Your therapist does not sound reasonable. The model of withholding treatment unless you have “traditional” symptoms of gender dysphoria is outdated and harmful.
Many trans people are unaware of the severity of their gender dysphoria until they finally feel relief. It’s actually more common for queer people to have difficulty discerning their emotions and preferences. It might even explain why queer identities and neurodivergence often co-occur. Waiting for certainty does far more harm than good, especially when the effects of HRT are fairly reversible in the first few months.
When it comes to sex hormones, there is no neutral course of action. If your body is not mostly estrogen dominated, it’s testosterone dominated. There is no middle ground, as lacking sex hormones actually has the most severe health consequences. Each option has upsides and drawbacks, so the choice is medically a toss-up.
The main reason to favor the naturally occurring hormone is fertility, but that should be a private decision if one believes in bodily autonomy. Other reasons are even more based in norms rather than facts. If you decide it isn’t for you, you can just stop. Few changes are totally irreversible for feminizing HRT, and those take months to reach that stage.
In countries where the government gatekeeps HRT, it’s common for people to tell the doctors what they want to hear. Lying about one’s childhood and pretending to have absolute certainty is necessary. This isn’t the fault of the patients, but the medical establishment that refuses to get with the times.
You’re already on hormones, so which would future you regret being on more?
i know!!! and i mostly think so too. however my thoughts have been tainted by her way of thinking a bit. while i personally think that “getting hrt to see how it feels and revert if bad” is a good way to go about it, it also feels too quick kinda (even tho i’ve had that urge for a while but eh)
thing is that she is genuinely a nice person and that her main thing are queer peeps. while she herself is not queer in any way, so is very understanding and has only gotten great reviews.
also, ooooooh i don’t feel good about you saying the thing with the “which would you regret being on more”… cuz!!
of course i’d regret being on T, because going from FtM is generally easier than going from MtF as far as i know. it seems that T is more destructive in its nature. can’t just reverse those vocal coard sadly ;(
seeing E as “the safe choice” might be reasonable from my point of view, but it might not be for others! blablabla big life dicision and so on
also, thankfully i live in Germany where trans and queer peeps generally are rather accepted if u live in the right places, which i do. gender affirming therapy is nothing to worry about. it’s like - !!! it’s hard to tell what thoughts are actually just mine and which have i just heard enough times so i just babble them like i have them. Like some LLM!!! (Large Language Model, like ChatGPT)
I may just be generating some nonsense sentences because that’s what i heard from others!!! >~<
and so i kinda try to not say what i’ve already heard a million times, even if those sentences may actually be true. i don’t want to “fill in all the classic transfem thingies”, even though many actually do apply. i don’t want to lie, and even if i might not lie, it might sound like i am !!! AAAAA
I just complete the next obvious action, just like an autoregressive LLM!!! i feel like - !!! i feel like this one episode where fluttershy meets an evil and selfish man, and she sees how he gets more stuff because he takes things rather than asking and then she herself tries to be that and also turns evil!!! thank god she notices at the end of the epiosode…
if y’all nice transfems would just be a little worse!!! - then i would at least have a bad rolemodel to point at and go “as you can see there are also bad sides” but you are too perfect! ur making it hard not to idealize being transfem and pretty and nice and reasonable and empathetic and comfycozy and a good listener and a good mother!!! >:(
i am obviously overreacting, but these are my thoughts… damn, blahaj zone now has to host this block of text…
It’s ok, I’ve been there too. I used to wish I was trans, but I was scared that I was just looking for an easy solution to my problems. It wasn’t an easy solution, not because it isn’t everything I was hoping for, but because it is not easy being trans. Even though I was convinced I wanted HRT from the day I came out, I let myself get fucked around by American health insurance for over a year when I could’ve literally paid a few hundred dollars to get it far quicker. There is a damn good reason that I celebrate the CEO assassination.
Since I came out, I’ve actually looked into the science as best I could. I’ve realized that the entire system is fundamentally limited, from the way we classify disorders, to the way we even understand evolutionary classifications. It’s all made up, because at the end of the day, they’re just tools we created.
Our entire understanding of everything from identity to particle physics is constructed to serve. At a neurological level, we build a simulation of reality to better survive in it. The spoon only exists in our mind; the form isn’t real.
We cannot choose how we feel about our gender; no free will there. Your doubts and misgivings about anything have the ability to protect, but they can also harm. Consider how these doubts about your identity are working out as tools to benefit you: Are you better off because of them, or are they chains tied to a sinking rock?
ooh that’s super interesting! always thought it’s weird how we try to categorize everything just so we can say “it’s a*n <catogeory here>”.
accepting that the world is not made to be understood is quite the experience.
the doubts do have two sides for me. i think i’m way more interesting to talk to than just being a boring old cishet and i also wouldn’t have anything to work towards maybe. it’s really just the feels which make me feel bad and i’m hoping these go away some day.
the bad feels have been lowering in recent weeks, however i’m assuming that this is due to me consuming more media (watching MLP), played some gud game with a friend because of this recent post by me (which i also consider consuming media) and met up with a friend more in the city. i want to meet up with the fren more, but i’m not sure that consumption is the cure to my self-doubts. however, making frens because of a gem is fun.
also thank you very much for always replying to my comments. it means very much to me and i cannot imagine the lemmy without the TotallyNotJessica. i think i said this before, but i’ll say it again! u are important and we need you!!! :3
🥰 Tysm! I really try my best to help people, so I really appreciate what you say!
