I’ve often wondered about people who believe they are a different gender from what their biology dictates. I’m a man, but let’s say I believe I’m really a woman. So I undergo the hormone therapy and maybe even surgeries, but new clothes and all the rest. But still, in my brain/mind, it seems I’d still have that dissonance. There isn’t a scale that slowly tips toward my desired gender, no matter how much I change my appearance or physical body. There’s no switch to flip that tells my mind “Ok, you’ve arrived, you’re a woman now.” I’m 28 and I’ve never had a singular moment, a dividing line in my life where on one side is adolescence and the other is adulthood. So it seems like, no matter what lengths one would go to to alter their physical appearance, the mind can’t be so easily fooled. You begin with some sort of disconnect between reality and what you believe reality ought to be, but that disconnect is never resolved. In fact it seems that changing the physical to match the hoped for reality would, in the long run, make things worse because one would eventually have to face the reality that, despite those physical changes, the mind hasn’t changed. I’ve read a few storied of people who had gender reassignment procedures/therapy who, years later, deeply regretted the decision. Some transition back, most say it ultimately made their lives worse, for various reasons. I feel terrible that people go through this, and it’s not something I can relate to. It’s similar to people who want to be euthanized; my Church and my reason tells me it’s wrong, but could you imagine being in so much anguish that death seems a better option? Heartbreaking.
