Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I'm curious if anyone has seen statistics on the percentage of persons who start an RLE but decide to stop? As the very real start of mine is materialising slowly, which I feel I need to answer my own questions, I (as always), need to analyze the numbers, heaven forbid I trust my emotions!

I don't know of any official stats and I know there are people on the site who quit RLE for some reason. The problem is that the feelings that drove them to the point of treatment returned after detransitioning and after more time, they returned to the transition. When I transitioned, it was very rare for somebody to leave RLE and from what I see on the site, it has become more common. I believe this is the result of the blockers used in treatment. Without the blockers, testosterone drives you to complete RLE. With the blockers the driving force to transition is reduce to the point that you can forget why you are doing this in the first place.

Dena, you are right that some here do seem to have paused or reversed in their journeys, the right path for them I'm sure. Your theory about T driving transition is a very interesting one, I saw you mention it on another thread too. I'm very curious as to how T blockers might impact my feelings. I've thought before that if the osteoporosis from just blocking T was not a problem, it is a path I'd be keen to try, to avoid a full transition.

While some people do stop their RLE, from reading peoples stories, it seems to mostly be for reasons relating to loss of family and friends, not finding acceptance amongst their peers, employment issues and the like. Some people also find that transition simply isn't for them. As to exact numbers? Can't say, but I'd estimate it at less 5%.. And some end up transitioning later.

As for suggesting T blockers play a part, I doubt it is a driving force either way. The stories I've come across, here and other places, cover a time period from about 1970 onwards.

I also imagine it to be a low percentage, that may get even lower with later attempts included.

Quote from: Dena on October 02, 2016, 03:50:11 PM
I don't know of any official stats and I know there are people on the site who quit RLE for some reason. The problem is that the feelings that drove them to the point of treatment returned after detransitioning and after more time, they returned to the transition. When I transitioned, it was very rare for somebody to leave RLE and from what I see on the site, it has become more common. I believe this is the result of the blockers used in treatment. Without the blockers, testosterone drives you to complete RLE. With the blockers the driving force to transition is reduce to the point that you can forget why you are doing this in the first place.

I agree with Dena that people feel relief from medications. At the same time medications are wrapped up in taking positive steps in shedding the wrong role--chicken and egg. Transition is a horrendous thing. Who would want to do it on a lark? So when we get some relief, we then want to back away.

When my father had a heart attack, I drove him to the hospital. Every few minutes he'd say, "I think it's just indigestion. Let's go home." I kept driving and then he said, "No. You're right. Keep driving. Speed up." Then he's go back and say not to go. Then, of course, ask me to keep going. He did not want to go there and find out he'd had a heart attack. That news awaited him at the end of the drive.

Speaking about me. I too hoped I wound not have to go through with transition. Drink from the bitter cup. I even started dating a really cool dyke. Maybe that'a all I needed to do? But everyone tries home remedies--join the armed forces, take martial arts, become a cop, get married, have kids, etc., etc., all of which relieve the stress and are coping mechanisms, or are decompensation--take your pick.

The question is analogous to: am I making a mistake to get married? How many people call it off before getting to the altar? all that's fine and dandy, but those are statistics. But YOU are not a statistic. Is this your destiny? Look inside yourself for therein lies the answer.

I am not sure how much of a problem osteoporosis is as I went 10 years without any HRT and it didn't seem to cause any damage. I was consuming plenty of dairy and included calcium/vitamin D supplements in my diet so my body would have no need to go to the bones for calcium. There may also be a genetic factor as well as there isn't a family history of problems.

The thing about the blockers that surprised me was how fast they work. It seems that within 2 weeks to a month after hitting the proper dosage, people are reporting a reduction in dysphoria and a brighter outlook on life.

I don't think dysphoria is the same for each of us. Some of us are almost crippled by it while others can force it into the background enough to life some sort of life. All of us need to address it and find what is right for us and as always, the final decision should be made by the patient and not the medical community.

What makes me think testosterone is a major issue is many of us figure it out when we enter puberty or about the same time we develop depression or other feelings we can't explain. I think we were transgender long before that but testosterone strengthen the feelings that we always had and force them to the surface. I see exception on the site with the intersex and DES babies where testosterone seems to remain low into the late teens or beyond. This would explain some of the delayed discovery.

As for avoiding the transition with blockers, I have two threads I bookmarked that you might be interested in.
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,207785.0.html
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,209589.0.html

Quote from: Virginia Hall on October 02, 2016, 04:40:16 PMIs this your destiny? Look inside yourself for therein lies the answer.

The root of all my uncertainty is a lifetime spent imagining a different destiny makes it very hard for me to see any other.

Quote from: meganjames2 on October 02, 2016, 04:03:56 PM
I've thought before that if the osteoporosis from just blocking T was not a problem, it is a path I'd be keen to try, to avoid a full transition.

By avoiding transition, do you mean avoiding social transition? I've been on HRT for 8 years now and always present male. If I can't continue to deal with life like this I'll have SRS, and only if that doesn't work with I have FFS then RLE. RLE for me is a last resort.

