Sex Change Regret website

[dreamer_2.0]

I came across this site the other day (http://www.sexchangeregret.com) and have to say the stories leave me feeling somewhat uncomfortable. Up until recently I figured post-op regret was fairly low however this site states otherwise.

Do you have any experience with trans women regretting their decisions?

[whowhatwhen]

Um, it looks like that guy is looking for book sales.
That's not to say that some do regret transition but you're also never going to see post-op success stories there either so it's quite one-sided.

Things like that are the reason standards of care exist and mental health checks are required.
Even for me to get HRT my letter had to state something to the effect that I don't demonstrate [list of things] that would impair me from making this decision.

[KellyJameson]

Most of my friends are in some way connected to LGBT and it has been this way since my early teens so in the real world I have known a number of people who have transitioned to one degree or another both in the U.S and Europe.

I personally have never known someone who is post-op and experienced remorse or regret but I have read about some de-transitioning or who committed suicide during or shortly afterward.

In my opinion you transition to ease the psychological suffering brought on by identity conflict between body and mind and in my case it was both a suffering with sexual and gender identity.

I do think you have to be careful with what problems and suffering you think will end with transitioning.

Suffering is part of life and is the impetus to make change but the impetus should not be the expectation that suffering and pain will end.

In my opinion you transition to change the flavor of suffering to make possible the ability to survive it, much like how you learn to swim so you do not drown but you must still swim in the waters so make the effort to stay afloat.

You step into a life that better suits who and what you are but transitioning will not "fix the past" as childhood trauma.

It is important to transition for the future from what the past has taught you but not because of the past.

You cannot CURE sexual identity as sexual attraction and you cannot CURE gender identity as who you know yourself to be but be sure you know yourself before you transition.

Transitioning must never happen out of self deception but be grounded in the reality of how you experience yourself.

It must be a truth based relationship you have with yourself with no room for fantasy or delusion or you will destroy yourself.

You may find this link interesting to read. http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1400/1520_ch1.pdf

[Rianna Humble]

The author of the site reveals his bias in his introduction to an article about a 17/18 year old for whom RLE proved that they did not need to transition:
it's refreshing to read that it is not "happily ever after."

EDIT: If we accept the generally low figure that 3% of the population is transsexual, then the numbers that the author quotes to try to say that regret is commonplace represent 7 out of every ten thousand TS people.

[Badtranny]

I believe it. I've met some really screwed up trannies in the last few years and I spend a lot of time thinking about why that is. Is it society? Passing issues? A misdiagnosed fetish? Delusion? Fantasy breakdown?

Who knows, but it's a fascinating issue for sure.

[Frances]

I know lots of post-op trans people and none have detransitioned. I'm sure it exists, but... I have seen a few pre-ops detransition. Some in the media, and some I know. I am a firm believer in the traditional gatekeeping model, and its purpose of maximizing chances of success and minimizing chances of regret. Even then, some people may lie to themselves and to the therapist enough to get through.

People who detransition, ironically, are often the ones most opposed to strict protocols. One acquaintance once told me that HRT had to be now or never. That means that her transsexuality was not essential, but a temporary state? He gave up on the idea, and that's a good thing.

As for this particular site. It's interesting, but it seems self-interested. I don't see a lot testimonials apart than one man's sad story. Also, some regret stories in the past have been projections. Renee Richards even wrote a second autobiography to squelch rumors about her.

To anyone who may be swayed by this stuff, I say "dude, don't transition."

[PaulaQ]

Hon, that guy's website is pretty one sided.
I believe most of the reason for unhappiness and desire to detransition after GCS come mostly from the often terrible conditions so many of us endure. There is real social prejudice against us.

I do think the emphasis on GCS rather than FFS may be poorly serving many in our community. GCS is important - many of us face really serious and debilitating GD over our genitals. I certainly have. However, in terms of finding acceptance in society, a real issue for most of us, FFS is vastly more effective. For that matter, hair replacement or voice coaching can be equally as important. All of these procedures can reduce serious GD we feel over our masculine features.

Spending your life as an "other" in society is a nightmare, and it's no surprise so many of us end our lives, do that without addressing your GD as fully as possible, and it stands to reason someone would give up and suicide.

[kimdl93]

Good advice so far.o My contribution, beyond an echo, is that some may be looking for answers so desperately that they glom onto any answer that might theoretically resolve their pain....and some of them make mistakes. If you have doubts...don't. If you think transition will be a panacea, think again. But always be suspicious of advice offered by ideologues or religious fanatics. Truth to them is whatever conforms to their point of view.

[Michelle789]

When a plane crashes, we hear about it all over the news. We never hear about the thousands of planes that make it safely to their destination. Plane crashes are rare, but they cause a lot of attention.

The same thing goes for transition regrets. It's rare, and when they do happen we hear about them like we do with a plane crash.

Sometimes you get people like Charles Kane who had no lifelong history of dysphoria. He was happy as a man, and successful as a man, and when he suffered a setback he thought the grass is greener on the other side, and decided to transition on a whim and quickly realized he was wrong. Why? Charles Kane was NEVER a transsexual to begin with. He thought he failed as a man and that that being a woman would solve his problems.

I used to have fears like this too, but after joining this forum and going to my transgender support group, and speaking to a therapist, I feel like most people who transition are really TS and do so succesfully.

This is why I feel it's important to see a trained gender specialist who can help you sort out your feelings. They have lots of experience with transpeople and can spot the differences between someone who is TS vs someone who is a cross-dresser, transvestic fetishist, gay man, or who thinks the grass is greener on the other side.

What is scary is that both MTF transsexuals and non-transsexuals may experience some or all of these feelings:
* Being a cross-dresser
* Being a transvestic fetishist
* Being a gay man
* Hating being a man, thinking the grass is greener
* Having a difficult time being a man, being a failure at a man
* Being excellent at being a man

My therapist has been very helpful in getting me to figure out what is going on with me. I used to ask am I just a cross-dresser or a transvestic fetishist or a transsexual. It became clear to me after a few months on this forum that I am more than just a CD or a TF. I am not a gay man, so that's not an issue for me.

My last question has been am i really trans or do I just hate being a man? After four sessions with my therapist I am seeing that there are fundamental differences between me and someone who just hates being a man. Yes there are plenty of TS who hate being a man and plenty of cis-gendered men who hate being a man.

My therapist made clear that me these feelings are all dysphoria.
* having childhood feelings that I am a girl
* voicing that to my parents at the age of 5,
* wishing I could grow up to be a woman in third grade
* cross-dressing from age 13 onward
* every time I see a pretty girl I want to be her rather than sleep with her (age 12 onward)
* hating my body and facial hair (age 13 onward)
* identifying with female characters in fiction (age 13 onward)
* feeling like I am a girl on the inside (age 13 onward)

People who simply hate being men or feel like they have failed at men do not experience these feelings.

[Kathryn Martin]

I am also very much for a very stringent and traditional gatekeeping model. The psychological/psychiatric community since the 1970 has taken this as a whole new (money making) industry and the result has been that people are counseled through to transition when in fact the deal about counseling is an assessment to determine co-morbidity issues. It isin fact more of an assessment than therapy.

If you consider prevalence rates which used to be 1:30,000 and since the advent of trans related therapy has become something like 1:1,500 then the guy's 1500 regretters is not so much. This is bullshit, because he is like a reformed smoker who tolls the virtues of non smoking and condemns the sin of smoking.

The issue with this website is that it lacks any critical reflection on how the regretters ended up having surgery when they should not have had in the first place. I have come across this guy for some time now. You should not transition unless you absolutely have to! Don't think that a supportive therapist is going to help you, they should critically assess you and if they don't then they are not good for you!

[kimdl93]

And if I can offer two cents more of advice: there are intermediate options to full transition. One of the leading advocates for TG rights here in Houston is a woman who has not undergone HRT or SRS. One might characterize her as something other than TS, that's fine. She lives full time as a woman. It meets her needs and she helps others. So, my take away from meeting her was that I need to go at my own pace and towards my own destination. I may be somewhere in between...if so so be it.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I recall seeing a show on somebody that detransitioned... one thing he whined about was that when he lived as a woman, he had to walk in a "certain way"... now he was comfortable because he could walk "normally"...

what gets into people's minds I will never know...

I agree that if the website resonates with you, then do not under any circumstances transition.

[Dianne S]

I'm sure there are people who regret transitioning, but there are also many (probably many more) who don't. You can see some of the happy stories at http://wehappytrans.com/

Also, the "Victories" page of the sex-change regret web site looks suspiciously fundamentalist Christian. I think the Web site owner has a hidden agenda.

[Donna Joanne]

When I finally realized that I have to transition to make the "inside and outside match" I also had to take responsibility for me. I can't transition because of someone else, nor can I not transition because of someone else. My transition will affect those I love and care about, but I must transition for me and me alone. They will be affected by my decision, but it will change my life forever.

My psyche and physical body have never matched. And that has profoundly affected me. They are coming closer and closer. I had one of those "clarifying moments" yesterday. I had to take my pre teen daughter to a function that required me to present totally male. So I was bra-less. I was concerned that someone would see my breasts and notice that I need a bra. I felt 'naked' and 'exposed'. I am a woman, and physical transitioning will finally make me complete.

My only regret is that I have procrastinated so long in making myself complete!

[Kathryn Martin]

when he lived as a woman, he had to walk in a "certain way"... now he was comfortable because he could walk "normally"...

I agree that if the website resonates with you, then do not under any circumstances transition.

how bizarre is that.... and how right you are in your comment.

I agree to some extent with his views to the extent that he believes that the assessments necessary are not correctly.


I'm sure there are people who regret transitioning, but there are also many (probably many more) who don't. You can see some of the happy stories at http://wehappytrans.com/

Yes and there are significant studies that prove this. Outcome studies are not as numerous as they should be but they exist and the successful transition with surgery is around 80% of those that seek the surgery. Of the remaining 20% there were some satisfaction issues 5 years out and the actual number of those that detransitioned was one. The cohort size was 583 and the study was done in the Netherlands. Now if you consider that in my province prevalence rates based on persons seeking surgery is roughly 28 at any given time including those that have transitioned and had the surgery the number of those that detransition is close to zero.

What this is really about is this in my view:


As several psychiatrists and transpeople said to me patients who are isolated, dysfunctional, in bad relationships, etc will probably remain so after surgery without proper preparation, care and support.

This is a quote from one of his articles.


The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jon Meyer was already developing a means of following up with adults who received sex-change operations at Hopkins in order to see how much the surgery had helped them. He found that most of the patients he tracked down some years after their surgery were contented with what they had done and that only a few regretted it. But in every other respect, they were little changed in their psychological condition. They had much the same problems with relationships, work, and emotions as before. The hope that they would emerge now from their emotional difficulties to flourish psychologically had not been fulfilled.

Another quote which demonstrates that if you have issues before with your life, how you relate and cope then having surgery and transitioning will not fix it. It fixes one thing and nothing else.

[Jenniferathome]

...

EDIT: If we accept the generally low figure that 3% of the population is transsexual, ...

I have to call BS on this assumption. That would mean 9 MILLION transexuals in the USA alone. Not a chance. I don't think there are even 9 million cross dressers in the USA. You can't use crazy-ass stats to make a point, it defeats your purpose.

"The National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington, D.C., estimates the number of transgendered residents as being between .0025 percent and 1 percent of the general population. An estimated 500 to 1,000 people undergo a sex change operation every year, with male-to-female surgery more common than female-to-male." Additionally, in Trinadad, Co., the "sex change capital of the world,"... "Dr. Bowers, a gynecologist who herself underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1998, took over Biber's practice and the town's reputation stuck. On average, she performs 130 surgeries a year. There are perhaps as many as 25 physicians who have conducted a sex change operation, but five or fewer do it with any regularity." Based on this, the .0025% is closer to reality than 1%.

[PaulaQ]

It's more like 0.3%, and that may be high. There are ~700,000 of us in the US, 3,000 in the DFW area where I live, at best estimates.

I heard a speech from Theresa Sparks last night, who was one of the people who came up with and popularized the 2.5% - 3% figure. It isn't accurate. (Her assumption was the ratio was like 1:40 are TS, where the reality is much more like 1:3000 - 1:15000 for MtF, and 1:10000 - 1:45000 for FtM.) Even within the city of San Francisco, the figure of 1:40 is way too high.

[Rogina B]

We were asked recently by a City Council member for a better approximation of the local T population and couldn't provide it...

[Kathryn Martin]

Really, if you look at the surgery figures (and they exist not in many places but in some they do because they are tracked based on surgery coverage, as in it's free) the number is more like 1:32000. So if you accept that transsexuals are those who have their sex changed (as the word says) then you have a pretty clear idea how many there really are.

Gender variance (those that some form of gender issue) is much more prevalent, and approaches something of a 1:500 number.

[Janelle_C]

I searched the person behind the Regret Website and this is what I found. http://www.transchristians.org/people/walt-heyer I don't know if this is true but it explains a lot. I think before you put to much into what this person thinks I would read what this site says.

[Kelly DeWinter]

There were a couple of threads here about this website. I believe that someone descredited a few of the examples provided. I can't seem to find the threads.

[LeaP]

There's a lot of material available on this guy. He is a fundamentalist Christian, claims that Jesus saved him from transgenderism (as he calls it), and has a bad habit of completely and totally misrepresenting studies related to transsexuality.

If you have the time and desire to deal with this level of complete bullshit, the best approach will always be to go directly to the source material he is citing and get the facts. ... which NEVER support what he says. I've been down the apologetics path before. It's never worth the journey.

Pretty standard crackpot stuff. The same pattern as with conspiracy theorists, UFO believers, religious nuts of a certain stripe, and people in in weird political groups you've never heard of.

Take his bit about regrets pouring out of Belgrade. Well, as it happens, a noted Eastern European SRS surgeon from Belgrade - Miroslav Djordjevic - will be presenting at this this year's WPATH symposium on ... SRS regrets! But what's the context? How about his position that THE most important doctor in the process is the psychiatrist! That patients be evaluated over a long period. After which he is apparently quite happy to proceed with surgery. And he's happy that Belgrade has become a center for such surgery. He supports WPATH.

In other words, ol' Walt is full of shit. The message out of Belgrade is not about the horrible mistake of modern medicine foolishly attempting the impossible ... that the big story could only emerge from a place like Belgrade because, like all conspiracy theorist types, Walt believes it wasn't allowed to emerge in the West.

Um, no ... it's more about a reputable surgeon talking about caution and gatekeeping.

[MatildaJ.]

This paper estimates that 0.3 percent of adults are transgender:
http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Gates-How-Many-People-LGBT-Apr-2011.pdf

[Michelle.M]

I searched the person behind the Regret Website and this is what I found. http://www.transchristians.org/people/walt-heyer

Even before I clicked on the OP's link I had a hunch we were talking about Walt Heyer. Notorious for his views on regret, he has been shamelessly pimped out by Citizen Link (a Focus on the Family affiliate) without any sort of restraint. To say that he has been exploited by those fearmongers is putting it mildly.

Dear Mr Heyer had (has) many problems, and like some others who have regretted he thought that GRS would fix them. He's the example I use whenever someone whines about the fact that their therapist is just taking her own sweet time and they're ready to go under the knife NOW, by golly!

Dunno how Heyer's issues didn't get diagnosed, but Corinne is right. He's got books to sell and talk show appearances to make, and I'm sure that FoF is probably not giving him a living wage for doing nothing except agreeing with them whenever they get going on to some anti-trans screed.

[Michelle789]

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Warning.html

Here is another site on sex change regrets. This one is more legit. I agree the one that OP found was started by a religious fundamentalist, which means he has an agenda against transpeople. I wouldn't trust such a site. The one I'm posting is more legit, and it talks about FAR MORE success stories than regrets. After reading about the regrets, I've noticed some reasons behind the regrets. They even suggest how some of the failures could have been successful. The only TRUE transition failure is Charles Kane, who was NEVER TS in the first place.

1. Charles "Samantha" Kane was NEVER transsexual to begin with. He was a man who decided on a whim that being a woman would solve his problems when suddenly a crisis hits. He had NO SUCH childhood dysphoria or history of cross-dressing. He is 100% cis-gendered male who happened to be a guy with a history of doing crazy things on a whim and happened to have a lot of money. Transition regrets like this are exceptionally rare, and with the gatekeeping system this is extremely unlikely to happen. There are probably way more TS who haven't transitioned due to denial or because they were blocked by gatekeepers than people who transitioned and then later regretted.

2. Two of the cases involved fetish cross-dressers. While many true TSes do have a history of fetish dressing, not all fetish dressers are TS. One possibility is back in the day there was less information and less experience on who should transition and who should not so it's possible that mistakes like this would happen, and with all the knowledge out there today and the gatekeeping mistakes like this would probably not happen. Another possibility is what Paula said before, there was too much emphasis on SRS (now called GCS). Keep in mind that the article suggests how the two fetish dressers could have still transitioned successfully. Hint: They should have got FFS instead of SRS. Some of us may need transition and FFS but should NEVER have SRS.

