About detransitioning

A posting on detransitioning

The RLE aspect–the idea that there are tests to pass, results to collect–may have had negative rather than positive effects. While it may help people see and process their doubts and fallacies, it may also teach them to suppress them for fear that they will be unfairly delayed. If uncertainty means that you’re not really transsexual, well, maybe you just won’t be uncertain anymore.

I think this makes a fairly good point. We recognize the usefulness of a RLE, but what we don’t recognize is whether or not the current RLE is worth anything. The RLE shouldn’t currently be a binding authority. It should inform rather than decide.

Its important to remember that the RLE is currently only a hypothesis. As far as I know there are zero medical studies stating its effectiveness.

I personally didn’t have to go through any sort of RLE. I just had to show that I wasn’t crazy and was committed for six months.

That has its own issues because you get fakes who just want to convince you not to transition, but who wont tell you that until you have given them a bit of money.

It also creates a sort of ordeal-dynamic for the natural feelings of loss and gut-liquifying terror that accompany a change of this order. They become important, but perhaps not in the right way.

To me a future where I didn’t transition was a blank emptiness. There was no such future. So I had no reason to be afraid or to feel any loss because of it aside from normal worries like fitting in. It wasn’t really “transition or death”. Its more like “transition or something unthinkable”

Even now after transition though I still occasionally wonder if I made the right choice. When I think about it I can logically think about the health and other worries and compare. However the idea of living as a man is still something my mind can’t process on an emotional level.

So for me if I had to guess at an effective “nonbinding transgender evaluation” it would be on whether you have logical reasons for transition and emotional fears. Then you could follow up with the people who have been through it and if they are still content with their decision several years down the road you could say that it is worth something.