This is such an important idea to me. I might have transitioned much earlier if I didn't think you had to be traumatized by your body and gender in order to be valid in doing so.
There's so much I want to say about this, which all basically boils down to "this is correct". That transitioning isn't (just) about removing painful stuff from your life, it's about seeking what brings new joy and light into your life.
I want to talk about why this idea isn't more widely understood. But I just wrote two long-ass posts about serious topics today already, so instead I'll just try to break it down into bullet points:
- The liberal assumption that any fundamental change is frightening and undesirable by default.
- An associated sunk cost fallacy that is more focused on the social and cultural connections you might lose from transitioning, instead of focusing on all the social and cultural connections you might never get a chance to gain unless you transition (and not being aware that those older connections may never have been genuine if you weren't bringing your real self into it in the first place).
- A certain type of feminism that has sought cultural and political change based on the premise that being a woman sucks and is not something anyone would find inherently desirable in itself. (Also just general sexism following that same premise.)
Sometimes I feel like 'the transition spoiler' is that all the complex things you thought this was about are very much a product of needing to defend ourselves for generations. This stuff resists being broken down in these terms because they are often the same things bigots and detractors will latch onto as proof that this "isn't serious", "shallow" or "just pretend.
But the more I learn, the more I've found a lot of the ways we historically/typically look at this to be 'half empty' in approach (for lack of nicer analogy atm)
we can look at the glass half full and assert that maybe we're finding out on a more radical level how much folks' inner workings and inner/ideal selves matter. We find that strict definition of self based on external factors isn't the only way to think and be. I tend to think that such definitions are subjective and is where much of the... gap in understanding can lay.
I tend to look at all i've learned and think that what we're finding is that how we see ourselves matter. Whether dysphoria or dysmorphia are in the mix (or not!), becoming closer to how we see ourselves or want to be tends to have a profound impact on mental health and quality of life. Even without transition, being seen for those internal definitions of self has a great impact on folks.
Perhaps I am simply tired and trans, and assert that maybe our dreams matter.
