Myths about transgender regrets

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Plus there's the health issue. Anti-androgens aren't exactly healthy to take long term, so at the least an orchiectomy (castration) will allow a transwoman to stop or significantly reduce her intake, lessening the impact on her liver.

Dillogic, if being human is such a problem for you, so that it causes major distress, depression, and suicidal tendancies, then I'm sure you'll be able to find someone willing to modify your body to make you look like an Uruk-hai. Perhaps not a licensed surgeon (okay, definately not a licensed surgeon), but since it's evidently a major issue for you and is significantly impairing your quality of life, I'm sure you'll be willing to take that risk...

It does.

But I need more than to change my physical appearance. That's fairly easy anyway; I'm pretty much an albino looking one now, so I just need some pigment alteration to look like a Black Uruk from Mordor.

I need Sauron. Barad-dur. My brothers. I need free peoples to invade and slaughter. I need to cannibalize the good denizens of Middle Earth.

I feel hollow without this. Empty. Distraught.

Hmmm, I would have thought you less of a creature made by Morgoth to mock the Elves, and more of a creature made to mock the Ents... certainly, you bear the traits of the latter type of creature.

It does not fix the problem of being transgender as it does not address the underling body integrity identity disorder. Many of these people are sick and forcing them to do some horrible cosmetic surgery does not fix a mental health problem but results in many suicides instead. One does not go cutting of a person hand if they believe it is trying to control them; but, we do let people change their genitalia into something useless. These people need therapy and not plastic surgery.

Uh, what? How are they sick? Being transgendered is not a mental illness.

Also, it's not useless. How would you feel if you were born with the wrong parts? I know I wouldn't be happy.

I don't think you understand the complexity of the brain, given your naive suggestion to "simply rewire the brain". Even leaving aside the (important) point that we are our brains are part of our bodies, not some separate thing with a tenous connection. Why should one part of the body be priviliged over what is, for a person, a far more essential part? Why not privilige the brain over the rest of the body?

Shards, when will people get that into their heads that the brain is part of the body...

Most trans woman I have met are very successful 50+ year old men who bemoan life, and look forward to death. They want the feelings to go away. Alcohol, drugs, or whatever means medicine can think of they would probably take to help them hang on until death.

If you can put aside the trans politics, and look at how to best treat these people, the best solution IMO is if medicine finds some means to subdue these feelings. Medicine has numbing medicine to subdue the nerves, perhaps it can be extended to the particular parts of the brain that cause these feelings.

I wrote a long message that I believe was rejected because it included a link, a no-no for newbies I guess.

Anywho, I was googling for Brynn's article on regret when I came across this forum. I read this thread and was struct by the fact it seemed people didn't actually read the article in question.

Someone compared transsexualism to Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). This is a false comparison because transsexualism is a scientifically proven congenital birth condition whereas BIID is not.

Brynn's article debunks many of the misconceptions about trans regret. And yet some people continue to latch on to a few cases that have been reported. In the last decade there have been about a half dozen(?) of these cases. However, when you consider more than a MILLION transsexual people have fully transitioned, six no longer sounds statistically significant does it? In addition, people have been medically transitioning for more than 60 years. Do you really believe such treatment would still be offered if it didn't work? Because it has been so successful, more and more people transition every year.

Another problem we have here is negative stereotypes. Becuase the media and religions pushed negative stereotypes of transsexual people for the last several decades, that's what most believe believe is the truth. On TV shows transsexual people have almost always been portrayed as sex workers, drug addicts or psychotic killers. Only problem is this is mostly wrong. I know transsexual people who are doctors, lawyers, therapists, pilots and much, much more.

I myself have been a medical professional for 30+ years. After decades of struggle I finally accepted myself and transitioned about a decade ago. The years since have been the best ones of my life. It's hard to put into words what it's like to struggle through life as something you're not. It was daily torture as nobody saw the person I really am and my body made no sense. Through the process of transition both these issues were addressed. People now see the real me and my body feels right.

Next, some would say we need to change the brain. Let me say unequivacably: There is nothing wrong with my brain or my identity. I do not want or desire some kind of sci-fi mind wipe that'll forever alter who I am to placate others. The problem is not transsexual people, but how non-transsexual people are totally uninformed about what transsexualism is, a birth condition.

Next, someone referred to transsexual women as men. To intentionally misgender someone is disrespectful and I believe a violation of this communities rules. You have fallen for the stereotypes pushed by the media and religion. I can assure you for every one transsexual person you think you saw, there's 1000 others you did not. I say "think you saw" because you may have seen a cross-dresser and assumed they were a transsexual woman. Many people make the same assumption when they see a drag queen. The vast majority of us look just like everyone else and you wouldn't know us from anyone else.

