marmorsymphata

This is such a huge part of why transgender people are at such a high risk of suicide.

I have been in intensive therapy for many years to deal with my severe OCD. I think I can say by now that I have a pretty robust knowledge of how mental health care is supposed to work and how the experience of fighting one's own mind and one's triggers needs to be dealt with.

TRAs essentially tell trans people that they shouldn't get treatment. That this is a 100% external challenge like racism where working on oneself is not involved, that it must be conquered and that can only be accomplished by pushing yourself, and everyone around you changing instead.

But these are people with severe internal problems. These are people with TRIGGERS, real ones. They need to learn self-reliance. In my struggles with undiagnosed OCD, I relied on others to impart rationality on me when I could not parse, say, the low likelihood of my migraine being a brain tumor, like trans people rely on others to impart validation upon them. In my issues with Harm OCD I would even ask OTHER PEOPLE whether they thought I really wanted to kill myself because I was so utterly awash in the doubt that characterizes OCD. This can never be allowed to be the status quo because it cannot be maintained. You cannot live life with someone else as your strength. I think about how hard life was being unable to make sense of and with my own brain, and the thought that others are encouraged to live this way leaves me speechless.

You need to prepare people for the reality of life, to strengthen and bolster their mental fortitude and coping abilities so they can deal with whatever is thrown at them, not do your best to wrap a flimsy bubblewrap of fantasy around their frail, emaciated sanity and hope they never touch anything sharp...

...To the point of making them think they can handle ANYTHING. Like, look. I have been through an incredible amount of CBT. But with my Harm OCD as strong as it can be when I am truly triggered, it would STILL be the stupidest thing possible for me to, say, wander into a crisis stabilization ward or take a job as a suicide hotline operator. The TRAs set this poor person up to enter the most triggering place possible, a fucking ORGY, and we all know they will take no responsibility for sending them into danger because they refuse to acknowledge transgenderism is a disorder that requires protective actions. Like it's not even normal for the average person to even consider attending an orgy, and THIS is where they convince them to go?

Imagine if therapy for, say, Contamination OCD involved telling the patient that in order to be considered a healthy or recovered human being, they MUST eventually work their way up to a job working for the CDC handling medical waste. It's the same fucking thing as telling a trans person that they can only fulfill their identity with wild sex.

It is OK to not have a vibrant love life. It is OK to not have a large dating pool. Your worth as a human being is not tied to who you do or don't fuck or how much. Like all the mannish-looking women and girlish looking men before them have labored to learn, it is OK to not live up to society's shitty standards. But TRAs have convinced them that these things are the true and only essence of being considered human. Instead of helping trans people to be their own rocks, they tell them that everyone else both OWES them and owns their sanity, and that they can only ever live with the help of strangers.