My last bit of parting wisdom is to not expect the bad feels to go away on their own. You’re on the right path, but it will take action and bravery to make it over the finish line. Saying that you might not “have anything to work towards” if you were cishet makes me think that you want to be a transfem. It’s ok. That’s all you need!
Your therapist does not sound reasonable. The model of withholding treatment unless you have “traditional” symptoms of gender dysphoria is outdated and harmful.
Many trans people are unaware of the severity of their gender dysphoria until they finally feel relief. It’s actually more common for queer people to have difficulty discerning their emotions and preferences. It might even explain why queer identities and neurodivergence often co-occur. Waiting for certainty does far more harm than good, especially when the effects of HRT are fairly reversible in the first few months.
When it comes to sex hormones, there is no neutral course of action. If your body is not mostly estrogen dominated, it’s testosterone dominated. There is no middle ground, as lacking sex hormones actually has the most severe health consequences. Each option has upsides and drawbacks, so the choice is medically a toss-up.
The main reason to favor the naturally occurring hormone is fertility, but that should be a private decision if one believes in bodily autonomy. Other reasons are even more based in norms rather than facts. If you decide it isn’t for you, you can just stop. Few changes are totally irreversible for feminizing HRT, and those take months to reach that stage.
In countries where the government gatekeeps HRT, it’s common for people to tell the doctors what they want to hear. Lying about one’s childhood and pretending to have absolute certainty is necessary. This isn’t the fault of the patients, but the medical establishment that refuses to get with the times.
You’re already on hormones, so which would future you regret being on more?
i know!!! and i mostly think so too. however my thoughts have been tainted by her way of thinking a bit. while i personally think that “getting hrt to see how it feels and revert if bad” is a good way to go about it, it also feels too quick kinda (even tho i’ve had that urge for a while but eh)
thing is that she is genuinely a nice person and that her main thing are queer peeps. while she herself is not queer in any way, so is very understanding and has only gotten great reviews.
also, ooooooh i don’t feel good about you saying the thing with the “which would you regret being on more”… cuz!!
also, thankfully i live in Germany where trans and queer peeps generally are rather accepted if u live in the right places, which i do. gender affirming therapy is nothing to worry about. it’s like - !!! it’s hard to tell what thoughts are actually just mine and which have i just heard enough times so i just babble them like i have them. Like some LLM!!! (Large Language Model, like ChatGPT)
I may just be generating some nonsense sentences because that’s what i heard from others!!! >~<
and so i kinda try to not say what i’ve already heard a million times, even if those sentences may actually be true. i don’t want to “fill in all the classic transfem thingies”, even though many actually do apply. i don’t want to lie, and even if i might not lie, it might sound like i am !!! AAAAA
I just complete the next obvious action, just like an autoregressive LLM!!! i feel like - !!! i feel like this one episode where fluttershy meets an evil and selfish man, and she sees how he gets more stuff because he takes things rather than asking and then she herself tries to be that and also turns evil!!! thank god she notices at the end of the epiosode…
if y’all nice transfems would just be a little worse!!! - then i would at least have a bad rolemodel to point at and go “as you can see there are also bad sides” but you are too perfect! ur making it hard not to idealize being transfem and pretty and nice and reasonable and empathetic and comfycozy and a good listener and a good mother!!! >:(
i am obviously overreacting, but these are my thoughts… damn, blahaj zone now has to host this block of text…
It’s ok, I’ve been there too. I used to wish I was trans, but I was scared that I was just looking for an easy solution to my problems. It wasn’t an easy solution, not because it isn’t everything I was hoping for, but because it is not easy being trans. Even though I was convinced I wanted HRT from the day I came out, I let myself get fucked around by American health insurance for over a year when I could’ve literally paid a few hundred dollars to get it far quicker. There is a damn good reason that I celebrate the CEO assassination.
Since I came out, I’ve actually looked into the science as best I could. I’ve realized that the entire system is fundamentally limited, from the way we classify disorders, to the way we even understand evolutionary classifications. It’s all made up, because at the end of the day, they’re just tools we created.
Our entire understanding of everything from identity to particle physics is constructed to serve. At a neurological level, we build a simulation of reality to better survive in it. The spoon only exists in our mind; the form isn’t real.
We cannot choose how we feel about our gender; no free will there. Your doubts and misgivings about anything have the ability to protect, but they can also harm. Consider how these doubts about your identity are working out as tools to benefit you: Are you better off because of them, or are they chains tied to a sinking rock?
ooh that’s super interesting! always thought it’s weird how we try to categorize everything just so we can say “it’s a*n <catogeory here>”.
accepting that the world is not made to be understood is quite the experience.
the doubts do have two sides for me. i think i’m way more interesting to talk to than just being a boring old cishet and i also wouldn’t have anything to work towards maybe. it’s really just the feels which make me feel bad and i’m hoping these go away some day.
the bad feels have been lowering in recent weeks, however i’m assuming that this is due to me consuming more media (watching MLP), played some gud game with a friend because of this recent post by me (which i also consider consuming media) and met up with a friend more in the city. i want to meet up with the fren more, but i’m not sure that consumption is the cure to my self-doubts. however, making frens because of a gem is fun.
also thank you very much for always replying to my comments. it means very much to me and i cannot imagine the lemmy without the TotallyNotJessica. i think i said this before, but i’ll say it again! u are important and we need you!!! :3
🥰 Tysm! I really try my best to help people, so I really appreciate what you say!
My last bit of parting wisdom is to not expect the bad feels to go away on their own. You’re on the right path, but it will take action and bravery to make it over the finish line. Saying that you might not “have anything to work towards” if you were cishet makes me think that you want to be a transfem. It’s ok. That’s all you need!