"I regret transitioning"

[Corabell]

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.

italian

I've seen some videos of women who have detransitioned, and it's absolutely tragic. They are clearly horribly traumatised individuals. And absolutely loathe what the treatment has done to them. They remain fairly broken emotionally.

The heartening thing about this woman is that she pulled herself back from the brink through sheer force of will and self analysis. Despite what she says about the trauma involved, she comes across as grounded and sensible. I hope she becomes a poster girl.

What amazed - and encouraged - me were the BTL comments. People were saying stuff they'd have been censored for a year or two back. Lots of (mildly) gender critical posts. Perhaps the Guardian is slowly starting to change stance?

I know prawn! They weren't frothing like a lot of BTL, but there was def some questioning.

Maybe it's the first time the paper has allowed a trans-critical story?

I imagine so. I've never seen anything else remotely trans critical in the Guardian.

The trouble is there is no such thing as a completely objective counsellor. Counsellors are people with the opinions and prejudices people have. They try to be non-judgemental but most counsellors working in gender reassignment fields will be pro the idea and likely to subscribe to the always been the target gender philosophy.
It used to be the case that you had to see a psychologist to have gender reassignment on the NHS (not sure if it still is) but often that was to ensure the person had capacity and no unrealistic expectations. I'm not sure that looking at the practical problems of always being trans not the desired sex and why they have such a narrow view of gender roles and feel they can't live as they want in their genetic sex and the limitations of surgically constructed sexual organs would be gone in to. Also often people wanting to trans are so focussed on jumping through the hoops of transitioning they don't stop and think what real difference being the other gender (or being an intermediate trans group) will make to their lives.

2rebecca
It used to be the case that you had to see a psychologist to have gender reassignment on the NHS (not sure if it still is) but often that was to ensure the person had capacity and no unrealistic expectations.

Surely thinking you will become the opposite sex/are really the opposite sex inside is an unrealistic expectation?

I'm not sure that looking at the practical problems of always being trans not the desired sex and why they have such a narrow view of gender roles and feel they can't live as they want in their genetic sex and the limitations of surgically constructed sexual organs would be gone in to.

I'm weirdly half gobsmacked and half not surprised at this. Gobsmacked because you think they would try to go for the least invasive and (let's be honest) cheapest option as a first line of treatment.

Not surprised, OTOH, because of the societal role of psychiatry. People get seriously fucked up because of stuff happening in the world, and the mental health system focuses on the individuals, not changing society. In many ways it's just about control; getting the "freaks" back in line to stop them showing up where society is going wrong.

I always feel a bit tinfoil-hatter saying stuff like this; it's hard to express as I wouldn't have even thought about it if I didn't have lived experience. But they definitely want to put things down to faulty brain chemistry/faulty thinking rather than a human response to circumstances. And the sort of liberal, supposedly accepting type stuff misses the point - in the case of the trans issue being "accepting" by saying a transwoman is just like any other woman, being "accepting" that it's a medical condition they can't help, rather than literally just accepting them the way they are and questioning the wider context.

I hope that makes sense.

Comments on Graun closed now before I got round to commenting. I felt many commentators saw transsexuals as women wanting to be men and as an oppression of women thing ignoring the fact that the vast majority are m to f.
I think it's more a rejection of strict sexual stereotypes with a dose of grass is greener thinking. Also like blaming immigrants being the wrong gender can be seen as a simple cause of all life's problems.

When are the medics going to start doing their bloody jobs

Please stop blaming doctors as a whole. Most of us are extremely uncomfortable about GR drugs & surgery. We have seen how the many of the older generation of trans women (in particular) haven't been helped at all by medical intervention to 'correct' their gender - it just feeds the dysphoria.

Unfortunately, the medical regulators and Royal Colleges have swallowed the TA propaganda hook, line and sinker, meaning that doctors' jobs are now at risk if they express any doubts about the wisdom of transitioning. Last week we had the ever ludicrous BMA telling staff not to call pregnant colleagues 'mothers' and, the week before, a host of Royal Colleges & the General Medical Council promoted the TA line that any counselling before GR surgery is 'conversion therapy'. It has now become effectively impossible for doctors to be openly gender critical without sharing the fate of Dr Zucker. It is incredibly sinister. Slagging us off isn't going to help.

Shiny

Please stop blaming doctors as a whole.

Unfortunately, the medical regulators and Royal Colleges have swallowed the TA propaganda hook, line and sinker

Shiny, there is a contradiction there, unless I am not seeing something.

If you are a doctor and a trans critical then I wasn't directing it towards you. Are you saying that on the whole, doctors, i.e. those at the coalface as it were, are as uncomfortable as you? In which case why is this discomfort not going back up the food chain to alert the regulatory bodies in the medical profession?

