Why We Have The Standards of Care.

Most of you have never heard of the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care (SOC), but the trans-community knows the Standards of Care all too well. They are the medical procedures that govern our transition. The SOC tells us when we can start taking hormones and when we can have surgery, one of the rules is that we have to live in our correct gender continuously for at least one year (called the real-life experience or RLE). Many trans-people hate the SOC, they see it as gatekeeper rules (It is also why when the opponents of the gender inclusive Anti-Discrimination law talk about teachers switching genders back and forth they do not know what they are talking about, because the SOC prohibits a transsexual from doing that.). The SOC says,

“The act of fully adopting a new or evolving gender role or gender presentation in everyday life is known as the real-life experience. The real-life experience is essential to the transition to the gender role that is congruent with the patient’s gender identity. Since changing one's gender presentation has immediate profound personal and social consequences, the decision to do so should be preceded by an awareness of what the familial, vocational, interpersonal, educational, economic, and legal consequences are likely to be.”

The reason I am writing this is because a LA Times sportswriter who transitioned in 2007, just detransitioned and the press and the right wing conservatives are making a big “brew ha” about it. However, the SOC worked the way it was supposed to work. We will not know the reason why he detransitioned, nor should we know, but it is important to realize that just because he transitioned back does not mean that he is not transsexual. There are numerous reason why people transition back, unable to make a living in their preferred gender, family pressures, religious pressures and societal pressure. Of all the reasons why people detransition, I feel the biggest is reason is societal pressure.
In the USA Today’s article “For some, shadow of regret cast over gender switch“ Steve Friess wrote…

"It's unfortunate and it's relatively uncommon but certainly not unheard of," says Denise Leclair, executive director of the International Foundation for Gender Education, a Waltham, Mass.-based transgender advocacy group. "The simplest way to think about it is being trans is something that never goes away. ... There's just a fairly constant social pressure to just go back. You don't have to be a genius to understand that society doesn't really accept this."

I face this pressure daily, the constant giggles and stares, and the occasional being “damn and going to hell” wears on you. For one of my classes I had to read Aronson's book "The Social Animal" (2004) and what hit home for me was,

"People have a powerful need to belong. Acceptance and rejection are among the most potent rewards and punishments for social animals, because in our evolutionary history, social exclusion could have disastrous consequences..."