I think something a lot of people don’t realize is that transitioning is not the end of the story. You still have to live in the same exact shitty world, with all the same hate, all the same bigotry, all the hostility. And if your post-op presentation doesn’t pass the stringent “do you look cis enough” high standards of society? Welp, your life is now on extra hard mode. All the people you know that are already transphobic will probably still be just as transphobic after you transition, if not worse. People de-transition for a lot of reasons but I wouldn’t be surprised if the main reason is the pressure to present as either their pre-transitioned selves or to present as a perfect ideal of gender that no one can clock.
That’s such a good point, you’re not free from the financial burdens post-op. I’m just a freshly cracked egg so I’m still learning. I was going off of the convos I’ve had about the post-op life with friends and strangers in trans forums. A lot of the discussions around de-transitioning focused on the pressure to “be the person we knew” from people in their lives and also the pressure to reach a nigh impossible ideal of gender from society in general.