I went to my GIP (gender identity physician) yesterday for a check-up and had a good old chat about how things were getting along, how my transition was going, etc.
Before I left to go home, I offhandedly mentioned to her that I’d been called transphobic on multiple occasions and she just gave me this awestruck look as if to say, “What, you? Transphobic? Why?”
When I elaborated that it’s because I had the complete and utter gall to say that you need dysphoria to be trans, she then proceeded to tell that she once misdiagnosed someone who claimed to not be their birth gender (she didn’t say “ claimed to have gender dysphoria”). She told me of how they bullshitted their way through the assessments and questionnaires and everything related to the process, complaining that they weren’t conforming to gender roles thus didn’t want to be seen as their birth gender. (She also mentioned that the kid said to her that they were “an agender boy” a couple times.)
My GIP diagnosed them with gender dysphoria.
Later, the kid gets on blockers. Everything is going smoothly, right up until they get HRT. When the kid’s body began to change and they experienced the physical changes, the kid developed real gender dysphoria and fell into a depression, suicidal and wishing to go back to how things were before before the physical changes occurred. Needless to say, the kid was cis and was pretending to have gender dysphoria so that they could pin a label to themselves to seem “trendy” or “hip”.
Luckily the kid was early enough into the process that the changes weren’t too drastic - some effects weren’t completely reversible but their body didn’t actually change too much - and they went on with their life. They were essentially traumatised from the experience of having dysphoria for a while.
Though my GIP was apologised to by this kid’s parents on behalf of their attention-seeking child, it doesn’t change the fact that she feels very guilty about nearly ruining someone’s life by misdiagnosing them.
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When someone says that transtrenders don’t affect me, I’m going to remember this fucking story. My GIP could’ve lost her job because of this; could’ve been sued for this; could’ve had her life completely fucked up for this. And why? Because some attention seeking child chose to identify as trans and lie about it continuously when they weren’t, and they almost paid the permanent price for it.
Now my GIP is more cautious than ever about giving the final say in a gender dysphoria diagnosis unless the discomfort of the person is glaringly obvious to her because she doesn’t want to go through all of that again. That person is the reason that I had to go through more assessments than I would’ve had to before this incident. That person caused me months of delay on my diagnosis and thus stopped me from getting on my blockers sooner. I could’ve been on actual hormones by now, but because of all of the delay caused by someone who chose to identify as trans, I’m not.
Claiming to be trans when you’re not hurts real trans people. Claiming to not be your birth gender when you actually are hurts GIPs and real trans people.
), I'm talking about questioning the kids whose parents believed in the whole noun-gender bullshit. They've already been mind-fucked from the get-go.
