Will Later-Life Transitions Disappear?

By Suzi Chase on June 9th, 2015

https://www.susans.org/2015/06/09/will-later-life-transitions-disappear/

In their view of the ideal future, transition will be socially acceptable to the point where transgender people will feel comfortable transitioning during their teen and college years, and we'll no longer hear of middle-aged men and women with established careers and families changing their gender presentation. Plans that cover transition-related medical services will become commonplace and transitions will no longer be delayed by money concerns.

Is this true? Are we really headed to a world where a middle-aged transitioner is some sort of dinosaur making us wonder why it took so long to get into gear? Will transgender support sites and facilities become havens for the young who all get their gender work squared away by early adulthood?

I think they're probably right, but overly optimistic. Late transitions could disappear, in a century or so. Gays and Blacks aren't entirely accepted and it's been a half century or more for them. Only complete acceptance will allow all of us to be ready to transition before adulthood.

I think it's likely that, before long, they'll discover the environmental or medical reason for the spike in transgender births, if it's not just a case of incidence reporting going up. With that knowledge people like us will likely go back to historical levels. I AM NOT SUGGESTING PEOPLE LIKE US SHOULD BE ABORTED! Don't even think it.

You see I don't know about this...

It depends I guess on whether you see something like gender as fixed or mutable... if you think it is fixed then I suppose when acceptance becomes more widespread then the barriers will be removed and people will be able to transition in childhood as I more or less did, withot penalty.

Then again if, like me, you see gender, and indeed physical sex, as mutable then its doesnt follow because there may be people who feel one gender up to a certain point in their lives, and then decide that they need to change that. So I guess for them all that would change is that they would no longer be forced to concoct a story to fit in with the accepted standard narrative. At least I HOPE that is what would happen. My fear would be that in this brave new world those who only decide they need to change their gender at a late stage could find themselves subject to huge suspicion.

Another well thought out article Suzi, thank you.  During my long life I have seen gay and lesbian people go from practically invisible to mainstream participants in community where fortune 500 companies brag about their platinum equity status.  This is a process and yet we still meet individuals who come out LGBT after living a straight, cisgender life for decades.

There is more than self awareness and self acceptance at play and you note the socioeconomic restraints and the capacity some of us have for coping and making the best of what seems "impossible" to fix.  There are not a few who find themselves deeply entangled with a family and career that just seemed like it was the expected life course.  If we knew then what our lives would be like now; well more fun if idle speculation perhaps?

In my preferred cosmic vision later life gender transitions are treated as just another big but acceptable change like graduation or retirement.  I look toward the young people here and in real time who eschew labels and seem far more comfortable with androgyny as the wave of the future.

I think later life transitions will become rarer, but never totally eliminated. Although I knew by age 10 I wanted to be a woman, as many youngsters today do, I still think there is going to be some hesitancy on the part of some parents worrying about among other things, biological grandchildren. Or as you mention, some may want to have their own biological children and so delay transition. I don't think universal acceptance is probable either and you will find those brought up in certain more conservative religious denominations, spend their lives trying to fit in only to realize later in life the futility. And I certainly can't speak to those who went most of their lives knowing something was different but didn't realize they were trans much later as that was not part of my experience, and I think we will always have those also. So no, I don't expect later life transitions to be come rare, but rarer.

My personal view is that the more education and medical help will allow those aware early on to get the help they need and those for whatever reasons don't realize in the earlier years to be accepted and helped through the process. The mind is complicated and everyone has unique machinery. I went through one phase of trying to unravel my circuitry  and when I hit forty went through another stage for 20 years where I didn't experience Dysphoria then bam It came back with a vengeance .

Hi All,

I'm trying to imagine a society where people are completely indifferent to gender, just accepting people as people.   Until people stop making a big deal out of this, I can't see everyone having the ability to transition early.

I also wonder how non-binary people would fit in with this paradigm.  It does seem to imply that the binary is the only really acceptable choice.

Take care,
Paige

I think the big problem with all of this is that logic is being applied to something that is partially logical and partially irrational/emotional. Basically what I am saying is science/medical is logical and yes I can see less late transition to be a result but not gone at all just a slight shift due to as late transitioners have experiences and have fought with themselves for whatever reasons are a lot more complex to figure things themselves to even seek help. My prediction would be now a 50/50 spit in the future maybe a 60/40 split. I mean really it is a big decision that we ourselves should not rashly rush into so why would there be that much less really. To top that off to say that someone should transition earlier maybe actually do more harm in the long run basically the post surgery regret chances.

Of course just opinion but ha ha logically the shift would occur but not to the degree of non existence. Even in the I knew from early on crowd there is a big variance of when really the ages of say 3-15 may only be 12 years but in that time frame that's a lot of growing and learning so its a big 12 years.

My Idea is we are all born both male and female brained with an internal clock that triggers this as to when it depends on how the brain itself was created as well as post birth growth. The big thing is it is most likely a subtle difference to the average population and being as we as humans are complex I am sure we will never truly understand how it comes to be.

I still think trans kids will still be somewhat rare. Trans teens maybe more mainstream and trans in their 20s increasing.

They won't disappear because many of us live in a state of denial. Others of us live in a state of fear because we take social programming so readily and we fear being different or not being able to make the transition because we consider our body to be so flawed. The only way this could possibly happen is if we had a very good screening process that would catch all us by the early teens. If we are allowed to age any more than that, we will avoid treatment because we will resist what we are. I don't like this truth but our only hope is to catch them very young before society works it's way on us.

I think this is still predicated on the assumption that everyone knows (or will know) as a child, which is frustrating to me as someone who believes she *was* a cis boy once - and got over it. This article reads as if it's not enough to try to suppress stories like mine, but rather it'd be ideal to try to erase *people* like me. Sorry, that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

I'll be thrilled if every single trans child is allowed to transition as soon as they express the need, but I agree with the concern that people will be deeply suspicious of anyone who didn't know as a child... and I don't want to see a return to the bad old days of jumping through a million hoops to prove we're really trans, even aimed at a smaller subset of the population than before.

Quote from: Jenna Marie on June 09, 2015, 05:27:40 PM
This article reads as if it's not enough to try to suppress stories like mine, but rather it'd be ideal to try to erase *people* like me. Sorry, that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

I'm really sorry it comes off that way. My intention was exactly the opposite - to highlight how widespread stories like yours are and to disagree strongly that they're going to disappear. Sorry that didn't come through.

Oh, heck, Suzi, I'm sorry. Seriously, this is a sincere apology. I didn't realize (somehow) that you were the actual author of the piece, and I know enough about you from what you've said here to know that you'd NEVER suggest such a thing. I don't think your point came across quite perfectly, but I also clearly misread.

(I'd say I'm maybe #5 or #4b, though, someone who wasn't trans for all intents and purposes and eventually evolved/developed/changed in that direction. But who knows, maybe I'm one of the only ones out there [I've only ever met one other woman who said the same so far].)

In fact, I agree one million percent with your last couple paragraphs, and I have no idea why I let my pet peeve run away with me like that.