1. Lifelong customers, lifelong cash-flow
Several people who later stopped transitioning noticed that the moment you start cross-sex hormones you are usually told you will need them “forever.” That single prescription turns a short-term counselling client into a monthly annuity for clinics, labs, pharmacies and surgeons. One parent watched the pattern unfold and wrote: “Hormone replacement therapy used to be an extremely lucrative industry for menopausal women until the dangers were exposed… Pharmaceutical companies found a new market. Testosterone is pushed on men and women alike… the side-effects create life-long patients and even more profit.” – IKnowWhatImAbout source [citation:1e752fd3-229e-47e9-a0e2-52ada3cd0393] In other words, every new prescription is not just one sale; it is a subscription that can last decades.
2. Surgery and extras: a shopping list that keeps growing
The same voices list every billable step: puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones, double-mastectomies, genital operations, hospital stays, anaesthesia, follow-up visits, antibiotics, wound-care supplies, later corrective surgeries, plus the commercial “gender” add-ons—voice lessons, hair removal, new clothes, make-up, binders, packers, wigs. One woman added up the tally and concluded: “Treating dysphoria with transition stimulates the economy… hormones, therapy, surgery, hair removal, voice training, clothes shopping, make-up purchasing etc. If transition wasn’t beneficial for the economy you can bet they would treat it with therapy first.” – CherryPieCandyThighs source [citation:c6fd5c63-a076-4e87-879d-902b1d43e9ec] Each item is priced and marketed, turning personal distress into a long consumer journey.
3. Professional fear: “affirm or else”
Doctors and therapists describe a workplace where refusing to approve hormones can be framed as discrimination. Several detransitioners report that clinicians openly worry about losing their licence or their reputation if they suggest trying counselling first. One summarised the mood: “Doctors will encourage and affirm 100 % of the time… Being labelled trans-phobic is a career-ender, so better to agree than question, ever.” – TreePangolin source [citation:7e6b3ba0-ae48-4a98-98ba-529a39d38b2b] When fear of a label meets the promise of steady income, the path of least resistance is to say yes—and schedule the next appointment.
4. A replay of earlier pill-for-life schemes
People who have stepped away from transition often compare it to the push they saw around ADHD stimulants, opioid painkillers or the latest weight-loss injections: find a human struggle, re-name it a medical deficit, then sell a drug that “must” be taken indefinitely. One man reflected: “There’s huge money in having patients on drugs their entire lives… They did it first with psychiatry—everyone being ADHD today—or weight-loss drugs, telling people you need to be on them for life.” – Affectionate_Act7962 source [citation:41774432-8875-4d19-a503-0c661dd21492] From their vantage point, gender medicine is simply the newest market in the same playbook.
Conclusion
The stories above do not claim that every provider is cynical; they show how money and fear can quietly shape what choices are offered. When distress is met with a shopping list instead of space to explore non-conformity, the exit door called “counselling, community and time” can disappear. If you are questioning your gender, remember that discomfort does not oblige you to become a permanent consumer. Talking freely, wearing what you like, finding supportive friends, and working with a therapist who is not financially tied to medicalisation can ease dysphoria without signing you up for a lifetime of prescriptions. Your body is not a profit centre; it is the home you live in, and there are many non-medical paths back to peace.