Every time your friend says so and so is probably trans etc you just say something rational, like "You know, some guys just like wearing eyeliner without there being more to the story", or "She's just a lesbian, liking women doesn't make a woman a trans man". It sounds like your friend just likes to gossip. Or just shut it down by saying "It's not really polite to speculate about this stuff behind people's backs. If they are indeed trans I will support them when they come out, but for now they haven't said anything about transition so I'm going to assume they are not trans."

I wonder how far these people were into their own transition and how old they were, the ones who were trying to convince you you are trans. I'm going to guess they were either quite young and happy they finally figured out why they didn't fit in and we probably trying to medically transition. In five years time I bet many will have detransed and/or regret their decisions or are unhappy again. Or they might be older trans people, mainly mtf I imagine, who are going through their own crisis because they are married, have kids, but can't stop obsessing over transitioning. These are the kinds of people that are probably agp, have known this since their teens, never told the woman who they ended up marrying and having kids with, and now that there are a few kids and they're bored with being the provider, they want to come out, live as a 'lesbian', expect their wife to be totally cool with all this, sometimes they want to also sleep around. I met someone like this when I just went off to college. He was a really nice person in many respects and meeting him and another crossdresser made me question my gender. I had a lot of fun with both but the former was a lot older, had a wife, a few kids, was so clearly an AGP (I can tell now, not really at the time), was away over the weekend etc. And somehow his wife was the one with the mental illness because she was not ok with all that. He kind of dropped off the radar after a few years, I don't know if he's still with his wife or in touch with his kids or is he ever transitioned (I don't think he wanted to fully live as trans woman).

I'm sure transition works well for some but people should stop encouraging strangers to transition. I see so many instances of delusion and mtfs lying to eachother about each others looks and ability to pass. I wonder what their endgame is.

What doesn't seem to get mentioned often is blockers in teen mtfs will likely stunt their vertical growth and I'm guessing they will never (fully) catch up if they detrans, especially when they continue on blockers and cross sex hormones until 17-18 as most males will stop growing around 18.

They best reply to that is: Then there is a major issue with the diagnostic procedure because these people got hormones/surgery to treat gender dysphoria so they must have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Then some will say you don't need gender dysphoria to be trans. I don't think those people can be helped.

Then some should realise that either the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is often made when it shouldn't have been, OR that transition isn't always the solution to gender dysphoria. In the former, diagnosis should really be improved, but assuming these detrans people did suffer or still suffer from gender dysphoria, it's clear that transition as the only treatment option fails many people. I think we need a bit of both, with the diagnosis only made after other mental health issues are excluded, and with a range of treatment options available with transition as a last resort when therapy doesn't help, and when in young people, just supporting them through puberty and early adolescence didn't help. Then a real life test of at least 1-2 years before hormones, then another for surgery. And only as a last resort.

Your growth plates in your bones end up solidifying eventually, that's why no matter how many hormones you'll give me as someone in their thirties, I will not grow vertically. You stunt vertical growth in males when you give them blockers. Sure, they will still live if they desist and detrans but if as a boy you had the generic potential to grow to a certain hight, ending up maybe 5" shorter doesn't have to be a big deal if you're still 5'9"+ but what if you end up not growing taller than 5'4"? In Western countries you will be very short for a man and that will affect your life. What about stunted development of gametes (sperm and eggs)? This may never get back to normal. What about stunted development of sexual arousal ability of your genitals? What about cognitive development? Many things are either not known or what is known for y not look good. In the case of Jaz Jennings, her genital at the age of 17 had the size of a prepubescent boy, this affected the neovagina surgery outcomes and options.

There are stories about increased chances of risk for certain diseases like certain cancer, cardiovascular diseases.

I wanted a tattoo as a teenager. I'm happy I didn't because I would now hate the design I had in mind. I had a whole bunch of piercings I got during my mid and late teens. I took almost all of them out since they either kept being painful or they no longer fit how I want to look and show myself to the world. Luckily they leave only a tiny scar. How can a teen make any medical decisions that might or will affect them for life?

