Fertility treatment for trans

[PerverseConverse]

Just had a nosey at the BBC news page and come across this:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-46634595/should-the-nhs-pay-for-transgender-fertility-treatment

I'm not sure how I feel by my instinct is that no, infertility treatment should not be available to trans people. But then for the future, all those poor children who had been rendered infertile by their parents allowing doctors to give them hormones that caused the infertility, that throws a different light on it for me.
Then there's the whole children are a privilege not a right train of thought.

I suspect it is just more demands to access women's health care by entitled men in a world where access to infertility treatment is not available to every woman equally. Postcode lottery, age, BMI etc.

I'm sure that those who have knowingly and willingly agreed to treatment that affects fertility should then not be entitled to free treatment.

This stuff really messes with my head!

Surely those giving private treatment are failing massively if they're not counselling people about their fertility as part of any transition? How can these people be allowed to continue to practice? Or are they not UK based?

I suspect there is rather a lot of tunnel vision among those wishing to medically and surgically transition. It may well be that some hear the information about fertility and simply park it because they have such a focus on 'getting T'.

This feels like much of the medical behaviour around trans issues - very much a case of retrospective "Crap! Can opened, worms everywhere"

The model that TRAs are seeking equivilence with is the protocol for fertility options following a cancer diagnosis.

There's a lot of info on the threads I linked previously.
Worth reading.

I have a friend and I didn’t know her before her transition but it was never suggested she could freeze sperm. She’s now in a relationship where she wishes she’d though about that and would be able to have a child with her own DNa

Just in the past year, two prominent YouTube trans women from the US - Blaire White & Gigi Gorgeous - have made videos about how now that they're in serious love relationships they've belatedly realized that although they still have the male genitals they were born with, their use of estrogen (& androgen-blockers of some sort?) means they might not be able to produce viable sperm. BW has now stopped hormone therapy for a time in hopes of being able to have a biological child via surrogacy, while last I saw GG was too freaked out about all the icky realities of human sexual reproduction to decide what she & her female partner should do next.

I was shocked by how totally clueless both BW & GG were/are about basic reproductive biology & the fact that longterm hormonal intervention can make natal males infertile. Though GG did make a video explaining transgender "science", she's an airhead, so in her case the naivete shouldn't be too surprising. But BW is quite bright, level-headed & open about the downsides of transitioning, so it seems incredible that she went headlong into it without ever stopping to consider the potential negative effects on fertility. As Floral observed, it seems there is rather a lot of tunnel vision among those wishing to medically and surgically transition.

I think this just goes to show that these people are just too young to grasp what they're getting themselves in for. It's not their fault: the human brain doesn't reach maturity until age 25/26. We shouldn't be lowering the age of consent for puberty-blockers to eight, nine, ten & for cross-sex hormones to 11 & 12 the way trans-mad doctors & "experts" in the US are now advocating. IMO, the consent age for all hormonal & surgical transition should be raised to 25.

The NHS, quite demonstrably, cannot do everything. My DH had cancer and his sperm storage was only partly funded.

So keeping this vague...

NHS funding is intended for investigation and treatment of disease, illness or injury.

Transitioning is not analogous to cancer or cancer treatment.

Vasectomy reversal is excluded from NHS funding in most CCGs.

NHS funding for transition surgery does not usually cover additional procedures and transitionees are counselled about this before the procedure. For example, breast augmentation surgery is usually excluded and would need to be sought privately.

No one is 'entitled to a family', Cruella.

I'm really glad the NHS is standing sensible on this.

NHS funding is intended for investigation and treatment of disease, illness or injury.

Transitioning is not analogous to cancer or cancer treatment.

But many young trans people today see their gender ID issues as far more serious & painful than cancer - & far more deadly too (because suicide! suicide! suicide!) Therefore they think their transition-related medical care should come before care of cancer patients.

In these threads in recent months were two similar stories out of the UK & US. In each, young women who identify as trans males were complaining that they couldn't get their elective double mastectomies as soon as they wanted because of all the women with breast cancer who were already in the breast surgery queue ahead of them. In each case, the trans persons claimed they were being "denied lifesaving medical care" because cancer patients needs were being prioritized over their own.

I hate the idea that people have that fertility treatment can be used as a guarantee. I had IUI and IVF was lucky first time but second time I had numerous painful, dangerous, terrifying rounds of IVF with no luck (we were lucky enough to conceive naturally after). I am cross with press and private medical practitioners who sell young people the idea that fertility interventions will guarantee a future opportunity to have kids, when for many they will be crushing disappointment. Putting that on kids who have already gone through the hormonal upheavals of gender transition seems doubly unfair.

I think its really bizarre that when we treat young girls with anorexia not only do we not affirm their beliefs we also try and discuss the risks of their wishes ie that starvation may kill them/make them permanently infertile/ give them osteoporosis etc. We do this despite the suicide rate in this group is known to be extremely high. Beat as the biggest ED charity offers sensible evidence based advice.
When treating gnc young people there seems to be no similar homest discussion re the very real risks of iatrogenic and irreversible harm to physically healthy people. It seems despicable that yp are given such hope that medicine can always solve everything after such non evidence based risky treatment. Sadly with their cognitive immaturity teenagers are vulnerable to such magical thinking and grooming by those with vested interests.