Life expectancy of medically transitioned young people

Thanks @EmbarrassingHadrosaurus
And of course I absolutely agree with you on this. I just hadn't really thought about it before.

I strongly agree that as far as clinical investigations and assessments are concerned, for now, reference ranges associated with sex are necessary.

women lose iron every month due to their periods

But not much unless they have heavy menstrual periods. I loathe the reference below but it's the readily accessible and discusses quantities (it does use 'person').

Women tend to be anaemic for a range of reasons, not least is our food choices. If anything, men tend to have too much iron if they don't donate blood regularly.

www.menstrual-matters.com/bloodloss/

Bodyform's is reasonable and does use 'women':

www.bodyform.co.uk/discover/your-first-period/how-much-blood-do-you-lose-on-your-period/

All of the above said, I strongly agree that as far as clinical investigations and assessments are concerned, for now, reference ranges associated with sex are necessary.

Worth looking at some of the stuff Rene Jax has produced.

An early transitioner in the days when she would have been called a transexual, breaking new ground by being employed by the San Francisco police etc. She could have been a poster girl for the gender movement, except.....

she has now been forced to stop hormones because of health issues and in 2018 wrote a book "Don't get on the plane - why a sex change will ruin your life."

We believe that the female reference range for hemoglobin and hematocrit must be used for trans males in order to help them to understand their true risks. Furthermore because of these risks and also lack of maturity, adolescent females with gender incongruence should never be prescribed testosterone.

I'm not disputing the study or the effects of testosterone but something I hadn't previously thought about is that I always understood the female reference range for haemoglibin was lower than for men because women lose iron every month due to their periods. For young women whose periods have stopped won't there be an effect related to that?

( I also hadn't thought about it before but the female reference range doesn't change for post menopausal women. Maybe I'm answering my own question here? Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can explain?)

This is a study of harm done by the use of anabolic steroids--and this is just the negative effects on males. On females, the use of anabolic steroids like testosterone would be worse!

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2646607/#R54
And according to this pro-trans document,
"Hormones: A Guide for FTMs"

d31kydh6n6r5j5.cloudfront.net/uploads/sites/161/2019/08/hormones_FTM.pdf

"What are the Possible Side Effects/Risks
of Testosterone

"The long-term safety of testosterone is not fully understood. Most of the
studies on hormone therapy involve non-trans men taking testosterone at
different doses than FTMs usually use, and FTM bodies are not exactly
the same as non-trans men’s bodies. There may be long-term risks that

are not yet known.

1. Testosterone can increase the risk of heart disease,

• decrease good cholesterol (HDL) and increase bad cholesterol (LDL)

• increase fat deposits around internal organs and in the upper
abdomen
• increase blood pressure
• decrease the body’s sensitivity to insulin
• cause weight gain
These changes may increase the risk of heart disease (including heart
attack), stroke, and diabetes. "

More discussion on this subject

extract

Dec 1, 2021
Press Release

Regarding our letter to the editor of JCEM expressing our concerns about the Madsen et al. study “Erythrocytosis in a Large Cohort of Trans Men Using Testosterone: A Long-Term Follow-Up Study on Prevalence, Determinants, and Exposure Years”.

Summary

High testosterone levels in trans males (females who identify as trans) lead to high hemoglobin and hematocrit levels (red blood cell counts). Having too many red blood cells is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death. In our opinion,the study by Madsen et al. in JCEM hides the true numbers of trans males at risk for high red blood cell counts and therefore cardiovascular harms.

We believe that the female reference range for hemoglobin and hematocrit must be used for trans males in order to help them to understand their true risks. Furthermore because of these risks and also lack of maturity, adolescent females with gender incongruence should never be prescribed testosterone.

Continues here

gendersanity.org/

Yes the messaging needs to change. Thing is it's coming from and being propagated by trans people and orgs. Orgs that are behaving totally irresponsibly.

The v high priority campaign, push from all directions in trans advocacy / charities, resulting in a massive support from trans individuals and allies. That 'trans healthcare' (IE including surgeries) should be free, delivered on demand including to children. With the justification that it's essential and lifesaving. Obviously sends a very strong message and that it's a massive, vital, urgent need.

