I don't trust the APA's position on anything with strong political standpoints since homosexual lobbyists/activists pressured them for several years leading to

I don't trust the APA's position on anything with strong political standpoints since homosexual lobbyists/activists pressured them for several years leading to their 1973 decision. Being disrupted and threatened for years and knowing a single statement with no immediate consequences to them could make it all stop - the decision seems easy. Regardless if that decision might prevent further research into the area and might be justified: it was pre-emptively killed off due to activists and social pressures. Which makes the APA's position on a related, but different and still politically-charged issue utterly meaningless in my eyes. There's also substantial evidence against SRS being helpful. So we'll have to agree to disagree based on our sources (which could easily be confirmation bias or simply politically-slanted studies, hard to tell with the lack of research in the area). It's very difficult to assume that a person who is "certain it will help" will actually be helped by the treatment. It is not a decision someone can make beforehand, but rather a result that happens after. Believing it will have a beneficial outcome and it having a beneficial outcome are not the same thing. Even if someone believed it would be beneficial had a beneficial outcome, that has little to do with their beliefs on the matter. That's why so many people who believed it would help them regret it after. Their beliefs of what would happen didn't match with the reality of what happened after.