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And what if those other solutions just don't work? I did try talk therapy for years, I did everything I could to convince myself I didn't need to transition. I went to the gym and became very physically fit, I dated men and women both, I talked to TERFs and tried to read what they said with an open mind. And yet, the pharmaceutical route - just a estradiol gel you apply daily to your skin - is so far what has made me the most comfortable in my body and reduced my body dysmorphia by a huuge amount.
The history of trans medicine goes back over a hundred years and is not just a fringe modern leftist medical movement. If you read say, Harry Benjamin's famous book from the 1960s, he describes how psychotherapy has been completely unable to cure transsexuals and transvestites from their mental affliction and provides numerous psychiatrist reports to that effect. This is from a time when gender non-confirming behavior risked severe social disapproval, and was often outright illegal, and all pressure would have been on patients to not be a transsexual as opposed to today where there is acceptance and even encouragement. Psychotherapy has advanced since the 1960s sure, but why do you think talk therapy would be more effective at reducing gender dysphoria now than it did back when transitioning meant losing your job, your family, your friends?
There's plenty wrong with the modern trans movement, I won't deny that. But the right wing proposal - "find a way to be comfortable with your own body", "carry on with life", I'm sorry, that's not an actionable solution I can put in practice, that just sounds like "cope harder". Why would I subject myself to lifelong psychological pain, have it be this constant weight on my shoulder, have difficulty being intimate with a partner when I can just... accept that I'm trans, follow an established treatment plan, and have all that inner suffering massively reduced? I didn't pick that option out of some ideological belief, it's just the best option I tried so far, and I'm lucky enough that it hasn't had any negative social or professional consequences.
I do think talk therapy, etc, have a place as a first-line intervention and everyone is too quick to jump to puberty blockers/HRT, but ultimately I agree with you: estradiol worked, the other things didn't.
I even had reason recently to stop it for a while which seemed like a good chance to test if it was still necessary or whether the other changes were enough. Sure enough, things were terrible again (long after the period where the hormone changes had largely settled down).
My position is that it's kind of like chemo: it may not solve things and dear God don't do it if you don't have the relevant issue, but if it works it's invaluable.
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