First thing first, RT is essentially the Putin/Russia Propaganda Network (and the Russian Orthodox church in Russia also has very strong ties to the government) and that bias has to be taken into account. (Furthermore, they have to please their target audience or they'll lose money...as a rule of thumb, people want their biases confirmed and to be pandered to over any sort of deep analysis or objective truth.)
That said, there are times the RT will report on things or allow a view that no one else will so that I don't wholly discount it (and all major networks, and most to all the smaller ones, have their own biases as well), but I take it with a grain of salt. There was one woman who used to work with the RT reporting on US affairs that I liked because she was sure to list independent sources that I could look up. RT just wanted her to criticize the US which she did well, but in doing so she said things likely to upset her employers as they clashed against Russian values, and may have contributed strongly to why she no longer works for them.
It's not just RT, and there are other sources besides the media. I'm absolutely certain that the reason that these sex changes are so (relatively) popular here is because of capitalism (particularly Wall Street taking over the medical system here, many of those Wall Street tycoons also owning their own media sources). It's profitable, and many of the hoops people are made to jump through are but another way to shake out some cash (that includes money for the government). It's bad enough that a thriving black market exists, and Thailand is said to offer competent services in this regards without the usual rigmarole, and even taking into account the plane tickets, places to stay as the long process is completed, etc, it's still cheaper and less time for Americans to go to Thailand to have it done than it is to do it in the United States.
But what I've heard is that regret for those who transition as adults only rarely express regret, and I've read accounts of those who felt free to be themselves after years of being another gender. Here's one who details her experience (5 pages) and I kept up with her for years...she never expressed regrets:
From Donald to Deirdre
This causes me to lean away from the view promoted by RT here...though I found some of what they said interesting, and possibly insightful. (What is behind this phenomenon is a mystery to me.)
However, those who transition as children are said to be much more likely to experience regret down the road. This has caused me to change my view from thinking "whatever" to thinking it shouldn't be allowed at that age, at least until something else changes my mind. I'm not particularly passionate about it, but I do see cause for concern there.
When our science becomes so advanced that a full gender shift can be done (which includes full reversals) then I won't really care at all...in fact, if the situation was advanced enough that it wasn't too expensive, time consuming, or troublesome, I'd try being a male for say a month just out of curiosity. Of course, I don't expect such advances within my lifetime.
As for one specific aspect brought up, I know the one describing how one had to take it a bit further to be perfect yet it never is..many people do that in so many different ways, and if there are enough then an industry will pop up around it (which in turn will try to promote it to get more customers), and I expect RT would even promote such in some cases (such as those who think religion can stop their doubts and insecurities if they just go to all the services and reach that pinnacle of holiness, though RT will have a very strong bias toward Russian Orthodoxy above all other religions). And many people are obsessed with getting that specific job or degree, a hundred thousand followers on social media, a certain high salary, or married with kids, and the like thinking it will help them to like themselves or be content (rather than anxious, depressed, etc) only to find it doesn't. Granted, gender reassignment is a lot harder to come back from if you change your mind down the road.
And many people are brutal on themselves and on others. Transgendered communities online can be rife with personal attacks on each other, which is them projecting their own insecurities into others and tearing into them which can range from passive aggressive to vicious...something that is normal for a great many people. This kind of self-hate and insecurity which exist in so many (not just those who are transgendered, and I believe marketing causes a lot of it) can lead to self-mutilation, or believing their body is overweight despite being dangerously underweight. That is, these specific people chosen for the RT report (and who knows how many others) could actually be suffering from a common problem of the human condition that takes gender dysphoria as its specific form in them for whatever reason. Don't know, it just occurs to me.