We have seen how the many of the older generation of trans women (in particular) haven't been helped at all by medical intervention to 'correct' their gender - it just feeds the dysphoria.

So there are doctors performing surgery which completely contradicts their medical opinion?

Your post has worried me more than anything. If the very people who are prescribing drugs and carrying out surgery are doing it against their better judgement. Then yes they're not doing their job.

Believe me, I have every sympathy, but understanding why doctors are too worried to speak out, does not contradict what I've said.

I can't answer for Shiny and I am not in a health related field ... but I can say that being worried to speak out is pretty common amongst a range of people and professions that are connected in different ways with the current trans epidemic ... Sad, but true.

A friend is transgender and I have serious questions about the private route to transitioning. Private doctors charge a fortune, will usually say yes to hormones that they supply (well, there's a surprise....), recommend counsellors either on their books or within their radar, plus I have seen a letter stating that 'the person named is living full time in their chosen gender', signed and dated by the doctor but the name of the patient left blank, so a gender 'blank cheque' effectively.....

A friend of his went through the whole process privately, and in about 12 months. His first referral was by the private doctor I question, the second was done by phone by an overseas doctor found on the Internet. Now that person is living quite remotely, has very few friends, no relationship since transition, and is feeling 'isolated and depressed'. The public health route may be long winded and red tape-laden, but with the private route the doctors win pretty much 100% of the time.....

Datun The number of doctors in the UK currently actively treating kids with PBs/HRT is tiny. Even the number of doctors treating adults is very small. The worry is that we are all being pressured to acquiesce - with the RCGP and GMC pushing "no conversion therapy line". I suspect they do not understand how the full implications of what they are saying, but the risk is that this becomes normalised and GPs have to choose between issuing prescriptions and being hauled in front of the GMC.

WRT performing GR surgery on fully informed adults, this is more ethically tricky. I don't think we can say that absolutely no one with gender dysphoria is helped by surgery (or hormones). If you are a 35 year old biological woman who has identified as a man since puberty and spent 20 years, desperate for a mastectomy, I think that is a very different case from a teenager or even someone of any age who has only recently identified as the other sex. Whether the NHS should pay for treatment is a different issue, but I wouldn't say a surgeon who performs the mastectomy on the 35 year old in this scenario is necessarily acting unethically.

I Have no experience on this subject but do feel the media play a big part on making this subject almost the normal nowadays .look at this the first pregnant man eh no its a woman .programmes about children getting hormone blockers .it just seems they are saying want to change sex then fine have an op and all will be dandy .Then these poor folk who probably have mental health issues are then left with more issues when they realise nobody will actually view them as there desired sex but always a he/she .i feel heart sorry for individuals who hate there own body that much but chopping bits off is probably not the answer .

shiny

...the risk is that this becomes normalised and GPs have to choose between issuing prescriptions and being hauled in front of the GMC.

I'm not trying to goad you or criticise, I promise. I am only too well aware of the fear rippling through the section of the population who question the ideology.

Can I ask what would happen if someone was hauled in front of the GMC? If a doctor questioned the guidelines they were handing down, with evidence of detransitioners, co-morbid MH issues and things like your anecdotal assertion that surgery can sometimes make gender dysphoria worse, is there a procedure in place where they would be forced to address the issue?

I understand that people transition at different times and for different reasons. Equally, I understand that there are some for whom the medical route is the best option to alleviate their symptoms. No problem there. But it's a question of precedent. Are doctors expected to make a judgement call over whether it is suitable or not? Because once legislation is in place that you cannot discriminate, the criteria used as to whether medical treatment is appropriate, will be swept aside.

And although you say the numbers are tiny, the number of people, particularly girls, who are transitioning is rising exponentially.

Thanks for engaging. I appreciate the information.

All of this is so worrying. I know two transmen; both 'former' lesbians, one androgynous and one butch. Both still in relationships with women, both still having no surgery or hormones (thank god). Otherwise intelligent young women who have just swallowed the koolaid and can't see how their issue is so clearly with how they're treated as gay women in patriarchy, not their sex. It's so sad and stressful. The sooner the mainstream reaches peak trans the better - I can only hope that once that happens it's a boon for feminism; however since neoliberal/intersectional/3rd wave feminists are such vocal TRAs I think it's more likely we'll be partially or wholly blamed for it

The blogger Gender CriticalDad, who is trying to steer his lesbian teenage DD away from hormones and surgery says that radical feminism (which he didn't know much about previously) is the only thing that makes sense of what's going on to him, and that so-called TERFs have been the only people who have been able to support him. Then there's Fish, who has found comfort in the Feminism Boards in her lonely struggle to best parent her gender dysphoric DC.

