2024/10/20 - Loss of Sapience in Therian HRT

I think the "The Crossroads = suicide" in animal/therian/otherkin HRT stories concern has more legs than not. BUT.

First, you're always playing on dicey ground when analyzing a story that hasn't completed yet. The HRT stories have grown far out of my ability to follow them all, and I know some have finished, but all the ones I am following are still in progress. In particular, ayviedoesthings's dragon HRT that started it all is still ongoing.

(GODS FUCKING DAMMIT, WHY DID I START WRITING THIS LONG ASS THING IN APP, I JUST LOST A BUNCH OF WRITING!)

In general, analyzing a work in progress often tells more about the analyst than the work.

As a result, there are a lot of plot threads that may resolve in one way, like the suicidality analog, or that could be revealed to be very different in actual practice.

In story, the only source of information so far about "the crossroads" is a doctor shown to be biased and gatekeeping. He's a morally grey character, his intentions are to mitigate harm, but his actions often cause it in his patients. He very much does not understand what they're going through, though he does seem to be trying to help.

This reflects a lot of trans encounters with doctors. Especially the "real life test" of being required to live as your desired self before being allowed to medically transition. Like, that's just a thing that gatekeeping doctors used to require before administering hormones. Fortunately most places don't have THAT hoop anymore, but we still have hoops to jump through. I had to get letters from 2 different therapists to get my top surgery (granted, that was to get insurance to cover it, but still).

There's a difference between a cis het administrator of the process' experience of the situation and their trans patients.

IRL, medical transition is often lifesaving (obviously not a requirement). Most of us know despair way, way too well. It makes sense to explore those depths in our art, especially in stories of transition. It's dark, it's messy, and it doesn't release its claws easily...or well. Even when things start to improve. Sometimes, getting release in our situations just lets that internal pain surge and swamp us. It sucks.

But transition's also often isolating. Some of us lose family or friends, recovery from surgery is painful and long. Every step of the way, we're being interrogated, whether we're sure, whether it's right, oh, isn't that awfully permanent? Moments of triumph always shaded by doubt.

So taking all those elements? Doctors blocking the door of relief, constant self doubt, the agony of both decision and recovery, those themes are strong.

And then, there's the release of wish fulfillment. Cuz fuuuuuck, no amount of transition is ever gonna fix my species. And it hurts. Cuz everything is wrong and alien. And there's fuck all I or anyone can do about it.

So that, I think, is where the potential "loss of sapience" comes in, which we haven't actually seen represented yet, and may or may not be (most likely is not) as clear cut as it's presented by our unreliable source, Dr. Erian. Because there is/would be a huge change in cognition, as your body and brain's structure changes...but how much of that would change you? As your body alters to what you've always actually been, how much does what makes you you actually change? And, what's more, how much would other people outside of you perceive what actually isn't changing?

I think there is an amount of exploring the seeking of lack of pain through loss of self, and that the suicidal parallels to that are worth discussing. But that's not necessarily what's being told in most of these stories. When people mourn our loss simply from transitioning in the real world, I find the interpretation of loss of self depicted in our fiction from those same sorts of people in story suspect. There could be, and likely is, more to thematically delve into within these stories. I think for most of them, more will come to the fore as the stories themselves progress.

That being said, I don't enjoy identity death in my TFs and stories, though I do like examining mind change, and how new memories and instincts can affect a person. And I get the squick, as a person very prone to suicidal thoughts, I side eye the loss of sapience as explained by the characters in these stories a lot myself. I just also think the individual in the story presenting this information is meant to be an unreliable or biased source, and that these stories will explore that more, even when some of the characters take it at face value.

Cuz on the other side, if you take this track as a suicide analog, as a way to terminate pain, and you and your pain still remain, then that's an interesting story to explore as well. I'm also really partial to stories that explore after the "ending" in general, tho'.

Tldr; Your concerns are legit, but I think it's more nuanced than that.