In fact many people who know nothing about trans people often refer to us as being "gender confused" and refer to transition as a "sex change". This comes largely from the overemphasis on SRS. Most people who transition do so slowly, by doing hair removal, then HRT, then social transition, then FFS, and finally SRS. You may stop at any point. You may not need all the procedures. The procedures in place today will prevent mistakes like this.

3. Renee Richards regretted transition because she chose to make a big publicity stunt out of it. She didn't transition to make a publicity stunt, but decided to use transition as an excuse for a publicity stunt. If you decide to make a publicity stunt out of anything you do in life, it doesn't need to be transition, you may end up regretting it. You could decide to post a youtube video of you singing Teenage Dream and end up regretting it. Transition is a much larger undertaking than singing Teenage Dream. Renee Richard's real regret wasn't transition, but making a publicity stunt out of it.


Although there are rare cases like Charles Kane who are not TS, I believe most failed transitions were because of lack of knowledge on how to transition successfully and overemphasis on SRS/GCS.

The only other case for regret I can think of us Christine Daniels. Her case was a real tragedy, and was very much caused by her inner conflict to become her real self and her love for her wife, and she couldn't have both. This I feel is a more serious concern than anything mentioned on any of the links mentioned on this thread.

[LeaP]

For those interested in the complexities involved in calculating prevalence and incidence of transsexualism, see Lynn Conway's 2007 article:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Prevalence/Reports/Prevalence%20of%20Transsexualism.pdf

This was an update to her 2001 paper, and was presented at the WPATH Symposium that year. Fascinating read.

[Rianna Humble]

I have to call BS on this assumption.

You would be right, I was tired & unwell and misremembered my figures. In short, I got it wrong.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

So is it news to anybody that sometimes people regret big decisions?
You may regret your decision to transition. You may regret your transition.

It's really that simple. That's why its so important to understand yourself and that's why its so important to be smart and have a plan..

also,
Charles Kane, fetishists, liars... they get counted as TS regret when in fact they are nothing like a TS person...

[Kate T]

I've often wondered, it seems to me personally that in many of the transition horror stories the transitioner was how do I put this politely, rather shallow. Also as has been already intimated many seem to be well outside what I understand the WPATH guidelines to be?? e.g. very young, have untreated psychological issues separate from GID, bypass RLE's. Essentially many seem to think life as their target gender will be all roses and chocolates and when it isn't the proverbial seems to hit the fan.

I'm not saying that for you ladies who NEED to transition that life must be or should be rowing a barbed wire canoe up shit creek, generally I think it is just life, it's just that now you can live with yourself.

[Zylia]

Well, he obviously has books to sell (both his own book and the "Good Book") and an agenda to push, I wouldn't expect any fair and balanced reporting from him. He does seem to quote some trustworthy sources, but for every article about sex change regret there might be hundreds about sex change success stories, I honestly don't know. On the other hand, there are plenty of websites on the subject who have a "pro-transition bias" instead, so I can't really blame him.

Anyway, even if there are only a few who actually "detransition", suicide (attempt) rates are exceptionally high among transgender people. How many of those can we consider failed transition attempts?

[Nicole Erin]

He is trying to sell a book. The subject matter is irrelevant. Just another huckster trying to hussle.

[I Am Paula]

All of the transwomen I have ever met ended up much happier. Perhaps happy for the first time ever. In every facet of life there is going to be failures, that's why there are gatekeepers. Dwelling on what may happen could cause some poor woman to NOT get the help she desperately needs. Now THAT is a failure.
It's a bit like saying you shouldn't get fit, you may get hit by a car while running.

[Michelle.M]

Essentially many seem to think life as their target gender will be all roses and chocolates and when it isn't the proverbial seems to hit the fan.

That’s a keen observation, and one that others should consider during pre-transition therapy. That alone would probably save the majority of regretters from transitioning unnecessarily. I remember reading one case of a regretter who retransitioned after becoming disillusioned with his transition because he thought the sex would be better as a woman. [What?!] If stuff like that comes up in therapy that's the time for the brakes to be applied so those issues can be worked out.

That’s why there’s therapy and RLE, so the transitioner can wrestle with the real life issues facing someone who’s now living in another gender.

[rachael.davis]

Walt Heyer apparently had some issues which had nothing to do with being transgender
http://www.transchristians.org/people/walt-heyer

[Annaliese]

First rule be careful of any info. on the internet, even here. Look at the info, then do your own research, before one goes out and change there mind or there live direction.

[Nicole Erin]

Realistically, transgenderism (on any level) does not effect too many people. Even fewer will buy that book.
If this guy is going to write a book and try to hustle, why not write one about getting rich off the real estate market or a book about the end of the world?

EDIT - I read some of the stories about TS wanting to "go back". Most of the time it is cause their family was hurt. Well that is a problem - Even if they "go back", it is not like the family is going to forget.
Plus, it seems like they are blaming their life problems on being TS. What happens when they try to go back to living as a man and there are still problems in life?

Plus, the ones who are all stealthy and totally passable, just how easy do they think it will be to look like a man again? Are they going to mess up their endocrine systems some MORE by taking testosterone? The chin slappers are gone so those won't help with test.

Once your body is changed and your social circle is aware, "going back" just isn't the answer.

[Amy A]

As with any life change as major as this, there are always going to be people who regret it. Thats why we have to go through so many barriers to access treatment.

Dr Curtis explained it to me that a very small percentage of people regret transition, but qualified this statement by saying that it was more accurate to say that they were dissappointed with the outcome of their transition, eg they hoped that it would solve all of their problems in one fell swoop. Whilst many become happier, and go on to life more fulfilling lives, there are some that continue to experience the same issues eg if you had a gambling problem, it's easy to blame this on the GD, explaining it away as an 'escape', but you would most likely find that after transition you still had a weakness for gambling.

I think a lot of the most successful transitions are ones where the individual doesn't define themselves solely by their transition, and has other aspects to their personality that they identify themselves with. Basically those that have a life, and a healthy range of interests, ambitions and goals outside of just being transexual and transitioning.

Having said all that, at the beginning of my transition I was very much consumed by the process. It was once I went fulltime and then got onto hormones that my enthusiasm for life started to come back.

EDIT: Just to keep my post on topic, like others have said, if you take everything you read on the internet at face value you'll end up with a pretty confusing view of life. It's always best to do as much research as you can. If something on this site (which to my mind was written by someone who isn't TS) resonates with you then it's worth exploring why, just make sure it's with a good therapist and not someone feeding you an agenda.

[PaulaQ]

Some of the disappointment with transition just has to be about the way society views us, treats us. Many who transition face real discrimination. I know girls who used to run companies, who, post transition, were happy to find work as clerks. Many don't find work at all.

Many of us lose EVERYTHING and EVERYONE to transition. It's remarkable to me that as few people regret transition as do.

Of course that website doesn't really point the finger at society, does it?

This is probably the only medical condition I'm aware of where:
1. The patient largely has to self-diagnose
2. The patient faces huge social pressure against seeking medical treatment
3. If the treatment is unsuccessful, the patient is blamed - "she shouldn't have done it!!!!"

[dreamer_2.0]

Hearing stuff like "fundamental Christian" and "Focus on the Family" cue red flags for me. Reading more about the site's founder (thanks for the links!) gives a bad impression here as well. This is definitely not someone who I'd trust in gender related areas. I was surprised to read he wasn't even diagnosed as transgender and am left wondering how the heck he even transitioned without knowing that detail.

Thanks for everyone's input, as always it's appreciated. :)

[LeaP]

1. The patient largely has to self-diagnose
2. The patient faces huge social pressure against seeking medical treatment
3. If the treatment is unsuccessful, the patient is blamed - "she shouldn't have done it!!!!"

1) This is a common line, but a misstatement. The diagnosis involves self identification, but that's not the same thing. Nor does a layperson ever provide an actual diagnosis. The medical provider always has the role of confirming the self identification as well as diagnosing other aspects that are not self identified.

2) Yes and no. Pressure within one's close circle (e.g., family) can be unrelenting. Beyond that, not so much. The pressure that comes from internalized social norms is internal. In fact, it's common to hear about the positive reactions people have to transition. Alternatively, how few negative reactions people encounter.

3) This is largely true. I'm tempted to say it's often deserved, but that ignores a few important things, not the least of which is the lack of coordinated care including psychological support. We also still live (in the US) in a legal atmosphere that regards treatment as cosmetic and permits discrimination. On the other hand, the appalling lack of preparation by many really does leave a lot of the blame on their shoulders. And those bypassing guidelines and standards of care are on their own anyway and have no one to blame but themselves.

[emma5410]

It seems to me people are being very harsh on those who 'fail' and decide to de-transition. If they truly believe they need to transition and then later realise it was a mistake then that is not failure. It is them finding the best way to live their lives. People de-transition for all sorts of reasons. I wonder how many people commenting on this thread have either only recently gone full time or have not even started. Perhaps you should wait until you have experienced it more fully, or actually started, before you condemn others.

[Frances]

I have been post-op for a three years, and transitioned socially a long time ago. There is nothing wrong with stopping transition, but I have an issue with people who lie all the way to SRS and then make it their business to "warn" people. I may or may not be qualified, but I condemn those people, whatever that means.

[sandy1975ad]

FYI, Dr. Bowers is now in San Mateo CA believe some said she is Colorado

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Frances is 100% right...I condemn them too....
...these "ts regret" men are fiends. They build up some crazy fantasy in their heads... they transition, then they hate their lives...and they call it "TS" regret.."Sex change" regret!!! Yes they stupidly tried to change their sex!!!! You can't change your sex!! that's the fricking problem.....try explaining that to a cisperson..

It's infuriating that these men can go on the television and say what they say... they TAKE ADVANTAGE of us... they promote themselves on the back of our medical treatment...they lash out at us (esp Charles kane) and mock the idea that we are women...
They are like a boogeyman...don't end up like me!!! they say.....argghh...

And to a cisperson, it takes a great deal of effort on their part to understand how these men are different than us.

It's like a supercharged double shot of the BS we all face

[bas1985]

I read those "regret" web sites during my "latency" phase, in which I came out to myself but it was too scary (2010).

I was still married... well, I can say that for me both are scary, either transition either stay as male. During the months
the second fear is bigger, and I think that I may most probably regret of NOT being truly myself than to follow my true self.

Fear is inevitable in a life changing decision...

...What I would not do is blame others of one's decisions, even if I turn back.

There may be people who regret SRS, but they should do blame themselves, not the "system"... when I read somebody
that blame another there is always something hidden he-she does not want to look at.

[Badtranny]

When somebody transitions with out ever doing the work of self discovery they are basically setting themselves up for a spectacular failure. I've seen it on this board, somebody who has never even been out in the world "dressed" deciding that they must be transsexual because the urge to dress is so strong. When those of us who have an inkling about what kind of world is waiting for them say something, we are roundly chastised for being "trannier than thou" and out comes the support brigade of equally naive people who pile on with encouragement and validation even though they have no idea how well this person is prepared for such a thing.

Next thing you know, they have come out to the wife and found a therapist to sign off on HRT even though they have yet to make a public appearance outside of a late night drive to a rest stop.

Clearly the beginnings of a successful transition. One of the worst traits of our community is this obsessive tendency to encourage and pander to anyone with a passing thought of being transgender. Transition is a brutal process and it should never be encouraged, only supported.

[Angela Campbell]

I agree. I see train wrecks waiting to happen on here all the time.

[rachael.davis]

One of the most beneficial things that has happened while dealing with my GI therapist was her comment that "Oh I think mentally you transitioned a long time ago, and it would take a lot now to convince me you aren't transgendered. I also think you have a lot of issues to resolve that aren't going to be solved by transitioning"
So that's what I'm working on these days.

I work at not being actively predjudiced, but I have picked up something of a distaste for fundimentalist anythings these days - The "Me and Doctor Jesus are going to pray the gay right out of you" is probably one of the roots of some massive self loathing issues that I'm working out.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Melissa great post , but do you really think this?
" One of the worst traits of our community is this obsessive tendency to encourage and pander to anyone with a passing thought of being transgender."


I haven't seen that.

I am speaking from the perspective of a transsexual person, and I have found the opposite to the case
... I know I have hounded people that are not realistic about the views about themselves and transition, and I would say 4 of 5 times transsexual women give the advice don't transition unless you have to just about anybody that brings it up..

I would agree that there is another community of cd's and others that look at transition as some sort of achievement to aspire to..

[Marleena]

I posted this in another thread but it belongs here too.

The failure rate is very low for TS women that transition and that is well documented. There are many post-op women on this site that are living happy lives as their true selves. TG/TS people are news fodder right now and people are trying to cash in on that ( Dreamer's link). When TG/TS people fight for their rights you'll see other groups and haters push back. The regretter in this case was one of the failures for whatever reason.
I did find truth about the suicide rates on his website though for TG people but not for those that have transitioned.

I can't be bothered to read about what went wrong with the regretter but it does raise questions about him. What was his motivation to transition? Did he have fantasies or was it it a great escape? Did he report severe GD? Was his life as a man so bad that he thought becoming a woman would be better? Was he after the attention of becoming a female? Did he lie his way through the gatekeepers (is that even possible?) If the WPATH SOC are followed mistakes like this should be minimal. Did he not notice how difficult this is during his RLE? Finally, he mentions people feeling suicidal after starting HRT and that should be a red flag to any gender therapist treating a patient. I think we all have seen people taking shortcuts during transition, not following the WPATH guidelines and rushing to SRS and that would be their own fault.

I see a lot of real suffering here on this board and it saddens me but we do urge caution. This regretter obviously caused his own mess and is now lashing out.

[celeste26]

There are so many alternative stopping points in this gender journey. Reassignment Surgery is not the be all and end all for everyone. But within this community it stands as some sort of standard by which we are all measured.

As others have pointed out, get a life outside of the TS bubble. Live it however you choose and if that means SRS then so be it. But dont substitute surgery for having that life. Which for me at least means taking my time and integrating all aspects of my life rather than just dwelling solely on the GD.

[princessheather86]

Would you say that going out dressed, even if it's only sometimes, is a must before considering something like HRT? I've never dressed properly, (closest I've done is gender neutral clothes like skinny jeans and sneakers) because I don't really have the opportunity in my living situation. Honestly, I don't care about the clothes, though. I don't want to wear skirts and heels all the time, I'd gladly wear baggy jeans and tshirts every day if it meant looking in the mirror and seeing a girl instead of a boy and having others see me that way as well. I also don't think transition will magically solve all my problems and make my life wonderful.

I really don't want to fake myself into thinking I'm trans, but I feel like transition is my only option because I have no future as a boy, but I think I could have one as a girl.

[LeaP]

One may take up any number of issues with the so-called gatekeeping system or SOCs - and is is not my intent here to trigger a discussion specifically along those lines - but I will say is this: The more people seek alternative paths, that the "system" is weakened, that providers stop supporting it, that coordinated care is not provided, or that people circumvent standards, the higher the regrets rate is going to go. As small as it is today, it is already used as a PR wedge to try to deny care. If it grows, there will likely be a broader backlash.

I acknowledge that one source of pressure to weaken standards is issues with care availability, especially the multi-disciplinary care envisioned in the various standards, although it may be more accurate to say that non-specialist, provider ignorance plays a big role. In a backlash that resulted in reduced care, however, the population that would be most affected would be transsexuals, not the genderqueers, CDs, and others who seem to constitute the majority of current regretters. I would expect transsexual regret to go up as well as more and more moved to hormones and surgeries before they were ready, though, which would further fuel the anti-transsexual activists.

[Dianne S]

Would you say that going out dressed, even if it's only sometimes, is a must before considering something like HRT?

I think so. You don't have to wear a skirt, but I think it's important to try to present as female. You need to at least get a taste of how people will react to you as a female to know if that's how you want to live.

I am at the very beginning of what I hope to be a transition. No HRT yet; only laser hair removal so far. But I've been making a conscious effort to go out to restaurants and coffee shops dressed as a woman, and I'll be going to my next therapist's session as a female. I need to get used to it and see how I really feel.

[princessheather86]

I'm not sure if online interactions count, but I recently "came out" on a message board at which I am a regular, and everyone was very supportive. And I must say that being treated like a girl is the most wonderful feeling I have ever felt. But, I'm not sure if it counts since it's only online.

[LeaP]

I'm sure my perspective is influenced by my age, but I think online interactions matter very little.

