Trans

IMO not allowing a trans person SRS because it is viewed as "an elective" surgery, sounds a lot like not allowing a burn victim to have reconstructive surgery to repair (even if only somewhat) the affected area just because they can live with the severe disfigurement. That kind of logic seems heartless to me because the psychological trauma, in many cases, in both the trans person & the burn victim is comparable.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/43084/does-gender-reassignment-surgery-lead-to-happiness/

pretty much tells the story of this thread...


Part of the message is hidden for the guests. Please log in or register to see it.

IMO not allowing a trans person SRS because it is viewed as "an elective" surgery, sounds a lot like not allowing a burn victim to have reconstructive surgery to repair (even if only somewhat) the affected area just because they can live with the severe disfigurement.

Lots of people are naturally very ugly or disfigured, dwarf, looking significantly older than they are, etc. care is about relieving pain, disability, and preventing the spread of disease. Not to give people whatever it is they want whenever they have a tantrum.

Ren, perhaps I missed out in the discussion but let me ask directly, you clearly feel that srs is cosmetic and unnecessary and that we as trans prior just need to "get over it". On what basis do you make this assertion, if my existence, just as yours, in the existentialism you bring up is based on my subjective experience of myself, how can you claim any sort of of authority or knowledge about how that experience should be? Also, if you can claim no such authority what gives you the authority or right to expect that what medical professionals regard as the correct treatment be ignored in favor of your personal opinion based on what is effectively begging the question?

As I understand it your stance is that because we can't say its effective 100% of the time we should simply do nothing and instead force trans people to endure suffering that leads us to have suicide radius at over 10 times that o f the rest of society. Therapy alone doesn't work, this is proven. Hypnosis even by your own admission would be useless as a treatment. Brain surgery is impossible without risking the person's life at levels well beyond 70% fatality and even then they can't guarantee success as the areas that impact gender are numerous and all over the brain. SRS seems to work in a significant number of cases. Those that express regret after surgery make up less than 5% of those that receive the surgery. Even if the article you reference were to assume that all lost track of participants were suicides, ignoring that it doesn't take into account external pressures from social rejection unrelated to disphoria itself, that still has success rates in the 30% range which is better odds than even some sorts of cancers for which treatment is covered. SRS is the best we have when combined with HRT and therapy and as such should be covered. It saves lives. Also, as a surgery that runs over $26,000 it is unreasonable to expect ask trans people to be able to bear the financial burden on their own, especially when few surgeons offer financing and most banks won't provide loans for surgery. Even with insurance most trans patients have to come up $4000-$5000, which unless your middle class and white might as well be a million for the ability for low income people to afford. Factor in that we as trans people face legally sanctioned employment and housing discrimination that leaves many of us unemployed and homeless and you make a bad situation even worse.

Abhaya Budhil wrote: Yes, for some people identifying as transgender turns out to be a phase. Just as identifying as homosexual or bisexual is sometimes a phase. That does not mean there are no homosexual, bisexual, or trans people. It just means that some people who are not actually in those categories explore a bit when they are figuring themselves out. That's absolutely fine. I'm glad you did not end up transitioning before you realized that was not your true identity. Many people jump into this too fast while they are still trying to figure things out, and they often end up with transition regret. However, the majority of people who transition are truly trans, and their lives are improved by the transition.

I haven't silenced those with transition regret. I actually talked about them earlier. It's important to remember that the media latches onto stories of transition regret more than they latch onto stories of trans people living happy, normal lives.

As far as the second column, that's just another opinion by someone who is not a trans person or a medical professional. I don't understand why you think the opinions of just your average person should outweigh the medical advice given by medical professionals and the personal narratives of the many trans people who are perfectly happy after transitioning.

As far as the high suicide rates, there are a number of reasons for that. Yes, some post-op people will still commit suicide, just as some people who are not trans at all will commit suicide. Some people just have multiple causes of depression, and SRS only fixes one of them. Some people probably commit suicide after losing everything to transition and realizing that, while they are much happier with their bodies, they have nothing else left. That doesn't mean those same people wouldn't have committed suicide without SRS, and it doesn't mean SRS wasn't effective in treating their dysphoria. It was already mentioned that most of the test subjects went missing, so the study really proves nothing.

I still don't see any clinical research showing that SRS is ineffective. All I've seen are some people who jumped in too fast and regretted the decision, some people who probably would have committed suicide either way, and a whole lot of people who report that their quality of life was significantly improved by SRS.

There have already been studies done to find out where the problem comes from, and they have located sections of the brain that might be different in trans people. I just don't think hypnosis could ever prove anything. You can trick someone into believing a lot of things with hypnosis.

Also, changing someone's sex involves improving their quality of life without having to change who they are at the core. I think that it would probably be extremely traumatizing to know you are a man one day and then undergo a surgery that would not change your body, but would change your mind so that you felt female when you woke up. To change who someone is and who they have known they are for their entire lives probably wouldn't end very well.

Lila. Look at your claims, then look at the evidence. there is no evidence to suggest dysphoria actually has neurological causes. There is no evidence to suggest srs is clinically effective. It's even been suggested in this thread that there is no change in happiness. You say it saves lives? What I see is destructive behaviour. People get something non-defective "corrected". Then they still are far more likely to kill themselves than most people. Heck even looking at the HIV infection rates it's pretty obvious they engage in destructive behaviour. Look at the suicide rates.

They say untreated trans commit suicide more. But who are they? They are people who have been diagnosed as trans and likely are either seeking treatment or started it. That's right. What the statistics show is that people who have been diagnosed as trans are more likely to commit suicide. An that those who have fought a presumed urge to kill themselves before surgery will commit suicide after it.