And right to trans healthcare is another thing repeated constantly all over the place.

Adults can and do choose to do all sorts of harmful things.

Yes, but there's a difference between making an informed choice and being misled. Tobacco companies in the 1950s advertised their cigarettes as being the favourite brand for doctors, or being good for your throat, for example, versus now where you get a grisly pic of diseased lungs or rotten teeth on your pack.

If an adult knows the risks and is informed of the likely health issues (and preferably pays for it themselves but that's another argument) then I'm not going to stop them, any more than I would stop someone from tattooing their entire face. But the evidence suggests these people are being lied to and manipulated and sold false hope and that pisses me off.

Nobody has any way of knowing yet about long term life expectancy. The very idea that those drugs are given to children is totally abhorrent.

Adults can and do choose to do all sorts of harmful things. Including some who have masses of surgery to look like.. aliens, a reptile etc.

The MH issues of this esp private seem to be of often ignored. That needs to change. But in the end. Adults.

Children is a totally no unless medically indicated.

Anecdotally I know of one young person who has liver problems. It has been suggested their issue may be related to artificial testosterone. This is a 21 yr old

Anecdotally I knew one slightly older person who developed liver cancer after four years on T. Maybe related maybe not. But the first thing the oncologist advised even before a firm diagnosis had been reached was to discontinue T.
I doubt these things are reported as obviously there is no proof of causation.

It could reasonably be predicted that spending your adult life waging a war against your own chromosomes is unlikely to be beneficial to health and long term survival. As others have said, it's too early for meaningful statistical evidence to be available even if information is being collated. I'm too old now to expect to be around to see what happens when young transitioners reach middle age and beyond and so, I suspect, are most of the practitioners who are currently prescribing the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and performing the surgeries.

Someone really needs to write an accessible book looking at the medical impact of transition. Not even the psychological impact. Just listing the various studies, including all the anecdotal evidence all over the Internet where trans people share stories about health problems their doctors didn't even know (or care) existed.
The surgery stories, like the chap with the facial feminisation surgery and a load of pins in what is left of his chin, the horrendous complications with neovagina and neophallus surgery, the poor results from the comparatively much simpler "chest masculinisation" mastectomies, the uterine cramping, painful clitoral growth (or loss of sensation as the tissue grows and the nerves do not), the incontinence due to scar tissue and vaginal atrophy, and of course the enormous list of issues related to gnrh analogues (reduced iq, massive decrease in bone density, spines and jaws crumbling, etc)

It ideally needs to be as dispassionate and as factual as possible.

@CheeseMmmm

I find unnecessary surgery/medical procedures on completely healthy bodies deeply personally upsetting too, and on children the most.

In my ideal world no one would be surgically altered to fit an image, whether that is any combination of man/woman trying to fit a masculine/feminine ideal.

The rot is there in all aesthetic surgery/medicine for whatever reason.

I wonder as medicine has made such great strides and disease and mortality have become more distant concepts to people, especially in youth, whether we have just disconnected entirely from the notion of our bodies as fabulous instruments not ornaments and lost the true respect we should have when they work as they should.

And blockers hormones have a myriad of risks issues as well.

However the main trans orgs. Rather than sensibly saying option huge step. Risky irreversible (bar implants). Long term risks. Should be last option and only if medically indicated will reduce ongoing serious distress.

They say it should be available to children, all of it. Free. On request essentially. Other things must not be looked at eg past experiences etc. I will look at one in sec to see what said about risks by them.

And an active approach of. Rejecting any studies that are not totally positive as transphobic lies. Ensuring medical data for trans population is not available. Citing dodgy stats that support these views as standard.

And actively v attacking anything and anyone who feels any concern at all as bigots who want trans people to die.

What they want has nothing to do with ordinary trans people. I have not seen any action at all to suggest they care about them at all. And I really wish they did because many of these people are very vulnerable for various reasons.

This situation is so appalling I just can't believe it but here we are.

In the end probably because of experience it worries me so much. Many of these people are vulnerable. Spending so much time online with others on this topic. Normalising, wanting the these things.

