Sanity

If we have considered transitioning and obtaining Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS), what are we thinking of letting ourselves in for?

Medical consequences –
We will need a long and painful course of hair removal treatment; we will take hormones in potentially lethal doses and undergo surgery – with the risks that always go with it – to reshape our genitals, enlarge our breasts, and perhaps to remodel our faces; life expectancy statistics show that it is significantly lowered for post-op TSs.

Financial consequences –
We can expect to spend many thousands of dollars/pounds/Euros on hair removal treatment, voice training, hormone treatment, and surgery; at the same time we are likely to find that society’s inability to accept us drastically impairs our career prospects – even if we have the benefit of anti-discrimination legislation, it cannot force employers, colleagues and clients to accept a gender identity which does not conform with their perceptions.

Sexual and reproductive consequences –
We will sacrifice our ability to have children; our capacity for orgasmic sexual pleasure will almost certainly be reduced and is likely to be lost altogether.

Social consequences –
We are very likely to find that family and friends are unable to accept what we are doing and reject us; if we are married or in a long-term relationship, the relationship is unlikely to survive in its existing form; we may find that even after we have undergone all the treatment available to us we are still unable to “pass” as women, and so face a lifetime of stares, double-takes and worse; although the legal position of TSs is gradually improving, it remains the case in many places that we will not have full legal status as women.

Emotional consequences –
All the consequences already listed have a greater or lesser degree of emotional fallout, but above all we risk the pain of rejection by those we love; we will be undergoing irreversible surgery in the knowledge that a significant minority of those who have done so have regrets - we cannot be sure in advance that we will be among the lucky ones.

What would make it rational to take all this on? Speaking for myself, if I’m honest with myself the answer I must give is this: only the certain conviction that, without it, life itself would be impossible and we would be driven to suicide. If that is not the case, and we are looking to this course of action to solve our problems and make our lives better, we must question whether our thinking is sane.