Trans

I've never met a trans person who didn't say their lives were so much better after SRS. That's not to say nobody out there isn' happy with their results, but a large number of people are, and everyone I've ever talked to was. Even one of the articles you posted referenced a study that said that, among the people who actually responded, 86% said they rated their happiness with their results at an 8 or higher. The statistics are far from useful because of the small test pool, but I haven't seen any studies that have ever proved people aren't happy with their results. And I also have never met someone who wasn't happy with their results. Mental health providers say it works, medical providers say it works, the available stats (however flawed) seem to say it works, trans people say it works. I'm going to say that's pretty good proof that it does work in most cases.

In my own personal experience, I was not at all happy for most of my life. I never knew I was trans because I didn't even know what trans was or that SRS was an option or that I wasn't the only one who felt this way until I was 17. But I was always very unhappy, seeing therapists all the time, depressed, not doing well in school, having to get psych evals at the hospital to make sure I wasn't going to kill myself, etc. Since coming out as trans, I have been happier. I finally know that I won't just feel this way forever, and that has made things a bit better. Since starting to live as male, I have been even happier. I still experience dysphoria, but at least I'm not facing constant reminders that I'm different. Since starting HRT, I've been feeling even better. And since deciding to have my top surgery next summer, it's been even better. I can only imagine that things will just keep getting better until I am finally happy with myself and my body. I know that SRS is right for me because of how I feel and the changes people have noticed in my attitude and confidence since making this decision.

It might be your opinion that SRS does not work, but what we know about trans people and SRS just does not support your opinion.

Ren, long before gender identity disorder and gender dysphoria existed as diagnosis, people came to doctors with these feelings. The diagnosis were created to describe the condition not the condition by the diagnosis and to think such is to ignore history. New diagnosis are made based off observed phenomenon most trans people express transgender feelings as early as 4 to 6 years old. We just have a name for it now whereas we did not before.

Also, I'm going to assert again. I asked you two direct questions which you have not answered and without answers to these your entire argument falls.

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?

Medical professional are known for major cock-ups. Medical professionals have admitted that, as you suggested yourself, they couldn't study the validity of SRS for political correctness reasons. Medical professionals have also said that srs is clinically ineffective. medical professionals are also prone to bias. whether that bias is caused directly by corporations, religious organizations, or popular culture, it exists. A good example of that is my own country. You see, over there, there is a medical condition that exists nowhere else in the world called "jambes lourdes" (heavy legs). No study has ever found ANYTHING about the condition, yet doctors recommend people rest a few days as treatment. People get paid time off work for this condition.

It is well known that the more people know (or think they know) about medicine, the more sick they feel. (that however, is extremely well documented)


Hence why I suggest that the whole srs business is a sham. a penis implant isn't going to make anyone a man, the same way a man suffering from erectile disfunction isn't going to start getting any cramps down there from the implant. It is my opinion that, just like everything else that occurs in our bodies as a result of no internal malfunction(shit happens, I'm not denying that) or external involvement (virus, bacteria, foreign objects), this condition is in fact a battle in the mind.

I have put it to you that the nature of the condition may not be what it seems and that there could be a solution that actually works, and that the condition may very well have been artificially created (through social, psychological issues). you outright rejected my claims, even though some of them are openly supported by some trans. You act like srs is the only possible and viable solution. your refusal to consider anything else has actually reinforced my belief that sex dysphoria is a created ill. It seems to me like an obsession, not dissimilar to that of those people who want to get rid of non-sexual body parts even though those body parts are perfectly healthy... It is not their body that requires attention but their minds.

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?

I happen to suffer from unwanted growths nearly all over my body. These growths cause me actual physical pain. these growths make it painful for me to wear clothes. society forces me to wear clothes (and of a certain type too). Since my skin has always generally been rubbish, I also am pretty sure skin cancer will kill me. No man in my family has ever reached 60 years of age, etc.