For those who have sex dysphoria then it needs to be on the table and done after a lot of consultant, counseling, and with full knowledge and understanding of what it involves.

The way that less scary sounding euphemisms are used. Top/ bottom surgery.
The fact that top surgery somehow has become seen by so many as a natural step that female trans people with a masculine - or even NON BINARY (why why why? Rhetorical) gender ID will want/ have this.

The way 'passing' is discussed by trans people so often as the ultimate result. The people who say males having full genital surgery means ok in women's spaces. I can understand this view (don't agree with it) but that too must increase motivation for this massively instrusive risky painful surgery.

And decent stats?

USA providers have huge incentive to try and give most positive picture possible.

NHS ? Not sure, this must be tracked. Private providers? No idea Overseas OPs? Imagine none.

And it would need to be through patients follow up and for their lives. To know about complications, patient satisfaction etc.

The tavistock were doing no follow up on their patients once they passed think 18. So no long term info on the long term efficacy/ results/ overall outcomes for the counseling, or drug therapies they provided. NHS standards people were shocked, this is fundamental esp with newer treatments.

In a 2018 paper entitled Chest Reconstruction and Chest Dysphoria in Transmasculine Minors and Young Adults: Comparisons of Nonsurgical and Postsurgical Cohorts by Johanna Olson-Kennedy, there were two thirteen year old patients who had surgery.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29507933/

'bottom' surgery must be absolutely horrific. And the risks? Results, how good?

The other thing is scar tissue is not normal skin. On surface it's so itchy healing. The surgical scars are red and very obvious for a long time. Mine took maybe 15 years to fade. They're quite a nice shiny silvery look now (imo!) but anyone who notices them flinches. They're long. They are still noticed even though they 30+ years old now.

And inside it took about 5 years to fully heal. To be totally no pain if pressed hardish. Plus things like adhesions. And a if need to cut same place it heals worse each time and the area without normal function grows.

And this is groin. Mtf it's grossly invasive.

To underplay any of this is really upsetting to me personally.

Your friend does not have a vagina, but a surgically created facsimile. I'm sorry if this causes discomfort or pain to read, but it needs to be said. A vagina cannot be created with surgery, it is a female organ, and only a female organ.

I had repeated surgery as a child. Carrying risk that could be long term consequences.

Recover each time was slow and there was a lot of pain etc.

The way surgery is presented and seen when it comes to this really really bothers me. Especially because I know how brutal mine were, and they were on limbs. When it comes to groin area it's an area with massive blood supply, loads of nerves. After head is next area we automatically protect when threat of injury.

Other surgeries as well. Breast implants have been around a long time and are common, have been issues but on the whole safe and successful results.

The surgeries are commonly referred to as cosmetic. Simply a reshaping for aesthetic radio reasons.

While the aesthetics are the reason or the main one. This has connotations of pretty low risk, fairly low risk etc in people's minds generally.

Thing is that description gives the wrong impression.
Breast removal involves total removal of healthy body parts that have a specific function. Sure idea is that individual will never want to BF. Or reverse their gender identity. Of course some women have breasts removed that's for serious illness. This is for choice.
It's not reversible. In USA where private healthcare is the norm, it's being done as young as 14 FOURTEEN.

People only started transitioning in large numbers in 2017 so it's too early to tell. I got a medical magazine this week with an article by a London urologist on F to M genital surgery. The article was generally pro the surgery with pictures of how good the results can look. The statistics were grim though. The new technique for phalloplasty reduced the rate of urethral complications from 75% to 43%. No other non essential op would proceed with a stat like that. 90% got erogenous sensation in the phalloplasty, meaning 10% don't. The 5 year device survival was 78% which again seems low for major non essential surgery. Also only people who had had an orgasm before they had the surgery got an orgasm after it. Considering many of these people are put on puberty blockers before they are sexually active and females orgasm on average later than males because it's more complex I wondered what percentage of people having phalloplasties could orgasm. These ops are only done because the trans lobby says the young people will kill themselves if they don't get what they want. Scary and depressing statistics.