However, I also think that there seem to be a very small number of people who even with significant therapy struggle with sex dysphoria, who find some relief, potentially, with transition.
2003 Sunday Telegraph article:
‘I changed for all the wrong reasons,
and then it was too late...’
When, if ever, should a person have a sex-change operation, and whose decision is it to make? Julie Bindel reports on concerns that psychiatrists are too ready to recommend the knife
(extract)
Dr Fiona Mason, a forensic psychiatrist with an expertise in gender issues, is seriously concerned about the practices of some private clinics dealing with transsexualism. ‘I can’t imagine assessing anyone suffering from a serious disorder in under three hours. It can take three years to assess patients with complex problems. The trouble with some private clinics is that the patients are just given hormones after an hour-long appointment, which can have an irreversible effect on the body.’
Some critics are even going as far as to say that psychiatrists have not, in fact, ‘discovered’ transsexuals but created them. That is, that once ‘transsexual’ and ‘gender-identity disorder’ (GID) became common currency more people began interpreting their experience in these terms. Specialists working in gender-identity clinics made similar complaints about their patients as early as the mid-1970s. Patients were learning the symptoms of gender dysphoria and repeating them to clinicians in order to become candidates for sex-reassignment surgery. Sandra, a 25-year-old bus driver, changed sex four years ago. She is 6ft tall, with a low-cut blouse exposing her ample cleavage, and bright red hair framing a masculine face. ‘I easily learnt what I needed to say to doctors in order to get surgery, and I know other transsexuals do the same. I felt they couldn’t wait to get hold of my money. They would have diagnosed a German Shepherd as transsexual if it had enough money for the consultation.’
Today the best-known psychiatrist dealing with transsexualism is Dr Russell Reid, who runs a private practice as well as working in the NHS. In 2000 Reid was involved in controversy over the condition known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), where sufferers can experience a desperate urge to rid themselves of a limb. Reid was one of the psychiatrists who referred two patients with BDD to a surgeon for leg amputations. ‘When I first heard of people wanting amputations it seemed bizarre in the extreme,’ he said in a television documentary at the time, ‘but then I thought, "I see transsexuals and they want healthy parts of their body removed in order to adjust to their idealised body image," and so I think that was the connection for me. I saw that people wanted to have their limbs off with equally as much degree of obsession and need.’
But to what degree should doctors be acquiescent to the ‘obsessions’ and ‘needs’ of patients; should there be a point at which they are duty-bound to say no? I asked Dr Reid how he decides on the suitability of surgery for a GID sufferer. ‘The patient makes their own diagnosis, and I confirm or refute it. If I am happy that they are serious about considering surgery in the future, I will prescribe hormones and expect them to live as a woman (or a man, if it is a female-to-male patient) for at least a year. If, after that time, they are mentally stable, living a reasonable and public life and functioning as a whole human being, and if the hormones have been effective, I would consider them worthy of surgery." (continues)
archive.li/1bcWN#selection-273.0-295.716
Russell Reid was found guilty of serious misconduct by GMC though allowed to continue to practice under restrictions. He was supported by prominent TRA such as Sarah Brown, Stephen Whittle etc
Wiki
"In 2006-2007, Reid was investigated by the General Medical Council (GMC), the regulatory body for doctors in the UK. A serious professional misconduct hearing opened following complaints brought by four doctors from the main NHS Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross hospital, west London, and some of his former patients. It is alleged that he breached international standards of care, set by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) by inappropriately prescribing cross-gender hormones to patients and referring them for sex reassignment surgery without adequate assessment.
Britain's primary lobbying organization for transgender and transsexual people, Press for Change, was quoted as saying that Reid received support during the process from more than 150 patients as well as additional experts in the area"
