new to this - What about all the transgender people who are 'living their best lives'?

[lily444]

hi,
I am new to this world - please be patient with me.

When I talk about gender ideology with other people - I peaked a few months ago and now can't stop talking about all this - I get a lot of anecdotal evidence of very happy transgender adults and young people.

I am starting to feel like I'm in a bit of a GC echo chamber and am now doubting myself.

While I realise that this is a very complicated issue, my natural inclination is to see these huge increases in trans identity among young people as a form of self-loathing, inability for self-acceptance, a rigid belief that to change gender would be a rebirth of a different self.. etc etc.

Of course there are transgender people and I do not doubt their existence or expect them to justify their existence to me (I feel like I have to say that or I will be accused of being transphobic).

Are there a vast majority of very happy young people and adults who are delighted with life now that they have transitioned?

Are GC people mainly worried about the vulnerable people who are being caught up in this and who are not truly transgender?

many thanks for reading.....

The extreme individualism of this whole "best life" nonsense bothers me a lot. The neoliberal "dream" taken to its narcissistic extreme.

Ah, I think there's so much around how women have been allowed/forbidden sexual expression that the cultural/social influence there is very extreme. I've never seen any evidence that it's biological.

As for gay men, well, there are obvious reasons why casual sex was part of a culture there.

True about the nesting instinct, though men also have hormonal instincts towards domesticity when they're about to become fathers.

‘Living their best lives’

I don't quite follow your meaning here. Sex isn't a spectrum.

Bafflingly, the Tavistock GIDS did no follow-up, audit or research on their patients, despite having their very own research team (“Time to Think”, Hannah Barnes).

So we just don’t know whether affirming puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones allows these kids to “live their best lives”.

Hard to imagine the world-famous sole* UK provider of gender identity services not auditing the hell out of their experimental treatment, when every other clinical service in the NHS is expected to participate in research, audit and patient satisfaction surveys as a matter of course.

*With its Leeds satellite service.

The way I see it is that gender dysphoria is a mental illness and for some of the more extreme cases they will need extreme measures (medical and/or surgical transition) to manage their condition in order to live their best life and enjoy their time on the planet, much the same as some people need a lifetime of anti psychotics or anti depressant in order to get the best out of life, others manage the hardships that life presents with organised religion

I however, am not expected to agree with, be complicit in, or sacrifice my own safety for a depressed, psychotic or religious persons world view. But somehow in the last decade it has became a societal and sometimes legal requirement that I have to play along with trans ideology.

No, I think RebelliousCow is talking about various characteristics being a spectrum and that if you plotted a particular characteristic against sex you might see clusters at the extremes, but that doesn't mean that a range of behaviours won't be seen in both.

E.g aggression - probably males most aggressive, females least aggressive, but that doesn't mean that there aren't aggressive females and non-aggressive males.

Yes, and I just question whether that clustering is mostly due to gender (rather than sex) differences, but of course it would take examining individual characteristics and looking at the research, which I used to look up a lot, but less so in the last decade since becoming a tired parent! :)

To add to this list there are a number of thoughtful humans out there who
have personal experience of transition and have become either personally ‘disenchanted’ with it or who are personally quite satisfied but are concerned about impact on others, especially on children.

The two Aarons and Mars are worth a listen (all transmen, so female people who have changed their bodies to appear male) all three are concerned about the impact on women and children, so perhaps a better source for answers for OPs question than us terves!

Aaron Kimberly and Aaron Terrell

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9_RpPVbOwxA&pp=ygUOQWFyb24ga2ltYmVybHk%3D

And Mars Fernandez:

https://m.youtube.com/@upperhandMARS/videos

Oh! And there is also Marcus from
Denmark

https://m.youtube.com/@marcusdib

and then for trans people who transitioned the other way, I enjoy listening to Corrina Cohn of Heterodorx and Maya, who transitioned MtF in the 90s and recently detransitioned, so is now going by Sam.

Here’s Sam’s channel: https://m.youtube.com/@Call-Me-Sam

Also, Miranda Yardley, Seven Hex and Fionne Orlander (not regular YouTubers but interesting and thoughtful male transsexuals who pop up on various blogs and channels from time to time).

Are GC people mainly worried about the vulnerable people who are being caught up in this and who are not truly transgender?

I'm keen to see an evidence-based approach for a start. I think that will iron a lot of the creases out.

Anecdotally you are hearing about people who are happy because they transitioned.

Anecdotally I only know trans teens and they certainly aren't happy. They are apparently happier for being trans and would be unhappier if not trans. They seem depressed or at least have suffered, still suffer, life is hard for them.

Sport is a different matter. People with unfair physical advantages can't compete equally. The choice seems to be treating someone poor trans woman badly to exclude her or treat the female bodied competitors badly by taking their competition away from them. They can't win against male bodied people so who I'd to saythatthe status quo should be changed to favour the male body? Why is that better or fairer?

If I were you I wouldn't speak to people about it. It's bonkers and unless it directly affects you seems a futile argument.