Face to face is both real and real-time. No misrepresentation, exaggeration, or think it through in advance. Interactive, with someone a couple of feet from your face, listening to tone, observing body language, making judgements, you reacting real-time. People holding doors, interacting with you VERY differently, looking or staring, and either engaging you more or less than you are accustomed. It's a fundamental experience of a type that online interactions cannot duplicate.

[Krististeph]

Poor transition preparation or 'cheating' around medical guidelines would probably have a higher incidence of surgical regret, the lesson here is do not short circuit the system- you should meet the criteria prior to getting an operation and have a significant amount of counseling. The surgery is merely a later step in the whole process- it cannot stand on its own.

I have chosen not to transition for various reasons- and it took years to get to the point where I understood why I felt this way and what was most comfortable and least disruptive for me. The process was more important than the result.

Also, that process has a lot to do with NON-TG aspects as well- non-tg related mental wellness, happiness, satisfaction, dependance, etc.- stuff that would not change with or without surgery, or even without any manifestation of TG or CD noumena.

It is like taking an anti-depressant- it clears the symptoms, but the actual cause is likely not to change without some direct intervention.

-kristi

[Dianne S]

I'm not sure if online interactions count

I would not count them. :) The first time I went out in public to a non-TG space (a restaurant), I felt apprehension and nervousness way beyond anything in an online forum. I had to take an elevator 10 floors down in close proximity to three strangers. You just don't get that kind of situation online.

[bas1985]

This is my "hot spot", a Real life test, at least partial, before hormones...

When I started therapy in August 2013, the therapist told me that the gatekeeping was only for my own benefit, she did not mentioned RLE, but for me it was "sure" that I could spend the time between then and the decision to start HRT doing some REAL interactions in real life, here, in the city, going to the market, trying to make a life, I went also to the church.

And for me it is important to not cheat, I am not a big fan of heels or mini skirt or something too much "girly", but a casual skirt, knee length, 1-2 inches heel shoes... just to see the outcome.

To see the reactions. Is this the life I want to live?

Hormones may change some, but at 41 not too much. I will not ever afford FFS, and even if I could, I would save the money for the children.

The answer has been a big YES. People treat me with respect. They may "sir" me sometimes, but in any case I have seen quite "non issue".

I have problems with my ex, that's sure, but the world has said to me: "go on. For us <all clear>."

[Rianna Humble]

Would you say that going out dressed, even if it's only sometimes, is a must before considering something like HRT? I've never dressed properly, (closest I've done is gender neutral clothes like skinny jeans and sneakers) because I don't really have the opportunity in my living situation.

My personal belief is that if you are not ready to interact with people as a woman, then you are not ready to begin such a drastic step as HRT. I could be wrong, and I am sure that someone will come up with an exception to prove that the member they refer to as the Big Bad Mod doesn't know everything (which I freely admit anyway). For me, it was important to have that time when I was out there living it before I started the treatment that would rewire my body to the realities of my brain.

Heather, I think you should be working with a therapist or a counsellor to ensure you are asking yourself the right questions before you decide on a course of treatment.

It is not a case of wearing skirts and heels all the time, you do however, want to be going out there as a woman. If you are constrained by your living conditions, is that an indication of your priorities?

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Lea thank you!!!

Sometimes in life people have conflicting interests. That's just the way it is.. survival of the fittest
... competition is real...we can't pretend it away like it's first grade and nobody wins or loses the game..

Transsexuals that are hell bent on transition and want really good therapy, srs surgery, ffs surgery, and HRT, and they want a well schooled medical community backing them and hopefully allowing transition to be a medically insured event in every way are basically at odds with everybody in the world..

and that includes the ts regretters, the ts pretenders, the ts apologists, the ts religious objectors, the tg umbrella folks, and those that support them... all of these folks make it harder for me to get medically necessary procedures

[Foxglove]

I got interested in this question of SRS regret and got on the net to see what kind of hard information I could find, what actual studies have been done. I found very little. It seems to me it's hard to discuss this question for lack of real information. But in case anybody's curious, here's the core of what I found:

http://www.annelawrence.com/2001hbigda2.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21364939
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12856892
http://aebrain.blogspot.ie/2009/05/srs-results.html

[dreamer_2.0]

My personal belief is that if you are not ready to interact with people as a woman, then you are not ready to begin such a drastic step as HRT. I could be wrong, and I am sure that someone will come up with an exception to prove that the member they refer to as the Big Bad Mod doesn't know everything (which I freely admit anyway). For me, it was important to have that time when I was out there living it before I started the treatment that would rewire my body to the realities of my brain.

This wasn't directed at me specifically but I'd like to comment nonetheless and, naturally, look for feedback.

I see value in learning how to interact with people as a woman prior to any alterations, such as HRT, though I struggle in this area. Self-acceptance is an enormous hurdle I'm finding, dressing or behaving in a feminine fashion triggers more GD because I'm essentially pretending to be something Ive grown to believe I'm not, a woman.

Personally, I'm hoping to begin HRT and THEN work on presenting and interacting as a woman. It may be I'm putting the cart before the horse but, to me, it seems like it would be easier to learn it all while my body is actually changing. My brain would hopefully recognize that I really am becoming the woman I should've been born as rather than just dressing the part and pretending.

Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else but it does to me. I don't want to be a man-in-dress so hopefully HRT will help me feel better about myself before putting on that dress.

[Frances]

Personally, I'm hoping to begin HRT and THEN work on presenting and interacting as a woman. It may be I'm putting the cart before the horse but, to me, it seems like it would be easier to learn it all while my body is actually changing. My brain would hopefully recognize that I really am becoming the woman I should've been born as rather than just dressing the part and pretending.

A lot of regreters have spoken those very words, some on this site. This sets off so many red flags, especially the brain following the body part.

[Kathryn Martin]

In a backlash that resulted in reduced care, however, the population that would be most affected would be transsexuals, not the genderqueers, CDs, and others who seem to constitute the majority of current regretters. I would expect transsexual regret to go up as well as more and more moved to hormones and surgeries before they were ready, though, which would further fuel the anti-transsexual activists.

I concur with Kaitelyn. Thank you! This is never properly discussed. This is at the heart of me drawing the distinctions I have here and everywhere else.


This sets off so many red flags, especially the brain following the body part.

Oh my god does it ever.

[dreamer_2.0]

Brain following the body, sure, but keep in mind when the brain is so highly critical of what it sees in the mirror is it not logical to try and appease the brain by feminizing the body? Is that not part of what transition is?

Oddly hearing this sets off red flags is kind of comforting as I've yet to encounter any resistance to my transitioning from my gender therapist, friends or my sister. No one has really challenged my thoughts and future decisions, aside from myself that is. Red flags are bad of course but I don't want to find myself among the regretters.

[Frances]

It's just that HRT does not bring about huge physical changes. Also, the protocols are about verifying feelings through real world interactions. You don't have to go full-time before HRT, but you need to spend a fair amount of time in the role, especially interacting with strangers. A lot people are attracted to the idea of being a woman, but find themselves quite uncomfortable by the reality of it.

That said, I don't know much about you or your transition. I was just judging your statement, which is all I have to go on.

[dreamer_2.0]

I'm not the greatest writer so perhaps my statement wasn't as clear as it could have been. :)

HRT indeed doesn't (always) bring about major physical changes but it does change some things. They may be subtle but I'm hoping they'll be enough so the brain and body will start working together allowing me to feel more comfortable with myself rather than feeling like a drag queen or CD'er.

[Frances]

Then allow me this question. What it does not and you feel exactly the same, regardless of any subtle or not so subtle changes? Would you still go on, or would look back at the process with regret? That's the crux of it. They may or may not be different feelings. People may or may not always perceive you as CD'er or drag queen as you put it. If you are trans, you learn to live with it and go on. If you are not trans, you may regret having gone through the process to end up feeling the same and being clocked all the time.

[princessheather86]

Clearly I need to find a way to overcome my circumstances and go out dressed, then, before I do anything drastic like start HRT. I do feel the need to not waste any more time, though, I'm already 27.

[Kate T]

It's curious that the the study by Anne lawrence referenced by foxglove (the first Anne Lawrence link is merely a subset of the the Archives of sexual behaviour paper that she published though it does carry some curious indications with regards to RLE) reports a 100% success in measured outcomes for sexual reassignment surgery. As a scientist I must admit to being mildly surprised at this remarkably high level of success in over 200 patients. The swedish study is curious on a couple of levels. Firstly is the remarkably high number of FTM individuals (191 MTF, 133FTM!) which seems rather high based on participation on these forums. Maybe FTM's just don't do internet forums as much or perhaps associate with a different GLBT subculture? The notable element in the swedish study is the VERY high increase in suicide rates for transexual individuals versus population age match controls (around 25 fold increase). The authors argue that this exhibits the need for additional psychiatric and counselling support FOLLOWING SRS as well as before. It would be fascinating to match this suicide rate against an age matched cohort of all TS, not just those who underwent surgery, however I am not quite sure how this could be done. (I suspect that the study group would have a LOWER incidence of suicide when matched against all TS given that they have managed to achieve their target gender). It is worthwhile emphasising that the study DOES NOT in any way imply that this increased rate of death by suicide is due to some form of TS regret and it seems likely that the extreme financial and relationship pressures of SRS are major contributors.
Still, it would seem that overall the medical community gets it roughly right most of the time in that a majority of SRS outcomes are invariably positive. It is a shame that the negative outcomes and fools get so much publicity.

[Kathryn Martin]

Dreamer what I don't understand is this: why do you think you are a girl? This is so unclear to me. When you say that you hope the changes hormones will bring will bring your brain along so that you feel more comfortable going out as a girl. what makes you go out dressed as a girl in the first place? If your brain does not tell you that you are a girl what makes you go out as one? I am totally confused. And all my flags are up and all the bells are ringing.

[Michelle.M]

. . . I feel like transition is my only option because I have no future as a boy, but I think I could have one as a girl.

I sincerely hope that you are seeing a therapist with experience in this area. Having “no future as a boy” is probably not a good reason to transition, and a therapist will help you get a better handle on your own identity.


I'm not sure if online interactions count

No, not at all. You need actual, in-person interactions. You wouldn’t be the first person who rethought his or her goals after having been laughed at in a restaurant or pulled out of the ladies’ restroom by a security cop. By the same token, you might actually feel more natural in real life interactions. Being online won’t tell you that


. . . I recently "came out" on a message board at which I am a regular, and everyone was very supportive.

EVERYONE is supportive online. That’s what Melissa was saying earlier. In real life - maybe, maybe not.

[whowhatwhen]

Maybe I'm missing something but the only advice I've really seen given here is basically "see a therapist and don't lie to them".
Where are the "you go grill!/everyones a tranny" posts people are referring to?

[dreamer_2.0]

Then allow me this question. What it does not and you feel exactly the same, regardless of any subtle or not so subtle changes? Would you still go on, or would look back at the process with regret? That's the crux of it. They may or may not be different feelings. People may or may not always perceive you as CD'er or drag queen as you put it. If you are trans, you learn to live with it and go on. If you are not trans, you may regret having gone through the process to end up feeling the same and being clocked all the time.

Thats a good question. With current knowledge of myself and internal feelings, I believe I would still go on.

Getting dressed and interacting before HRT or just after starting seems to be an invitation for getting clocked, to me that is. Being clocked is probably inevitable for all of us at some point, but I'd prefer it to happen further down the road when I *know* transition is the right path. Ideally once knowing then any comments, especially negative ones, would be easier to deal with. Also, being clocked would hopefully be less of an issue when the body is in a more androgynous state making it easier to present as a woman rather than a CDer.

Also, only a small group of people in my life know I'm TG. I'm not ready to go out and interact with the world, asking and expecting them to treat me was a woman before fully deciding if transition is the right course of action. It's similar to my coming out to my dad last week. He now knows that I don't want to be male and wish I had been born female. But what if I don't transition? He now knows something I'd much rather he didn't know. The world doesn't need to know I want to be a woman just yet. This also just feels safer...

Further, it would be a matter of personal validation. Because I'm struggling so much with self-acceptance and still don't believe transition is possible for me, dressing in this state of mind unleashes negative self-criticisms such as: you are not a girl! Look at you, you're a man in a dress, you'll never be a girl! Being on HRT will hopefully help combat these harsh thoughts by showing: I can be a girl! I'm becoming the girl I should have been born as.

Will I regret transitioning should I do it? Possibly. But this is why I'm trying to approach it with baby steps (the order of which seems to differ amongst us) while going through the necessary "gatekeepers" to mitigate the chance of regret.

[LeaP]

Maybe I'm missing something but the only advice I've really seen given here is basically "see a therapist and don't lie to them".
Where are the "you go grill!/everyones a tranny" posts people are referring to?

They don't exist. Never have. Never will. It's one of the biggest straw(wo)men out there.

(By the way, you're still stuck in your dyslexia thread.)

[dreamer_2.0]

Dreamer what I don't understand is this: why do you think you are a girl? This is so unclear to me. When you say that you hope the changes hormones will bring will bring your brain along so that you feel more comfortable going out as a girl. what makes you go out dressed as a girl in the first place? If your brain does not tell you that you are a girl what makes you go out as one? I am totally confused. And all my flags are up and all the bells are ringing.

Perhaps this will ease some of your confusion: I'm not a girl and have never believed, nor claimed, myself to be one. I only long, desire, dream to be one.

A previous thread of mine inquired whether there is a difference between those who believe they're women inside and those who deeply desire it. Some argued there is a big difference (I believe you fell into that category) whereas others augured there is no difference.

I'm inclined to agree that there is a difference but perhaps it's not really important as the paths and destination in transition are, mostly, the same. On the other hand I feel that our intentions for pursuing transition hold greater importance and should be scrutinized. Perhaps a large part of regret comes from those who intentions were not adequately met (ie: fetishist perhaps).

So, no, currently I am not a girl nor do I go out dressed as one. I've done so in the past and it made me incredibly happy, but not again, not yet until I'm ready to tell the world this is who and what I truly am.

Having said all this, maybe I really am a girl inside and only believe I'm not as a result of being raised 32 years as a boy and taught that exploring femininity is wrong.

[Rogina B]

In my opinion,"social transitioning" is a huge part of "checking your course". It is a lifelong test that can be started right away...on your own.

[Kathryn Martin]

Having said all this, maybe I really am a girl inside and only believe I'm not as a result of being raised 32 years as a boy and taught that exploring femininity is wrong.

So everything is relative and the moon is made of cheese? My only point is that if you feel the way you do why even try hormones, they might just really confuse the whole thing. Being who you are is not relative, it is what it is, the rest is just dreams.

[dreamer_2.0]

Why not try hormones? Why not explore the many ways there are to be human?

[Michelle789]

Dreamer,

I understand where you're coming from. I had a lot of guilt about accepting anything feminine. As MTF TS's, we face two major obstacles of self-acceptance. First, we have trouble accepting that we're really girls after being raised as boys, because we're taught that men are superior to women and that it's wrong for a man to accept anything feminine, especially wanting to be a girl. Second, being trans in itself is stigmatized. So we're double screwed by both identifying as female and as trans.

I feel like childhood dysphoria feelings are extremely important to understanding ourselves. My therapist is helping me with understanding the differences between being a "failure as a man" vs being a transsexual. She's helping me to understand that while I have had difficulty being a man it's because of underlying dysphoria that has existed since I was a little kid. A "failure as a man" might be sensitive and delicate and have trouble being a man but they typically lack any childhood feelings of feeling like their really girls or wanting to be girls. They might sometimes think the grass is greener on the other side as adults, since being a man who needs to express anything feminine is stigmatized. But there's a fine difference and my therapist is helping me to understand that.

Would being just a cross-dresser or a failure as a man be the easier softer way? Yes, absolutely. But it's becoming clear to me that I just feel better about myself when I'm dressed as a girl, whether i go in or out. I plan to go out more often and gain more experience interacting with the real world as a girl. I find I feel great when I'm dressed as a girl, and that I feel like crap when I'm dressed as a guy. And it's not stress at work. I feel like crap on the weekends when I'm running errands or home alone and able to do whatever I want if I'm dressed as a guy. If I'm dressed as a girl I feel great and I can go out and socialize, participate on the forum, do chores around the house, and do things like watch TV shows that used to interest me that I seemingly lost interest in, but when I'm dressed as a girl I can happily watch my favorite TV shows. When I'm dressed as a guy, unless I'm really focused at work or at an AA meeting, I just can't stop thinking about anything, including gender, and sometimes I just get lost in static background noise. I'm finding I'm way happier when dressed as a girl, and that my overthinking goes away.

I agree that requiring RLE for six months before starting HRT is ridiculous.
1. It can be difficult to pass in all situations when you're presenting full-time as female with a male body.
2. It requires you to come out to everyone, including work, before you even start HRT and decide if you're going to transition. What happens if after 6 months of RLE you decide transition isn't for you or are denied HRT, and now the whole world knows you're trans. Your parents, wife, kids, friends, co-workers, neighbors. Everyone knows your secret and now your turning back. The one thing that is completely irreversible is coming out. Once you've come out there's no going back. Even if you don't transition people will never view you as a man ever again. That can be very humiliating.