Yet you don't see me seeking to peel my skin off. Or to have it replaced. I don't work the streets to pay for medical expenses, since I have none. I don't take or want to take pills for it. I don't think about or attempt to kill myself. I'm pretty sure I'm being authentic, and you know what? I'm also pretty sure it works.

ren wrote: Medical professional are known for major cock-ups. Medical professionals have admitted that, as you suggested yourself, they couldn't study the validity of SRS for political correctness reasons. Medical professionals have also said that srs is clinically ineffective. medical professionals are also prone to bias. whether that bias is caused directly by corporations, religious organizations, or popular culture, it exists. A good example of that is my own country. You see, over there, there is a medical condition that exists nowhere else in the world called "jambes lourdes" (heavy legs). No study has ever found ANYTHING about the condition, yet doctors recommend people rest a few days as treatment. People get paid time off work for this condition.

It is well known that the more people know (or think they know) about medicine, the more sick they feel. (that however, is extremely well documented)


Hence why I suggest that the whole srs business is a sham. a penis implant isn't going to make anyone a man, the same way a man suffering from erectile disfunction isn't going to start getting any cramps down there from the implant. It is my opinion that, just like everything else that occurs in our bodies as a result of no internal malfunction(shit happens, I'm not denying that) or external involvement (virus, bacteria, foreign objects), this condition is in fact a battle in the mind.

I have put it to you that the nature of the condition may not be what it seems and that there could be a solution that actually works, and that the condition may very well have been artificially created (through social, psychological issues). you outright rejected my claims, even though some of them are openly supported by some trans. You act like srs is the only possible and viable solution. your refusal to consider anything else has actually reinforced my belief that sex dysphoria is a created ill. It seems to me like an obsession, not dissimilar to that of those people who want to get rid of non-sexual body parts even though those body parts are perfectly healthy... It is not their body that requires attention but their minds.

At no point have I ever said surgery is the only solution, I even stated that there are trans people who never need it but for some of us it is. As far as medical bias, it goes both ways, that said, I'm not talking about the response of one doctor as the the tell all about this but the consensus of hundreds of doctors from multiple fields. You can find a few doctors who disagree with anything. There are scientists who reject client change even though the vast majority of all their peers support it and show evidence for it. You're missing the point I've expressed repeatedly, trans people, across the board express the feelings we call gender dysphoria long before any psychiatrist or physician speaks to them and have done so for decades, long before the diagnosis existed. The diagnosis comes from the expressions of these patients. Further there is political pressure to find non-physical causes for gender dysphoria and has been for twenty years and in all that time they never found a psychological root that made sense beyond isolated cases.

I happen to suffer from unwanted growths nearly all over my body. These growths cause me actual physical pain. these growths make it painful for me to wear clothes. society forces me to wear clothes (and of a certain type too). Since my skin has always generally been rubbish, I also am pretty sure skin cancer will kill me. No man in my family has ever reached 60 years of age, etc.

Yet you don't see me seeking to peel my skin off. Or to have it replaced. I don't work the streets to pay for medical expenses, since I have none. I don't take or want to take pills for it. I don't think about or attempt to kill myself. I'm pretty sure I'm being authentic, and you know what? I'm also pretty sure it works.

In what way does your subjective personal experience have any validity in relation to mine? Your answer doesn't answer that question.

In what way does your subjective personal experience have any validity in relation to mine? Your answer doesn't answer that question.

I'm not trans, you're not trans.
I have health issues I have learned to deal with at no cost, monetary or psychological. I have not felt any need to have myself be modified in any way.
You have health issues you have not learned to deal with at no monetary or psychological cost. you have felt the need to have yourself be mofified in order to be happy.

I have expressed myself based on my experience, you have expressed yourself based on your experience. My experience tells me I have learned to live with myself, despite my many other flaws. your experience tells me you have not learned to live with yourself.

While I'm not quite sure about your specific condition, as there are "circumstances", from what I have read and learned of transexuals, they lack those "circumstances". Nothing I see (studies, stats, abbahya's behaviour) is convincing me transsexuals are authentic.

