Do you think there's any possibility of there being 'real' trans people? I say this just because a lot of the comments in this thread seem to think there's not?
I think there's some confusion over hating your body and true body dysmorphia, my understanding is that trans people feel trapped by their biological features, such as breasts and penises and therefore want to get cosmetic surgery to change that, or use hormone blockers to stop breasts growing etc
The dysmorphia has had cases of people mutilating their own bodies because it disgusts them so much and doesn't feel like 'part of them' and like it's a foreign object on their body.
Of course all people who identify as trans are real.
Some people's dysmorphia is focussed on limbs. They also describe experiencing considerable distress & in some cases seek amputation. In UK a surgeon in Scotland carried out limb amputations. The practice was subsequently ruled unethical & prohibited.
February 2000 Guardian
(extract)
"A surgeon who amputated the healthy limbs from two psychologically disturbed men at their request said yesterday that he saw nothing wrong with his actions and that he was disappointed he would not be able to carry out such operations again.
Robert Smith cut off the lower legs of two patients, one from England and one from Germany, during private operations at Falkirk and district royal infirmary. The men had been turned away by surgeons across Europe before Mr Smith agreed to operate.
Mr Smith said, however, that he did not want to specialise in the procedure. "The last thing I want to be is a world centre for cutting off arms and legs."
The two men were suffering from an extremely rare form of body dysmorphic disorder known as apotemnophilia. Those suffering from the disease have an obsessive belief that their body is "incomplete" with four limbs and will only be complete after amputation. In most cases of apotemnophilia the desire to be an amputee is linked to a form of sexual arousal, but Mr Smith said there was no suggestion that any of his patients were motivated by sexual urges.
Following an internal investigation, Forth Valley NHS trust has now effectively banned Mr Smith from carrying out further procedures on people suffering from the disorder. Private hospitals have also refused to allow Mr Smith to carry out the procedure.
Mr Smith said he had six more patients waiting to be considered for amputation, two of whom had been fully assessed by psychiatrists as suitable candidates. The disorder takes over patients' lives and Mr Smith said that one of his patients had already tried to persuade friends to shoot off one of her limbs.
"My fear is that someone will injure or kill themselves," he said. "I have very serious concerns that they will go to an unlicensed practitioner or take the law into their own hands and lie down on a railway line, or take a shotgun." (continues)
www.theguardian.com/society/2000/feb/01/futureofthenhs.health
Malcolm Clark (a documentary film maker) describes the background to this & parallels:
Threadreader
(extract)
When did I first realise that extreme trans ideas are dangerous nonsense? Doubts started when I filmed with April Ashley, Britain's first transexual. She was described as a pioneer and so she was but also a heroine since she'd married a minor Scottish aristocrat who divorced his wife to marry her. I met the aristo's family whose lives she'd ruined with tabloid scandal when her 'marriage' was annulled. She never once showed any sympathy and made it quite clear she was never in love... (continues)
"Later I was asked to help out on a BBC Horizon, (I'd directed a number of shows for the strand) on a film about people who believed they were 'meant' to be amputees. I interviewed an otherwise seemingly normal German guy who wanted both his legs cut off below the knee..
A Scottish surgeon did the op. The psychiatrists who approved it were all schooled in trans ideas and used trans type arguments. 'He would commit suicide if we don't do it', they said. They also claimed they carefully distinguished people like him from 'mere' fetishists
But it was quite clearly easy to fool the psychiatrists. If they needed fooling that is. I spent a lot of time with the German guy and a strange tale of an ...unusual.. upbringing emerged. His parents had, for example, owned a factory producing 'prosthetic limbs' and he complained 'they'd never had time for me...only for their patients'. Mmm.
Horizon later made an insightful film about John Money, the founding father of 'gender' identity ideas.. whose disastrous notions led to the suicide of a man whose parents had been advised to bring him up as a girl.
I therefore tried to get a Horizon commissioned that would explore openly the science of trans. Could someone really be born in wrong sexed body? (continues)
"The ironic thing, 20 years on... from the making of that disturbing Horizon is that the scientists and the psychiatrists may have unwittingly been on to something but just not in the way they thought they were. People who think they are "meant" to be amputees may share some... condition with those who want to remove their breasts or their genitals.For me now lesson of the film is that the psychiatric and surgical professions are as hopelessly unable to safeguard interests of trans people, as they were of wannabe amputees. Indeed they have a .. vested interest in "identity" confusion." (continues)
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