Has anyone tried to treat it in a non-gender/sex-based way? scenario:
-A was born/assigned male. diagnosed as trans > wants to be female
Only "solutions" I know of are:
-Convince A he is male.
-Convince A he can be made female

How about convincing A they're perfectly fine? Trans people aren't less trans after surgery, are they? You're american, so you'll probably know about "two spirit" native americans, back when their culture was unsoiled. Did they get SRS?

Wescli posted evidence that trans identities, and the accompanying dysphoria, may have neurological causes. The evidence to suggest SRS is effective would be the majority of trans people who are happy with their surgeries and who report that their quality of life has improved. The HIV infection rates are skewed because a disproportionate number of trans people are sex workers, which of course leads to higher infection rates. This is because they cannot find other work because of the stigma that comes with being trans.

I haven't seen any studies proving that surgery isn't effective or that those who were likely to commit suicide before surgery will still do so after surgery. All I've seen are opinions of people who don't have any experience with this and studies that show people don't know how to keep track of their test subjects.

I don't know a whole lot about two-spirit identities because I'm not Native American, but my understanding is that two-spirit people were not people who fit into the gender binary at all. They are neither male nor female, so SRS isn't something that would necessarily help them. Again, this is my understanding. Also, there are still Native Americans who identify as two-spirit today.

Ren, all the statements I made are backed by evidence I've supplied to you previously though I can dig it up for you again if you like. As far as being fine the way we are, even in native american cultures, two spirit people were not transsexuals, transgender or genderqueer certainly, most tribes had rituals through which they could be seen as a man or woman by the tribe regardless of their genitals and this was accepted regardless of body and clearly shown through cultural status and dress. In the case of african tribes with these rituals, most rituals required castration of males taking on the female role and they willingly accepted these rituals because it brought them closer to how they felt they should be. That said, we don't have a ritual through which a trans person can be universally accepted as their preferred gender in our society, even srs doesn't do this. However, we have found that hrt and srs help lead to personal acceptance of the body as the preferred gender. Do outside factors of discrimination and violence still negatively impact us after surgery, certainly. The question these articles ask shouldn't be, "Do post operative trans people have a higher rate of suicide or mental illness than the general population?" but rather "Do post operative trans people have a higher rate of suicide or mental illness than non operative trans people?" The APA has done such analysis and found in almost all cases of these suicide attempts and psychiatric commitments that the self-espoused reasons are always environmental, "It was too hard, the way people always look at me", "I lost my home, my family, I had nothing else", "I was raped and beaten and I didn't see it ever changing". These are facets of social acceptance, not gender dysphoria. SRS treats the personal issues, coping mechanisms still have to be learned for the rest and even with the right tools some of us just end up supremely unlucky and no amount of coping tools will make a difference.

Further you stated "but who are they?" the answer is, people who self-identify as trans, not people who are diagnosed as gender dysphoric. Would they be diagnosed as such upon seeing a therapist? Probably so. You're also coming to your own preconceived conclusions on the data rather than what it really tells us which is very little as the raw statistics tell us nothing without analysis of they "why".

Also, as far as convincing us we're perfectly fine with bodies we personally know to be wrong. This has been tried as well and with little to no success amongst the transsexual population at large. There is a prominent psychiatrist here in the US who refuses to allow HRT or surgery for his patients and instead helps them cope with dysphoria with stress relieving techniques and behavioral modification. His patients have a higher suicide rate than the rest of the trans population by about a 30%.

You also didn't answer my two questions.

Wescli posted evidence that trans identities, and the accompanying dysphoria, may have neurological causes.

MAY. The study was inconclusive.

I haven't seen any studies proving that surgery isn't effective or that those who were likely to commit suicide before surgery will still do so after surgery.

They're statistics. statistics only show what they gather. And what they gathered is the suicide rate of people who aren't diagnosed trans, and people who are diagnosed trans. Of the people diagnosed trans, we observe that the people who kill themselves after surgery didn't do so before surgery because it's sort of common sense.

What we see, indeed, is that once people are diagnosed trans, they are likely to kill themselves, whether they have started treatment or not, then, those who have not killed themselves before "treatment" are still likely to kill themselves.

Sounds to me like the whole diagnosis/treatment thing is just a money-making scam that harvests common human weaknesses by first making people feel bad, then offering a "treatment" that can only ever be partial by design.

Which statistics are you referring to? I've never heard of those statistics, and it doesn't mean the surgery was ineffective. It only means that there is more than one cause of depression, and societal stigma probably influences this. SRS removes one significant factor, but of course cannot remove all factors. The problem with statistics regarding trans people is that many trans people don't report for these studies. It's hard to gather accurate information about a group that is so stigmatized they don't even want to take part in studies about themselves.

I thought I posted the links before, but apparently i didnt. you'll have to look yourself (sorry, I just can't give this much of my time to this topic). The stats I looked at were from different countries, the best ones being from sweden I think.

SRS removes one significant factor

The thing is, there is no proof that it does. Ideally, we should look at people's happiness before they believe they are trans, pre-op trans, then post-op trans. On top of that it would be interesting to ask pre-ops how they currently think they were happy before believing they were trans, and ask post-ops how they currently think they were happy as pre-ops and "pre-trans". It would also be interesting to see happiness and suicide stats evolution based on the amount of years after "trans revelation" (as in self-diagnosis or third party diagonsis as trans)
But there are no such stats.