Ok I need help, my dad thinks that "Most people who go through this process are still desperately unhappy and have made their life a thousand times more difficult with the change" and that i'm making "a disastrous life changing decision". 

Is there anything I can say or any links that I can send him that might help

Any advice would be appreciated.

Nathan

some stuff i had as reference when i was wikistaff (but didn't get around to integrating the info)

Transsexualism in Serbia: A Twenty-Year Follow-Up Study
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120126320/abstract

Long-term Assessment of the Physical, Mental, and Sexual Health among Transsexual Women
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121527910/abstract

A Report from a Single Institute's 14-Year Experience in Treatment of Male-to-Female Transsexuals
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122509262/abstract

obvious bias towards MtF peeps but a good start

Regret is a common human emotion.  Some regret more than others, some never do.

Well, there are people who are unhappy after transition but that's usually when there are other issues that they have put off dealing with in order to work on transition or think that transition will fix those other problems. And so even after transition they still have those other issues to deal with.

So my advice is to sort out as much as you can before working on transition.

As for convincing your dad, I don't really have anything to link to so erm... yeah. <_<

Ask your Dad where he got his thoughts about that subject. Did he see a show on tv or something, read a book? I'm sure people will post references in here for you, but I'd be curious to see where he got that idea to know how to combat it. I know a lot of transpeople both pre and post-op, many who won't have ops and many who are years past op (srs mainly). I know of like two of three people who have detransitioned. They had a lot of other issues other than gender and those issues were their real problem, not gender. He could come here or into chat and talk to some of us and ask us questions about our lives, get to know some of us and how we feel, maybe it would help him understand us better Meghan

Quote from: Ghost306 on August 31, 2009, 08:45:11 PM
Ok I need help, my dad thinks that "Most people who go through this process are still desperately unhappy and have made their life a thousand times more difficult with the change" and that i'm making "a disastrous life changing decision". 

Is there anything I can say or any links that I can send him that might help

Any advice would be appreciated.

Nathan

You first need to correct him:

"Most People who go through this process are still risk being desperately unhappy and have should expect made their life a thousand times more difficult with the change" and that i'm making "a disastrous serious life changing decision"

-={LR}=-

My dad said the same thing to me today. I think parents just dont want us to make a big mistake

Quote from: Kyle :P on August 31, 2009, 10:09:05 PM
My dad said the same thing to me today. I think parents just dont want us to make a big mistake

Hey lets face it most parents love and care for their kids and this was probably not what they had planned for.  A little surprised - to say the least.

-={LR}=-

Well for me personally, it was no biggy.  Oh sure, transition was not always fun.  But I still have my family and friends and a very good job. It's not easy and the problems you had before transition, you'll still have after. But for me it was worth it, for now the outside matches the inside.

Gee how is it better.  Hum....I like who I am for the first time in my life.  I have friends, Normal not trans friends who think I'm interesting.  I don't ever have to worry about someone asking if I'm gay or that I run like a girl.  I'm just me. 

Beni

My therapist told me this too recently and I was like "that's not what I heard". Be good to look at those references, thanks.

Quote from: Ladyrider on August 31, 2009, 10:08:44 PM
You first need to correct him:

"Most People who go through this process are still risk being desperately unhappy and have should expect made their life a thousand times more difficult with the change" and that i'm making "a disastrous serious life changing decision"

How very true. My wife keeps saying I'm making my beliefs more convenient for this and I keep telling her how inconvenient this will really be.

I dont think it is possible for a person to use the word "most" if they do not have any facts to support their opinions.  Does your father have a good understanding of GID. transgenders, or experiences with ppl that he has met that are?  Of course you are his child, so normally he would want you to conform to what society dictates.  My feeling would be more of if you are questioning your own trans-gender thoughts, because of this, and/or do you know for sure that you are TG. 

I've found that if you try to track down the sources that say most transitioned transsexuals have regrets and wished they'd never done it and/or are suicidal comes from religious groups and groups like NARTH.


Jay

I've known people IRL who have gone through and been tremendously happy, others who killed themselves.  Not bible stuff, or religious junk, but real life.  Sometimes even huge changes don't change enough stuff.

HRT/SRS only changes one thing, not all things.  You might be more comfortable in your own skin and not be such a social reject, but lacking social skills, your not going to be any better at it. "Hating that part" of you can be changed, 'hating yourself' will not change.

That, and things look different from the other side, and in the long run.  What seems to be good in the beginning often turns into disaster, and a lot of things that suck to start with can turn out to be good down the road.