But don't get me wrong. All I'm saying is they are victims of a system that first makes them unhappy, then only offers a partial solution. I'm not angry at them for daring to go in the "wrong" locker room. The whole segregation thing is retarded. You think I'm going to throw bricks at them for doing "weird stuff" to themselves? nope. I just feel sorry for them.

I am trans ren, yes I have circumstance, those being that I'm also intersex, but there is significant overlap in the intersex and transsexual groups, as in if you're trans, you're more likely to be intersex than other people and vice versa. The sense I'm getting is that you have made a personal decision and have decided that that decision applies to everyone else. You will remain unconvinced regardless of any evidence provided because your mind is made up before hand and you appear unwilling to change it.

Definitive evidence isn't available of the sort you're asking because up until the last decade or so they didn't treat it as medical, they treated it as a psychological disorder. Research in the field is new. And while the conclusive evidence you want doesn't exist. All the evidence we do have points toward it being a form of or related to intersex disorders but not enough data exists for the AMA and WHO to come out and say this as a policy statement. Within conferences amongst researchers however, this is the going hypothesis. While there isn't enough evidence to say, yes SRS is 100% effective always, that can't be said for the vast majority of medicine and I feel that your discomfort with the notion that someones body and in nature may not match so strongly that it creates trauma is ignoring what positive evidence we do have in the field, which far outweighs the negative, because the little negative assessment of existing research we have more closely aligns with what you want to believe.

If this assessment is incorrect, please show me otherwise, but everything you've said thus far leaves me with that impression.

ren wrote:

In what way does your subjective personal experience have any validity in relation to mine? Your answer doesn't answer that question.

I'm not trans, you're not trans.
I have health issues I have learned to deal with at no cost, monetary or psychological. I have not felt any need to have myself be modified in any way.
You have health issues you have not learned to deal with at no monetary or psychological cost. you have felt the need to have yourself be mofified in order to be happy.

I have expressed myself based on my experience, you have expressed yourself based on your experience. My experience tells me I have learned to live with myself, despite my many other flaws. your experience tells me you have not learned to live with yourself.

While I'm not quite sure about your specific condition, as there are "circumstances", from what I have read and learned of transexuals, they lack those "circumstances". Nothing I see (studies, stats, abbahya's behaviour) is convincing me transsexuals are authentic.

But don't get me wrong. All I'm saying is they are victims of a system that first makes them unhappy, then only offers a partial solution. I'm not angry at them for daring to go in the "wrong" locker room. The whole segregation thing is retarded. You think I'm going to throw bricks at them for doing "weird stuff" to themselves? nope. I just feel sorry for them.

Ren, you're way off base here. Perhaps you've never met a real trans person and just met some confused people. The real trans people I've met were women with male parts(born male). It's a very serious thing when you see it. The very core of their brains are hardwired female. They don't wear dresses because they want to be women, they wear dresses because they're pretty. They don't act feminine because they want to be women, they do it because it attracts men. All of the the things that make up gender roles stem from sexual identities and you'll see that in trans people in a major way.

I am trans ren, yes I have circumstance, those being that I'm also intersex, but there is significant overlap in the intersex and transsexual groups, as in if you're trans, you're more likely to be intersex than other people and vice versa.

Our long discussions from way back left me with the impression trans and intersex were two very different things. One major difference being that there is a known clinical cause to the intersex condition, while there is none for trans.

They don't wear dresses because they want to be women, they wear dresses because they're pretty. They don't act feminine because they want to be women, they do it because it attracts men.

Are you saying people's brains are hardwired to like or dislike wearing dresses? I guess that's true for bras too? (they've only existed a 100 years btw)


feathered hat, purse, leggings, miniskirt. these guys totally have a female brain, right?

they do it because it attracts men.

trying to be shot by a bunch of angry feminists are you? Besides, gay men come to mind.


Lila, I just made a google search "sex reasignment surgery effective" to find the evidence you claim exists. I found this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/jul/30/health.mentalhealth

Note that the guardian is the UK's non-murdoch-controlled, liberal, politically correct, does-its-research newspaper.