I'm all for the approach of a gradual transition where you start going out as a woman in support groups, then on your own, start hair removal, then slowly come out to friends, start HRT for a few months, then come out to work. Even though you might not experience womanhood in every single circumstance in life, you're getting enough of it to decide after 8 months of partial living and 4 months of HRT whether or not transition is right for you before you have to come out to everybody including work.

I'm actually for allowing any necessary protocol, because the cruel truth is I've seen people whose GD was so bad that they could not bare to spend another moment as a male, had to go full-time and start HRT immediately. Although I like the gradual approach the best, and I've seen it work succesfully in many TSes on this forum and in my support group, I believe we should allow whatever is necessary to alleviate the GD.

Most of these failed transitions are caused by society's sigma. Feeling guilty for hurting family, or being victims of prejudice or being poor. A few might be fetishists or overemphasis on SRS over FFS and social transition. Charles Kane was a rarity. He was a rich man who suffered a setback and essentially bribed the medical community to let him to transition. Given the gatekeeping that's out there, I doubt very many non TSes, whether they're alpha males, failures as men, fetishists, etc, are allowed to transition in the first place. I think most failed transitions are due to society's stigma and self-acceptance.

Dreamer, it's perfectly normal to have lots of doubts about being trans. I've had lots of doubts all my life. I didn't even know what was causing these feelings I've had all my life until recently. Even though my own intuition tells me I'm really a girl on the inside, I've had every reason to fight it. I've faced lots of guilt from my parents and they don't even know, but they always tell me that their biased towards boys. How in the hell can I accept myself as a girl if my parents keep reminding me that they prefer boys to girls. My brother is a sexist. My father is sexist. My mom had a bad experience with her sisters growing up and a good experience with her brothers so she has a mis-perception that men are inherently good and that women are inherently evil, all because of a few bad seeds, especially one who was rotten to the core. My mom is nothing at all like her sisters, and neither was my grandma. I have female relatives on my dad's side that are nothing like my mom's sisters. They're all decent, sweet women and human beings. My mom's three sisters are bad apples. I'm finding I very much take after my mom.

Dreamer, it's perfectly okay to doubt yourself and question who you are. All of us do. I would be concerned if you were not having doubts. That's how Charles Kane ended up transitioning and failing. He had no doubts. He just one day said that he's a TS and needs to transition. I guess he was wrong. And the rest of us who question ourselves are right.

Dreamer, I will quote Angela. It's okay to be a girl. Thank you Angela, and thank you to your therapist for saying those words.

Feel free to PM me

:) Michelle :)

[stefan37]

If you think hormones will make you feel like a woman or that it will help you integrate as a female. You will be severely disappointed. Hormones are powerful chemical agents that are at the core of our chemical presence. They really should not be introduced until after extensive self-exploration. Wanting to go out dressed and feeling happy while dressed is not enough to warrant hormones. You can do all the dressing and interaction you desire without them. Are you ready to be chemically castrated and lose sexual function of your penis? Your flippant attitude about wanting hormone therapy is disturbing. Transition is a serious brutal process that can take its toll in many ways unless one is prepared to deal with the consequences.

There are huge differences between identity and wishing for an identity. You can not wish or will an identity. Those that think they need to will surely be disappointed. But hey look on the bright side. After you go through the process of hormone ingestion, continue on with surgical procedures and come to the conclusion it was all just a fantasy. You can write a book and hit the media trail and make lots of money decrying how the system let you down and transition is a ruse to be avoided in all cases/

Do you really think it's any less difficult to integrate as a woman with male features after 18 months of hormones. Hormones do have some impact on physical attributes, but not nearly as much as you may think. Unless you have gobs of cash to throw at transition, or be genetically gifted, be forewarned and prepared it will be a difficult road if you think you will magically blend in and "pass".

[Michelle.M]

Where are the "you go grill!/everyones a tranny" posts people are referring to?

Um, right here?


I'm not sure if online interactions count, but I recently "came out" on a message board at which I am a regular, and everyone was very supportive. And I must say that being treated like a girl is the most wonderful feeling I have ever felt. But, I'm not sure if it counts since it's only online.

[dreamer_2.0]

If you think hormones will make you feel like a woman or that it will help you integrate as a female. You will be severely disappointed.

This claim was never made, not by myself that is. Though I would like to note that it was an underlying theme on the site posted in the OP. Regret was expressed over not actually being transformed into a woman regardless of the amount of hormones or surgeries you have. Genetically speaking you are and will always be male. Well, no kidding! To think otherwise is completely delusional. I am merely stating that I, personally, would much prefer to be on HRT for a while before I go prancing around to the world claiming to be a woman. Why is this so difficult to comprehend? Where is this transsexual bible that explicitly states the order in which one must transition?


Hormones are powerful chemical agents that are at the core of our chemical presence.

I love how people on this site comment in one place how powerful and dangerous hormones are and then in other places people comment on how you shouldn't expect much from hormones at all. I'm not directing this at you, Stefan37, just stating a general observation.


They really should not be introduced until after extensive self-exploration. Wanting to go out dressed and feeling happy while dressed is not enough to warrant hormones. You can do all the dressing and interaction you desire without them. Are you ready to be chemically castrated and lose sexual function of your penis? Your flippant attitude about wanting hormone therapy is disturbing. Transition is a serious brutal process that can take its toll in many ways unless one is prepared to deal with the consequences.

A flippant attitude??? I'm trying very hard to not take offence to to a comment made on the internet by an unknown username. I'd like to assure you in the sincerest way I can online that there is nothing flippant about my attitude. I have come to these decisions, reluctantly, after:

- living with and being tormented by GD my whole life and suppressing it because the world has taught me that crossdressers and transsexuals are freaks and abominations. I'm a man so man-up, dammit! Girls can do anything boys can do but the universe doesn't allow things to go the other way around.

- spending countless hours reading through medical papers, books and blogs desperately searching for answers and cures to what I consider a disorder, an ailment. I once shared with my therapist that I'd rather have cancer than this.

- spending god knows how much time on youtube watching various trans narratives, pro and anti-trans presentations.

- spending a couple thousand dollars (so far!) on therapy for a condition I don't want. This money should be going elsewhere like investing, furthering my education, buying a house/condo, buying a car...living a REAL, NORMAL life!

- weighing the pros and cons of transitioning and how they will impact not just my life but the lives of those around me.

- considering my personal safety and how I'll be facing a higher chance of violence and prejudice.

- listening to several members on this forum telling me to stop fighting and to listen to my heart. This last one really pisses me off. If I had simply listened to my heart and pursued transition without any research then that, most certainly, would be flippant. But perhaps you've noticed that the vast majority of my threads are posing serious questions, expressing deep pain and struggles, looking for help rather than saying stuff along the lines of "so like, last night I found a thong and had the best 2 minutes of masterbation in my life! I immediately ordered hormones from the first site I found online because I think I should be a woman all the time."

Flippant.............


There are huge differences between identity and wishing for an identity. You can not wish or will an identity. Those that think they need to will surely be disappointed.

Perhaps. Although to quote myself from an earlier comment, maybe I am a girl and just don't realize it yet. Having spent so long hiding these feelings is it not possible that my female identity, my true identity, is somewhere very deep inside refusing to come out because of all the stigma surrounding transgender people? It may be unlikely that this is the case but if that's so then why will these girl feelings not go away? Why am I able to relate to transsexuals more than I'm able to with anyone else? Why do all the pieces seem to fit? Why can't I just accept that I'm a dude with a perfectly fine, healthy, good sized penis? I mention size to rule out anyone thinking I'd like to get rid of it because it's too small. Quite the opposite, it's too damn big.

I'd also like to challenge your assumption that one cannot change their identity. People change their identities all the time. Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the thousands of memoirs or self-help books that show people transforming their lives and identities and sharing their struggles and tactics so that others can do it too! I won't bother mentioning the countless fictional stories about people changing from who they were into a completely different person.


But hey look on the bright side. After you go through the process of hormone ingestion, continue on with surgical procedures and come to the conclusion it was all just a fantasy. You can write a book and hit the media trail and make lots of money decrying how the system let you down and transition is a ruse to be avoided in all cases.

Oh you mean like the the guy in the OP link? That's cute and clever, I see what you did there. Oh wait, there is a difference between him and I though: He wasn't transgender. I am.

It's a good thing I posted the link so that others far smarter than I can help me in my research and point out discrepancies and frauds so I don't inadvertently listen to my heart and follow them blindly.


Do you really think it's any less difficult to integrate as a woman with male features after 18 months of hormones. Hormones do have some impact on physical attributes, but not nearly as much as you may think. Unless you have gobs of cash to throw at transition, or be genetically gifted, be forewarned and prepared it will be a difficult road if you think you will magically blend in and "pass".

Yes, I do think it will be easier to integrate after x months of hormones. Will it be due to magic, gobs of cash or perfect genes? No as I've struck out on all three of those. It will be because I've worked damn hard at coming to terms with the hand I've been dealt which will hopefully be solidified by how my body responds to hormones.

To conclude this rant, I just want to be happy and a girl. A happy girl who is certain of her decisions, regretting only that she didn't start transitioning sooner!

[Badtranny]

Maybe I'm missing something but the only advice I've really seen given here is basically "see a therapist and don't lie to them".
Where are the "you go grill!/everyones a tranny" posts people are referring to?

I wasn't talking about "here" specifically. I was talking about our community as a whole. Go to ANY support group or TG event and you will get plenty of encouragement. A lot of therapists will encourage you as well as an awful lot of well meaning Cis people. I realize the world is not an accepting place, but the community and our allies certainly are.

This is a demonstrable fact, and the existence of a dozen girls on this single forum who would advise caution doesn't change the fact that the community at large LOVES a transitioner.

[PaulaQ]

This is a demonstrable fact, and the existence of a dozen girls on this single forum who would advise caution doesn't change the fact that the community at large LOVES a transitioner.

Luckily for the readers of this forum, many here are much smarter than the community at large, and despite a near total lack of anything other than anecdotal evidence - they know much better. Bravo.

I wonder what cancer treatment would be like if successful survivors encouraged new patients to "be sure" before seeking treatment recommended to them by medical professionals?

[princessheather86]

Um, right here?

May I ask what you mean by this exactly? I was talking about a completely different forum, which is not specifically for TG people, though it is TG friendly. I just meant that people didn't have an issue with gendering me correctly when I told them I'm trans, and treated me as such. Nobody has ever tried to push me towards transition.

[kerrianna]

I know many many people who have transitioned, both ways. NONE of them has ever expressed regret. Quite the contrary.
Transitioning is not easy. It is not fun and games, although it does bring moments of deep personal joy to many of us.

What I will say about this, and it was my first thought on reading the OP, and confirmed as I read through the thread... I have seen a backlash against gender variance and the progress we are making in gaining equality and support and understanding. That backlash is coming straight from the religious right and from people who are transphobic and or homophobic. It is coming from people who do not understand gender variance and don't WANT to.

The concept of male-female is a very fundamental basic underpinning to most people's understanding of the world. What we are doing is upsetting that assumption that a penis=male, vagina=female. We are even saying chromosones won't tell you the whole story. We are saying IDENTITY is a big part of it, and what upsets people and makes them feel uncertain and confused, is that they cannot SEE our identity. Most people come from an assumptive identity to start with - they know themselves to be what they are, just as we know ourselves to be human.

So we are challenging those basic structures and beliefs and we are getting a backlash now. I have just come out of some nasty nasty online fights with people who are using the regret argument to try and belittle and nullify our own realities. There are many many people out there who will have us labeled insane, misguided, deluded, and misled.

My personal experience is that is not true. Again, I have yet to meet people who regret.
People may regret things at times... maybe they lose too much, and have moments of regret. I had a moment of regret post op in my darkest hour only because my body had been functioning and then was just a mess. But I got past that, healed and I have absolutely NO regrets other that I wish I had done this a lot sooner.

I really think we should be careful buying into self doubt in this community. I know we see people who have multiple issues.. many of us do, partly BECAUSE of the way we were born. One thing leads to another and we have more issues than just transitioning can solve. But it can give us a platform to work from, which we may not have had and that is vital.

So when you see someone who seems unsure, clumsy, conflicted, etc... let's try to help them, not push them away because they may make the rest of us look bad. That's the knid of diviseness and self doubt the haters are trying to foster.

We're human, and we make mistakes and we don't get it perfect. But we aren't stupid and we are not deluded.

And everyone is entitled to make their own way, without prejuidice or judgment. Who's to say what's right and wrong?

And how many born again Christians have regrets? How many haters?

It's a war. Let's not feed the enemy or do their job for them. That site is shite.

[kerrianna]

I wonder what cancer treatment would be like if successful survivors encouraged new patients to "be sure" before seeking treatment recommended to them by medical professionals?

Actually, as a cancer survivor I would say just this.

I think there is a difference between encouraging a person to see all angles, and to go in with a critical understanding of what they are engaging in (esp when it does involve the medical profession which sometimes can make a person's life more complicated without giving fair warning if one does not ask the right questions), and dissuading someone.

I would never dissuade anyone. I would never suggest that someone think twice or whatever. But I would say to anyone, no matter what they do, if it is a road I have been down, that they should consider things carefully.

I do think some people patronize others, especially in some *ehem* areas of the community, by acting as if people can't think for themselves. I wouldn't tell another cancer patient they should or shouldn't do anything. But I would share my experience, if they either wanted input or there were issues I found along the way that I wouldn't want others to also find out the hard way (that actually applies more to my partner's cancer treatments... which informed my approach, not to make the same mistakes.)

[Kaitlyn Michele]

That's exactly it Kerrianna. Well said. Your post is consistent with my experience and everyone I personally know that transitioned.

If someone is not mature enough to deal with criticism or unwanted advice constructively they are in a poor frame of mind to consider life altering issues anyway...

+++++

And frankly put Paula, snark aside, its true that the community of informed posters here are pretty smart.

and

I would certainly advise a cancer patient to be sure they had cancer before getting treated for it.

..and i would certainly advise a cancer patient to consider all alternatives and side effects....especially if I had specific experience.. perhaps i'd even talk about what my own doctor advised as compared to yours.. who wouldn't?
My dad had prostrate cancer and he went to three doctors and asked dozens of men of their experiences as to which method he should take to be cured.

You color the whole world with your view that you were wronged. Many of us were. I certainly was.

I will also add, that in the very specific context of this thread, I am very comfortable with anecdotal evidence. Especially to combat flawed anecdotal stories that are promoted as basic truths.
I would also point out that a number of actual studies were posted here...and given the small sample sizes I can say I've met as many transsexuals as there were in those studies (Mtf)... that's meaningful information if not scientifically "accurate"

[Michelle.M]

May I ask what you mean by this exactly? I was talking about a completely different forum, which is not specifically for TG people, though it is TG friendly. I just meant that people didn't have an issue with gendering me correctly when I told them I'm trans, and treated me as such. Nobody has ever tried to push me towards transition.

First, I apologize if I made it sound like this was a comment intended to criticize you. It was not. But the comment was a response to the assertion that perhaps there really aren’t people online that are too quick to encourage others who were considering the idea of transition, and this looks like a perfect example.

By your own admission your real life transition steps are pretty much nonexistent, yet others in another forum (doesn’t really matter that it’s not TG specific) were all so eager to treat you like a girl when they don’t appear to have any reason to do so.

I mean, I’m very glad that you’re getting all of these online tummy rubs, but they really don’t have much to do with supporting anything that actually resembles a real transition.


Luckily for the readers of this forum, many here are much smarter than the community at large, and despite a near total lack of anything other than anecdotal evidence - they know much better. Bravo.

“Anecdotal evidence” as opposed to what - empirical evidence? Aside from the fact that there’s a paucity of empirical evidence (although that body of data is growing) what other kind of information would be valuable to someone in transition? Only anecdotal accounts can tell anyone in transition how others felt, what kinds of coping mechanisms they employed and the types of maneuvers others used to adjust their lives to effect a successful transition.

[princessheather86]

First, I apologize if I made it sound like this was a comment intended to criticize you. It was not. But the comment was a response to the assertion that perhaps there really aren’t people online that are too quick to encourage others who were considering the idea of transition, and this looks like a perfect example.

By your own admission your real life transition steps are pretty much nonexistent, yet others in another forum (doesn’t really matter that it’s not TG specific) were all so eager to treat you like a girl when they don’t appear to have any reason to do so.

They DID have a reason to do so - I told them I am trans and asked them to. And they did that because it's an accepting community that's not going to interrogate people over whether or not they are/are not trans. That's not encouraging people to transition, that's being respectful of how someone chooses to identify.


