Thinking about the exceedingly low regret rates for gender affirming surgeries compared to basically everything else. I wonder whether it’s because the only people who can get them are those of us so utterly persistent and determined in fighting all the bullshit to actually get what we need.

Other problems aren’t like this. You have a problem with your heart they figure out what it is and book you in to get it fixed. Sure there’s a waiting list and counselling about the effects and side effects, but ultimately the doctor proposes a solution, you assess it and agree, and stuff happens.

You break a leg: they shove it in a plaster. Why the hell doesn’t the analogous conversation go “well yes I see the problem. You’re a woman but you’re suffering from bollocks. Soon have those off”?

(I know the answer of course. To much of the rest of the cis world transition is something incomprehensibly bad, to be avoided at all costs, including the patient’s own well-being, or indeed their life.)

Sure, regret rates would probably go up. Greater accessibility of any surgery probably means more people will be unhappy about some aspect of it. But the sheer amount of pain and harm that would be relieved… it makes me wonder.

Whisper it softly, but are gender affirming surgery regret rates… too low?