The tip of an iceberg..?

[RabbitOfCaerbannog]

Portland's OHSU Hospital Covers Up Sex-Change Abuses
Nine transgender patients accuse Dr. Daniel Dugi of disfiguring and "experimenting" on them. One patient accuses Dr. Dugi of coercing him into sex-reassignment surgery.

"Alex said he felt like he “was very much pushed into transition” because of ongoing “mental health problems” that his therapist failed to properly diagnose."

These poor people: bescofield.substack.com/p/portlands-ohsu-hospital-covers-up

For him it was a bit of an epiphany about his attitude towards women and it made me wonder how do middle aged transitioning people feel when the reality does not match the fantasy?

I don't know how many transitioning people (for any definition of what is meant by transitioning) do this with the ambition of transformation into a "sexy young thing" and how many do it for the power dynamic of somebody who can engage in transgression without objections from others. (And increasingly with the support of the state, criminal and justice systems etc. to support a compulsion of acceptance of transgressing spaces or social contracts. JY who is now JS and Canada come to mind.)

R0wantrees - am I misremembering or is there a thread that someone posted 2-3 years ago which had some rather lovely art about our vulvae(?), vaginae, and uteri (so to speak)? And a discussion about how beautiful and vascularised the various tissues are and their astonishing functions?

There have been a few, this is a good thread which links to the consciousness raising of 1960's-70's women's liberation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Bodies,_Ourselves

OP LangCleg wrote 08-Jul-18,

'Our Bodies, Ourselves - celebrating women's bodies in pictures

Lovely, sunny day. I'm in a good mood. Just the sort of mood for celebrating the wonder of the female body. So here's a beautiful clitoris. Awesome, isn't she?"
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3300647-Our-Bodies-Ourselves-celebrating-womens-bodies-in-pictures

Those poor people. This is absolutely barbaric. If it were any other kid of surgery, they'd be sued but there is a culture of silence and misinformation around the realities of genital surgery and 'transgender healthcare'.

In the early hours, I read a post from Reddit from a mother who took her child for neo-vagina surgery and found to her horror that they had a micro penis so would have to use part of their colon. Their child didn't want to use the colon because it smells like a colon. They also have no sexual sensation and had never orgasmed.

In her post she said 'but I did everything right!'. She said followed the recommended treatment to the letter - puberty blockers followed by cross sex hormones. And she and her child had been sold a lie.

But even the mothers who are totally on board admit there are issues - see Suzie Green laughing about Jackie's micropenis or Jazz's mum threatening to dilate Jazz's neovagina while Jazz was sleeping.

How can anyone just not know that this is the inevitable outcome? I guess because anyone pointing out the risks is shouted down as a transphobe.

Utterly tragic.

@NiceGerbil I'm so sorry you went through that.

In the early hours, I read a post from Reddit from a mother who took her child for neo-vagina surgery and found to her horror that they had a micro penis so would have to use part of their colon. Their child didn't want to use the colon because it smells like a colon. They also have no sexual sensation and had never orgasmed.

In her post she said 'but I did everything right!'.

Its telling that an adult parent/carer on realising the disasterous impact of experimental medication on their child reacts this way.

The tragic, unspeakable truth underpinning all of this is that humans can never change sex. No surgery - even 'successsful' surgery - will ever result in a sex change. These people are being sold a lie, and I really hope this results in some very long prison terms.

This Kellie-Jay KM interview with @detransgayguy is beyond tragic

@R0wantrees

In the early hours, I read a post from Reddit from a mother who took her child for neo-vagina surgery and found to her horror that they had a micro penis so would have to use part of their colon. Their child didn't want to use the colon because it smells like a colon. They also have no sexual sensation and had never orgasmed.

In her post she said 'but I did everything right!'.

Its telling that an adult parent/carer on realising the disasterous impact of experimental medication on their child reacts this way.

Isn't it?

What a shocking read. Those poor people.
We are accused of being hateful and un supportive but we all believe healthcare fir trans people should be as high of a standards as we expect for everything else. Botched surgeries and experiments are not acceptable.

I kinda used to be of a mind set of informed Consenting adults being able to do whatever they like. But the more I read about the surgeries and the complications etc , the more I wonder if it should be allowed. At what point does Consenting in these cases cross over to the realms of self harm via a third party . I think there's a line and I wish we could discuss it without fear of deletion/strikes. It comes from.a place believe it or not of wishing people the best health care , with proven benefits and enough information and follow up to allow each patient to make informed decisions. I would not wish these complications on my worst enemy. Its not hatred at all.