I mean, I’m very glad that you’re getting all of these online tummy rubs, but they really don’t have much to do with supporting anything that actually resembles a real transition.

Okay, fair enough then. I am at the very beginning of transition and have not done much apart from seek medical advice.

[Frances]

To Dreamer,

There is no bible, but there is a set of protocols followed pretty much universally by medical practitioners (WPATH protocols).

HRT can both be dangerous and not produce major changes. The two propositions are not mutually exclusive.

I was on HRT for five months before I went full-time, but I could pass quite easily without hormones if I presented as a woman. After five months, I had a hard time passing as a man, except with my co-workers, who saw zero change. One thing that never changed was my perception of myself. There was no change with hormones and no change with SRS. I never started to "feel like a girl" or feel "differently" for that matter. What changed was how others perceived and interacted with me. In short, the brain did not follow the body, it's the body that followed the brain.

[LeaP]

Go to ANY support group or TG event and you will get plenty of encouragement. A lot of therapists will encourage you ...

... the community at large LOVES a transitioner.

I can only relay my experience. 4 different groups, 2 on each coast. 2 attended more than once, and one where I'm a frequent attendee. Of the two I hit once, one was all trans politics, the other filled with a group of really marginal folks. The one I attend frequently is the largest, typically 20-30 people, both MtF and FtM. There is encouragement and support, to be sure, but nothing like the kind of cheerleading we're talking about. I pretty much hear the same themes there as here, without the academic argumentation and anger ... :angry:

I've had two gender therapists. I consider myself lucky there. Having been dragged to therapy as a kid and having been to a couple of marriage counselors in my first marriage, I know they can be a disaster. I don't disbelieve that some of them might cheerlead, but it has not been my experience.

God are you right about the community loving a transitioner, though. People flock to them like the prophet on the mountaintop ... only to get PO'd at them when they speak ...



But the comment was a response to the assertion that perhaps there really aren’t people online that are too quick to encourage others who were considering the idea of transition, and this looks like a perfect example.


With respect, Michelle, what I see going on is variously either fantasy or courtesy. At least in any reasonably legitimate forum I have seen. I will say that it took me a while to settle on this one. I almost didn't because of the fantasy component on the CD side.

Maybe it's more accurate to say that you seldom find cheerleading coming from transitioners?

[Kaitlyn Michele]

The most ironic thing about "you go girl" advice is that I bet 9 of 10 are not from transitioned transsexuals.
And I bet a majority of them are from people that are not transsexuals or will never transition.. TG People like to live vicariously through us.


You keep doing what you are doing Heather...it took me 40 years to figure it all out... You are smart, you will figure this out in your own way and your own time..
to keep it on topic, I would advise you to know that in transition, its possible to screw it up, its possible to be unlucky, and its often brutal to get through transition
... however, if you are transsexual and you are suffering gender dysphoria, transition is very likely to improve your quality of life.

[whowhatwhen]

I wasn't talking about "here" specifically. I was talking about our community as a whole. Go to ANY support group or TG event and you will get plenty of encouragement. A lot of therapists will encourage you as well as an awful lot of well meaning Cis people. I realize the world is not an accepting place, but the community and our allies certainly are.

This is a demonstrable fact, and the existence of a dozen girls on this single forum who would advise caution doesn't change the fact that the community at large LOVES a transitioner.

Isn't it just being supportive and encouraging people to explore rather than transition itself?
I fit into the queer community like a sock in a windtunnel but even then I never heard anyone encouraging people to rush into things.

I can't speak for all therapists but going back to what Kathryn said as well I find it hard to believe that there is an international cabal of therapists out to turn TG/GQ people into transsexuals.

e:


The most ironic thing about "you go girl" advice is that I bet 9 of 10 are not from transitioned transsexuals.
And I bet a majority of them are from people that are not transsexuals or will never transition.. TG People like to live vicariously through us.


Here's the thing though, there aren't a whole lot of transitioned transsexuals around.
Few stick around in the community after they're done and even then there's no guarantee they're there to support the next generation of TSs.

Hell, I'd love to find a TS I could talk to IRL but so far it's not been a fruitful search.

e2:


Um, right here?


That's support and acceptance, not encouragement.
What are people supposed to do?

Do we tell them to seek therapy and explore or do we tell them flat out that they're probably just a man and not to transition?
Provided people follow the standards of care chances are they'll be fine if we don't go #2 (lol).

e3:
It's almost like we could divide it up into "everyone should transition" and "no one should transition (but me)" except the former doesn't exist.

[LeaP]

I was on HRT for five months before I went full-time, but I could pass quite easily without hormones if I presented as a woman. After five months, I had a hard time passing as a man, except with my co-workers, who saw zero change. One thing that never changed was my perception of myself. There was no change with hormones and no change with SRS. I never started to "feel like a girl" or feel "differently" for that matter. What changed was how others perceived and interacted with me. In short, the brain did not follow the body, it's the body that followed the brain.

My experience and path has been a little different, but with the same conclusion. I started hormones without a transition commitment, though with the knowledge I am TS. It will be in the two-year range on hormones by the time I transition. I did have the experience of consciously perceiving female identity (which seems unusual). That happened WELL before starting hormones or even deciding to go ahead with them, for that matter. What that turned out to be, though, was the re-emergence of my pre-adolescent self-sense. I instantly knew it as female, though I have no rational explanation for why this is so. This replaced a pervasive sense of not being gendered at all. My identity had stabilized the time I started hormones. When I did, the body followed, as you said. I simply feel more like me. There is no sense of becoming something different than I was, of "transforming into a woman.

I am one of those are reluctant to support "trying HRT."

While I started them without knowing whether I would transition, I did so fully accepting probable permanent physical change and the willingness to transition if that wound up being the right path. Both my therapist and I were interested a level of confirmation within the first few months, but that was not diagnosis. I had the diagnosis already.

My therapist tells me that she has had patients who started and stopped. They feel sluggish, uneasy, anxious, etc. Despite that, it is obvious that some people experience significant relief - especially from anti-androgens and usually very quickly. That can easily delude them into thinking they are TS when they are not. (I found the effects of estrogen far more subtle, if pervasive, and really only started understanding how much they "rewire" you only after a year in.)

Further, some start seeing physical changes, get quite uncomfortable with them, and stop estrogen and keep taking anti-androgens. HUGE mistake!!!

There is some danger of continuing to press down a transition path on emotional and psychological grounds, even out of motivations like belonging, obsession, neediness, and for other reasons not related to identity. People find themselves caught up in this, creating what Kathryn has described as a dynamic toward transition.

But it gets worse! There are those who start and stop hormones repeatedly! Not out of medical necessity, but because they can't settle on their identity and proper direction. Let me tell you, that will screw up your health in a hurry.

Dreamer – if you don't believe hormones are powerful, go talk to an endocrinologist. Forget secondary sex characteristics for a second and even effects on things like emotion and mood. Sex steroids affect the majority of functions in the human body. Estrogen is the most powerful known.

[Kathryn Martin]

I can't speak for all therapists but going back to what Kathryn said as well I find it hard to believe that there is an international cabal of therapists out to turn TG/GQ people into transsexuals.

Actually it is not a cabal. It's economics and good marketing. The original intention of a psychiatric assessment was purely for co-morbidity issues and to determine if there were any underlying metal disorders which caused the patient to believe they were cross sexed.

This assessment was simply that nothing more. In the early 1970s the "industry" discovered that they could offer services to "guide" people through self discovery process. The number of TG who wanted to transition rose as a result. In today's world you have long term counseling that most often results in hormones being taken, netting (instead of three sessions necessary for an assessment) a massive amount of money to the treating psychologists, gender therapists and psychiatrists. It's simple 3x150=450, 24x150=3,600 or even more. The focus of what needs to be done has shiften entirely from assessment to guiding "self-discover". And the longer the treating specialist can maintain the guidance role the better it is. The result has been a steady accretion of more and more people who are "guided" into gender related pathologies and of course more and more of those transitioning who otherwise might never have done so.

[whowhatwhen]

Yes, it's totally more believable that mental health professionals are pushing people toward transition to get that sweet sweet cash.
What about those who were guided away from transition because they saw a therapist and went by the book?

I'm sorry but this is like lizard people level of ridiculousness.

OP:
Follow the standards of care, be honest with yourself and your therapist, and don't concern yourself with trying to prove yourself to internet gatekeepers.
If it turns out you don't need to transition then that's fine, that's what I thought the whole purpose of "self discovery" was for: "do I absolutely positively have to?".

[dreamer_2.0]

Dreamer – if you don't believe hormones are powerful, go talk to an endocrinologist. Forget secondary sex characteristics for a second and even effects on things like emotion and mood. Sex steroids affect the majority of functions in the human body. Estrogen is the most powerful known.

I certainly hope they are powerful. I recall reading perhaps on this site someone mentioning their pharmacist's hesitation in giving her hormones, "these small pills will turn a dog into a cat". I believe her response was "isn't that the point?"

They are not the be all and end all of transition, of course, but I hope they do help me in figuring myself out.

I'm hopefully meeting an endocrinologist this month, we'll see how it goes.



OP:
Follow the standards of care, be honest with yourself and your therapist, and don't concern yourself with trying to prove yourself to internet gatekeepers.
If it turns out you don't need to transition then that's fine, that's what I thought the whole purpose of "self discovery" was for: "do I absolutely positively have to?".

Standards of care are definitely being followed. I'd prefer not to transition if it can be avoided, however over the last while it seems like transition is the only option. I of course don't know if that's true but hope to continue discovering what works and what doesn't as I continue down this path.


In the early 1970s the "industry" discovered that they could offer services to "guide" people through self discovery process. The number of TG who wanted to transition rose as a result. In today's world you have long term counseling that most often results in hormones being taken, netting (instead of three sessions necessary for an assessment) a massive amount of money to the treating psychologists, gender therapists and psychiatrists. It's simple 3x150=450, 24x150=3,600 or even more. The focus of what needs to be done has shiften entirely from assessment to guiding "self-discover". And the longer the treating specialist can maintain the guidance role the better it is. The result has been a steady accretion of more and more people who are "guided" into gender related pathologies and of course more and more of those transitioning who otherwise might never have done so.

This sadly makes sense and supports a fear of mine wondering if my gender therapist is really helping me or just appearing to so that I'll come back and spend more money. She challenges very little, if any, of what I say and advocates self-discovery and exploration...but for who's agenda, hers or mine? It matters little now as she's actually moved on, our final session was last week. On to a new therapist I go, however it's probably for the best as this new one is apparently THE gender therapist in my city who's been involved with the community for, I believe, 20 years. It'll be interesting to see how she differs from my first therapist.

[LeaP]

Kathryn, I know you feel strongly about this, but I don't buy it. First, into the 70's there was no quick assessment and out. People spent months and sometimes years just getting accepted by a gatekeeper, and then went through an extended, and by all reports, excruciating process that few made it through.

Then the lights went out in most of the gender clinics, thanks to Johns Hopkins and Paul McHugh.

The first (now) WPATH SOC was published in 1979. It was most definitely not a quick assessment process, either. WPATH was the principal SOC in use, pretty much worldwide for years outside of the few remaining gender clinics. The APA only broke with WPATH with the publication of their own task force document in 2012. WPATH essentially responded to that via the SOC V7, dropping some of its strictures and presenting its recommendations as flexible guidelines (their term) and not a care standard in the usual medical sense.

The 20th century history of gender practice is one of long, exclusionary, controlled psychotherapy and gatekeeping. Things did loosen, but recently. A lot of the change is hugely positive. Even forgetting the primitive practices and attitudes that prevailed into the 60s and 70s, how many would support RLE before hormones these days? (Not me) Or live with diagnoses of the pre-DSM5 (pre-V4 especially)?

Fast forward to the present. Things have become quite loose indeed. SRS and FFS surgeons actually compete. Non-specialists (pretend to) treat gender clients everywhere. The WPATH SOC is a shadow. Self help groups have proliferated everywhere. And I agree that the results are not always positive. But where is this gender machine you are talking about, despite it all? Rather than extending therapy and cost - the practice of the past - the abuse today has shifted from inappropriate gatekeeping to insufficient (or lack of, or lack of qualified) assessment. Yet quick assessment-only is what you seem to advocate.

I think that an assessment should rarely be short and performed only by a trained specialist. I would not only like a reasonable SOC, but one that is properly implemented with oversight. We've swung too far and too loose, to the point where people are being hurt. But I see no indication among therapists of anything but good intent. Some of the surgeons ... not so sure there.

[Frances]

Gender therapist proding transitioners is a little weird for me too. I know they exist and people talk about them on this very forum. The team of the human sexuality clinic to which I went (as mandated by the public health care system in my province) never told me that I was transsexual and never recommended HRT or SRS. Their mandate was, as Kathryn pointed out, to look for co-morbidity and risk factors over a long period time. They did, however, write "letters" for HRT and SRS when I did ask for it after mandatory observation periods (years, not months).

[Kathryn Martin]

Lea and Frances consider this: The first inclusion of Gender Dysphoria Syndrome in the DSM took place in 1986 the same year that homosexuality was entirely removed. It is interesting because it was was then used to classify certain types of gay, lesbian and bisexual persons as mentally ill because of the new disorder. [see Disordering Gender Identity: Gender Identity Disorder in the DSM IV-TR, Lev, Hawthorne Press 2005].

The issues that Benjamin and some of the earlier service providers both in the US and Europe tried to exclude were mental health issues which would mask delusion as self identification. The criteria were very stringent. I have spoken with women who were assessed by Pauli and Benjamin and in England by Randall and Anderson and the process has nothing to do with self discovery and everything to do with assessment.

The difference between counseling and assessment is that the latter is not designed to engage but rather to stay a step back and assess and report.

[Frances]

I was assessed, not counselled.

[LeaP]

And I am most definitely had both. I was assessed (and treated, as appropriate) for a number of co morbid conditions, in their own right as well as to assess the probability that they were responsible for the manifestation of the gender issues with which I presented. This is mainstream differential diagnosis 101. The counseling content covered adjustment and social anxiety issues, working problems, marital issues, problems with children, etc.

I know that you know that Harry Benjamin suspected transsexuality has a physical etiology - but neither the research knowledge nor the tools to confirm his suspicions. He was right, and he was ahead of his time but he was nonetheless dependent on his own subjective observations (good ones to be sure) and psychological screenings of the time (such as they were) and that was about that. He invented a care protocol. He followed up on his patients. What he did was revolutionary, but it was also rudimentary by the standard of what I have had available to me personally. My assessment was better and founded on better information and experience. The care protocol is more refined. I have care from a multi-multidisciplinary team. Etc. etc. etc.

[Kate T]

Eek. A cursory read of these last few posts would have someone thinking that medical practitioners are not providing for the best care for their patients but rather trying to line their own pockets!
I don't know, maybe that is the case (maybe in the US?? you seem to have a slightly more financially driven health care system than Europe, UK or Australia?). BUT I would suggest a couple of alternative explanations (which may or may not be true, in much the same way as the reasonably unsubstantiated allegations of money leaching may or may not be true):
1. What is called "Diagnostic reveal". Basically a problem or disorder that had previously been either untestable or testing had been limited due to financial or manufacturing constraints becomes far easier to test and thus there is a marked increase over time of diagnosis made. A reasonable example is Diabetes where much easier access to testing has resulted in markedly increased diagnostic rates (and yes there are other factors in diabetes as well but improvements in testing protocols has been one of the major ones).
2. Social awareness. Increased social awareness and publicity leads to increased testing and thus diagnosis. Breast cancer is the obvious example here.
3. Improved treatment protocols. We know that mastectomy combined with radiation and / or chemotherapy has a MICH higher survival rate than mastectomy alone. Is it possible that outcomes following SRS are better now than in decades previously because we have more counselling?
Also I don't quite get how pushing someone into a diagnosis of TS or GID requiring SRS is going to increase the therapists income? Surely if you want to keep on having them come to session after session of therapy then the best way is to keep the client AWAY from SRS as they then need to keep coming to see you to discuss their gender concerns? Also once the client is diagnosed as requiring SRS then surely all their income is redirected towards HRT and surgery? I know of very few psychiatrists who have touched a scalpel since they became specialists. Correction, I don't know of any.
I'm in a different medical jurisdiction and maybe I've missed the point of what you are saying but I think we should at least consider the possibility that the medical profession genuinely has our best interests at heart?

[PaulaQ]

This assessment was simply that nothing more. In the early 1970s the "industry" discovered that they could offer services to "guide" people through self discovery process.

Oh yeah. Nothing says "medical money making machine" like a condition that:
- affects 0.3% (at most) of the population
- is mostly uninsured in the US, and highly socially stigmatized
- affects a population who's often too broke to afford it

This seems implausible to me. As medical industries go - it's itty-bitty.

