Truly, if there's any one thing I find irksome about emergence of transgender issues and needing to discuss them, it's the difficulty I have in trying to choose and unambiguously use the correct personal pronouns when talking/writing about transgender people. It's a friggin' PITA AFAIC, which is why I sometimes use the portmanteaus "shim," "shis," and variations on them, in spite of their linguistic irregularity; most folks "get" what I mean by those terms. I've tried "s-/he," but that is too subtle, given its similarly to "s/he," for some readers, and it's downright awkward verbally; thus I eschew that solution approach to the "pronoun problem."
why do they want everyone to know about transgendering? To attract more transgender-wannabes?
I don't see anything suggesting transgender people. as trans individuals, want everyone to know they are transgender. On the contrary, I think transgender people would sooner have most folks, "everyone" so to speak, be completely unaware they, as specific individuals, exist as such. That is, I think, say,
- Bill, who is becoming Betty, would just as soon "everyone" perceive that Bill is a male, always has been a male, and always will be a male, assuming Bill moves about in public as a male, or
- Bill, who is becoming Betty, would just as soon "everyone" perceive that Bill is instead Betty, a female, who always has been a female, and always will be a female, assuming Bill moves about in public as a female, namely, as Betty.
There are various ways Bill-Betty may present in public as either male or female. For example, a person, like Bill in the preceding scenarios, who is midway through the process of becoming a woman and who has breasts but also has a penis may exhibit a variety of behaviors such as:
- Dressing as a man going about the clothed aspects of daily life having "shis" breasts taped down so they appear more as "gym toned" pecs rather than as breasts.
- Dressing as a woman, wearing a bra and going about the clothed aspects of daily life as would any woman.
Either behavior helps minimize as much as possible aloof observers and bystanders' awareness that they are in the presence of a mid-process transgender person.
On the other hand, if that mid-process man wearing a bra is legally obliged to use the men's room, "shim" has little ability not to, by "shis" behavior, communicate that "shim" is a transgender person to anyone who observes "shim" and "shim's" boobs entering, within, and exiting the men's room. If instead, "shim" uses the ladies room and "does 'shis' business" in a stall, few if any will notice that "shim" is indeed to some degree transgender. The same basic concepts apply conversely to mid-process females on the way to becoming males.
Locker rooms, or most precisely the showering areas in them, are a little bit of a different matter. Certainly many upscale ones don't require one -- male or female -- to ever in the common areas of the locker room be naked, or even near naked. But not all locker rooms are that way, and without question, most transgender people aren't in Caitlyn Jenner's position of being able to afford "posh" fitness club memberships
and afford their treatment regimen, most especially because it's (1) pricey and (2) not often covered by medical insurance.
That insurance doesn't cover it is odd seeing as many insurance plans recognize gender dysphoria as a legitimate mental ailment, yet those very same plans often (if not always) won't cover surgical treatment modalities for the very same condition. Perhaps they don't because, as you noted, there are instances of gender reassignment remorse (buyer's remorse) and they feel that's justifiable enough cause not to cover the procedure? Whatever the reason, insurers are entitled to make their own business decision re: the products/services they offer and consumers are free to pressure for changes in those business decisions.
Certainly in the course of trying to garner support for their desired changes, trans folks who want to work within the guidelines of effecting change in America have little choice but to make their situation known to a wider public in the hopes of mustering their support. In the course of doing so, trans folks have no way not to make it generally known that they exist and want others' support in effecting change.
And why there’re no regretful transgenders showed? I heard that sex change regret is real.
- Shown where?
- Just how many trans folks, assuming you mean actual individuals, do you expect to "show" anywhere? There are only ~700K of them in the U.S., a nation of ~318M people, and all 700K aren't likely ever in the same place at the same time. I live in D.C., not the D.C. suburbs, and D.C. is among the "gayest" cities in the country, having ~20% of the population being LBGT. I've never knowingly encountered a transgender person in D.C., or anywhere else for that matter. I have come to learn later -- when I found out I was somewhere else and they likely were too -- that two people whom I met were in fact transsexuals. "Miraculously" I survived the experience with no ill effects. Wonder of wonders....
Yes, of course, sexual reassignment remorse (SRR) occurs. It'd be absurd to expect it does not. That said, the details of the studies that have evaluated it indicate that SRR is not common, running at about 4% max. (
IJ TRANSGENDER - Gender Role Reversal among Postoperative Transsexuals and
Transgenderism and Intersexuality in Childhood and Adolescence)
Even so, yes, there is SRR. SRR has (in the same studies) been shown to have risk factors that increase or decrease, depending on their confluence and presence, for the negative outcomes often mentioned in studies. Those risk factors are lack of support from the patient’s family, poor social support, late-life transitions, severe psychopathology, unfavorable physical appearance, and poor surgical result. The Lawrence study concluded that results of surgery may be more important for overall outcomes from the surgery than the preoperative factors noted in the prior sentence. As techniques have been perfected, the risk of long-term complications has fallen to less than 1 percent in male-to-female patients