I suppose we are all different.  I've been on HRT less than 4 months, electrolysis for maybe 4 months/28 hours, but I am eager to start RLE.  I can't stand the double life, the hiding, and the need to deliberately mislead others while hiding myself.

I'm right on the edge.   I'm probably driving some folks on this board bonkers with my NOT starting RLE already, and I think I'm just irritating my therapist.  My home issues are our primary topic of discussion, not details of transition or difficulties as myself.  I have fully accepted what I am, but am hesitant to jump in solely because I don't like to hurt others.  I gotta get off the line...

Quote from: AnonyMs on October 02, 2016, 09:17:33 PM
By avoiding transition, do you mean avoiding social transition? I've been on HRT for 8 years now and always present male. If I can't continue to deal with life like this I'll have SRS, and only if that doesn't work with I have FFS then RLE. RLE for me is a last resort.

Social transition feels very important for me. My HRT trial gave a strong indicator how it could help with my GD but it did not reduce my desire to present female. For me personally it's a 'whole package' thing, though given the impact it has had and will have in my life, I still wish it wasn't.

I seem to have much more physical issues than social, so I've been getting by. HRT does hugely reduce my need to do anything, but of course I am doing something. Kind of ironic and it's still not a good way to live. I don't think you'll have much luck avoiding transition long term, and you won't be at all happy if you somehow manage it.

Before starting my transition, I also wondered about this.  I was hoping to find some stats as I'm also a very analytical person, but I never found any.  There just haven't been any studies done on it.  The best I could do was look for YouTube videos for "de-transitioning".  I also read several years' worth of posts in the "de-transitioning" subforum here at Susan's Place.

From what I gathered, one of the main reasons people de-transitioned was because they didn't or couldn't pass.  And they didn't have the financial resources to get the electrolysis, surgeries, voice training, etc to get where they needed to be.  Which is pretty sad.  Full transition is so expensive.  :(

I asked my therapist about starting RLE some time ago and she asked me back, when DID you start it...?  As fas as she is concerned, that already is my reality and there is nothing to start again.  When I told her that I feel like I am presenting as male, she asked me to start taking a look at where I am at this point.  I guess her point is (and mine too), we are in RLE all the time and her take is that any check list is just a guide really.

Quote from: meganjames2 on October 02, 2016, 05:12:42 PM
The root of all my uncertainty is a lifetime spent imagining a different destiny makes it very hard for me to see any other.

I suppose my earlier answer, above, was overly Zen. Whichever path we choose leads us to our destiny. I, too, struggled a great deal and asked myself if there was any way at all out of transition? I then pictured myself (perhaps overly dramatically) drawing my last breaths of life before I expired. I pictured myself feeling great horror as in this imagining I would realize: I lived for them and not for me. Where are they now, as I took my last gasps? Had I flushed my life down the drain so they would not have to deal with ambiguity--so that their world construct would not be upset?

That's what I started to realize. I told a cis woman, a girlfriend, but not romantic, about my struggle. I would be letting all sorts of people down and guilt welled up in me along with shame and heavy doses of fear. She listened as I confessed my pain and ambivalence. We talked, but one thing she said still rings in my ears all these years later: Remember, your primary contract is with yourself.

This liberated me enough to seek therapy from a non-hospital-based gender clinic. My therapist said that trying out living in role, even for a day-trip or a weekend would not be the end of the world nor would I be making a permanent commitment. He acknowledged it was an imprecise analogy, but if I took a car out on a test drive, it didn't mean I had to buy it. I did take some forays out in broad daylight, my heart beating as fast as a sewing machine. I went to movies with a friend. I went out and had lunch and angry patrons did not suddenly mob me or laugh or scream or do anything except to go about their own business.

It was not a bed of roses and there were setbacks and misgenderings. I would compare it to hammering a nail in. I kept hitting it over and over until I drove home. At any time if it did not fit, I could back out. I could take a break from my forays. It was no sin to stop or even decide it was not for me. The transworld would not collapse if I decided needed to take it slower or just become a CD or completely stop. My primary contract was to myself.

The worst would be, should I remain a boy, was that my face would be cleared of some hair and my breasts would be slightly larger and I'd have gained some humility about womanhood. Maybe I was blithe, but it was estrogen, not heroin, that I was taking. People meet, get engaged, marry, and get divorced faster than the required RLE , or crossliving as it was called back then.

It is during this time of experimentation that I began to "know." I liked estrogen and how it made me feel. I liked looking pretty, even though many times I felt like an elephant in drag. And speaking of elephants: an elephant is eaten a bite at a time. I explored. I learned who I was. I had many sleepless nights. I gained self-knowledge. I lost a lot of people who I thought were friends--good I didn't have to wait until my deathbed to see their true colors.

I always had to remember one central thing about the so-called Real Life Test. It wasn't that the world was testing me. It was I who was testing the world.

Live long and prosper.

Virginia, some great words and advice, thank you.

Virginia is right!  It is not a test to see if the world will approve of us, but to see how we will work within the world as we grow in to our womanhood.  A very fast adolescence, RLE.