…I could have told you that 🤷
Source: https://x.com/BriannaWu/status/1984574165643403370
Not my usual kind of source (Xitter), but I want any centrists out there who ask trans people to “just get along” / compromise with actual hate groups that want them eradicated to know that it doesn’t work.
There is no such thing as a reasonable bigot, by definition.
Unfortunately doing nothing is still a choice. And things aren’t better just because they are natural.
It is morally abominable to believe that it is better for 100 trans kids to go through the Hell on Earth of the wrong puberty than for one cis kid to mistakenly go on puberty blockers or HRT. It shows that you fundamentally believe the life of 1 cis person to be worth the lives of 100 trans people. You do not believe in the equal moral value of every human life. You fundamentally, in your heart of hearts, believe trans people to be subhuman, because you do not place the value of their pain anywhere near that of cis people.
I think that ratio is an important one in this debate. Is it actually around 1% (of those reporting dysphoria ) that decide it was a mistake post puberty?
Also sorry if dysphoria is the wrong word.
HRT has a success rate over 90%, measured as more than 90% of people who go on HRT report an improvement in their quality of life compared to before HRT. Of that other roughly 10%, the majority report reasons outside of regret for stopping HRT. Things like: medical complications, financial reasons, loss of jobs or housing due to being visibly trans, loss of friends and family due to being trans, assault or rape, etc., and most report that they would start HRT again as soon as possible. Only a small portion of that 10% say that they regret taking HRT and that it was a mistake.
So is it literally 1%? I don’t know, but it’s certainly less than 10%, which gives HRT one of the highest success rates in the field of medicine. By comparison, antidepressants have a success rate somewhere around 36% and knee replacement surgery hovers a little over 50%.
The biggest regrets reported by those who take HRT are that they didn’t start sooner, and/or being forced through an unwanted puberty with permanent life-altering effects as a child - which is why puberty blockers are a critical component of trans healthcare. Puberty blockers have been in use for young girls since the 80s for what’s known as “precocious puberty” - when a girl starts puberty at a very young age, usually around 8 but can be as young as 4. Nobody cared when it was cis girls taking them so that they would start puberty at a normal age. But when trans people started taking them to avoid permanent, life-altering changes until they’re old enough to consent to whether or not they want to go on HRT, puberty blockers suddenly became this untested drug being forced upon young boys by nefarious outside forces in the public eye.