I've heard that there is basically no proper follow up data for kids and adults who presented as trans and what path they ended up taking and how that worked for them. There's a Dutch documentary on peachyoghurt's YouTube channel (with English subs) where a spychiatrist states that in the cases before this giant boom there's a loss to follow up in something like 1/3 of patients, and afaik this was data (mainly) pre current trans boom. Like a practitioner in the video comments: it's fair to assume that amongst the loss to follow up, the success rate is likely lower than the patients who did turn up to follow up. And I imagine most of these patients were actually adults when they came for their first visit. So it's a different group from the many teens we see now but the data for the former is very very worrying. I don't want any children but I feel so so badly for teenagers who went on blockers and who will really suffer from infertility later on (irrespective of whether they desist/detrans or not). You can't expect a teenager to know whether they ever want their own kids.

I think that the permanent effects of hormones when used only briefly for adult mtfs is probably fairly minor, but I can totally see how for ftms this is very different. Blockers aren't harmless either. As someone educated and working in medical sciences I can't get over the fact that people (willfully?) spread such lies about hormones. The 'trans community' indeed seems to think these drugs are no big deal/they are fully reversible/blockers are fully reversible and that creates a false basis for people to make medical decisions with and plan their treatment on. You'd hope prescribers would know better and inform people well but based on stories of teens and adults getting cross-sex hormones on an informed consent basis after one or two visits, I doubt it. I also wonder if the people who see patients on this basis are actually endocrinologists/MDs or if they are less-senior medical/mental healthcare practitioners who as a formality will have an MD look at the file for the patient to give the ok so that the patient doesn't actually get seen in person by the endo/MD. It honestly sounds like misconduct and neglect of vulnerable people. I can accept that adults can choose to wreck their bodies, but teens and kids?! An honestly, adults dealing with mental illness deserve protection too.

This is based on the assumption that these teens and adults were fully mentally competent to fully know what they were getting into and were able to judge their situation and make the best choice for themselves in the moment AND the future. I am willing to bet that this does not apply to the majority of transitions, and by law it wouldn't apply to any minors. Not competent enough to marry, vote, drink alcohol, serve your country, yet somehow competent enough to make medical decisions with permanent effects? From a legal point of view that makes 0 sense. When it comes to medical care for minors, doctors need to be especially mindful of the limited abilities of the underage patients to think about the full impact of treatment in the now and the future, this is why parents are generally involved (but this doesn't help if parents don't know what's what and go along with the whims of the child to be progressive or because they really are convinced by all the trans propaganda and they think they are helping their child not kill themselves).

In adults a doctor needs to be mindful about a patient's mental state to figure out whether they can fully understand their own condition, what medication or surgery will and won't do, and what the long-term consequences will be. Sometime with a moderate cognitive impairment probably can't consent to a 'sex' change nor a facial tattoo or trying to enroll in the army (they will probably be rejected because they are not capable to consent). It's much harder to determine whether someone without a cognitive impairment (I'm taking low IQ, moderate to profound autism etc) is mentally sound to be able to consent to life altering drugs/surgeries. Can someone who is in a manic phase make permanent life decisions? What about someone who is in a psychosis? What about someone with long term depression that isn't treated? I don't know, you tell me.

In my view none of the under 18s were capable of consent to hormonal/surgical transition. In case of adults, I think many of them were not in the right mental state to take such decisions or took decisions for the wrong reason (fetishists). Doctors should've looked out for their patients' best long term interest but in many cases I don't think they did.

Every one changes over time, especially when you either join our leave a cult or a certain kind of culture and society very different from another you lived in our currently live in. Maybe you can look for another name for yourself, I've you feel fits you?

Growing hair out takes months but there are in between hairstyles that are cool, and you can do so much with wardrobe. Could you go thrift shopping to experiment with different styles without having to spend too much money?

I'm sure that at your core you are still you, and the changes you've gone through being you closer to you as well. I'm different in some respects now compared to when I was 19. It's just maturing and ageing. Doesn't make me into a different person but I think now that I'm in my early 30s I'm probably fixed with regards to personality and core political views.

You'll be fine :).

Like someone else already said: you will be dependent on exogenous hormones for life either way, so to me these things would weigh equally for staying trans or detrans.

What do you mean by 'possible'? Do you pass as a woman now but you think you won't pass as a man when you detrans? Is passing important to you?

As you say your genitalia aren't really either after surgery, so to me you could also cross those off from the 'balance'. However, depending on who you like to date you might have better luck as a trans woman compared to a detrans man or the other way around.

In the end I don't think any of these things really matter as long as you live a life in which you feel most comfortable/least uncomfortable. Therapy might be able to help you figure out how to do this.