What you all said was coming

Well of course he is going to say that now.

And yet nobody seems to wants to hear that. Those who try to say it out loud are vilified.

We, those who say stop, don't do this, are vilified and those who advocate for it remain strangely silent when it all goes horrendously wrong!

I suppose unless things change, doctors may have to consider if they want to be labelled as bigoted, evil suicide causing monsters for not affirming and run the risk of being posted all over news and media, or blamed for the above as per Tulip. Is there still plans for those who don't do the surgery to have threats of being struck off GMC for discrimination, or did that turn out to be 'fake news'?
Has Tulip said what they would have done if surgery had been denied? Sued at that point?

Stop victim blaming.

It's disgusting.

The surgery going wrong is not proof of it being I’ll-advised or poorly carried out though. Most surgery comes with risks.

There's a wider direction of travel at play here which is to do with autonomy, choice and capacity. For example the Mental Capacity Act that came into legislation around a decade ago shifted the direction of travel (it's been updated recently in a white paper).

There's good things about it re the autonomy of vulnerable people to have control over aspects of their lives but in practice it can be a bit fraught. Not enough medics are trained and out of fear or just not seeing it as their job pass the buck to social care who have back logs of assessments or who come in and don't apply the assessment as intended. One of the reasons for the update to the Act is that there has been a lot of confusion around it even in trained people.

I mention this because it's been stated this young man has autism so if he was diagnosed at the time it strikes me that a MCA assessment should have come into play for this decision. Emphasis on the word 'should' because in reality it doesn't always happen.

However, because the direction of thinking in recent years around mental capacity for vulnerable people is built around the idea that they have the right to make bad decisions in the same way as anyone else having an assessment may not have changed anything.

The current standard is that someone who is vulnerable (mental health issues/LD/Autism/addiction etc.) has the right too engage in risky behaviours, poor decision making just like anyone else and doing this does not necessarily equal lack of capacity.

This is going off at a bit of a tangent here and I'm in no way an expert in the MCA, just know a little bit about it through generic training but I think it speaks to the wider thinking around issues of allowing people to make unwise decisions. I'd be surprised if it didn't crop up as an aspect of this court case. (possibly by the defence team rather than prosecution?)

Just want to pick this up and say that this procedure is not 'well established' at all. Different surgeons have different methods and there are no NICE recognised standards for a good outcome. Sometimes the surgery is done by plastics sometimes urology. Some have an orchiectomy some a penectomy. Some get testicles removed first or scrotum and testicles before penectomy. There are a number of ways of constructing the 'vagina'. There is a difference bwteen 'depth' surgery and surgery to just ape the external appearance of the labia (the latter is probably the only version of this prodcedure which is relatively 'safe').

This is not like plastics recon of a pneis damaged by say an IED - there have been huge advances in this type of surgery. But that's not like sex reasignment at all. It's the wild west of surgery - nowhere near as bad as phalloplasty, but still wild west.

and then you have groups like those who complain that the NHS doesn't do enough and are supporting transpeople who have to wait for surgery.

goodlawproject.org/update/trans-healthcare-court-permission/

I find this leaflet absolutely terrifying. Yes, there's one page which lists the potential risks, although it gives no information on how common they are. For example, rather than just stating 'incontinence', it really needs to say 'this percentage of people will have permanent incontinence after surgery'. Someone might feel very differently about surgery if there's a one in a thousand risk than if half the people having surgery end up incontinent.

And if we don't know that number then, firstly, we really should be doing that research, and, secondly, the information should be clear that the level of risk is unknown.

The rest of the leaflet is page after page of how the surgeons will 'create your clitoris' and 'create your labia minora'. It is very upbeat. I can well understand how, after reading that, someone might feel, as was said upthread, that the end result would be indistinguishable from the real thing.

I have huge sympathy for Tulip. Yes, he agreed, but it doesn't sound like he was given - or at least understood - the likely realistic outcome. I am increasingly thinking that outcomes for this particular surgery are so poor that it simply should not be offered. Yes, give therapy. Yes, support social transition. Yes to hormones and 'top surgery'. But no to procedures which carry a high risk of leaving young people in nappies for life.

I fear that this is the first wave of a tsunami...

Jesus wept!

This.

It's not like you can ever get your penis or breasts back, and if you publicly admit that you regret it you'll have to deal with people asking how you could have been so stupid, so you'd just try and make the best of it, wouldn't you?

He should take some responsibility, as it should have been obvious that there wouldn’t be the same feelings down there and it would result in infertility, but at the same time, was the op supposed to result in taking 10 minutes to pee and it then dribbling out for the next hour? Sounds like the surgery went a bit wrong.

I don’t understand how he agreed to surgery without researching first?

Fear. Confusion. Body dysmorphia. Lack of detail from medical professionals.

All in the article!

Rise💐

I also have a relative that would have been caught up in this (if they were born a few years later). Luckily they’re in a same sex relationship and healthy the thriving. They have been shamefully silenced on this.

I don’t understand how he agreed to surgery without researching first? He must have known that he was going to have his man bits removed?

I know someone who has recently had the surgery, they went private because the process wit the NHS takes years, it’s not something they rush and the explain the procedure and offer counselling before surgery. The person I know was older and it was something they had thought through for a long time. They don’t regret their choice and they are so much happier.