[Badtranny]

In regard to the encouragement I mentioned earlier, I'm seeing a whole lot of missing the point. Some people mentioned cheer-leading, and nobody here who shares my view (most of the transitioners) has said anything at all about cheer-leading or pushing an agenda.

What we're talking about is an atmosphere of encouragement and strong support in our community for all people who claim to be TG in some way. I have been to an event or two since 2009 and I can tell you for sure that anybody who announces their intent to transition is welcomed with open arms. If you are the kind of person that is looking to 'belong' to something, than the trans community is a pretty good bet.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, UNLESS you're not really a transsexual. Now there are some here that would say that I'm not a real transsexual since I don't pine for the pussy, but the fact remains that I have completely transitioned socially and my past as a man becomes more distant every day. I assure you that rearranging my genitals would have no effect on my daily life. Whether or not I'm a real anything is unimportant to me, the point is, I now live the life that I imagined as a young kid. My transition was easily the best decision I've ever made and I can't imagine not living this life, BUT it has been very difficult and I can totally imagine someone giving up if they just aren't cut out for it.

My life has completely changed and for me, it is mostly for the better because I was a seriously unhappy person before. My entire life from the age of 12 had been an endless exercise in proving my manhood. I was the poster child for a dude who was not secure in his masculinity. Transition was a liberation for me, when I decided to finally do it, I didn't give a DAMN what anyone thought. I was finally free. Why in the world would I ever go back to pretending to be a man?

The short answer is "I wouldn't go back for a million bucks". The long answer has something to do with this is who I am and transition was the right thing for ME to do. It is NOT the right thing for everyone who does it, but there is really no way to determine who will thrive and who will dive. I think the therapists mean well when they are supportive because I'm sure they don't have any better understanding of transsexualism than we do. How could they? The science is still very new. The idea that someone may claim to be TS because of something entirely unrelated is even newer. I cannot even begin to understand why someone who is not TS would pretend to be or even want to be. For me it's been a hell of a thing, mostly because of the world outside of our community, but even with all of the struggles, I still FEEL better about myself than I ever did. It's like the movies where somebody gives up some kind of grand privilege for their true love and live happily ever after. Transition really is a happily ever after IF it's the right thing for you, but if it's not, then look out because it is a ROUGH thing to do.

So why do a dozen or so bitches on this board get all 'gate keepy' when a new girl starts yammering about transition? Because we care. Because we know what's coming. We have no way of knowing what's in your heart so when we say "think twice" we're just trying to stem the tide of blind support that we know exists in the greater trans community. I will support any person that transitions, but at the same time I will discourage anyone that is "thinking" about it. My feeling is if a bitchy tranny on an internet forum can sway you or confuse you than you are simply NOT ready to transition. If you think I'm a bitch, than you need to know that LIFE is a real bitch when you are coming out. Especially at work.

Transition regret is a real thing and the people that regret it are the same people who didn't really know what they were in for when they pulled the pin.

[VanTG]

Totally Agree with you on that one. Site is not well put together, some of the links are not connected either.

[LeaP]

First, I think Kathryn's comment was directed primarily at therapists, most of whom are not physicians or necessarily even PhDs. I have known too many social workers (including my sister) with humanistic impulses to believe it characterizes the profession, though.

Surgeons? Again, I'm not so sure. To my knowledge, almost ALL FFS surgeons are in the general practice of plastic (and in many cases reconstructive) surgery, even the ones that do "true" FFS bone work. Want a facelift or need a mole removed? Spiegel will do that, too! Except for certain kinds of reconstructive surgery, plastic surgeons' work is never covered by insurance. Trans people might be a relatively small market, but it's big enough to devote a chunk of their practice for a fair number of these doctors. One FFS patient is better than, say, 50 Botox patients.

Plastic surgery is a profit-driven niche of medicine. Thing is, I'm enough of a capitalist to believe that profit-seeking and humanitarian impulses aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, though they can starve each other out, so to speak, one ethically and the other financially. Bottom line is that there ARE some surgery factories out there and doctors known for their sales skills. I'd still take that doctor - if good - over the one to whom you're the nose job in OR #3, and to whom a bad outcome is just a data point in the development of his research.

SRS surgeons are no different in some respects from other specialist surgeons. It isn't unusual at all for a surgeon to focus on a limited number of conditions and surgeries.

[bas1985]

regarding economical matters you are probably in a different boat than mine. Here, if you pass the gatekeeping, SRS and hormones are free. It is not free laser or FFS, which are a big chunk of transition, but hormones it's a tax for all life and having it free is not a little "gift" from the state.

I understand than where there is profit more customers mean more profit.

Nevertheless I would also say that TS is so stigmatized that many TS are Ts without knowing, because of self denial. I was one of those, probably, went to different therapists, told my "feelings" of femininity and NO ONE has ever told me "did you ever thought of sex change?". Luckily they did not fill me with meds, either, they only become some expensive friends.

So... there are false positives (sex change regretters) but also false negatives (people in self denial). How do you help both? It seems a bit problematic, because helping the second group, encouraging self discovery, passing the internal transphobia, will raise the number of people who enter the "machine"...
so also people who were not so convinced but, maybe also for weak temperament, are a bit "flipping" in their decisions.

I think that a "solution" is external to the problem, that is if society accepts a more gender-fluid expressions, we can have a RLE without "passing" much more easily.

I understand the OP: "I do not want to be a man in dress. I would like my body to be feminized before".

Her concern are right. Maybe I am a bit gifted genetically and I can 60% pass even without hormones, but not all are so.

But her concerns are right BECAUSE of the society which is so gender binarized. If society, slowly, can accept a "man in transition" or
a "man in discovery", she could go out, also totally un passing, but people could understand that she is a man who tries to discover
if this is a path for her.

Of course... going out means to "come out".

But I suppose that the second is matter of "self-acceptance" and no hormones can change that.

If I know I am a woman I can state this FACT even before electrolysis or counselling... even with a beard and man's muscles.

[PaulaQ]

I think the therapists mean well when they are supportive because I'm sure they don't have any better understanding of transsexualism than we do. How could they? The science is still very new.

I'm sure that most of them have a much worse understanding of transsexualism than we do. They don't experience gender in the same way we do - to them, transsexualism is a complete abstraction, while to us, it's something we struggle with over our lives.

Imagine that all but 0.3% of the world was color blind - they saw in monochrome, and some of us saw in color. A physician who specialized in vision might have an amazing technical knowledge of color - but no true understanding of it. It would be an abstraction to them.


The idea that someone may claim to be TS because of something entirely unrelated is even newer. I cannot even begin to understand why someone who is not TS would pretend to be or even want to be.

This is the part I'm skeptical of.


My feeling is if a bitchy tranny on an internet forum can sway you or confuse you than you are simply NOT ready to transition.

Fundamentally, we disagree on this point too. I've dealt with alcoholics for a long, long time. You know what most of us have in common with alcoholics? DENIAL. So many of us start out trying to avoid this. So I think it is a great disservice to tell someone who is on the brink of accepting a terrible truth about themselves "nah, you are fooling yourself, you're not an alcoholic. Here, drink up!" It seems to me that there is a LOT of this on this forum, and it's my opinion that it's really unhelpful.

[LeaP]

I've dealt with alcoholics for a long, long time. You know what most of us have in common with alcoholics? DENIAL. So many of us start out trying to avoid this. So I think it is a great disservice to tell someone who is on the brink of accepting a terrible truth about themselves "nah, you are fooling yourself, ..."

Sure, denial plays in alcoholism, but addiction itself plays more. (I also have a history here, alcoholism run through and through my family.) I think a more pertinent point is incidence, though. The likelihood of someone with a heavy drinking problem being alcoholic is quite high. The likelihood of anyone being transsexual is exceedingly low. In an online forum? Ridiculously low.

Based on odds alone, more people would be helped by discouraging everyone than actually helping the transsexuals! The situation is exactly the opposite with alcoholism.

Misty,

How do I reconcile the statement you were:


"a seriously unhappy person before. My entire life from the age of 12 had been an endless exercise in proving my manhood. I was the poster child for a dude who was not secure in his masculinity. "

with:


I didn't hate being a guy at all. I didn't hate wearing men's clothes either.

I transitioned for one reason and that's so people would treat me more like the way I felt. I don't know what other problems transition might solve but that's the only one I cared about ... I was not a sobbing basket case before I transitioned. ...

I understand the context is different, but these still seem pretty polarized. I'm not questioning the truth, either, but I am obviously missing something that connects them.


In regard to the encouragement I mentioned earlier, I'm seeing a whole lot of missing the point. Some people mentioned cheer-leading, and nobody here who shares my view (most of the transitioners) has said anything at all about cheer-leading or pushing an agenda.

...


Transition regret is a real thing and the people that regret it are the same people who didn't really know what they were in for when they pulled the pin.

... and I am among those missing something here, too. It would help me if you gave a few examples of inappropriate encouragement - not the egregious cheerleading, which everyone agrees is wrong-headed, but ... Whatever it is (something more subtle?)

[rachael.davis]

I think the best advice I have gotten from my therapist is Take your time, and get to honestly know yourself.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Lots of generalities...lots of assumptions that may or may not be right...

I never met a transsexual that was a cheerleader. Never. I have never heard of a woman (1st/2nd/3rd hand) that felt goaded into transition by a therapist... now of course there are examples that I haven't seen but my sample size is pretty large...this is not a big issue in our lives.

TS regret is better named either CD regret(as many of these people are not ts...and see my next point...what to do about these people if they are in our lives ??)... and the rest are suffering life regret... they regret they lost their $$..their wife gave up on them...their kids didn't come around.. maybe the worst being nobody accepts you as a woman...

all these things are possible, but its not an "issue"... i'll say it again... its a big deal...its brutally difficult and many people are rooting against you...
it might not work out very well for you... that's pretty much the end of the story..deal with it... seriously, what more is there to say?

Also, I believe we have to have the courage to stand up to people that feel its out of bounds to say "i don't think you are on the right path"... I don't think its quite right to say "YOU are NOT TS"... but I think its the morally correct thing to do to say "i don't think you should be planning a transition right now"...

nobody is right all the time.. people get burned but jeepers if you somebody says you are not ts or you shouldn't transition get over it and do what's right for you... It's not personal. If you take it personally, that's on you, not me.

TS regret?? blecchh

[LeaP]

Kathryn, that gender pops up in specific terms in the DSM's history doesn't mean it wasn't pathologized by psychiatry prior to that. In the 1800s it would likely have been viewed as an extreme form of "melancholia" ... and the poor patient (or victim) would have sent to an insane asylum. After the publication of the Statistical Manual for the Use of Institutions for the Insane, perhaps a diagnosis of hysterical neurosis or dementia praecox. Again, institutionalized. The DSM-1 characterized homosexuality as a sociopathic disturbance ... and at that point (1952), transsexuality was not recognized as distinct, as it fell under the generalized concept of psychosexual inversion. Again, institutionalized ... And now ever more frequently "treated" with electroshock and insulin shock "therapy" or lobotomized.

I know you are aware of all of this, so I'm unsure of the point you are making with your DSM-3 comment.

[Kathryn Martin]

Lea,

Just re-read the context in which I reported about the inclusion in the DSM. The interesting things also is (and this is significant) is that it is not being trans whatever that is the pathology but rather "delusional", "schizophrenic" etc. before 86. After 1986 the pathology was significant distress and impairment.

[LeaP]

I'll give it some thought, as I find the point interesting. At first blush, I'm inclined to say the distinction may not be as great as it appears. Early psychiatric thinking was fixated on the idea of "reactions" causing conditions. So while the condition might be described as, say, a neurosis, the etiology was often the very same things now conceptualized into "clinical impairment."

[Starling]

Gender therapists prodding transitioners is a little weird for me too. I know they exist and people talk about them on this very forum...

The gender therapist I finally went to, after years of misery and many months of heightened knowledge and self-awareness achieved through both research and participation in this website, is definitely a facilitator rather than gatekeeper. She accepted quite readily my self-assessment and sent me to an informed-consent gender clinic, which in turn put me on HRT and the transition track. In retrospect, I might have benefitted from working with a more challenging therapist, if only to temper my urgency with greater preparation and medical intervention.

My brief experience with HRT was overwhelmingly positive on an emotional level; but I was so determined to make up for lost time that I got ahead of myself, in terms of both my relationships and my health; and the result was an abruptly aborted transition, and an humiliating retreat from what I knew to be true about myself. I'm still as sure as the day I lovingly applied my first estradiol patch that I would be happier living as a woman.

So mark me down as a non-transition-regretter. I don't know if I'll ever recover the optimism and joy I felt before my crash, or forget the awful letdown that accompanied it. I make it from day to day now, but I live without true hope or joy.

Perhaps this is how I must feel, in order once more to be willing to risk everything, including my life--which I feel slipping away, regardless.

:) Lallie

PS: I won't bump myself off, as I'm too "responsible" for that.

[Badtranny]

Misty,

How do I reconcile...

I don't see the problem. I was an unhappy dude, but I wasn't unhappy AS a dude. Or at least I didn't think so. The important part of that quote is referencing the clothes I was wearing. I never had an issue with my clothes or presenting as a man, and I never hated my penis either. My dangling bits NEVER defined me, so that wasn't my issue. I've been pretty open about my dysphoria peaking before puberty and then after that, I spent many years trying to prove I was a man. As it turned out, my genitals weren't the issue, it was how I looked and how people treated me that was the real issue. The big 'reveal' didn't happen until I started doing the work. I thought I was gay, so I came out as gay. It wasn't long before I realized I had some much deeper issues. This is what I refer to as the "hard work" of transition. It's the self discovery and then the honesty with yourself followed by honesty with the world. It is extremely difficult to admit that "they" were right all along. All the bullies that called me a bitch and a fag would really get a laugh if they found out that I was transitioning right? These are the guys that taught me to fight every time I heard the word sissy. I would rather take a beating than let them think I was weak, and now here I am changing my name to Melissa and getting boobs installed.

I did not want to be this way. My life was a sham because I fought it for so long but at the end of the day, I am what I am, and my transition is not in danger because I know I did everything I could to avoid it. When I came to the 'decision', I didn't come in fear or hysterics, I came with resolve and courage. By the time I came out I honestly didn't give a shit about what anybody thought. Nobody here and nobody out there. I swear to you that if you are even the least bit swayed by anyone here, then you will never be able to come out at work much less transition in real time. Dealing with the likes of me ain't shit compared to dealing with the real world if you've been acting like a macho jerk for 30+ years.

I'm a construction manager with a nearly 20 year career. I'm still working and still kicking ass AFTER transition. Life is never easy for a tranny, but if you can't deal with the bitches on this forum than you would never make it in my world.

[Michelle789]

I'm really sick and tired of all the negativity and doom and gloom. Yes there is such thing as engaging in fantasy. There is also such thing as engaging in worst case scenarios, doom and gloom prophecies. If we pre-occupy ourselves with doom and gloom we will always be miserable. Can we seriously stop all the doom and gloom talk?

I feel like our motives for transition end up in a catch 22.

If you hate being a man and transition, then you're just a failure as a man.
If you don't hate being a man and would feel happier as a woman, then you're just a cross-dresser engaging in fantasy.

Where's the happy medium? Is there one? Is there even such a thing as a valid reason to transition? Am I supposed to hate being a man and not hate being a man at the same time? Am I supposed to feel neutral about being a man and neither like nor hate it? This is all nonsense. I think it's time we start trusting our own intuitions. This is what my therapist is trying to help me to do, and it's paid off. Hint: I had dreams or premonitions of each of the past several earthquakes we've had recently. We had two big ones, and several smaller ones. I've had some sort of premonition of each one so far.

There are two sides to every coin. There is so much misinformation and contradictory information out there. It gets confusion when I read two ideas that contradict each other. It makes it difficult to tell which one is the truth. For me, the truth is I knew when I was 5 - my intuition told me at age 5 that I am a girl, and I've tried fighting it all my life, and am still fighting it, and am finding that I feel way better when I am dressed as a female.

My intuition sensed several earthquakes recently before they all happened. Gees, should I dare make a bold prediction about an upcoming earthquake that I seriously hope does not come true?

