Moreover, I believe my middle school social failures were caused as much by gender incongruence as by neurodivergence.
If I had to speculate, the social failures were also largely because the adults around you just didn’t know how to help you; either with socializing, helping you to better understand and deal with the incongruence and neurodivergence. So while I’m sure there are medical and therapeutic solutions to be considered, we also just need better trained teachers, counselors, social workers, paraprofessionals, etc.
that’s probably true in general. I just don’t believe you can often rely on, like, school staff. Not enough context. Fwiw my middle school “health” / sex ed teacher said some stuff to me then than was very unhelpful. And she herself was queer! Not that she told us, but obvious 2000s lesbian, very short hair, piercings, etc.
I don’t know, I mostly got pretty lucky with my parents. But there were a couple big things they handled badly when I tried to tell them about my depression. I’ve long since forgiven them. The fact remains that I was really depressed, and, honestly, needed some kind of medical intervention, better therapy if not gender medicine. I didn’t want SSRIs but in hindsight they may have been better than nothing. If they didn’t help at least that would be a data point.
I was floundering and had little will to live. This had long term repercussions. Dysregulated, procrastinated everything. Smart but bad grades, didn’t get into a good college → more social isolation in college, because I didn’t fit in in the party atmosphere. I didn’t actually start going to therapy regularly until 2021, though I realize now, looking back, it was something I needed. In college I used the 2 free sessions at the health center, but I had no money to continue beyond that, even though I wanted to.
I would love it if there were more funding for youth psychotherapy in the US. But when it comes time to vote for this, voters continue to not vote for it. So I have become a libertarian on gender medicine for similar reasons as most trans people. The problem with gatekeeping is less the gatekeeping itself but that in the US we have no money to pay for it.
If I had to speculate, the social failures were also largely because the adults around you just didn’t know how to help you; either with socializing, helping you to better understand and deal with the incongruence and neurodivergence. So while I’m sure there are medical and therapeutic solutions to be considered, we also just need better trained teachers, counselors, social workers, paraprofessionals, etc.
that’s probably true in general. I just don’t believe you can often rely on, like, school staff. Not enough context. Fwiw my middle school “health” / sex ed teacher said some stuff to me then than was very unhelpful. And she herself was queer! Not that she told us, but obvious 2000s lesbian, very short hair, piercings, etc.
I don’t know, I mostly got pretty lucky with my parents. But there were a couple big things they handled badly when I tried to tell them about my depression. I’ve long since forgiven them. The fact remains that I was really depressed, and, honestly, needed some kind of medical intervention, better therapy if not gender medicine. I didn’t want SSRIs but in hindsight they may have been better than nothing. If they didn’t help at least that would be a data point.
I was floundering and had little will to live. This had long term repercussions. Dysregulated, procrastinated everything. Smart but bad grades, didn’t get into a good college → more social isolation in college, because I didn’t fit in in the party atmosphere. I didn’t actually start going to therapy regularly until 2021, though I realize now, looking back, it was something I needed. In college I used the 2 free sessions at the health center, but I had no money to continue beyond that, even though I wanted to.
I would love it if there were more funding for youth psychotherapy in the US. But when it comes time to vote for this, voters continue to not vote for it. So I have become a libertarian on gender medicine for similar reasons as most trans people. The problem with gatekeeping is less the gatekeeping itself but that in the US we have no money to pay for it.