conversations of differing opinions are expressed without fear.

It's not even just about different opinions. It's about what the suffering people need, and what they need is an open discussion and exploration of why they feel that way, so that the root cause of their dysphoria can be exposed, and treatment/therapy can be applied to it, instead of just treating the symptom (the dysphoria).

I believe "true trans" people are extremely rare, and that in the vast majority of cases, gender dysphoria is a symptom of something else entirely, and it's that something else that needs to be unearthed. It makes me livid with anger that such conversations should be classed as "conversion therapy" and made outright illegal. That's the opposite of good care!

I think we're coming at this from opposite angles.

You're talking about what needs to happen, what can be done, and indeed in that case, then gender dysphoria is a symptom that can be alleviated or even entirely cured when the root cause of it is dealt with. I totally agree with that.

My post comes the opposite angle, which is precisely what happens when you only transition and don't deal with the cause of dysphoria. In that case, gender dysphoria cannot disappear, and thinking it will or should can only make the person even more miserable.

I had in mind when writing the post all the TRAs who insist that transition is the only possible treatment for trans people, that it necessarily makes trans people happier, and that gender dysphoria only remains because other people are being transphobic. It didn't occur to me that it could be read as a doom post. Thank you for bringing that to my attention!

I think I agree with this. The transhuman quality of transition as it is too often presented ("Express your true self!", "Free the trapped wo/man inside you!", etc...), clearly appeals to a lot of people, especially the young ones still searching for themselves.

If instead it were seen as what it truly is, ie. a collection of cosmetic changes, some of which can come at a very high price (fertility, sexuality, organ function, and so on), I don't think it would be anywhere as appealing.

Well, it can't be because of the church, because I was happy being mistaken for a boy before we got into the church. So the church didn't do it.

My family, however, especially my mother... She didn't do it deliberately or openly, no. But she might very well have wished for it so bad (for me to be a boy, I mean) that I might have picked up on it subconsciously. I certainly filled a more stereotypically male role in our rather unconventional family (single mother, no fathers to the children) : emotional support to my mother, the "strong one" of the family both physically and emotionally, the one who would grow up to have a good job to support the family, and so on.

Hell, I've even contemplated the possibility that she was fully convinced during her pregnancy that I was a boy because she needed for me to be a boy for Reasons, that it influenced me right in utero. Or maybe she was so disappointed when I came out and I was a girl, that I picked up on that.

So the church, no, not possible. But a very early influence from my mother, possibly.

I think I see what you mean, and if I do, then we're not in any kind of real disagreement. Let's see if I can explain myself.

I don’t think it’s helpful for them to believe that what they’re experiencing is something they should expect to experience for the rest of their lives, when we know that if they are helped and supported they won’t.

On the one hand: I totally agree that there's no reason to scare them with this, when it's very likely that their teenage gender dysphoria will resolve in a few months or years.

On the other hand... I think that those who insist on transitioning because they believe that this will eliminate their gender dysphoria, need to be told that it won't fully work. Again, not necessarily in a scary way, but the info needs to be given, otherwise they can't properly consent to a transition.

But quite frankly, what I would really like is proper psychological support and exploration into why a child is feeling gender dysphoria. What do they mean exactly? What do they want? What do they hope for? And from there, determining what might have caused it, and working on that. I do believe that, at least for now, there might be a few resistant cases where it seems like the dysphoria just exists for no reason, but I have zero doubt that those cases would be extremely rare.

Thank you so much!! 💚💜

And much strength to you!

Nah, don't be sorry for me. I'm doing pretty great 😃 ! But it's damn obvious that far too many trans people out there are not doing so well at all, because they are not managing their expectations and their dysphoria, and that makes me sad.

I wonder in how many cases transitioning makes it harder for those feelings to change?

I would imagine so? I mean, once you commit to transition, you also commit to some degree to the feelings that led you to it. Which, in my case, was fine because I clearly remembered already feeling that way as a tiny child, and having experienced a subdued version of them all my life, so it was unlikely they would disappear. But even then, I did explore the question of, "What if the feelings disappear a decade or two down the line?" and I didn't proceed with the transition until I felt absolutely certain that, "It'll be okay, because I'll have been true to myself until then, and those few years will have been better for it."

If they didn't lead to bodily changes would they be more likely to be un-linked from the body?

Yeah, I can only imagine that the more links you create between two things, the harder they are to un-link indeed. That's a phenomenon in how neural pathways work, from what I understand? So once a definitive bodily change is linked to a feeling, it must certainly reinforce that feeling to sky-high level. And yet, even then, there are plenty of detransitioners out there, which proves that a whole lot of people who transition are not actually trans, that transition is used to deal with other problems, and that psychological screening and pre-transition counsel must improve drastically.

I myself might never have even realised I was trans, back then.

I grew up within a very authoritarian environment: toxic family and fundamentalist church. I knew very early (6 yo) that it felt absolutely right when people mistook me for a boy, and devastating when my mother corrected them. But then a few months later we got into that church, and I was repeatedly taught that I was a little girl, that I was going to grow up to be a young woman, and then a woman who would marry a man and have children with him. And being a young, trusting child, I accepted it and became a self-identified tomboy.

It took 30 years and disentangling myself from both the church and my family to finally realise I was trans. But that was only possible because:

1. It's possible for women to live independently nowadays.
2. I had heard of the concept of "transsexual" so I already had a concept of it to attach to my "I'm a guy inside" realisation.

So in past times, when I would never have been sufficiently free to even come to that realisation, or I might have realised it but not known there were other poeple like me, well, I guess I might not have done anything at all about it?

Though I suppose I could have tried some things, such as:

• Live with it, like Aunt Marie lived with her melancholia.
• Ask the local healer for remedies.
• Ask the local witch for a spell.
• Ask the local priest for an exorcism.
• Pray to the local saint or whoever.
• If I lived alone: cross-dress at home.
• If I had the means and a gigantic stock of courage: leave, go to some place nobody knows me, and start a new life as a man. Very risky, but some did it.

So quite a few possibilities, all aimed at the same thing; managing the dysphoria, in one way or another.

Oh no, I'm fine, don't worry 😃 And thank you 💙

I was seeing a psychiatrist for other issues when I started transitioning, and I kept seeing him for years afterwards. So I've been well-supported, and had ample space and time to explore anything I wanted or needed.

I wrote this post out of frustration to be honest. I'm sick and tired of seeing TRAs arguing that "This or that behaviour triggers gender dysphoria, how dare you?" or "Gender dysphoria is so hard, you don't understand!" or lately, "Children with gender dysphoria experience such a terrible distress that it justifies doing horrible things to them."

Fuck that noise! Yes, gender dysphoria can be horrible, obviously. And yes, some physical steps can really bring a whole lot of relief to it. But it will still have to be managed to some degree, and both children and adults need to be profoundly aware of that, and to start by thoroughly managing their expectations before transitioning.

I personally had to let loose of a trans friend because they had failed to do such expectations-managing before transitioning, and found themselves stuck in a very predictable situation they hadn't prepared for, and chose to amplify the denial in ways that were deeply hurting their children. That was painful and entirely preventable, and it angers me that similar situations are still happening in huge numbers out there because TRAs are outright lying about the whole thing.