Miswanting, the Honeymoon Effect, and "Gender Affirmation"
Miswanting, the Honeymoon Effect, and "Gender Affirmation"
People miswant "gender affirmation" surgery in the same way people miswant marriage
Miswanting Marriage
Many people feel like getting married would solve their loneliness problems. They may even think it will solve their financial situation. They feel as if they’re missing something. They predict that marriage will fill that hole inside of them.
Wanting something is simply a prediction that you will feel better when you have it. The problem is that we are terrible predictors. Furthermore, if we don’t change our internal thought patterns, getting what we “want” won’t actually solve anything. If you have a limiting belief that says, “No one wants to spend time with me,” but you get married to someone, you’re still going to have a mindset that makes you focus on all the ways in which your partner doesn’t want to spend time with you. That’s because your brain is looking to prove you right.
In this video, I discuss the fact that life satisfaction increases upon engagement, and marriage and then falls after the honeymoon. I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t get married. If you have a high life satisfaction and get married, it will likely bump up higher during the wedding planning, and then fall back to the baseline before the engagement.
But, if you have low life satisfaction and think marriage is going to make you happier, you’re only right if we’re talking about the short term. In the long run, you’ll go back to the baseline low satisfaction, unless you’ve been concurrently working on changing your thought patterns.
Miswanting Gender Affirmation Treatment
In the same way, I believe many people are miswanting “gender affirmation” treatments. I discuss a study by Von Soest Et Al. (2011). The conclusion states “A series of mental health symptoms predict cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery does not, in turn, seem to alleviate such mental health problems.”
Mental health problems were shown to increase after having cosmetic surgery. The patients felt worse about their looks and suicidal ideation went up. I see absolutely no reason to believe that this wouldn’t be the same result for those having gender-affirmation surgeries. Actually, it might be worse, because, as I mentioned in the video, they’re going to have a tougher time finding someone to be romantically involved with.
Here is a substack article and video in which a woman discusses how her breasts were used as a scapegoat. She miswanted them removed because she thought they were the problem. But after removing them she found out that wasn’t the actual problem.
Competing Studies
People who promote gender-affirmation treatments claim to have science on their side. But, some studies disagree with their belief that suicide will go down after having gender-affirmation “care.”
One of the studies was publicized saying they found that mental health increased but the data didn’t actually show that.
“A University of Washington study, in partnership with Seattle Children’s Hospital, claimed gender-affirming care via puberty blockers leads to positive mental health outcomes for transgender teen patients. That characterization, however, was false, forcing substantial edits to the materials used to promote the study and prompting UW to cease promoting the research.” Rantz: Despite ‘concerning’ transgender study, UW kept quiet because of positive coverage
Internal Change Is Needed
In my opinion, after all my studies, I would say an internal change is needed. If children could be taught to disregard gender stereotypes, not mind that others don’t like them, and learn to love their authentic selves without surgery, then there would be no need for these gender-affirmation “treatments.”
I suppose the people pushing these “treatments” think this is the only way to find happiness or peace. Like most people in this world, they think changing the external world will make you feel better internally. But it’s actually the other way around.