Generalizations are dangerous weapons.  They can't easily be dismissed because there is some element of truth within the core generalization.  You could just as easily argue that most people who marry have regrets and wished they'd never done that either.  That is probably more true than the transsexual generalization--though marriage is more easily undone.

I have had regrets at times that were mostly connected to losses that were a consequence of transition like friendships.  I am still overwhelming convinced transition was life-or-death for me and have never entertained any serious thoughts of detransitioning.  This seems the consensus of my group of friends.

Quote from: tekla on September 01, 2009, 01:05:29 AM
I've known people IRL who have gone through and been tremendously happy, others who killed themselves.  Not bible stuff, or religious junk, but real life.  Sometimes even huge changes don't change enough stuff.

HRT/SRS only changes one thing, not all things.  You might be more comfortable in your own skin and not be such a social reject, but lacking social skills, your not going to be any better at it. "Hating that part" of you can be changed, 'hating yourself' will not change.

That, and things look different from the other side, and in the long run.  What seems to be good in the beginning often turns into disaster, and a lot of things that suck to start with can turn out to be good down the road.

I don't doubt that there are those that transition who are still unhappy and suicidal.  Transtion does only fix one problem in our lives, not all of them.  I still can't get along with my mother, my ex is still an arse, my tendency to procrastinate gets me into trouble, and I'm still fat and out of shape and dateless.

But to say that MOST transsexuals are unhappy after transition is a stretch.  Not all of us have effed up lives.  We transition and go back to our regularly scheduled boring lives with no drama, angst, alcohol, etc.


Jay

Like some people alrady wrote..  the transition dont fix any normal problem in life.
Sometimes you got some more problems, sometimes less..

My opinion, it's not enough to be happy with yourself because you are not alone.
If you are surounded by people they take as what you wanna be taken, its ok.
If your passing is that good that noone regonize your past, its ok.
But when you got treated bad at job, society etc. you'll have a big problem.

So its not only important to get happy with yourself because of the transition.
Be honest to yourself while the transition..  and you will not end up unhappy.

I kind of look at it like Swine Flu and Regular Flu.

Swine Flu has killed a few hundred people this year.

Influenza regularly kills hundreds of thousands of people per year just farting around the globe.

You're probably much more likely to die of the flu than to kill yourself after SRS. Well, that, and the point is that we're a high risk group for depression and suicide anyway. Who could have guessed that a demographic with our background would have difficulties beyond normal life issues?

I think a lot of people become entirely enveloped in transition, putting all their eggs in one basket, and after things are said and done, they realize... there's more to life. And maybe they didn't plan for that. It's a beginning, not the end.

If you're not chemically depressed, imbalanced, or suicidal pre-transition when you feel your worst, barring major life circumstances that can drive normal people to suicidal situations, you probably won't be suicidal afterward. If you are a high risk patient with a history relating to suicide, and you have SRS, betting the farm that it'll be a magical cure all, then as Eddie says, you might as well jump.

Talk to him about how important he and your family are to you and about how significant it would be to you to have his love and support through this, and how that alone will go so far towards eliminating regrets.

For me, risking depression and suicide after transition was a moot point because I was depressed and suicidal before doing it. 

I think the whole idea of "don't do it, it'll make you unhappier" ignores the fact that transsexual people have a medical - a physical - condition and not just some psychological disorder.  Many people are unhappy with the effects of treatment for other life threatening conditions but that doesn't stop them from accepting the treatment.  When you place the continuing societal disapproval and discrimination that many non- or marginally passing trans people receive on top of that you can get some serious depressive effects.

Post transition regret is one reason why the Standards of Care and the Real Life Experience exist, to see if the social change will hurt, rather than help, the issues an individual is experiencing.  You can tell your dad that going through transition, supervised by a medical team, is a relatively slow process that has many steps before anything is permanently changed and that stopping the transition is possible right up to the point of genital surgery.

hugs & smiles
Emelye

I'm not sure of what the statistics are but I do remember reading how suicide statistics were not only higher, but insanely higher, amongst people who have had their transsexualism "cured" through therapy than amongst people who'd had their sex corrected to fit their mind.

Transitioning is made tough by how those in your life respond to it.  If you're in a totally accepting environment, you'll probably breeze through it.  If the opposite is true, it will certainly be tough.

The barometer I used was how I felt inside.  Once that war that had raged for over half a century ended I couldn't believe the relief I felt.  I had never known inner peace before and I would never go back to live in that turmoil again.

Julie