Things doctors have said to people seeking trans treatment:
“Come back next year to see if you change your mind.”
“Why can’t you just live as a tomboy for now?”
It’s been a year and that’s not enough being perfectly reasonable responses too.
After all, a certain period of reflection before such surgery might be considered reasonable, no?
“If you continue on this path you’ll lose your job, your family, your friends, you’ll be neither male nor female & no-one will ever love you.”
Which part of this isn’t true?
But you don’t have to give people electro-shock therapy or send them off to prayer camp to try and talk them out of being who they are.
If you accept who you are, why do you need ladypills and dick inversion surgery?
didn’t monty python make a sketch along these lines?
“excuse me miss?
whad’yer mean miss?
Oh i’m sorry i have a cold.2
An equally interesting question might be to ask why they hadn’t been to see the doctor a year or two years’ earlier.
There’s been a lot of discussion about conversion therapy, the often-illegal and usually deeply damaging attempts to force people to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Well we know people are forcing other people to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. Because there are a non-trivial number of trannies who regret it and revert.
We also know that some people used to be Gay and then changed their mind. Maybe no one forced them. But perhaps some sensible questions from their GP helped. The mayor of New York is married to a former lesbian for crying out loud. Although I find it hard to see Bill as an example of raw heterosexual masculinity.
“I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about Northern Irish GPs refusing to refer patients”
How mentally ill do you have to be to think that that constitutes a horror story?
Also the basic complaint seems to be that you can’t just walk into a GP clinic, say you want a dick-chop and immediately receive a referral to someone who will do it. Which also just so happens to be the case for every real medical condition. Classic trans lobby “my need to get my dick chopped off is the single most important thing in the entire universe.”
I may be being a bit old fashioned, but didn’t the standard requirement for a dickectomy used to be that you had to live as a woman for 2 years and then if you did that you were considered serious enough to treat.
Wouldn’t it be better that if you were so keen on getting what is essentisally cosmetic surgery, that you pay for it yourself.
Only those serious about it would then go to the effort to save/make that money?
The current waiting list for an initial appointment, after referral, at a Gender Clinic, is between 2-3 years.
This followed by a usual period of psychological assessments for 12-18 months before seeing a doctor for the first time and the start of a then 2 year “real-life test”. All this before any surgery is even considered.
And you think adding another year on the front end is reasonable?
12 year old girl, who is obviously under-weight, goes into Doctors surgery and says ‘I feel grossly obese and need help to lose weight’.
Doctor says, ‘my professional opinion is that you need some psychiatric counselling’.
12 year old girl goes into Doctors surgery and says ‘I’m a boy in a girls body’.
Doctor says, ‘My professional opinion is that we start you on puberty blockers then begin cutting bits off your body’.
And you think adding another year on the front end is reasonable?
I think reopening state mental hospitals is reasonable, Josephine
Asking to come back in a year seems entirely reasonable, although thinking about it, the words ‘reasonable’ and ‘trans’ don’t really go together.
It certainly used to be the case 30-40 years ago that any man who wanted to have trans surgery had to live as a ‘woman’ for two years before they’d go ahead. Don’t know if that’s still true.
If you’re expecting me to pay for it, then yes I think that is eminently reasonable.
When does a fad end and mental illness begin, that is the question. I foresee many bitter and angry people in the future.
I’d say that if it’s going to be done to children, they should be told to come back when they’re 18 or so.
Of course some people may be stupider at 18 than they are at 8. Or perhaps even dumber, says I looking in the mirror, when they’re 70 or so. But we’ve got to take them off the leash sometime.
Still, we call them children and don’t let them do some things, because we don’t think they have the judgement to make a proper choice. Thus I feel we should give them the opportunity to change their minds.
Is the operation for a F-M transition still called a strapadichtomy, or am I horribly behind the times?
I think they’re already pretty bitter and angry, just for different reasons.
Is trans there and back again known as a dichotomy?
More seriously, World Rugby has got one thing right. Trans women can play touch rugby with real girls but not full contact rugger because they consider it too dangerous. Californian “women” (natch) consider this an outrage to women’s rights.
@Justin
Dunno but M-F used to be a lobadickoffme
The urgency is because these are often pre-pubescent or barely pubescent individuals. They’re desperate to start puberty-blockers before their various bits grow.
The danger is that they deviate ever further from their peers, thus worsening the disconnect they feel with others of the same sex.
The idea of granting
life-changinglife-ruining drugs to children is madness, obviously.We used to condemn people for cutting the testicles off of children.
Now we celebrate it. Once we abandon traditional values, monsters roam free.
The correct answer for these issues is, I think, for the NHS to stop all gender reassignment treatment. That GPs immediately refer adults presenting with gender dysphoria to registered private gender reassignment clinics if that’s what the patient indicates they desire. Private gender reassignment clinics will never recommend treatment but they will discuss the pros and cons so patients know exactly what they are potentially walking into, and they will assess medical risk factors. If patients wish to proceed they can do so ASAP but will pay for treatment. The NHS will allow hormone therapy on prescription for those prescribed privately who now receive means tested benefits. Children and adults who do not wish to transition should receive counsel to try to understand the causes of the dysphoria.