QT: Do you regret any part of your medical transition?

submitted by worried19 from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It sounds like that isn't a question you revisit much, if at all ('was it worth it, or did I make things worse?'). That isn't so much something I really ever ask myself, but I'm more bitter about things not having to have been this way and the gold standard solutions to severe gender dysphoria be limited to surgeries, especially irreversible ones.

It seems like there's a cure and even ways to prevent gender dysphoria or transsexualism from ever happening to begin with, and they seem more tangible the more being trans seems less inherent or in-born, and more a result from an interplay of a lot of different factors for everyone who experiences those things. If I look at surgery as correcting a birth defect, I feel better about it than if I look at surgery as treatment that alleviates symptoms to the point where one might not experience them at all, but not as the cure.

It is quite complicated though, I completely agree. That's why I like to keep digging, there's always so much to learn! Thank you for the well wishes, too, I wish the same for you!

If you're sticking around a bit, I'm curious, and I apologize if this is too personal--of course, don't answer if you prefer not to, but do you attend therapy currently? I just ask because you are a counselor and because I'm just curious to know how much you might delve into those sorts of things--again, sorry, just really curious!!

[–]Gravel_Roads 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It sounds like that isn't a question you revisit much, if at all

I mean, it's been many years! I go most days, even weeks without thinking about my transition at all, surgery or otherwise. I thought about it a lot more when it was actively going on. Now that I'm healed, I just feel normal. I don't personally think of the procedure as a "gold standard" so much as the option that suited best what I wanted.

I'll put it this way: more recently, I had a kitchen accident and cut 3 tendons in my hand. I had to have surgery to reattach them. They were only able to reattach 2 of the 3. It took a few years of physical therapy, but I've regained full strength in the hand, and I can even rock climb again, but that hand still can't make a fist. I think way more about that surgery than I do top surgery, because it affects me more every day. I think a lot about whether I should have a follow up surgery to try and regain more use of my fist, weighed against another couple years of PT and further trauma from surgery. That 'will it be worth it, or will it make things worse' is focused on a situation that is still in (lol) "transition".

do you attend therapy currently?

Not at the moment, but I have a very robust support network. My coworkers and I tend to check in with each other and proactively offer help to one another, and I have a long-term partner who've I've known for over 20 years. I like my life, and I'm happy. If that changed, I'm not opposed to seeing a shrink or anything. But like I said, I'm pretty even keeled.

[–]adungitit 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It seems like there's a cure and even ways to prevent gender dysphoria or transsexualism from ever happening to begin with

One thing that often gets overlooked about this (because both GC and QT know they have to ultimately appeal to misogynistic men if they're to keep their numbers up) is the role that society plays in all this. You can tell a person to just be themselves all you want, but when society treats them like crap for it, ofc they're going to pick the value system that doesn't do that over a lifetime of being told they're wrong (also why women defend femininity despite how obviously damaging it is to their well-being. Well, that and a lifetime of mass 24/7 brainwashing to put men's needs first). Difficulties with gender are going to exist in different intensities as long as we place so much value into genderist beliefs, so the only real way to fix it is to take on genderism as a concept straight on for its anti-humanist ideals. This however, would get GC's conservative women and especially their boyfriends pissy, and meanwhile QT has already legitimised gender as something so crucial to one's identity that it can literally make people suicide if not respected and played to. As such, genderism always has to be presented as a "preference" regardless of how many mental issues and tragedies it keeps causing, a preference that a minority of weirdos simply didn't get up to speed with, but one that is great and peachy otherwise and how the world should be. Trans people are an extreme case, but there have always existed many more people who are unhappy with these expectations, and far more who are unhappy, but don't realise why or don't dare to put a finger on it because it's easier and more sensible according to the existing value system to redirect all the blame and related trauma onto women.

GC likes to pretend there's some plague of "genderism" that's only started with the trans rights movement. In reality most people are fully on board with genderism, which is why we live in a patriarchal society, it's just the rigidity of it that people disagree on. Conservatives force people into cages so the proper world order can be preserved. Liberals want to maintain the cages because they help men feel superior and/or hornier, but in view of the trauma and anxiety said cages cause, liberals kindly allow people to choose which cage looks the shiniest according to everyone's super special unique snowflake preferences. Both believe in the natural patriarchal order and both put copious amounts of effort into prettying it up so people who derive their worth from it can sleep better at night.

There is a lot of talk about girls being pressured into surgeries, feeling ashamed of their physiology and pretending they're not female for respectability, but these things were a part of girls' experiences long before the trans craze took over, because all of them originate from the same pressures. Girls who openly hate being seen through pornified and subhuman lens that they are inevitably viewed through are still going to feel these feelings. Girls who claim they like being seen through these lens are still going to be saddled with mountains of anxieties, trauma and lower standards compared to men directly resulting from these expectations. And the ones who have internalised self-hatred to the point of getting amputations and maintaining a lifetime of an artificially induced hormonal imbalance are not suddenly going to be cured, just as any other girl wasn't. You can't end trauma and mental illnesses resulting from genderism without tackling genderism, not just as a "preference" or a special cage for special people, but as a toxic, damaging system it is.