Edit:
Here's why I really don't think many people who shouldn't transition would actually transition.
1. Gatekeeping
2. It's expensive
3. Most of us doubt ourselves to begin with
4. Nobody really wants to be TS
5. Most of us try to bargain for either being a cross-dresser, a failure as a man, or a gay man, or even to be a non-CDing straight alpha male
6. There are far more people who regret NOT transitioning than those who regret transitioning, probably by a factor of 1000
7. There are far more people who commit suicide rather than those who regret transition, probably by a factor of 1000
8. There are far more people who regret NOT transitioning EARLIER than those who regret transitioning, probably by a factor of 1000
9. Charles Kane was a rich guy who BRIBED the doctors to let HIM transition
10. A legit site about sex change regrets suggested that two of the fetishists could have still had successful transitions if they focused on social transition and FFS instead of SRS
11. Christian fundamentalists have an agenda against trans people
12. There is a FAR better chance of an earthquake happening than someone regretting transition

[gonegirl]

Regarding gloom and doom:

Some of it is just that - angry people justifying the weight of their world in a zero-risk arena by going off on rants about how horrible the world has treated them because they are TS. Conversely, some of it is simply unadorned advice freely offered by people who have perspective and clarity from having transitioned well or are actively transitioning as well as they can, and who have learned (not fought against) their experiences in the very unforgiving, real world. If anyone is in this TS forum looking for information to help understand yourself, then ignore the former and listen very closely to the latter. Being TS is a bitch, but it's not nearly as bad as fooling oneself that you are TS and that transitioning will fix you. It won't. If you realize that you are in fact not a woman after proclaiming to everyone that you are it will almost certainly destroy what's left of your tattered social reputation and brand you as a nutcase (which is actually worse than being TS!). Take small steps, but make them meaningful and if you arrive at the point where you must make a leap of faith, then make it from a position of being as informed as you possibly can be, from reputable sources.

There's something else, that I suspect many others feel also - It's very tiring reading reams of nonsense from people who put forth their opinions of what it means to be TS and/or what they know about transitioning as truth and fact, when they have not taken active steps to become authentic with themselves and the outside world. Living in one's head, hypothesizing and espousing theories of being a woman, and not truly exploring what it feels like to actually live as yourself in this world will keep you in a never-ending cycle of questioning, doubt, and suffering.

If you are in this place, as almost all transitioned women here have been themselves for a period of time (where do you think this experience comes from :^), then please question away to your heart's content, but FFS listen to the replies from those who know! Be prepared for advice that you might not like very much, but it's likely that advice will enable you to help you help yourself the most.

[Starling]

My life was a sham because I fought it for so long but at the end of the day, I am what I am...

I don't think any way of getting along in life can be called a sham if it represents your best efforts to thrive, despite your conflicts. Even if you are less than forthcoming about the emotional turmoil within, as long as you honor your values and are capable of being a true friend and a sensitive lover, your life has a core of truth and cannot be dismissed as fake.

That it does not fulfill your own highest desires for yourself does not, I believe, mean your life is counterfeit or worthless, especially to those you have touched.

:) Lallie

[Rogina B]

I'm a construction manager with a nearly 20 year career. I'm still working and still kicking ass AFTER transition. Life is never easy for a tranny, but if you can't deal with the bitches on this forum than you would never make it in my world.
Once the "mean girl" has kicked the "boys" around,and got them "directed"...At least they have something to talk about in the trucks on the way to the jobsites! Love it!

[LeaP]

I don't think any way of getting along in life can be called a sham ...
That it does not fulfill your own highest desires for yourself does not, I believe, mean your life is counterfeit or worthless, especially to those you have touched.


Lallie, this is so much more than that. Misty used the word – hollow – that expresses it very well. This has nothing (or should have nothing) to do with aspirations. There are many ways of expressing this narrow, restricted way of living within yourself. One is the cliché about being trapped in a man's body. Another is imprisonment. Another is hollowness. Yet another a false persona or shell. All of them describe a fundamental, culturally reinforced inability to live openly in the real world. It gradually kills the spirit to the point where, when you die inside, you either give up or choose to literally stop living.


... Can we seriously stop all the doom and gloom talk?

...
Here's why I really don't think many people who shouldn't transition would actually transition. ...



There's another point with the gloom and doom talk, as you put it. And there is a nuance to your comment about transitioning that many miss.

The "negativity" to which you are reacting is something I prefer to call reality. From my perspective, it's needed, consistently. I struggle with keeping myself there. So it plays a role for the TS members like me.

On the flipside, the portrayal of the realities of transition serves the purpose of discouraging the non-transsexuals who flock here. (Please don't confuse those at issue here with the non-TS members who are here constructively.) I understand your comment about the natural barriers to transition and agree, certainly enough for the point. Still, the starkness of some of this discussion is needed to cut through the level of noise, confused advice, and irrelevance that the non-TS introduce to many substantive transition discussions. This is a transsexual forum. Uninformed opinions and opinions about things that have not been experienced are almost always unhelpful. I am transsexual yet I tend to speak strongly only on things that I've experienced thus far. I try to limit my contributions on topics further down the path to more academic commentary.

Sidenote: I was chatting with my wife about regrets the other day. She made an comment along similar lines to yours above – that the regrets rate is low because those who do regret kill themselves! It's an interesting perspective. I've never seen any commentary about it specifically in the terms of SRS regrets. I'd like to see some statistics, including trending on post-SRS suicide incidence versus SRS incidence. Perspective on suicide timing versus SRS would be interesting also.

[arbon]

6. There are far more people who regret NOT transitioning than those who regret transitioning, probably by a factor of 1000
7. There are far more people who commit suicide rather than those who regret transition, probably by a factor of 1000

Thats the part that scares me more then people regretting transition - people getting stuck and unable to move forward, people killing themselves. Because I was in that spot and it was messed up. Seeing people who were successful in transition helped a lot gave me some hope that I could to.

[Marleena]

Arbon I'm feeling in that stuck place right now and getting depressed again. We're losing our home of twenty years and moving into a townhouse complex this week,*sigh*. Right now my priority is keeping a roof over my head. I too am far more concerned about people struggling to transition and all of the obstacles in their path.

The regretter in the OP made his own mess and should not be blaming the community or gatekeepers for his own mistakes. He should not be making it difficult for others and even profiting from it. He had choices and messed up with only himself to blame.

[whowhatwhen]

I dunno, lots of talk about regret and maybe only one or two people in this thread personally knows someone who regrets transition.
Otherwise it sounds like RLE works as intended and those who don't need to go any further stop where they are comfortable.

Beyond that it's just arguing stuff back and forth.

[Frances]

Regret does not always lead to detransition. I have seen quite a lot of regret over the years on this forum. Some have detransitioned, some are plugging along for now. I also have a few Facebook acquaintances who detransitioned after years of RLE. It happens, but threads, posts and profiles get erased, along with memories.

[LeaP]

You know what's hilarious about this forum? There isn't a single person here that ...

There's a simple reason for that, and that is there are very few with regrets, period.

Those who are CDs aren't likely to be here in the transsexual forum in sackcloth and ashes. If they are vocal about it at all, they are more likely to be positioning themselves as anti-SRS activists, hoping to save all the poor trannies from their delusions and sway the medical profession back to its proper ethics.

Why you would find anything related to this funny, truly funny, ironic, or otherwise, is completely beyond me.

[Frances]

FtM dissappear and rarely face the scorn and ridicule reserved for trans women. Not all of them get bottom surgery as it's not required in most jurisdictions for a legal sex change. Their transition is visibly easier and the changes are not reversible for the most part. Going back is not a real option and there is no social pressure to do so. After all, they picked the socialy respected and powerful gender.

Do you know any FtMs, whowhatwhen?

[whowhatwhen]

Sorry, I deleted the post because I didn't want to go down that road.
Yeah, I've met a few trans guys IRL and they were just like any other guy I've met.

I just thought it was interesting that we have all these "real trans" discussions here and it's only about MtFs.

[Kathryn Martin]

Given the fact that this is an open forum and anyone can post maybe it is because trans guys don't find us all that interesting?

[Starling]

Kathryn, perhaps after what they have gone through they just can't imagine why anyone would want to choose to live as a female. Despite knowing that the sword cuts both ways, I have trouble appreciating FTM for the same reason.

:) Lallie


...Misty used the word – hollow – that expresses it very well. This has nothing (or should have nothing) to do with aspirations. There are many ways of expressing this narrow, restricted way of living within yourself. One is the cliché about being trapped in a man's body. Another is imprisonment. Another is hollowness. Yet another a false persona or shell. All of them describe a fundamental, culturally reinforced inability to live openly in the real world. It gradually kills the spirit to the point where, when you die inside, you either give up or choose to literally stop living.

I'm conversant with all those feelings, LeaP, believe me. I guess I was not so much discussing goals and aspirations, but defending the honesty of our relations with other people. The human being we laid before them was not a sham, but a brave survivor of a great hurt. When I write it, it seems grandiose, but after all, we bear a burden that few others do, or would ever want to.

:) Lallie

[Kate T]

LeaP and Frances: Regarding post transition suicide rates etc. The swedish study Foxglove gave a link to had some information on this including survival graphs. It may have some of the info you want. It was one of the Pubmed links and is open text (i.e. the entire paper, not just an abstract is available free of charge). The same study Frances reported significantly higher incidence of crime rates as well as suicides in FTM vs controls. Hardly the characteristics of a group that easily transitions. The broad generalities of your statement I think are a smidgen belittling of the struggles that our friends in the FTM community also face though I don't think that was your intention. Maybe FTM are just better at dealing with discrimination than us MTF because they have been fighting discrimination their whole lives :)

[Frances]

Adina, I don't remember mentioning suicide or studies. Are you responding to the right person?

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I think Frances you used the term "visibly easier"... I took that to mean its easier to look like a man. It's easier to pass, blend, be accepted ...whatever you want to call it..
+++++

So after all this, here is my question...

If you are considering transition, is fear of regret something that is holding you back??

Transition is very difficult in many ways, and people around you often pressure you to show them the goods and they quietly disbelieve you and wait for you to fail...a good appearance and integration is often far away at the start.. you will be clocked.....is this something holding you back??

Can outside pressures cause you to feel regret, and more importantly will this "regret" cause you make compromises, doubt yourself as a woman (its very different to doubt yourself as a woman than doubt your transition)?

If you are very concerned with these fears, you could consider waiting it out.

To me the biggest fear you should have is not transitioning well. Starting too early, not being emotionally stable and prepared for the slog, not being really honest with SO's about what you are really doing (to me this is mistake #1..trying to manipulate the info to get the SO on board) or not being prepared for the reality the SO faces when you are truly living as a female...also not properly planning to achieve realistic goals around your job, your appearance, your social life..etc...

If you start this process with fear of failure being a big part of your life, you have a bigger chance to fail.. you have a good chance to make compromises that speak to your fear instead of your goal... what a shame for any woman that tries to live her best life and fails because she focused on ways to fail

I will answer for myself... I certainly feared these things... but my desperation trumped them...fear and doubt relating to regret and loss were eliminated by fear of dying as a man..and that was that.. once I started I had literally zero doubt

Unfortunately if you parse all this out, there is a conclusion you can infer that the only way to eliminate doubt is to make the leap...that's how it worked out for me..
one fear over another.... some are more confident in their inner dialogue...that's a great place to be prior to transition...this issue won't touch them... if you are reading this far however, that's probably not you!!!

the best response I can give to that is that this is why its so important to do the hard work and allow yourself to admit you are female...that why you need a therapist that gets it... perhaps, like me, you just have to wait until the desperation kicks in.

and this is why its so important to plan out and execute your plan as best you can... that's because IF you are a woman, the way transition fails has nothing to do with "fear of regret" and everything to do with events and circumstances around your transition

In other words, get the idea of fear of regret out of your head...its WORTHLESS to you...its fear of fear..

think of the nuts and bolts... the specifics of what you need to do and how to do it..
fear of regret is fear of the boogeyman... the up and down, boots on the ground, mundane day to day reality of transition is what you need to consider.

[Starling]

...get the idea of fear of regret out of your head...its WORTHLESS to you...its fear of fear..


Wow. Just wow.

:) Lallie

[Kathryn Martin]

Kaitelyn,

truer words could not have been said. When I transitioned I had reached a point where I had made peace with myself and that opened the door to transition. No qualms about who I was, all fear gone, couldn't have given a hoot about what people would think and incredibly focused on doing what needed to be done. No waiting around, no longer any questions or doubts. From that point to social and professional transition was pure execution and it took all of nine months. One year later surgery, I have not looked back.

[Jonianne]

Melissa, I liked what you said about not encouraging someone in transition, but being supportive. Kaitlyn, "getting the fear of regret out of your head" is important too. I will always have regrets about whatever I do when it hurts someone else. A good quote about that Iv'e heard is, "yes, there have been regrets, but NO doubts".

What seems interesting to me, in a TS support group I go to, there are a lot of those who are gender varient, especially young people and have no interest in SRS. In a way I think that is good, because people are being more comfortable with not feeling under pressure with either gatekeeping or being pushed to SRS. People that feel somewhat feminine or are searching are feeling more and more comfortable to go only as far as they really are inside. I think this attitude is helpful in limiting the number of those who may make a serious mistake in having SRS. They have an option of not going that far if it is not for them. What do you think?

Refering to the OP, I have had indrect dealings with another religious detransitioner, Jerry Leach, who really made my blood boil.

[Pink Person]

Some transitions are harder than others. The transition from work to play always seems easier than the opposite one for example. Perhaps your transition through salad to sweets at mealtime is a rough ride. Bear with it soldier!

I suppose it's possible to regret stepping out the door as much as walking across the desert but in most cases the trips would be very different and affect you differently.

Feminine people (hello audience) who have to walk across a desert to abide and become comfortable with their gender status might develop some regrets in the process. Feminine people who only have to take small steps outside of their normal shelters to find peace with themselves tend to suffer fewer pains.

Caution is a virtue. If your transition from one version of you to another version involves a desert march then try searching for yourself closer to home first to avoid getting burned in the process.

In other words, if the new you doesn't hit close to home with the old you then you should stop and ask for directions.

[gonegirl]

Pink Person - Your metaphors are eloquent, however, I don't understand what you are saying. Could you please explain your meaning, preferably in reference to your own experience transitioning?

[kerrianna]

So why do a dozen or so bitches on this board get all 'gate keepy' when a new girl starts yammering about transition? Because we care. Because we know what's coming. We have no way of knowing what's in your heart so when we say "think twice" we're just trying to stem the tide of blind support that we know exists in the greater trans community. I will support any person that transitions, but at the same time I will discourage anyone that is "thinking" about it. My feeling is if a bitchy tranny on an internet forum can sway you or confuse you than you are simply NOT ready to transition. If you think I'm a bitch, than you need to know that LIFE is a real bitch when you are coming out. Especially at work.

Transition regret is a real thing and the people that regret it are the same people who didn't really know what they were in for when they pulled the pin.

I think it's patronizing and unnecessary to discourage people.
People come on here and process, prod, explore, try to find answers and probe their feelings. When they put it out there they are thinking about this or that, someone else telling them what to do isn't necessarily going to be helpful. So then what is your motivation?

You don't know their whole lives, their own truths. Heck many of us have a hard time finding out what is true to us. It's a PERSONAL journey and process. To dissuade someone is controlling and futile IMO.

Now, to share your experience, to answer someone who asks SPECIFICALLY for advice, and to remind people that this is not to be taken lightly... that can be useful.

If that's what you are referring to as discourage then my apologies. But if you are suggesting that you want to "fix" someone, save them from themselves, then I just find that incredibly hard to justify. We don't own experience.

Telling someone who is in turmoil that they are wrong or mistaken is not all that helpful. It creates defensiveness and shuts people down. TALKING about things, openly and WITHOUT judgment, helps people.

So what is your motivation really? Why do you think you know better than someone else, when you aren't even them? Like I said, it's one thing to share experience and thoughts, it's another to make a judgment about another person and then treat them based on that judgment, and it's patronizing to cloak it under the guise of "for your own good."

It's stuff like that that raises the "gatekeeper" terminology. I just find it so unhelpful and misguided.

And I want to say this further about regret. I have NO experience of it. Not in myself or any of the many many trans people I know who have transitioned, many of them, trans women and men both, have had full medical changes.

I think maybe regret happens with people who are likely to just make poor decisions for themselves no matter what the issue is. That's why one thing I am very vocal about to people considering any kind of HUGE and challenging life change like this is to get into counseling and stick with it and BE HONEST with yourself and the people supporting you.

And get someone who you can work with. Hopefully someone with gender identity experience but if not with the ability to properly assess and handle difficult life issues.

Many of us carry multiple issues with us. Some of mine came from family stuff. Some of it came directly from being mis gendered at birth. By the time I was needing to truly and finally deal with all this stuff it was wrapped up in a big ol' ball of confusion.

Maybe that's why I tend to have a lot of compassion and patience for questioning people here. I know what multiple issues and a complicated life can do to clarity of being. I know it is a journey to get to a place where you begin to understand, accept and work on your own self.

My therapist, who is one of the pre-eminent gender ID therapists in Canada, told me well after a very successful and happy transition that when she first met me she considered me a poor candidate for transition. Unlike some people, because she is a trained professional, she allowed me to explore and work with her as we tried TOGETHER to figure out what was up with me, and what it was I truly needed to be ok.

