The Guardian: Sex change is not effective

[Pluvia]

18 years ago the Guardian commissioned research into sex change surgery and the conclusion was that it's not effective:

www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jul/30/health.mentalhealth

I wonder why they seem to have forgotten about that?

I wonder if there's been any more work in this area by those researchers?

It would be very interesting to know -

(1) How many current Guardian journalists who cover trans issues have read that article?
(2) How many current Guardian journalists who cover trans issues have delved deeper into the research behind it and what went into writing the article?
(3) What good quality research are the Guardian and their journlists aware of which in any way contradicts that earlier research?
(4) What steps they have in place to ensure that truth (if indeed the original article was truth in the sense of it being a decent piece of research for it's time) is not forgotten by the paper - ie if you have a position based on research you don't forget it, you only put it aside for good reason?

Good points. You would have thought that someone would have filed the research the Guardian had paid for for future use.

Is anyone able to achive this? I can't for some reason.

It's already been archived, FOJN: archive.ph/mDH37

You said yourself, it's an 18 year old article. The medical processes have come a long way and improved since then, the general public opinion of trans people has greatly improved, which is likely a huge contributing factor to the unhappiness.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6546862/

Here's a scholarly article from April 2019 that analyses 13 studies on quality of life after gender reassignment surgery, and it found an overall improvement to quality of life.

It also noted that all of the studies had moderate to high bias, and that there aren't really any good studies at the moment to look at in terms of QoL after gender reassignment surgery

It’s not supposed to be “effective.”

It’s supposed to have long term benefits for privately paid medics and pharma firms.

Not to mention those who wish to sexually exploit the subjects.

The article says: Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, has written to the mental health minister, Rosie Winterton, requesting a "thorough assessment" of the long-term effects of sex change operations. He wants the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which decides what treatments should be available on the NHS, to draw up guidelines on gender reassignment.

**Do we know if NICE ever provided any such guidelines?

The Guardian's articles from that era are very interesting:

The UK's best known gender psychiatrist gave patients sex-change treatments without evidence they were genuinely transsexual, an inquiry heard today.

The General Medical Council disciplinary hearing into consultant psychiatrist Dr Russell Reid was told that he repeatedly put patients at risk by breaching internationally accepted standards of care.

Dr Brian Ferguson, a senior gender psychiatrist based in Nottingham, told the hearing that Dr Reid rushed patients into treatment without a thorough assessment and, in some cases, a second opinion.

Dr Ferguson said Dr Reid had acted in a "wholly inappropriate" fashion by prescribing hormones to patients on their first appointment and referring them for surgery without proof that they were transsexual.

"Transsexual expert 'put patients at risk' " www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/nov/03/health.gender

And here's the Guardian's 31 July 2004 Weekend magazine piece with detransitioners being interviewed that is referred to in the article linked to by the OP at the start of this thread: www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jul/31/health.socialcare