Are you curious to know how much money it costs to transition? I can tell you it is usually 4 figures and up by the time you are done, but that is not the question I am asking here.
The question here is, what is the cost of NOT transitioning?
That may sound like an odd question, but before we jump into that let’s briefly look at the possible costs of transitioning. Then we can compare them
- Loss of friends
- Loss of family members
- Loss of job
- Financial cost 4 to 6 figures
- Pain, many of the processes are painful
- and more
The cost of not transitioning could be summed up in one word, stress. I would have the stress of knowing I am lying every time I step out the door and pretend to be a man. I would have stress every time I interacted with someone as such. This stress would be exceptionally bad in overly masculinized situations, which our society has a lot of.
Beyond the stress of pretending to be someone I am not, there would be the stress of not being who I am. I would have to hide my feminine attitude toward many topics. When women are discussing female topics I could not join in, not in the way I want to. I would have to continue to hide my emotions. I would have to continue to hide many other feminine inclinations. In short, I would have to hide me.
It is this pretending to be someone you are not that drives many transgender people to attempt suicide. There was a time early on in my self-discovery that the stress got unbearable. I knew I wasn’t who I have pretended to be, but wasn’t quite sure who I was. At that time I was borderline suicidal. Because of that, I think it is reasonable to believe if I chose to continue to hide who I am that I would have gone past borderline.
In short, what is the price of not transitioning? For me, it would have been the loss of sanity and possibly death.