Oddtail on Nostr: This one is mostly for the cises. Today I read an account of the "diagnosis" process ...

This one is mostly for the cises.

Today I read an account of the "diagnosis" process a young trans person went through.

They were a young teenager, and they came out to their parents (heck yes), and the parents were supportive and took them to a psychologist, because that's almost always a necessary part of getting diagnosed with dysphoria in Poland.

The psychologist asked the kid one question - whether they had come out to their parents in a letter. The kid volunteered information about how and why they were dysphoric and how they figured out they were trans - expecting (correctly) that stuff to be relevant.

The psychologist was completely disinterested and seemed like they just wanted the kid out the door in order to talk to the parents.

As the kid learnt later, the psychologist asked the parents only one question. Does their kid watch anime.

...OK then.

Then, upon hearing "yes", the psychologist assured the parents that being trans is a trend among kids, that it would pass, and warned them to not gender the kid correctly under any circumstances or call them by their preferred name, because that could "do permanent damage" to their psyche.

The parents ended up misgendering their kid to the point of trauma, for months.

The story has a happy ending because they did take the kid to another psychologist, the kid (now a young adult) has been diagnosed and now they are undergoing transition and taking the hormones appropriate for their gender.

But this sort of thing happens often enough that it's not the first such story I've heard. And the diagnostic process took place in a clinic that is "supportive" of trans people.

I've written about my own experiences with a psychiatrist who focuses on "helping" trans people and who openly admitted she believes in autogynephilia, a pseudoscientific idea from the 70s that one guy came up with based on completely wrong methodology and severe cherry-picking and that was discredited within a few years.

Cis people, when you see a trans person express mistrust towards doctors, nurses, psychologists, government officials or anyone involved in the process of transitioning medically:

1) If we talk about it around you, it probably means we trust you at least a little bit. Be effin' thankful. Y'all have no idea how cautious we have to be picking our words in front of some cis people.
2) We are not being tinfoil-hat-wearing anti-science weirdoes. When we talk about DIY HRT, we are not being anti-establishment edgy rebels who do this for the heck of it. Sometimes it's our only safe option. Sometimes it's our only option.

I know many such stories. I reckon most people who've gone through transition know a few, as well.

It's not a universal experience, but it's common enough that I now consider it prudent to assume no doctor or medical professional will be on our side until they indicate otherwise.

And often it's not their individual fault (although it often is), diagnosis is set up specifically to gatekeep transition as much as possible.

I live in Poland, the anus of Europe. So you might think it's different in the West.

What if I tell you that until less than 20 years ago, US medical standards made it at best impractical, at worst impossible to openly be gay/lesbian and want to transition? Because sexual attraction (and it being uhhhh, correct in the eyes of doctors) was a major part of determining if a person is "truly" trans?

Look it up.