What if I explained to you that choosing to be trans is a decision?
If you already feel apprehensive, I don’t blame you. Similar rhetoric has been used by conventional actors for a long time to defame and criticize the trans community. They are making the mistake of assuming that being transgender is a product.
But the fact remains: I chose to remain trans. And I choose it over and over again every day when I wake up.
By this I mean that, though my identity is innate and significantly felt, I decide how to convert it into outer appearance. And I’m not alone. Whether or not they are aware of it, sex is a decision for transgender people like I do.
From the clothing we wear to the hairstyle we choose, we are all constantly making decisions that affect how other people perceive and interact with our identity. Just because someone chooses to perform a gender that is in accordance with their sex at birth doesn’t mean it’s any less of a choice.
When politicians control sex, what they’re really regulating is an individual’s right to choose their gender, rather than as a fact, clarifies why the current explosion of bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth are not just dangerous but quite unfair.
Conservatives who are the most vocal proponents of these bans promote the policy as a way to stop young children from being “seduced” by “transgender philosophy.” Youth at this station are the epicenter of a vicious assault on the transgender society, who they believe threaten the social order.
There is one more, less clear group who opposes gender-affirming care: liberals and moderates whose assistance of transgender identity is complicated by concern that young people aren’t mentally mature enough to make long-term decisions about their systems.
Although frequently well-meaning, this minute station gives cred to bangs or methodologically flawed evidence that disproves the widely accepted merit of gender-affirming care.
I have no doubts about how young and older youth are in general compared to the typical adult. However, this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be denied access to care. And before you come at me with brooms, kindly notice my situation.
Second, let’s be certain about what sex-affirming care means. I don’t want to have children who have gender-affirming surgeries. Actually, no one is.
In reality, medical professionals have created a wide range of common best practices for providing gender-affirming care to youth in age-appropriate, meticulously considered ways. There is no specific, one-dimensional method, but options generally range from removable puberty blockers for younger adolescents to hormone replacement therapy to, yes, in some cases, surgery for older adolescents. Nearly rarely are these procedures performed hastily or without the full consent of the doctor.
Second, despite the low rate of regret, gender-affirming treatment critics focus a lot on the possibility of dread. The most recent study of trans people in the US revealed that more than 97 percent of those who received gender-affirming hormone therapy or surgery were more content with their lives.
Of course, it’s expected that some people will eventually dread choosing to receive gender-affirming care. However, a crazy standard for universally acceptable pleasure is required. When it comes to almost any other choice, we don’t expect the many to sacrifice their personal freedom in order to lessen the regret of the few.
Making a choice to get gender-affirming attention is hardly a far cry from the choices children make frequently, such as getting a piercing or having elected cosmetic surgery. Even though they run the risk of regret, we seem to have no problem allowing children to permanently alter their body pending parental approval and informed consent in these cases.
Why do we handle a 16-year-old trans boy who wants a breast so differently from a 16-year-old woman who wants a breast reduction? Why won’t we permit trans children to have control over their bodies, even when they are under the care of their parents and trained medical professionals?
It is time to spread the idea that, regardless of who they are, everyone has the right to exercise freedom over their own system and self-expression. We empower trans children to make the same choices that their cis peers do every day by allowing them to get gender-affirming attention.
When I was 16 years older, I made the decision to come out as transgender. I didn’t make the decision just because I felt uncomfortable and unauthentic living as a woman. I chose it because I have always felt more pleasant about who I am as a person. I made the decision because I wanted to. And I always make a decision when I wake up.
It’s hard to imagine I’ll always think differently. But even if I did, I still wouldn’t regret choosing to be trans. It will have sufficed to give me the exhilaration it has engendered.
E. Matteo Diaz ’27, a Crimson Editorial director, lives in Grays Hall. His paragraph, “Transcriptions,” runs bi-weekly on Wednesdays.
