NYTimes: A Vagina Won't Make Me Happy - But It's My Right to Get One Anyway

No, doctors do not just give out whatever treatments a patient wants on demand.

Unless they are a cosmetic surgeon then? Surely nothing demonstrates unnecessary surgery better than cosmetic surgery yet where are the campaigns to stop that?

I think banning cosmetic surgery would do way more for women than trying to ban transsexuals.

I immediately thought of this comment from Dr James Barrett who was president of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists when he wrote this in his evidence to the parliamentary Transgender Equality Inquiry.

The same phrase — “informed consent” — seems to the Association to have been borrowed by those suggesting very radical and negative shift in medical practice. It is suggested that provided patients are of sound mind (this amounts to the exclusion of serious mental illness) and understand the nature and consequences of what they request it should, essentially, be the role of the practitioner to fulfil that request. Crucially, there seems to be no recognition or acknowledgement of the view of the practitioner concerned about the merit of the suggested procedure. If actually implemented, this arrangement would leave medical practitioners in the position of having to make diagnoses they do not believe in, prescribe drugs they personally believe will not benefit the patient and undertake surgical procedures that they themselves believe will confer no benefit or cause harm. This is incompatible with medical practice, the first tenet of which is that one should “first, do no harm”.

Is this 'give me what I want' attitude common amongst transgender patients?

The author's first (upcoming,) book apparently is on "femaleness as political suicide".

Because what the world needs is another bio male telling us what "female" really is. Also, suicide is something you DO. Being female is something you ARE. So how the fuck is it political suicide?? Jfc.

I read another piece by this author in which she describes being the (then-male) manager of a girls’ volleyball team and how then-he was given a peek into intimate women’s spaces by virtue of the role then-he had. She found it arousing and romantic to be part of the girls club but sad to be on the edge of it by virtue of her then-male sex.

Sounds like a classic case of AGP to me, a desire for women’s bodies that extends fo wanting to become female too. Of course this is physically impossible so of course even reassignment surgery will leave her dissatisfied and still craving a different body.

That to me is a mental illness in need of therapy and medication, not surgery on demand and the upending of any concept of female-only space to baby the whims and regrets of people like Chu. Her pain is real but it’s not caused by ‘terfs’ or mean doctors or transphobia. It’s all in her own mind.

No. This person has absolutely no clue about medical ethics and the medical profession.

No, doctors do not just give out whatever treatments a patient wants on demand. Absolutely not. Especially if those treatments pose more harm than benefit to the patient.

This person is demanding that one of the founding principles of medical practice be overthrown.

That ain't no vagina bruv.

This is more word salad? What does the word “want care” mean if not “to have this procedure will improve my life”?

If I am deeply convinced that I ought to be 3 inches taller, though I know that it will be horribly painful and expensive and will not make me happy because I will be a mere facsimile of a tall person and by body will work less well... should I be getting surgery?

Maybe I could convince a plastic surgeon who was just looking for a paycheck to do it but I think most would consider this deeply unethical.

No I’m afraid that a degree of gatekeeping is absolutely essential unless we want to force docs to do things they consider unethical.

Perhaps this person would be less miserable if they stopped taking estrogen and got on with their life as they themselves admit transition is not helping their mental health at all. They sound like my husband just before he desisted TBH.

The author is not getting a vagina.

Indeed it must be deeply painful to obsessively desire something that is completely unattainable. I think the author described this very poignantly even though I disagree with their perspective on body modification surgery and find their appropriation of the word vagina extremely offensive.