It's all too sadly true that 3rd wave feminists - aka funfems or libfems - will do and say whatever TRAs tell them that good allies should do and say.

When the shitty scandal of transing kids and young adults finally hits the fan it will be only be feminists who come away clean. We've been tweeting like the canary in the coalmine. Somehow I don't think anyone will turn round and say "You know what? You were right."

He's great on twitter and on Guardian comments. Perhaps people will listen to a man when he says these things.

I'm pleased that a voice has been given to this issue.

I am now 35. As a child, I was convinced I wanted to be a boy: in fact, the description in the article is close to what I felt for a few years. I would only wear boys clothes (e.g.full on tantrum at having to be a bridesmaid and wear pink), and played with e.g. cars, meccano. My interests were scientific-things.

Then I grew up and realized I was simply a gay woman.

I'm now 100% fine with my body. I do wonder if, were I to express the same sentiments today, I would be pushed down the route of puberty blockers, and being encouraged to actually become a man.

And, as I understand it, most like me do not transition (I gather I'm a fairly typical case, and this is why I see it as literally erasing gay people). That doesn't mean we shouldn't be supportive of children who are not conforming to gender expectations, and it doesn't mean we should tell them that there is anything wrong with being trans (there isn't). What it means is that there is plenty of time for children to work things out without having these massive life choices impressed upon them before they can properly think.

I have a friend (I know her originally through an online group but I have met her and her daughter irl) whose 16 year old daughter is now her "son", who has posted photos on Facebook of herself injecting "T" and is counting the days to her mastectomy. I can't believe a 16 year old is allowed to do this when they can't vote or order a beer in a bar. I know it's difficult parenting adolescents and I can't imagine gender dysphoria thrown into the mix. But it's awful to watch, knowing she is permanently altering her body at such a young age. I am 100% convinced, having met her, that if this trans cult hadn't such influence, she would simply be a young gay woman.

Can I just add my heartfelt thanks to all you radfems. My daughter has decided she is transgender - we are about 8 months in - and it was such a relief to find some common sense around the issue. I am now fully prepared to accept that there is a small possibility that it may be the only way she can live her life is to take hormones and surgically alter her body. That should be the last resort, after she has dealt with the serious mental health issues that preceded her announcement; after she has come to terms with the fact that she has only until recently undiagnosed autism - much more likely to be the cause of her not feeling she identifies with her female peers; and after she has had a chance to mature fully.
What I cannot accept, and what now keeps me up at night, is that the diagnosis of and treatment for her gender dysphoria may well be based on ideology and not clinical evidence. And now praying that while the waiting list for the GID grows, some common sense prevails.
So thank you everyone. In my middle age I think I too should become a radical feminist - I feel like I have let my daughter down really badly by sleepwalking through life thinking that, just because I don't feel in the slightest bit oppressed, it not is still very hard if you don't conform to sex stereotypes. Or indeed what being neuro-untypical or suffering from poor mental ill health can do to a person. Massive wake up call all round.

stop

I've never been called a radical feminist, I've don't think I've even got my feminist wings yet! But I am a woman and I've lived long enough to see exactly how that matters.

I'm sorry to hear of the tough time your daughter is having. It's a complicated and emotional mix when a young person is already questioning themselves and then perceives being trans as the answer to all their confusion.

There is another mother of a trans child on here who has found some relief by talking to the 'bigoted feminists' who have provided some balance.

I'll pm you with her user name so you can search her posts for any information that might help.

And don't feel like you have let your daughter down. There are umpteen ways our children can be confused about a myriad of issues - you can't forever be one step ahead.

Stop

Hello, Stopmaking. Have you got a lot of online resources? Because women here can give you loads of links. Your DD might benefit from watching some of the videos made by young women detransitioners. You will find lots of other parents in your position on the blog 4th Wave Now set up by the mother of another dysphoric DD. I can send more if you like, and other posters will be able to offer others.

As for radfems, I was surprised to discover that I'm a radical feminist. I've been a feminist for most of my life, which makes me a second wave feminist. Sadly the "feminism" of the third wave which came after isn't actually feminism at all, it's just consumerism and identity politics with no feminist "meat" to it. Second wave feminism is now called radical feminism. This kinda tickles me, because I was thrown out of the feminists back in my teens for wearing make up and sleeping with men. But now I'm a radfem and, as I agree with everything the radfems are saying, seems like I'm in the right place.

Blimey, I'm a radfem too, I think.

Interesting my twitter feed has lots of WHO posts saying today is the International day of zero tolerance for female genital mutilation. Why is gender reassignment surgery not genital mutilation?