I promise I am not a reactionary, but I am somewhat uneducated on the subject so I might say something offensive accidentally, sorry in advance about that.
So, does gender dysphoria stem from a disconnect between the body and some “gender socialization” function of the brain, which could be solved by getting socialized and treated by everyone as the correct gender from the start, or something that stems from a disconnect between the brain and the actual body parts and hormones, so the transition is needed to alleviate that, or both?
Sorry to harp on this, I know you’re not making a big or strong claim, so it probably feels like I’m being extra nitpicky. Nevertheless, I’m going to push back a bit on what it seems to me that you’re saying.
When you say “we aren’t some idiots who just go off what sounds right, we do science to know what is right”, I take that to mean that you want better evidence than what I’ve provided before you are willing to say with certainty that transness has both biological and social aspects. I wonder, then, what evidence you would accept. What kind of studies need to be done for you to agree that transness can be both biological and social, in different measures for different people? Please really think about this. If trans people saying “hormones make me feel different, and better” isn’t good enough evidence that sometimes some aspects of transness are biological, what is? If trans people saying “I love having short/long hair and wearing suits/dresses” isn’t strong enough evidence that sometimes some aspects of transness are social, what is?
Here’s the reason I’m harping on this: we live in an extremely transphobic society and that transphobia often manifests in people implying, or even outright stating, that trans people are wrong about ourselves. Any science done to try to understand transness needs to start from a place of believing what trans people say about ourselves, and because we’re not there yet as a society, I’m deeply wary of any so-called “science” that gets done about us.
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Not in my experience, no. Because when I started testosterone, I planned to just stay on long enough for my voice to drop. I didn’t want to have to do weekly injections for the rest of my life, so I fully planned to go off T after a few months. After a little while I decided I’d stay on T at least until I had a hysterectomy so that I could avoid dealing with a period ever again. But after my hysterectomy, I did indeed go off T, for approximately 4 months. I wanted to give it a good go, so I stayed off until I hadn’t had any hot flashes for several weeks, at which point I was quite sure that my endocrine system had stabilized. I felt awful. Just, so fucking bad. It’s hard to explain how much worse life was without T. I wish I still had access to the hexbear account I had at that point so I could link you some of my posts from that time. It affected everything, my mood, my energy levels, my appetite, my orgasms. Everything was just muted, I was constantly on the verge of tears, I couldn’t stop clenching my jaw. And you know what? I recognized this feeling. It felt like I was back in middle school. It felt the same as the first time my system flooded with estrogen.
So sure, we could do a study where we take trans people off their hormones and see how miserable they are. Sure, we could do that, and I think it would be pretty dang revealing, but I don’t think we should, because I’d never wish that misery on anyone else.