Cosmetic surgery in general is pretty dodgy from a traditional Hippocratic oath perspective. Medicine has generally been conceptualised as being about restoring health or creating health, not about enabling some kind of individuals self-actualisation that comes through by making choices, right up to and including body modification.

This is part of the underlying attitude that people note around things like sterilisation, these procedures emerged in a way of thinking about medical practice that was different in ways most people don't always realise unless they've looked into the history around the ideology of medicine. Something like sterilisation was seen in the most basic sense as taking a healthy part of the body, and preventing it from working, permanently. This bumped up against the edges of what was seen as the proper areas of practice for medicine.

This might seem a little crazy now when we take things like sterilisation for granted, but when you look at these other areas we can see why it might be important to have these kinds of limits around medical practise, or differentiate between maintaining or restoring health, and some sort of project of transformation of the human into something different.

Re Dustin Hoffman-
I’m sure Terrence Stamp- who had been feted for his looks in his youth- said something similar about himself in Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

SmokedDuck agree about cosmetic surgery in general. Look at the overlarge breast 'enhancements' or disasterous nose jobs, lip fillers and bottom implants. Or women having ribs removed to produce an artificially small waist. People often travel abroad to get stuff done cheaper or because more ethical surgeons won't do it.

I follow Scott Newgent on Twitter. Scott is FtM transsexual. Scott nearly died as a result of SRS and makes a very strong point that this surgery is very risky and experimental. Horrific to read.

Thank you, R0wantrees - that image is lovely.

To me the problem is that there's no deep engagement with the question: what is gender reassignment surgery actually supposed to achieve? Held in public with everyone able to look on at the discussion, and engage, rather than surgeons talking to each other about the problems of repurposing colon or some other body part.

That's what I wonder too Nauticant and why I can't help but feel that an approach that helps individuals come to terms with their dysphoria without resorting to, for example? using parts of the colon to create a neovagina, or lopping off healthy breasts would surely be preferable and enable them over time to come to terms with things while retaining sexual function. We rarely talk about this but breast play a role in sexual arousal so top surgery, combined with cross sex hormones is a double whammy.

"Moreover, the breasts play a key role in female sexual arousal and we are beginning to understand why in terms of hormones and neuroscience."

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201305/sexual-wiring-womens-breasts

Cosmetic surgery surgery includes stuff like reconstruction after mastectomy, improving the appearance of severe burns once they are healed, etc etc

I think it's a shame that cosmetic surgery is sort of thought of sometimes.

Reconstructive surgery isn't the same as cosmetic surgery.

In the NHS it is classed as cosmetic.

It is about aesthetics.

How you see the word is immaterial. Cosmetic surgery includes both the things that people see as trivial or otherwise. It's not classified according to how some people (who?) judge the merit of different procedures.

I was offered cosmetic surgery on the NHS when I was s child. I turned it down.

Anything that is about a procedure to alter the appearance of something and no other reason is cosmetic.

The medical term holds no value judgement. It's society that has done that.

This is one of my biggest fears...that people I love will be convinced to go down the surgical path.

The fact that cosmmetic surgwry can be ethical, or including on genitals eg after surviving a land mine exploision, does not alter the fact it is an area of private medical practice where there are doctors with very questionable approaches to ethics

I've seen horrific photos of both "MtF" and "FtM" genital surgery - the extent of trauma is just awful. And even the so-called successful outcomes are pretty bad and non-functional.

And I can't get over the readiness to do total bilateral mastectomies. A friend had to have one for breast cancer with genetic markers for high risk of recurrence - even then it wasn't a straightforward decision; it was major surgery and even though it was very successful and well done, it wasn't an easy recovery and she has ongoing physical problems from the scarring.

@Tibtom

The fact that cosmmetic surgwry can be ethical, or including on genitals eg after surviving a land mine exploision, does not alter the fact it is an area of private medical practice where there are doctors with very questionable approaches to ethics

Yes, exactly, I don't think the larger ethical question is really at the same level as how the NHS bills certain procedures. Forest/trees, and all.

HermitsLife that's so interesting about Dustin Hoffman, thank you.
www.upworthy.com/dustin-hoffman-breaks-down-crying-explaining-something-that-every-woman-sadly-already-experienced-3

I think it says something about what men see as an "acceptable" level of female attractiveness - and how much more "beautiful" women have to be compared to men to meet the same standards.

Dustin seems to be saying that he was shocked that he'd missed out on meeting/talking to a lot of women because they hadn't reached his beauty standards, so he hadn't realised that they can be interesting (I think).

And as HermitsLife says, what are MtF expectations on transitioning? If society says you have to be a lot more beautiful to be acceptable when presenting as a woman; is this then seen mistakenly as transphobia?