I do think there will be many young men that do regret going through with it and I don’t think it should be something men rush into, it’s major life changing surgery that comes within huge risks. It is worrying that there are so many young people confused about their gender and sexuality, it does seem to be a bit of a fad with young people. Dd has several friends that’s are trans or gender neutral, it’s talked about much more than it was 20 years ago and it’s almost like the idea has been put into children's heads and made ‘trendy’ to be different, social media doesn’t help. It just wasn’t really talked about much when I was at high school but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. Several of my class mates have come out as trans in their 30’s.

So how do the NHS make sure they are doing the right thing? Do the put a age on when surgery can take place? And if so will suicide and depression rise in those who are turned down for surgery that they desperately feel they need?

This man knew exactly what surgery he was having, it would have been explained to him many times, how can you sign up for gender reassignment and not realise they are going to take your testicles?

And let’s face it, how many detransitioners are going to come out and say, ‘yep, I made a massive mistake and cut off perfectly fine working parts of my body for what I now realise was a phase’.

On this thread we have had people (trans allies and gender critical alike) calling this man stupid. How many people are going to willingly put themselves through public mockery? For every one public detransitioner you can bet there are at least 5 more who keep it quiet.

It’s how he describes it now, as he’s preparing to sue the NHS.

To quote Mandy Rice-Davis, well he would say that wouldn’t he?

Given how stonewalled and aggressively activist the NHS has become on trans matters I would be hanging fire on assuming consent protocol was followed as deeply as we might otherwise expect in this case. I'd be interested to see the evidence before deciding what's right or wrong.

I have the utmost sympathy for TulipR.

Imagine the scenario that you are deeply mentally unwell, severely dysphoric, in a group that only enforces your worst and hardest thoughts. Then, instead of therapy you get medicalised. You're on hormones that wreak havoc with your system and emotional state, the. You're told surgery might help. Say a doc wants to make a name for them self as a specialist in this area and so, follows protocol, but perhaps not as deeply as they might otherwise. They don't want to be deemed transphobic, they want the opportunity, they feel for the patient. Remember, surgeons are human and not infallible too.

I'm not saying that happened. I don't know. But that's a different story to a person fully in control and capable of understanding the deep challenges the surgery would bring being taken step by step through a consent process by a wary and cautious doctor.

There's any number of possible variations and the solicitors must feel like there's a strong chance of success if they've taken it on CFA.

The NHS mutilated and sterilsed him. How he is not a victim of the NHS?

Surgery regret however is extremely low for trans people, And yet we know that there is daily more and more evidence that this is no longer the case.

Now younger people are somehow accessing such surgery regrets are increasing. When it took years and a lot of medical input men got a lot more information, counselling, discussion. That does not, cannot happen as much any more and the NHS, for some reason, actually funds such surgery.

This will only increase if Stonewall et al push through their version of 'no conversion therapy'

But the surgeon shouldn't have done it. What happened to "first do not harm"? This was a mentally ill patient who didn't properly understand the outcome of what he wanted...no surgeon should have performed the surgery.

But because of the culture of being unable to ever question anything due to being labelled transphobic, they will.

My son escaped being in this man’s situation by the skin of his teeth. We were extremely lucky to get a therapist who had just started at GIDS (in fact we were his first appointment) and who helped my son to examine why he felt like he was trans. We had appointments for about 18 months, one every 6 weeks or so.

We had our last appointment at GIDS in February 2020, and this was also one of the therapists last sessions, he left to go elsewhere. At the last appointment, as my son was over 18, he was referred onto adult GIDS where he would have been instantly affirmed, given hormones and put on the waiting list for surgery.

Luckily for us lockdown happened shortly after this appointment. My son got a full time job and entered the real world, not the world of tumblr and friends telling him how brave and wonderful he was for being trans.

2 years later he is so fucking grateful that he had that thinking time to realise that it was a phase. If that therapist hadn’t slowed things down, and then if lockdown hadn’t happened, I can guarantee my son would be at the very least on hormones, and maybe he would be castrated and having to dilate a canal where his penis had once been.

I believe that my son was at the tail end of the sensible ‘watchful waiting’ approach. So @MishyJDI, I strongly believe that a wave of regretful transitioners are coming. The only reason that there haven’t been many public ones yet is simply a matter of numbers. All these regretful ‘trans peeps’ as you call them are coming, and my heart bleeds for every single one of them.

Bloke bitterly regrets penile removal. Colour me shocked. I'm being flippant but really, how did we as a society get this dumb? Props to him for his bravery in spekaing out. I noted the TRA Katie Montgomery was quick to jump on him and basically dogpile him for speaking out and suggest he was imagining his pain.

the trans surgeries subreddits are full of young people posting their despair and frustration that transition has worked out badly for them. Their posts are either removed, acuused of transphobia or they are gaslit that there's nothing wrong with their surgical results and that their pain isn't real.

Until the denail stops, nothing will change. However - if the NHS is henceforth less cavalier about using my taxes to transition mentally ill young people, then that's a win imho.

I think its a horrific situation that should never have been allowed to occur.

The NHS does deserve to be sued.

Unfortunately big changes are needed to avoid terrible mistakes in future and polite letters are not going to cut it.

As a pp said, money talks.