Hi
I'm almost retirement age and nearing a decade post-op. I've known that I had a gender problem since I was an infant.
In the decade beginning 1969/70 I took LSD, mushrooms and other mind expanding substances many times.
I am sure that the experiences taught me a lot about myself, were overall very beneficial and had no negative effects - other than confirming my disdain and despair at the general direction humanity is going in.
All research into the potential use of such substances was completely shut down for many decades by authorities outraged at a generation which valued feelings and personal contentment above the mere accumulation of excessive amounts of material possessions.
I noted with great interest the recently begun research into the use of such substances in therapies and various constructive ways. I applaud these efforts and am sure that if not obstructed and if evaluated fairly they will ultimately give rise to some very successful treatments for a variety of illnesses and problems.
It seems likely to me however that the interests of big pharma will stamp these out as soon as positive benefits are shown to occur. It is not in their financial interest to have you take a couple of trips and be rid of your anxiety, depression etc when they could be selling you in perpetuity a continuous supply of chemicals of marginal benefit and unknown long-term negative effects - these are after all the same people who have flooded the USA with highly addictive opioid derivatives or substitutes. The same people who in the 1950's when serious questions arose about Thalidomide causing birth deformities led to it's ban in some European countries, they merely increased their marketing drive in the countries which hadn't banned it yet.
Do not look to "the authorities" for unbiased, factual reporting of the efficacy of psychedelics.
- nor unbiased, factual reporting of much else either, for that matter.
But to focus on the specific point of the OP -
As an experienced user of such substances and also a transsexual, I cannot report that the drugs were of any help in specifically decreasing my gender dysphoria.
My experiences did result in me adopting a fatalistic attitude to a great many things in the world that were clearly wrong but there was zero hope of changing - it is possible that a similar effect occurred upon my GD, but I am not specifically aware of it if so.
Indeed, my first crisis with GD occurred when I was 24, not long before I ceased using psychedelics and at that time I reached a desperate enough state to Out myself to family, visit a psych and join the Beaumont Society.
After that, I settled down to trying to accept myself as and live as a part-time ->-bleeped-<-. That was not particularly comfortable and I did eventually transition anyway, 30 years later.
- at which point my major thought was "I should have done this long ago."
I am sure that I did not have any "bad trips" specifically about GD - but that doesn't mean that others wouldn't.
Every person is different and their experiences with psychedelics would be different, but from my own personal experience, I do not think that they are likely to help in the specific regard of decreasing feelings of GD.
I am a lead guitarist. I only found out recently that another guitarist and good friend who I used to jam with and trip with back then also transitioned! I am sure that we will meet sometime soon, after 40 years.
It is tragic that back then we were close friends and yet both guarded our guilty secret so deeply that we neither knew about the other.