It was a very messy, organic process. I encourage anyone to get their hands messy doing this, with consideration that when you unravel life hurts and secrets and weird stuff, you will upset your apple cart and those of the people around you. So work with THEM too. Go as slow as you need.

I recall my therapist telling me one day when I told her I just wasn't a person who can do like a 5 year plan or something to transition, it's just not how I work or am, that she found that kind of methodical planning a bit unnerving herself. But it is how some people are and work.

I just think it's important to respect our different ways of being. If needing all your ducks lined up in a row works for you great. Just don't expect everyone else to do it that way. If being wild and organic and rolling with the flow works for you great. Just understand that some people need more structure. Whatever works for each one of us.

If people have regrets I suspect they have regrets because they never truly were honest with themselves or weren't willing to tackle the other baggage they may be carrying.

In my case I had to untangle a bunch of related but separate threads - addictions, low self esteem, fears and worries, childhood abuse, PTSD, lack of life skills. It would have been easy for my therapist to dismiss my gender identity concerns as being another way of running - heck I even had to consider that myself.

But I processed like crazy. I journalled. I talked to people. I researched. I listened. I imagined but then had to learn not to let imagination lead me astray.

At the end of the day, I suspect that regret is rare and is mainly being used to oppress us by the religious right and other transphobes.

I think it is unfortunate if we use it as a stick to oppress others who are just trying to sort things out. I know this forum is wild. It's a CD forum with many allures for people. But this forum has also helped some of us figure stuff out and I really believe if you could line up all the people who were helped and found their way to their authentic selves, however that ends up being expressed, versus the people who were misled and got bad advice and hurt themselves... I think that again, the regret side is very very small.

At the end of the day all of us need to be responsible for our own lives. If someone goes online and reads about how living in a grizzly cave will turn them into a grizzly and is sure they want to be a grizzly and goes and tries it.... well they have more problems than wanting to be a grizzly.

Sharing experience, sharing knowledge, answering questions, I think these are all great, DONE GRACEFULLY and with compassion.

The reason I stay away from this forum is because too many people seem to be wanting to be territorial.

Just... be gentle, loving and kind, folks. We all have enough misunderstanding and oppression from the greater world.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Lots of Pollyanna in what you are trying to say.. I understand your point of view, but I don't fully buy in ... I'm totally with Melissa...


We have a veil of anonymity and deceit here...its like a cop showing up at a brawl... if only they knew the "truth" going in the situation it would be so much easier!!!!
This makes it a harder place than anybody would like, but it is what it is.

People that give advice to try to avoid transition are not being territorial... they are not "using it as a stick to oppress others " what on earth does that even mean?? who is being oppressed..

I think giving somebody a kick in the a$$ is often the most compassionate thing you can do for a person..

Frankly the least graceful and compassionate people here are the ones that demand our experience, demand our advice and then punish us for giving it..


Trust me , I get it... put some sugar coating on everything and it will be a little better...but its still medicine that has to go down, and pretending its not doesn't help anybody.

[dreamer_2.0]

Thanks for your comments, Kerrianna. They were nice to read and I appreciate your less hostile approach.

[LeaP]

Frankly the least graceful and compassionate people here are the ones that demand our experience, demand our advice and then punish us for giving it...

A nice summary.

So, who is hostile - the person that tells you how to transit the minefield, or the one who tells you that all paths are good and encourages you to experiment?

[kerrianna]

Ok Kaitlyn, you bring your energy to the table and I'll bring mine. I'm quite happy being "Pollyanna". It's not a place that I arrived at by merely clicking my red shoes together. I'm just not a kick your ass kind of girl, maybe because I've had mine kicked way too much in my life and am personally aware of how unhelpful it was, even how damaging. It didn't work with me. When someone would "kick my ass" I would just find my way around them if I was set on my ways and that would drive me underground and that's where it becomes truly more dangerous. I'd rather encourage people to stay in the light and find the patience and compassion to help them that way. Maybe the other way works better for some people? I dunno. I just know it doesn't work for me, and I suspect it doesn't work for lots of people, so I thought I'd add my own energy to the mix for balance.
I do understand what you are saying too, and a lack of grace from people accessing your own experience is wrong and dismissing. I know some of the misdirection that happens here. I think maybe it's not that we differ so much in how we think about these things, but in the way we approach it.

[DebbieL]

Therapists and doctors try really hard to screen those who want to transition. There may be a few cross-dressers who slip through the screen because they have memorized the right answers, and there are some "do-it-yourself-ers" who self-medicate and slide under the radar because they have already gone too far to go back. However, therapists try to make sure that we can actually live a happy and comfortable life in our chosen gender before approving the hormones and procedures for transition.

There are brief moments in anyone's life where we think "I'm I crazy" or "is this real?". There are times when things don't go well that we can start to freak out a bit.

Most of us, especially those of us who are type 6, KNOW that this is the ONLY option.

The "regrets" website probably doesn't list the statistics of those who are transgendered and attempt suicide? Of the RESPONDENTS, over half have tried multiple times. Imagine how many have actually succeeded in killing themselves who couldn't respond. Some estimate that the suicide rate among non-transition transgender MtFs could be as high as 25%, meaning that around 75% of us have tried suicide at least once. Not just thought about it, or planned it, but actually attempted.

The same survey shows that about 95% of those who DO transition are happier, healthier, more successful, more productive, and more satisfied with their lives.

Sure, we need to look at the 5% who were not successful and try to understand why they regret it.
Are there factors that should be incorporated into the screening process that we haven't considered?
Are there issues that need to be addressed during the therapy phase that we haven't considered yet?
Maybe one of the issues is that some transsexuals still have strong religious beliefs and struggle with not being accepted as their chosen gender by the Fundamentalist Christian community.

[LeaP]

... I'm quite happy being "Pollyanna". ...

Rather than furthering my contribution to the never-ending conversation about "bitches getting all gate keepey"*, despite my inclination to tackle theoretical topics with limited practical forum value, I'll simply ask a question:

Kerianna, do you have any specific advice for the OP?



* (Team challenge goal: A new phrase every time the topic comes up in a new thread. You go, girls!)

[kerrianna]

Rather than furthering my contribution to the never-ending conversation about "bitches getting all gate keepey"*, despite my inclination to tackle theoretical topics with limited practical forum value, I'll simply ask a question:

Kerianna, do you have any specific advice for the OP?



* (Team challenge goal: A new phrase every time the topic comes up in a new thread. You go, girls!)

In regards to this thread, the OP never asked for advice. I haven't got the time nor energy to read all her responses on this thread, but I have read most of them now I think, and I'm still not seeing her ask for advice. She initially asked us what we thought of the regret concept and that site.

From what I can tell from her posts I'd say she's intelligent, thoughtful, and reasonable and as long as she has support and guidance, especially professional and medical guidance if she choses that path, then I think she's going to be fine. But that's said not really knowing her or her reality, just from a sense I get from what she has said here.

As for the concept of "trying HRT" that is exactly what I did and it worked for me. It is true my route is not conventionally traveled as far as I can tell in the community. I did do things kind of in a different way, but different is part of my landscape and acceptance of my own way of dealing and being was a huge part of me making the changes I needed to make.

I was stuck on doing this the "right way". Maybe that's what sticks in my craw a bit when I see people lecturing others on the process. Yeah, there is a lot to be learned from doing things the way others have or recommend. For instance, not finishing electrolysis before transition makes it harder now. But I live with it. It was a personal decision to weigh given my own feelings and my own sense of place in the world. Had I been in my 20's and looking forward to a life of loving ahead of me, that would have been more important.

But that was a personal decision made at the time, weighing everything else. To tell me that I was wrong or made an error or should have or any other blaming shaming tool is not helpful nor useful to me. I'm the one who lives with the stigma of facial hair issues as female. It's entirely my choice and I was well aware of how awkward it would make me feel at times.

As opposed to, say, GRS. That WAS important to me, but again, at one time I THOUGHT it wasn't. Mainly because I didn't see myself being ABLE to do it. It just seemed out of reach and I was scared. Once I confronted fear, once I looked at the other issues colouring my feelings about it and acknowledged their impact I could look clearly at what I REALLY needed and it was actually a very simple and direct decision, and one that I have NO regrets. In fact, I wonder how I ever managed the other way. It's such a foreign concept to me now and I'm amazed how quickly those old feelings went away.

Now, having said that, this is MY experience I am sharing here. I think most people need to remember that, and perhaps that is what "realists" are trying to say in their own way. Just because A was happy following a path, doesn't mean B will. You have to make up your OWN mind and take everything with a grain of salt and process it into your own reality.

I think the OP shows she is capable of doing that.

The language she uses can raise red flags for us, because we articulate and understand this maybe differently? But two things about that, based on my own experience.

One is that this is a journey and we change as we journey. We adapt and we learn and we leave what doesn't work, embrace what does.

I would disown many of my old posts here. Red flags all over I am sure. Yet here I am, absolutely sure that what I did for myself was necessary and proper.

And then there's the concept of a greater sense of being. We tend to focus intensely on gender because it has been such a huge source of dissonance in our lives. We tend to have absorbed both cultural teachings about gender and our own physical experiences in the bodies we have.

While there is a lot to be said for focusing on such, and I don't regret that I did so for a period of time in moving forward, we are beings beyond gender. And sometimes when we encounter people who are including other aspects of self into their transition it seems confusing to us and not clear. Again it comes off as a red flag because we may not understand how someone could move so laterally through a transition landscape when to us we had to move forward.

I guess what I am saying is, not everyone is going to follow the program but it doesn't mean they are wrong or will have regrets.

To go back to "trying HRT"... well it would be patronizing I think to suggest dreamer doesn't understand the physical risks and consequences of HRT, and that her professionals wouldn't understand that in helping her. When I first tried it, it was using the anti-androgen as a T blocker first to see whether that made me freak out (which some of my cd friends said it did when they tried it) or if it brought me peace. It brought me peace and after awhile on it I realized I needed to step forward try E. I started at a really low dose and that made me feel even better.

So in a way HRT, administered properly and with supervision and guidance, can help people discover if that is a right path for them. It is used as a diagnositic tool under the right situation - it was with me and it worked.

I really think in the end we have to trust the professionals that work with people. So my advice will always be, get yourself proper care. Be honest. Deal with ALL your issues and don't be in a hurry to get it all done and don't feel you need to do things just the right way. And do listen to those who have traveled these roads. Take the best and what will work for you.

Travel with eyes, ears and minds wide open.

[Kathryn Martin]

I think it's patronizing and unnecessary to discourage people.
People come on here and process, prod, explore, try to find answers and probe their feelings. When they put it out there they are thinking about this or that, someone else telling them what to do isn't necessarily going to be helpful. So then what is your motivation?

Discouraging people from turning a fantasy into a distopian reality is anything but patronizing and in fact quite necessary. That is what all the gate keeping is about. Encouraging people to "explore" gender with a view to transition when in fact they have never until their 40s or 50s had a thought that they could be anything other than a man is downright cruel. Transitioning driven by fantasy is a real problem. But I don't think you would disagree......

[kerrianna]

Discouraging people from turning a fantasy into a distopian reality is anything but patronizing and in fact quite necessary. That is what all the gate keeping is about. Encouraging people to "explore" gender with a view to transition when in fact they have never until their 40s or 50s had a thought that they could be anything other than a man is downright cruel. Transitioning driven by fantasy is a real problem. But I don't think you would disagree......

Well Kathryn, I've only met one person IRL who I ever thought that maybe they slipped through the cracks so to speak. When I left that day, the day after you did (you know who I am referring to) I noticed she was different though. She seemed to have turned a corner and I felt maybe I had misjudged her.

I guess that's what I am trying to say. Judging from within the confines of a forum like this is not necessarily going to be accurate. We only know people from what they tell us. For any of us to think we know better about someone is rather ego-centric IMO.

I keep hearing the argument from some people that allowing people to transition before they are ready or when it is not suitable for them will damage the medical, legal, etc gains we have made and possibly threaten future avenues for people who really need the help. That's why there is concern in the community about "regret" - that every person who ****s it up will be used against the rest of us. But I think that's a worry that has long been passed by the real medical and therapeutic community, and by many segments of society.

Yeah, I cringe when someone comes out as trans and is obviously in the wrong place for them and I think about how it gives others the wrong idea about my own reality. I fight that all the time. But the thing is... DEPSITE those people who may be an awkward face of being trans (I'm being kind here lol) I think we have made a lot of headway into understanding and gaining better access, as much work as still needs to be done.

We can only offer our own experience and advice with the understanding that we are not the actual caregivers of the people who are questioning online here.

I should add that my own experience doesn't inform an aspect I haven't considered much. I've had most of my medical transition paid for by insurers and thus have had to go through a system that would catch out most people (one hopes) who are on the wrong track. If you have the money to harm yourself by thinking that life might be more fun as a woman when it's not a path for you, you may not have those people watching out for you. Instead they take the money and leave you with the results for better or worse.

I know that some of the "gatekeeping" is actually political. It's to protect the system for the people who really NEED it. The truth is there may be people, even here on this forum (esp here lol) who could transition and be happy in their new life and not have really had the same kind of need. I'm not entirely convinced that it's need or lack of need (whatever scale is used to measure that) that contributes to regret or not. I suspect regret may come more from a greater sense or lack of sense of self.

I'm not sure if I am explaining this well. It's like, maybe I need to go to the gym to strengthen my leg which is missing half the calf muscle now. I NEED to do that to carry on with my work. Another person could go to the gym because they WANT to get their leg strong because they believe it will help them be happy. At the end of the day, other issues in my life may sabatoge my ability to heal my leg and I may end up being miserable - maybe I hurt my other leg and am miserable. While the person who didn't have as much to lose is still happy. To the outside world it's the other person who would appear as being successful and happy for going to the gym, while I would be the failure.

Not sure if that was a good or apt analogy. I'm just kind of thinking aloud here.

I know fantasy has to crash with reality at some point, but I'm not sure if it's always our job to make those decisions for others. I think there is a graceful and more subtle way of helping people make informed and sensible decisions and I do think most people here are good at that, most of the time.

[Michelle789]

Kerrianna, thank you for your clarity on this issue, and on the fantasy vs reality issue. I like to believe the way to deal with whether or not to transition, and life in general, is to think realistically, or cautiously optimistic. Engaging in a fantasy most certainly can lead to disappointment, but so can focusing too much on harsh reality. Focusing too much on the negatives only causes you and everyone else around you to feel like crap. Let's try to think positive, uplifting thoughts, like gratitude and joy. I know this may sound hard with something that drives many of us to suicide (gender dysphoria), and the most difficult undertaking anyone can possibly do (transition), but we can still try to keep a positive attitude.

Here's an example. I live in California, which is earthquake country. From time to time we get moderate earthquakes which do no real damage, just scare us for a few moments while the ground shakes under us. And maybe once or twice in a lifetime, we get a really destructive quake. It's also very expensive to live out here. California has lots of benefits too. We have great weather. We're one of the most trans friendly states. There's lots of tech jobs out here. We have amazing AA out here. We have lots of culture, plenty to do for fun, and great beaches and scenery and mountains.

Now if you're living on the east coast or the midwest and are considering taking a job in California.

-The "doom and gloom" people will tell you "don't take the job, because you'll blow all your money on rent and end up dying in an earthquake."

-The fantasy people will tell you "c'mon girl, take the job, you'll spend all your time partying on the beach."

-The realistic or cautiously optimistic people will tell you to weigh the pros and cons and decide if it's really worth taking the job out here. You'll have your ups and downs. Be prepared for an earthquake, be aware that earthquakes do happen, but don't dwell on it and try to enjoy life one day at a time. You'll need to be prepared to spend a lot on rent but you can still find good deals, and there is plenty to do out here for fun as well, not to mention we have good trans protection laws out here too.

Paula, you are absolutely right about your alcoholism analogy. Telling a MTF transsexual to "man up" is like telling an alcoholic to "drink up". If an alcoholic drinks up, you'll be sure to die an alcoholic death. If an MTF transsexual mans up, you will surely die a miserable death too. Both untreated alcoholics and transsexuals do commit suicide.

If we're not willing to let people who come on this forum and question their gender, and explore it and try living it part time, how in the hell can we ever figure out who our authentic self it. Even though most of us knew something at a young age about our gender, we repressed it due to societal pressure and spent decades confused about what gender we really are. It is really damaging to tell someone who really needs to transition to not consider it, or to not explore it.

Debbie, you're right about the religious doctrine being a factor in transition failures. Some of us have been so brainwashed by fundamentalist religion that it can be hard to see the light sometimes.

One last thing, thank you Kerrianna again, because the OP didn't want any advice. All she asked for was opinions on the sex change regret site, to analyze it critically and see if it's legit or just some propaganda by some religious nuts with an agenda.