(and this:http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/the-operation-that-can-ruin-your-life-features-november-09-julie-bindel-transsexuals)Transsexualism, by its nature, promotes the idea that it is "natural" for boys to play with guns and girls to play with Barbie dolls. The idea that gender roles are biologically determined rather than socially constructed is the antithesis of feminism. (I just thought it was interesting, considering this thread spawned off a feminism thread)

and this: http://www.sexchangeregret.com/wwwsexchangeregretcom

In the UK, the NHS funds homoeopathy. No study has ever found homoeopathy to have any effect on anyone beyond the placebo effect. It is my opinion the srs thing is the same. If there is evidence to the contrary, please provide it.

ren wrote: Our long discussions from way back left me with the impression trans and intersex were two very different things. One major difference being that there is a known clinical cause to the intersex condition, while there is none for trans.

While they are different ren there is significant statistical overlap, meaning that if you're trans you have a higher statistical chance of also being intersex than the rest of the population and if you're intersex you have a higher statistical chance of also being trans. So while they are not the same there is evidence of relationship and a going hypothesis is that gender dysphoria is what happens when the brain is the primarily effected part of the body impacted by the intersex condition rather than the external body. There isn't any firm evidence either way on this yet though a few brain studies are in place trying to prove/disprove it.

They don't wear dresses because they want to be women, they wear dresses because they're pretty. They don't act feminine because they want to be women, they do it because it attracts men.

I actually agree with ren's response here Whyte Horse. I'm a trans woman but I'm also a lesbian, I couldn't give a damn about attracting a man. Gender Identity and Sexuality are two different and unrelated subjects.

Lila, I just made a google search "sex reasignment surgery effective" to find the evidence you claim exists. I found this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/jul/30/health.mentalhealth

Note that the guardian is the UK's non-murdoch-controlled, liberal, politically correct, does-its-research newspaper.


(and this:http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/the-operation-that-can-ruin-your-life-features-november-09-julie-bindel-transsexuals)Transsexualism, by its nature, promotes the idea that it is "natural" for boys to play with guns and girls to play with Barbie dolls. The idea that gender roles are biologically determined rather than socially constructed is the antithesis of feminism. (I just thought it was interesting, considering this thread spawned off a feminism thread)

and this: http://www.sexchangeregret.com/wwwsexchangeregretcom

In the UK, the NHS funds homoeopathy. No study has ever found homoeopathy to have any effect on anyone beyond the placebo effect. It is my opinion the srs thing is the same. If there is evidence to the contrary, please provide it.

Ren WPATH is an organization which was created to establish standards of care for the treatment of gender dysphoria (Gender Identity Disorder at the time) worldwide because previously, when surgery and HRT were unregulated and up to the individual therapist and doctor satisfaction rates were in the low 70%-80% range back in 1979. Since then they've placed recommended controls in the availability of these treatments based off the results of multiple studies over many years. They have collected a wide body of research both for and against gender transition and assessed that while not perfect for everyone it is very effective for those that need it. Up to and including surgery. I'll link the whole document of their most recent standard's of care because its heavily bibliographed, referencing all the studies directly as opposed to just opinion pieces about them. However, since the current discussion is specifically about SRS I'll give you page numbers within the document to review.

http://www.wpath.org/documents/IJT%20SOC,%20V7.pdf
Section XI: Surgery starting on p199
Appendix D (p229) in its entirety.
The bibliography also has a list of all referenced studies with full information if you wish to look them up individually.
Also relavent to the discussion as a whole but not the SRS portion:
Section III: The difference between gender nonconformity and gender dysphoria (p168)
Section IV: Epidimiologic Considerations (p169)

Also as far as gender roles being hard coded, no serious researcher into gender dysphoria believes this and I don't know any trans people who do either. The gender roles/expression we take on are the external societal reflection of our internal sense of self/gender identity and as such are influenced by culture unlike the gender identity itself.

Oh and also, unfortunately, liberal media can be just as bad about reporting on trans issues as conservative media. Its just "look at the freak, lets talk about its well being and pretend we're doing good" as opposed to "burn in hell freak"