To sum up:

Transsexualism is a birth condition. Transition is the only proven treatment for it. Transition has proven to be incredibly effective. Treatment of transsexualism benefits the affected person, their family and society as a whole; what's not to like?

That's awesome to hear. The transwoman I am a friend and ally to has been the happiest I've seen her since her coming out and starting on HRT. There simply isn't any honest argument against letting people be and be recognized for who they are, that doesn't amount to politicization of something non-political, combined with passive dismissal and intolerance.

I stand by what I said.

My ASD has caused me to lose many jobs, so bouncing around jobs I have met several trans women who are age 50+, very smart and successful, and recognized by others at the job as trans. They appear to be guys who grow their hair long, but are in ever other way a man. As one boss affectionately stated, "watch out for guys with long hair". Meaning that these are really women in disguise.

To refer to a trans women as a man when she is making minimal effort to be a women is not disrespectful. Actually, they would find it awkward and offensive if you refer to them as a women. One would say, "everyone has to accept their lot in life". He would go to the bar every night and drink for hours, and talk about how life is cruel, and look forward to death. Another would state a fondness for the expectation of death.

Not all trans people want to change genders, and some cannot do it. Some try living full time in the opposite gender, but then go back to their birth gender. There is a large group of older trans people for which surgery may not be advisable. Yet, they still have to make it through the remainder of their lives.

It may come down to the number of neurons slanted towards masculinity or femininity, so some have more/less and this produces more or less gender dysphoria. Not everyone fits the politically correct model.

My human disposition is closer to that of a troll, yes, though that's not who I feel that I am. If I wore a heart on my sleeve, it'd be that of a half-eaten Elf's that I ripped out myself; I feel and think almost nothing else than to commit unspeakable acts to the free peoples of Middle Earth with my Uruk brothers and lesser Orcs that we command.

People think I be trolling, but I'm not. All I've wanted since a little kid is to be a Goblin (same thing as an Uruk/Orc when you get down to it). I can't ever remember not feeling that way.

Ah, so you don't like Elves very much? Is that because you find them to be too androgynous, and you vehemently disagree with anyone who was born male being pretty? Does it confuse that Orc brain of yours, seeing a pretty Elf maiden who was born male?

Asking an Orc why it hates Elves [and the rest of the "Free Peoples"] is the same as asking why it breathes.

It just does. Bred hate. Bred purpose. Bred for war.

What about intersex? We don't live in gender binary world people need to be educated about it.

I have a question about transsexual people I've never understood. When e. g. a non-transitioned trans-woman says something like "I feel really I'm a woman", what is the definition of the word woman in this sentence?
In casual language woman means has vagina, or sometimes more generally has female physical characteristics, or, for the more scientific minded, doesn't have a Y chromosome. Substituting the definition for the word, the sentence becomes something like "I feel really I have a vagina" or "I think actually I don't have an Y chromosome" etc. which is obviously false.
It could mean "I have a brain structure like that of most women". But one doesn't see one's brain structure directly. One may see that their thoughts are more typical of the other sex. However even if my thinking appeared to be more similar to that of women, that wouldn't make me think "I'm a woman", it would make me think I'm a man with a woman-like thinking.

I also don't understand why transsexuals are offended by being called their physical genders. Again, the meaning of a word in the casual/general language (as opposed to scientific/legal jargon, a subculture language etc.) is how the general population uses it. The casual language meaning of man is has a penis, or other male physical characteristics, not brain structures. The sentence "(trans-woman) X. Y. is a man" is not any more false than "X. Y. has a penis". It could be argued that it would be more important to have words for brain structures than for physical characteristics (the best would be to have sets of words for both); but that doesn't suddenly change the meaning of existing words.

Er no. You're thinking of male/female, not man/woman. The latter is how you are *socially* seen, your social sex if you will, as well as how you see yourself, your... psychological sex? The former is to do with biology, as in genitals/hormones/chromosomes/neurology. Being scientifically minded doesn't mean focusing on one of those aspects (such as chromosomes) to the exclusion of all others, but dividing the language in order to more precisely convey what we're meaning (which is, after all, *supposed* to be the purpose of language). A woman with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) is chromosomally male, genitally female, hormonally female, and neurologically female. She is socially female and psychologically, so she is a woman. A non-transitioned transwoman is chromosomally, genitally, hormonally male, and neurologically female. She is psychologically female but socially male. A transitioned transwoman (post-op) is in the same boat as the woman with CAIS, really.

tl;dr - you're thinking too simplistically. You need to divide the definitions to get a more accurate model of reality.

In short,