The cataclysmic failure of the timorous medical screening processes, and the pharmaceutical and surgical gold rush that has sprung up around transition, is doing massive damage to an entire generation.

Unfortunately it isn’t just the medical community that is doing the damage. The cult-like ideology that is ever pervasive in trans communities is resulting in a population of people pathologizing themselves on the shakiest and rinky-dinkiest of reasoning. Like most cults their “logic” has the porousness of cheese cloth, and would be funny if it wasn’t actively doing real harm to people and children.

Because the illusion demands that other people speak and behave in exact accordance to their strict dogma, you’ll see immediate offensive attack on anyone who pauses long enough to question the absurdity. These are the same people who are “cracking the egg” of the unworldly girl who is being told that because she wants to wear a vest she was actually born in the wrong body. This is a community that insists that diabolical transphobic boogie men are lurking around every corner just waiting to snatch their flags and anime avatars away from them. There is no nuance or shades of grey to be found. It’s cartoonish.

I think it’s important to have compassion and patience with trans communities since these people ultimately are victims of increasingly obvious systematic and societal failures.

Transsexualism is a thing, has always been a thing, and (until recently) was always treated with the rigorous scrutiny that is owed to the sufferer. Until recently transition was an extremely radical treatment for extreme dysphoria. Now it’s offered as a quick fix “identity” that will solve all your problems and explain why you’re a boy who likes to have long hair.

Puberty blockers are not safe and have never been safe. Sexual reassignment surgeries are still very much experimental. Your body didn’t develop along the biological path to sustain the hormones of the opposite sex. Your brain is not gendered, being gay does not mean you are in the wrong body, and your pronouns are just as boring and meaningless to the rest of the world as they are to your dog.

This suggests that there is a second "right body" that exists somewhere, of which there isn't. There are no species-wide features that differ between a female and a male's brain. Your brain isn't anymore gendered than your heart, lungs, or your pinky toe. Gender is a social construct, but your physical sex will always be rooted in tangible reality (with the exception of rare birth abnormalities). There is no changing that and it is something that is observed at birth, not assigned.

You can obviously cosmetically alter your body to achieve a sort of rudimentary facsimile of another sex, but that doesn't make you that thing inherently. I think transition is a radical treatment that should be used as a last option for transexuals with extreme dysphoria. I believe it to be a brain abnormality akin to disorders such as Body Integrity Identity Disorder. I do think transition options (hormone treatments and surgery to healthy organs) should be available to adult people who are suffering, but only after rigorous psychological evaluation and extensive education about the consequences and health risks of these kinds of procedures.

I believe the absolute decline of screening processes (and the wide spread dissemination of coaching material for how to lie to get hormones) has created a trans-medical industry that many people are profiting from. I believe this industry is specifically preying on youth by medicalizing them at a young age with experimental “treatments” (puberty blockers).

I also think there is a complex myriad of societal ills (wide-spread generational alienation, sexism, homophobia, religious trauma, pre-existing psychiatric disorders, paraphilias) that result in young people thinking that transition is a smart, safe, and logical option.

And finally I think the trans community itself can be predatory (“cracking eggs”) and also extremely hostile. Since their “identities” rely on the constant confirmation of others using the exact language and behaviours that they’ve decided on (in order to maintain the structure of the illusion), there becomes a militant doctrine of silencing and castigating others for questioning the fundamental tenets of their ideology. This includes a need to silence, invalidate, and mock detransitioners since their existence threatens their own tenuous belief in the validity of their transition. It operates similar to a cult and I have compassion for them since ultimately they are victims (who are often under-educated young people with brains that are still not fully developed, have no realistic understanding of long-term irreparable consequences, and have little-to-no life experience).

Male and female aren’t “identities” anymore than being blue eyed or brown eyed is an identity. You are either physically one or the other (with the exception of extremely rare disorders) and there isn’t any changing that. You either live in reality or you subscribe to a lifetime of trying to achieve a crude imitation of the other sex.

We don’t pick identities off of a shelf. An identity is made up of the aspects of you that makes you a unique person that is distinguishable from others.

There is no unrealized physical version of yourself. You can alter the superficial cosmetics of your body, but you’ll always exist as what you are.

Honestly? Bite the bullet and just tell them. If they say “we told you so”, accept it. They wouldn’t be wrong. “You were right, I’m beginning to understand that I am not trans. I just felt it was worth figuring it out for myself.”

Life is about making your own mistakes, it wouldn’t be very interesting or enriching if we all just did what others “told us” to do at all times.

I’m sorry the system failed you. The good news Is that you are young and your life hasn’t been destroyed. I know that’s going to be difficult to understand now, and it might do little to help how you feel, but the way that you feel now is not permanent. It is not fixed. We are always in a state of change, of growth, especially at your age. Who you are now is going to be completely different in as little as a year.

It’s important to seek therapy, be honest about your feelings and thoughts, and above all else be forgiving of yourself. You were manipulated by a system that wasn’t interested in your well being.

Breasts can be restructured. Voices can be changed. Just understand that these are superficial things, they do not define you, and there’s a long history of women who have lead successful and happy lives without breasts or with having a deep voice. Humans are complex and nuanced, we aren’t just hollow shells.

You can grieve the past, but dwelling on it is pointless. It is forever unchangeable. We take the lessons we learn from these experiences and we move on. There is nobody on our planet who will live a life without trials. It is the purpose of our existence.

I hope we can move away from the “cut out toxic people” mentality in this sub. That is one of the red-flags of a cult ideology and it is rampant within trans communities.

Cutting people out of your life is never a sure fire guarantee for happiness, we can’t micromanage how everyone in our direct contact feels or behaves. There is no “block” button in real life and family is extremely important. Part of living and functioning in a society and a community is understanding how to navigate this. Cults and social media train this out of people.

My logic (which you’re going out of your way to misunderstand) is that “cutting out toxic people” is an extreme cult belief to isolate individuals to herd them into a mono-thought bubble and control them.

If your go-to thought when you think of “toxic” is a “rapist” (especially in this context of this person’s post), you’ve lost the thread. Get as hyperbolic as you want, it only makes the extreme thinking more obvious.

"HRT will just give me boobs will that make me happy? yeah I guess"

HRT will not just give you breasts. You're also making a substantial assumption about your happiness here. Happiness is a temporary and fleeting feeling, while true contentment comes from an internal sense of peace. It is unlikely a cosmetic change to your body is going to result in that. Transition used to be a radical treatment to alleviate dysphoria, it isn't a magical gateway to happiness.

I’d encourage rigorous therapy (not with anyone who calls themselves “trans affirming”) and I would never encourage medical transition. I’d want this person to do extensive research into procedures and drugs associated with transition before even considering that. I would strongly suggest they avoid any and all online trans communities.

I’d still accept them no matter what they decide. Unlike the trans community, I don’t turn my back on someone for not doing what I wish for them to do.

You’re trying to argue a point that has little to do with what I said. By hopping immediately to an extremely hyperbolic and specific example (a RAPIST), you’re trying to eclipse the discussion which adds absolutely nothing genuine here. You aren’t offering advice to this person anymore, you’re pushing a tired Twitter talking point that is a blatant example of cult speech.