As anyone who has tried will tell you, it is nearly impossible to reason with someone caught up in the counterculture that demands and glorifies self-destruction. But sometimes we should try.
Guided by transgender compatriots in the proper talking points, potential transgender victims view friends and parents who question them as being out of step with today's culture. They often perceive themselves and other trans people as brilliant and enlightened.
Taking cross-sex hormones can deliver a temporary euphoria that many mistake for proof of its efficacy. Unfortunately, hormones adversely affect sound thinking and reinforce the disordered conviction that surgical transition is right for them. They are blind to their own self-destructive behavior and deaf to counter arguments or data.
That was true in my life. I surrounded myself with cheerleaders for transition and pushed skeptics out of the way. Following a doctor's advice, I took hormones and had mutilating surgery. The self-destruction was complete.
Ultimately, however, I still had the same issues as before, but with the additional complexity of living in a female persona. After eight years of living as a "woman," I finally got it through my thick head that nothing had changed and decided to go back, a process sometimes known as detransition.
I enjoy a unique position of now having communicated with hundreds and hundreds of men and women who experience remorse and regret. They reach out to me after looking at my website, sexchangeregret.com , to tell me "changing genders" was the biggest mistake of their lives. They say, "I want my life back," or, "I want my body parts back." They tell me the hormones and surgery did not solve their distress; it added to it.
So how should we talk to those struggling with the idea of transition before they do something they regret? First, be armed with knowing you stand on the side of truth.
That fact seems so obvious, but many people fall for the lie that sex can change. Genitalia can be rearranged, and body parts removed, but that doesn't change one's sex.