“At least get on blockers. At the very least! You’ll regret waiting further”

We have seen previously here on Transgender reality that there is a lot of pressure to start taking either hormone blockers or hormones for young people who think they might be transgender. Sometimes it’s supposed to be a sort of diagnostic tool, the thought being that if you feel better on the hormones of the opposite sex, that means you are transgender. Often, the decision to start blockers or hormones is presented as something you need to do as soon as possible, even if you aren’t sure if it’s the right thing, even if you’re just 13 years old and confused. Going through natural puberty is framed as “watching your body get ruined”.

Kids going to reddit and the many large transgender subreddits there get presented with this over and over again. You need to start hormones now or you will never pass! Testosterone is ruining your body! It doesn’t take much for them to internalize this and start obsessing, as we have seen previously.

“Anything I can do?” asks a 16 year old, and gets told by several commenters to “get HRT asap”:

“Can I pass?” asks another 16 year old, and again HRT comes up several times:

“What do I have to work with here?” asks a 14 year old. The second comment mentions hormones:

Other commenters talks about how it’s possible to get androgen blockers online:

“Get blockers”:

Note that this kid has not even seen a therapist yet, and still people are egging him on to get hormones.

“Is transitioning early really worth it?” asks a 15 year old. The commenters start talking about HRT straight away:

“Stop the damage of testosterone on your body”:

Do it now do it now do it now, you’ll regret it if you don’t:

This kid, who found out he’s trans less than a month before and has not talked to a therapist or even told his parents, wonders how hard he should “push for hrt”. The answer: very hard:

This 19 year old wonders if he could pass. This exchange is very typical:

In a nutshell, he’s told to get on HRT as soon as possible. He mentions feeling stressed out because he’s not even sure he wants to transition, but worries that “I don’t have enough time to decide”. So obviously, the answer is to “start an anti androgen”. His concerns about fertility are handwaved away. Can’t worry about fertility when the more important thing is to become as pretty as possible!

This premise is most often left unspoken, but if you pay attention it is very pervasive. Passing as a woman isn’t enough, the desire to be an attractive, beautiful, sexy woman is very deep among many would-be transitioners. When you take this into consideration, the preoccupation with getting people on hormones in their early teens makes more sense. Here are just a few examples of this sentiment:

This is a recipe for disaster. Young teens go into these communities with problems that are incredibly typical, like feelings of not fitting in with peers, or liking clothing or activities that are seen as being “for” the opposite sex. They are told that even questioning their gender means that they are trans, and to get on puberty blockers or hormones as soon as possible. Again and again, the idea that taking one’s life is a natural and inevitable consequence of not being able to get these medications is reinforced.

What happens next?

Yeah. That post was written by Josh “Leelah” Alcorn, who committed suicide later that year.

When suicide is presented as the logical alternative

“Why did you transition?”, a poster asks the subreddit r/asktransgender. The commenters answer:

The notion that suicide is inevitable unless someone transitions is something that comes up a lot in various trans communities on the internet.

This post asks how people in r/asktransgender would feel if hormone threapy and sexual reassignment surgery did not exist.

There are many more replies like the ones shown above. The general consensus seems to be that suicide is an almost inevitable outcome of not transitioning. Combined with the trend we saw highlighted in our previous post about how any questioning of one’s gender or discomfort with gender roles means you’re trans, this is a dangerous idea to internalize.

The notion of the inevitability of suicide comes up very frequently, like in this post, written as a guide to parents of transgender children.

The 41% figure comes up often, and often it is presented like it is here – as the rate at which transgender people commit suicide. That is not correct, the figure actually refers to suicide attempts over a lifetime. And even that is highly debatable; it comes from this study (pdf), where the authors admit that asking the question the way they did can “inflate the percentage of affirmative responses, since some respondents may use it to communicate self-harm behavior that is not a suicide attempt”. Other studies report much smaller numbers.

Another post asks “do you ever consider suicide?”

There are many more replies. Most of them say that they do, or that they have in the past.

Another way suicide often comes up, is as a bargaining chip. Look at this poster (aged 19)  who tells the story of how their parents do not want to finance their transition:

“Do what I want or I will kill myself”.

We have seen this before, documented here, where a 13 year old kid is being given concrete advice on how to use suicide threats to pressure his parents into giving him access to hormones:

Another young teen, this one 14 years old, gets much the same advice when they ask how to talk to their parents about being transgender:

Someone who finds their way into these online communities are met with the idea that questioning one’s gender is a sure sign that one is trans. and should transition Then the idea is planted that suicide is such a common thing among transgender people, and that if you do not get access to the treatments you want, it is the natural outcome. And finally, suicide is presented as something you can use as a bargaining chip.