How to Know When Medical Transition is Justified?
"I have mild physical dysphoria that affects my everyday life, but I don't know how much dysphoria is enough for me to justify medically transitioning. How can one know if they have enough dysphoria to justify a medical transition?"
Dr. Z addresses this important question, especially relevant to younger adults. She explains why it's not a matter of gauging whether dysphoria is severe enough—there's really no barometer that tells clinicians or anyone where surgery or hormones become warranted. It's not like pain medication, where you rate pain 1-10 and get corresponding treatment.
For younger adults (18-28), this becomes especially difficult because you have shorter periods of time living, fewer life experiences, and fewer opportunities to make difficult decisions. Older adults have lived with dysphoria longer and have more experience making complex decisions.
Dr. Z explains two reasons people start hormones: dysphoria is so severe there's no other step, OR they're very certain about their gender identity trajectory, regardless of dysphoria severity—they're not looking at dysphoria to justify hormones, they're looking at overall sense of identity and incongruence.
Watch to find out what it means when you're asking this question, why it might indicate something, and how to think about this decision.