Yess, of course there is a lot of crossover - but think it is obvious that biology and DNA does wire things in slightly different ways. We are not separate to our body.

Social and cultural roles tend to arise from the facts of biology - even if different cultures interpret and channel them in slightly different ways; and impose them more or less rigidly. I don't think there are any human societies in which there are not at least some some sex based roles.

And if you look at Denmark, where state sanctioned gender equality is most evident - you will find that there are still sex based differences in terms of choice of occupation and priority:

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190831-the-paradox-of-working-in-the-worlds-most-equal-countries

I mean tendency/skill/condition spectrums.

Sometimes surgery to remove body parts may alleviate distress, but often it doesn't. I've heard and read of several accounts of people who were trauamtised upon waking up after surgery - and were never really able to get over it - even as they then attempted to get in with it and " live their best life".

Probably the reason for that is that it is not the body part that is the problem - but the emotional attitue towards that body part - and even with that part gone,the self on some level recognises that an irreversible damage has been done.

Oh I agree.

But the OP was about people who are living their "best lives" post transition, and implying that made trans ideology a difficult conundrum to get their heads round.

I've met long-term trans people who seem to have genuinely made the right decision for themselves. But that doesn't make me anymore likely to believe that sex is changeable or that gender dysphoria isn't a mental health condition, or to agree with any element of trans ideology. I'd simply be polite to them in the same way I'd be polite to anyone living with a chronic mental health condition.

I get a lot of anecdotal evidence of very happy transgender adults and young people.

One little cliche that I find useful is "these young people, they don't really think long term do they?"

Quite apart from any feminist concerns, the other trouble with "living your best life" is that when you scratch the surface even lightly it usually turns out to be an illusion. The quantity of bad science, bad medicine, delusion, wishful thinking and misinformation is jaw-dropping.

I almost don't know where to start - the priority given by doctors to appearence over health and function and sensory response; the short-term thinking and lack of follow up - and I mean clinicians not patients; the desire to keep on with the wildest of surgical experiments; the use of baby-talk and euphemisms like "T" instead of recognisable labels like "anabolic steroids"; the awful long term physical effects of drugs and surgery; the elevated rate of suicide several years after transition.

It's pretty horrible and once you see it you can't un-see it. So people prefer not to look.

For some people living as a permanent patient with difficult side effects and never quite being what you want to be is better than living with the torment of what they say is gender dysphoria. That torment has a recognisable pattern and can be measured in the same way as a person with any other dysphoria, eg anorexia, and, like other dysphorias, can be so severe that the person is completely disabled by it or takes their own life.

Those people are very rare, but it would be reasonable to say that living with the downsides of transition is worth it and enables them to live a better, maybe even best, life.

But with affirmation we can't tell which is the rare person with gender distress that's so severe they are going to be in serious trouble without transition, and which ones are going through teenage angst/trauma/struggles with sexuality/are neurodiverse/are caught up in a social contagion.

And so, here we are, risking everyone's future health because of a very few, very troubled individuals - and now those individuals are languishing on waiting lists and MORE likely to kill themselves without any support whatsoever.

What a fuckign mess.

What about all the transgender people who are 'living their best lives'?

What about them?

The first point here is that you're on the feminist board - so the focus here is on women's rights. Of course from a general humanitarian point of view, people - whoever they are - being happy is (on the whole) a good thing. But making or keeping trans people happy is not the goal of feminism. Looking out for women is. And as @MavisMcMinty says, if there's a choice that makes one group happy at the expense of the other, then as a feminist and Benthamite I'm on the side of women.

Male athletes sweeping the board in women's sports may be living their best lives. Rapists locked up in women's prisons - with a pool of victims who can't escape and will face sanctions if they fight back or complain - may be living their best lives. But at the expense of women.

If trans people are living their best Iives without adversely affectng other people, then I'm delighted for them. As I am for anyone living their best life without harming others.

If their best life makes women's lives worse, then I'm not going to roll over and #BeKind.

Are there a vast majority of very happy young people and adults who are delighted with life now that they have transitioned?

As several PP say, without solid research and long-term studies it's impossible to know. And, unaccountably, gender clinics and activists are not pushing for these studies. The few that do exist tend to show long term outcomes are not good. People who transition may be happier for a bit, but their mental health tends to decline between 3 and 10 years after transition and end up worse than before. And the physical health consequences can be horrific - which is unlikely to be compatible with a 'best life'.

Are GC people mainly worried about the vulnerable people who are being caught up in this and who are not truly transgender?

'GC people' is a large and diverse group, with many concerns. The effect on children and vulnerable people given unrealistic expectations and hurried into irreversible, life-altering decisions they are likely to regret is certainly one of them. Is it the main one? For some. For others that concern will take second place to the effect on women. Or on gay people. Or on other minority groups now overlooked by very undiverse 'diversity' policies. Or that support for this one issue is being used as an excuse for authoritarian behaviour by governments, workplaces and the police. Or that science teaching and scientific understanding is being undermined. Or by the effects of queer theory in the wider sense being used to break down social boundaries and structures. Or by what happens in future if the generation largely running society has a huge proption of members with no mental resilience, a shaky grasp of reality, no understanding of compromise or debate, and dreadful physical health. Etc, etc.

