Parents of transgender teenager lose bid to stop mastectomy

Next step the 17 year old sues her parents to make them pay for the op as technically if she's a student can she not demand they arr financially responsible for her while under 23?

The way I see it is, at least they’ve got their referral in, I’m still waiting on mine!!

I was a virgin until 19 and I don't think I enjoyed sexual stimulation of my breasts until I dated a, let's say, more talented, boyfriend at age 20. I also didn't really think much on any future children and breastfeeding - I was too worried about studying, dating, friendships, having fun etc.

These girls very likely have little physical sexual experience or any life experience. They very well don't know what they are going to miss - they are too young.

Then say you're trans, if it'll get you the surgery.

In reality, women who identify as men and who elect to have this kind of surgery have to wait an awfully long time. It's not a conveyor belt where you just tick a box and they perform a hysterectomy that afternoon.

Well youre only a female type in pain/at risk of death. Can't you please think of the important people here who demand the world go along with their make believe and want it made so? They are the important people! Feelz trumps actual health issues of course!

Actually I think we can.

Capacity in over 16s is established when it comes to medical treatment that helps them.

What is not clear here is whether a person should have capacity (at any age) to make decisions which harm them.

What is the difference in this between a woman removing healthy breast tissue because she has a belief she can change sex (which is demonstrably wrong) or removing a leg because she's trans -abled?

The law in supporting consent here is wrong and needs challenging. We most certainly can and should argue about consent for such surgeries.

But courts can overrule decisions of 16 and 17 year olds and those of adults without capacity. So it wouldn't be completely cut and dried if there had been a proposed treatment and the 'child' was either lacking capacity or making a decision that was clearly against best interests. It would need very clear evidence though and was clearly doomed here where no treatment planned.

What kind of doctors do this stuff? Horrendous. Same for legs, arms whatever for body dysmorphia. I know that's rare (thankfully), though double mastectomy doesn't seem to be rare now, and even gets celebrated in some circles.

What law are you talking about?

Capacity of over 16's is clear.

The fact that the NHS is incorrectly supporting YP in radical mastectomies on the lie that it makes them the opposite sex IS WRONG.

Unless you are a gender extremist you would see the harm in this position.

Why do you think YP should be supported either by law or by the NHS to have radical surgeries which will not help them because the REALITY is that it can't.. in other words human's cannot change sex no matter how much they wish it to be so.

Looks like consent only matters if you’re a man or want to be a man eh?

Not to mention it’s ironic they’re talking about consent to a major medical procedure for transgender people to justify it, yet I have to practically beg a doctor to remove my uterus that is riddled with endometriosis or beg them to take my tubes out so I don’t die having a baby, but if I say I am trans they’ll happily take my whole reproductive system out.

Have I said to be silent? Have I said we mustn't campaign for change?

In this particular legal case, which is what the thread was about, this was the correct decision. We can't argue with that from a legal standpoint.

Exactly this, @Flickersy.

@lifeturnsonadime - You can shout “But it’s just wronnnnngggg!!!” all you like, but it’s only your opinion. Your opinion doesn’t affect the law.

I don't think it's as simple as that. The NHS constitution says "The NHS belongs to the people. It is there to improve our health and wellbeing, supporting us to keep mentally and physically well, to get better when we are ill and, when we cannot fully recover, to stay as well as we can to the end of our lives". But these surgeries do not improve health or wellbeing. There is no evidence that they keep people mentally well and plenty that they negatively impact physical wellbeing. So no, the NHS should not do these surgeries.

Inevitable decision. Not only is the child nearly 18, but it's established law that people over 16 to have capacity to consent, unless clear reason to think otherwise [Family Law Reform Act 1969].

No one has to put up with anything.

Changes don't happen if we just roll over and accept them.

The fact that the NHS supports a harmful gender extremist postion which actively harms YP needs shouting from the hilltops.

Being silent is completely unacceptable unless you are a genderist.

It would be interesting to get some proper research going about this because, like you, I am often struck by the blatant homophobia or sometimes unusually rigid gender expectations in the histories of trans identified people. It seems that those are the real problems people are facing, whatever defensive conclusions they've reached.

So the law incorrectly supports a lie.

Why is It wrong of me to point this out?

The whole thing is nonsense.

Harmful nonsense supported by extreme gender ideologists.

I agree, but at the moment it does. And that's the reality we have to deal with.

The NHS shouldn’t be funding non emergency cosmetic surgeries, it should be based on a genuine pathological need that would be life limiting or life threatening.

Yes but it is the law at this present moment in time. I'm sorry if that's inconvenient, but courts can't make it up to suit themselves.

I know removing a woman's breasts doesn't make a man.

Don't be so patronising, I completely understood what Stockpot Soup meant.

It shouldn't be the law.

There is no basis in reality that a woman removing her breasts maketh a man.

I am sorry that this is inconvenient but it is the truth.

Our YP are being sold a lie whether this is incorrectly supported 'in law' or it isn't.

It's not "easy peasy". The person in question (who is 18 now) will be on a very long waiting list, if they are even put on one. There was no imminent or planned treatment at the time of the case.

I don't think you've understood what @StockpotSoup meant.

The reality is that these operations are presently legal and presently available on the NHS. The reality is that at 18 you no longer require your parents consent for treatment. The decision in court must be based on those realities.

There are massive arguments to be made that the former should not be the case, but this was the correct decision in law.

So a 17 year old could get a mastectomy easy peasy because of gender issues but my friend with a family history of breast cancer that age couldn’t without putting up a fight? That just sends the wrong message