What do you mean by "unless you must"? One must breathe, drink water, and eat, but very little else "must" one do. One "must" transition or what happens? Unless you breathe you die. However, I don't know in what sense you must transition. I have not heard such an expression from my gender therapist.
I am an example of someone who needed to transition or die, and it wasn’t through self harm! I knew I was trans all my life and very deliberately chose not to pursue transition, as my priority was to have a family. I managed this and a great life as a male, albeit with a need to manage my dysphoria. It was becoming harder, but I was determined not to transition, and lose my loved ones. From age 50, I started seeing the signs of hypogonadism, and my dysphoria became stronger. But I was determined.
At 64 I became very sick, and after 7 months, my doctor advised me to get my affairs in order as they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, but my bodily systems were beginning to shut down. I was dying. I had told my doctor earlier I was suffering with dysphoria, so as an aside, she arranged for me to start estrogen, but didn’t expect it would help. Within one week, I was fully recovered. My medical team (4 doctors and a respiratory specialist) analysed what had happened, and admitted they had underestimated the cumulative effect of stress from me refusing to transition.
My body had started to transition 15 years before HRT, but I thought I was making decisions about my life. After 3 months on HRT, and for all the same reasons I had refused to ever start HRT, I stopped, and within a week, I was very sick again. It was very painful for me to realise that I was not consciously in command of my life, and that the doctors were right. I had to medically transition to survive.
I know I am an extreme case, I took it to the max in resisting transition as I am very determined, but I now understand what my medical team had told me. Cumulative stress is life threatening, and will eventually manifest in some way, like a heart attack, or in my case, a gradual breakdown of my systems. What I have learned from this is that we can, to some extent, ‘manage’ our condition for a time, but eventually it will cause us adverse health effects. I wish I had this knowledge much earlier, and I would have made wiser decisions, but I hope my case can help others see how powerful our condition can be.
You can put off transition for a time, but you will have to deal with the effects eventually.
Hugs,
Allie