I see a lot of angst, shouty demands, DARVO and threats from TRAs (punch a terf in the face, type of thing). People like that don't seem very happy but I'm sure there are plenty that are.

It's beside the point really. Womens rights isn't about people who believe in gender identities, it's about protecting single sex spaces and womens right to safety, privacy and dignity. Don't know why that should have any impact on the happiness or other of transgender people. They need to get on with sorting their own stuff really.

For me, the more I have "educated myself" on what trans is, the more I've come to the conclusion that it is just another metaphysical belief system. I don't have a gender identity, and I don't believe it is a universal human characteristic (unlike sexuality, which is).

Unlike any other group I can think of (in the UK), the shoutiest spokespeople for trans insist we must validate this metaphysical belief and upend our language and social norms for it. This is deeply intolerant and unprogressive.

If trans is really just about living your best life, then go for it. We're all striving for that!

At the same time, let's ditch all the misogyny, homophobia, blokes in women's sport, rapists in women's prisons, minors undergoing unproven, irreversible medicalisation and bad legislation where politicians argue passionately for changes they simply don't understand or care about the consequences of.

Are GC people mainly worried about the vulnerable people who are being caught up in this and who are not truly transgender?

Depends on the GC person. If you're a mother, say, and it's your child whose health and life choices are being fucked up then you'll probably worry about that aspect more than a GC person whose own children are not affected in that way.

Also it is irrelevant whether your child is "truly transgender" or not. Hormones and surgery have physical effects and ithey do not care what might go on in the patient's head. The health effects are the same. Do not fall into the trap of the teenage autistic transman who told Stella O'Malley "but you see, testosterone would affect your health like that because you're a woman, but it wont affect my health because I'm a man".

Even the idea that a physical transformation is going to be better psychologically is at best an unproven theory with a limited amount of anecdotal support. It's not solid and proven as a good thing for any identifiable group of people.

Saw this on X and it made me laugh. Living their best lives, aye.

https://twitter.com/JustMisogyny/status/1698701632605966348

Trans people exist. they must as people declare themselves to be a trans person every day. I'm not going to deny their actual existence. There may be some argument between us as to their definition of what being trans and the causes behind it are, but live and let live.

I would like them to leave children the fuck alone. I wish the whole gender ideology movement would stop trying to break down all safeguarding rules and sexualising children.

The majority of the children getting caught up in what is to a large part a social contagion for many, in my opinion would if left alone to just get through puberty like everyone has had to do for millennia, would discover that they were actually OK with their sex and their body. and if not as adults then they can modify away to their hearts content.

And having seen way to much footage of Trans youth, if they are happy then their version of happy is my version of perpetually pissed off with the world. and why? who knows?, because they sure as hell don't seem to.

Children who are transitioned with the help of their parents, teachers and medical people, have no clue, no clue whatsoever what they are sacrificing in later life for what they think they want at 15.

Grown ups can live how they want. wear what they want, believe what they want about any subject, sleep with whoever the hell they like., eat takeaway for breakfast, lunch and tea...

What they can't do is demand that I see the bloke stood in front of me as an actual woman. And that bloke stood in front of telling me he's the same as me and is perfectly entitled to come in the women's changing room whilst i'm in a state of undress can fuck off.

The woman who thinks she's a man though is more than welcome. Of course she may have changed her body and voice and appearance so much that she gets told to fuck off out of the women's and go and use the men's, but that's her problem to solve not mine.

Way too many vulnerable people are getting caught up in this, without true understanding of how they are being manipulated online and the effects the drugs and surgery may have on their bodies going forwards.

My understanding is that people, and young people in particular, just want to be "normal". And normal in our society means white, middle class, male. So for girls wanting to be normal means they want to be male and to achieve that they need to be trans.

Going back a few decades white, middle class & male was very much the image of normal and having been raised in a predominantly male neighbourhood (very few girls my age) meant that I was told "no" because I was a girl and not a boy. So of course I wanted to be a boy because I wanted to do stuff - play sports, climb trees, be a doctor or whatever. Worse than that I was told that being a girl was bad, substandard, look at history women had never done anything. I had no idea that all this was actually a gender construct until I was well into my teens. It's for that reason that I feel sorry for so many young females that are being guided to be something that they will realise in a few years isn't necessary.

I've got gay friends, lesbian friends, trans friends. I'm happy if they are happy. But I won't be happy if someone makes up a name for what I am to suit their agenda.

And on a bizarre side note - apparently the alphabet LGBTQ+ has been extended to those identifying as Romany. I find that odd as it seems out of place in this set of letters.

One detransitioner makes the headlines, while 100 transgender people happy they transitioned do not, for obvious reasons.

So yes. transition makes people happier overall.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/24/majority-trans-adults-happier-transitioning-survey