Fionne Orlander has had genital surgery

[Pluvia]

On the NHS at an expensive London clinic.

twitter.com/FionneOrlander/status/1534471741531115520

I've appreciated and followed him on Twitter for years and know how bad the dysphoria is and yet my heart sinks that even someone as thoughtful and articulate as him thinks that this will solve anything.

Fionne strikes me as a good sort, who suffers from crippling dysphoria.

I wish him well and hope he finds some peace.

We might permit all sorts of adult things, but we don't have to be promoting them in schools and putting children on a path to them - smoking, tattoos, breast implants, and certainly genital reconstruction.

All of these things are not synonymous... 🙄

Best wishes to Fionne for speedy recovery and lasting peace and good health.

Fionne is not an ally to women. Fionne asked GC followers on Twitter to fund h** second facial feminisation surgery just after buying a new home.

I wish Fionne all the best. But I won't be pretending that h** is working for women.

Apparently the money raised by that appeal is still in the bank. It's a very odd situation.

I hope Fionne has a swift recovery

I am incredibly reluctant to deny people NHS treatment or social security benefits for any reason, but if there is one reason to do it would be because their need for treatment or money is down to entirely self-inflicted health issues / disabilities.

how is a mental health issue “self-inflicted”?

Fionne is really lovely.

I hope the operation has gone well.

I thought they were renting (don’t know why I know this). I was surprise to see that they’d gone for the op - I thought they were at peace with themselves. But they seem to be someone who is considered and seems to be in a good relationship, with a supportive family.

I wish Fionne well - and I hope this gives them peace of mind.

Why on earth are women here, on a feminist board, talking about the status of one particular male person's genitals?

If someone chooses to share such detail about themselves, we'd all be better served by just smiling and waving.

Seconded. I like Fionne. Surgery is after all the transsexual choice and I’m sure it wasn’t an uninformed choice.

That's a huge step to have taken. I bet not taken at all lightly, knowing what I know of him. Mixed feelings about it here. I have a transwoman friend who has multiple issues following genital surgery, that required and still does regular surgical interventions. It can go horribly wrong. I hope it works out for him and brings him some peace.

Fionne is not an ally to women. Fionne asked GC followers on Twitter to fund h second facial feminisation surgery just after buying a new home.

And people can choose whether to contribute. That's a far better option than using NHS resources. I'm not sure why buying her own home is relevant. It's this kind of sniping that makes me take a step back from Mumsnet. I follow Fiona on Twitter and despite being pretty much gender critical, I have no wish to prevent a grown adult, who has obviously thought this through, being prevented from surgery.
You can argue that surgery is not the answer, its brutal (Fiona herself says thus) and often fails. Yet it works for some. But making allusions to impropriety in fund raising isn't OK.

I think the reason Fionne Orlander is being discussed @TinselAngel is that it shows that gender dysphoria can be a cruel and relentless illness and that some people, perhaps, seem to benefit from medicalizing their response to it.

This goes against the common consensus here that people with gender dysphoria need to learn how to deal with it and shouldn't medicalize because medicalizing imposes upon everyone else.

Personally I don't know what to think but I really appreciate the opportunity to think about it and discuss it with others who might feel similarly ambivalent.

I feel uncomfortable with the title of this post. I know there's a lot of people who are supportive of Fionne and wish them well but I'm not sure about the bluntness and invasiveness of this title.

Fionne has obviously been honest and open about this procedure but that's on their own Twitter. I would report it but I'm never reporting anything again after my name and email address was included in the last two reports I made because of the data breach.

Sending healing vibes and hope that Fionne finds peace with their body and can live a happy and fulfilling life.

First we can't say things. Now we can't feel things. Great.

Yep. I've slept on it and I'm still incredulous that there's a memorial thread here to somebody's penis.

I think most of us appreciate how debilitating gender dysphoria can be. Long ago, long before all this TWAW stuff took off, I remember thinking “nobody would put themselves through that unless they felt that was the only option”. I do still believe that, although I don’t believe that it literally makes them women and prior to 2015 or so, nor did anyone else. All the Eddie Izzards who stick on a bit of lipstick and talk about girl mode and then keep playing male roles aren’t dealing with what FO is dealing with.

I don’t think stopping anyone from doing this when they have thought it through is the right answer. Therapy is not a magic cure. I’ve used therapy to try to treat depression at various times and it does very very little for me, if anything. Those who see it as a holy grail are often those who have never tried it.

And how is fundraising being “no friend to women”? There are some women who have raised tens of thousands, often more, for legal cases and have them mysteriously gone silent. If FO wants to fundraise, let her.

If adults with a public profile voluntarily put their own incredibly personal information into the public domain on their own open Twitter account, then they’re doing that to proactively invite public comment on it. I don’t think it makes any ethical difference whether the public comment is made there or on here. We’ve got much stronger moderation and rules about what can be said on MN than Twitter.

I hope that everyone who is given these surgeries by the NHS is also invited to take part in long term follow-up research about how they get on afterwards, physically and emotionally.

It would be reassuring to know that doctors and psychologists are actually monitoring long term outcomes over the decades for the benefit of all concerned. That means monitoring not just for the individual patient’s care, but comparing treatment and outcomes across peers who have had the same thing, in a methodical way. Then publishing the outcomes as research findings. (Exactly as the Tavistock hasn’t been routinely doing for child patients over the years).
An adult treatment evidence base is also needed, not least because some adults aged over 18 will be very vulnerable or not well informed or may not have been considering it carefully for years.

It goes without saying that I wish everyone who has surgery for whatever reason, all the very best for their recovery.

Fionne didn't rush into this as had been on the waiting list for 5 years according to the twitter discussion. I feel sad that transexuals feel they need this surgery to ease their dysphoria. It must be like constantly looking for the next fix which I guess is the facial feminisation surgery which is what the fund raiser is for. From what I've read Fionne knows he can never be female and is against males in female single sex spaces. Also against medical treatment of children. When I first started to read up on gender identity ideology I watched some of Fionne's you tube videos and found them very useful. I think we can forget in the them and us language that there are people with genuine gender dysphoria, who have very different needs and wants from transactivists.

Long ago, long before all this TWAW stuff took off, I remember thinking “nobody would put themselves through that unless they felt that was the only option”. I do still believe that, although I don’t believe that it literally makes them women and prior to 2015 or so, nor did anyone else. All the Eddie Izzards who stick on a bit of lipstick and talk about girl mode and then keep playing male roles aren’t dealing with what FO is dealing with.

This is very much how I feel.
The pp who mentioned feeling sad, yes I feel sad for Fiona too, sad that she has to go through this brutal surgery, sad there aren't better treatments for gender dysphoria, sad that TRAs have made the world such a difficult and divided place for all of us.

The problem @FemaleAndLearning is the inequity.

I have, and have always had, very large breasts. As a teen I tried to get reduction surgery but was refused - told I was lucky to have such assets by one GP.

I have a congenital hip issues and associated back problems, Large tits made everything worse.

As I got older my posture changed, back pain moved up my spine, my shoulders have curved. Boobs still very large and no GP has ever done anything other than commiserate and say no! Now, closing in on 60 years old, my posture, knees, hip, back, even my gait, is worsening. I can't exercise (other issues) and the only thing that would relieve the constant pain and pressure on my spine would be breast reductions surgery.

But no. Big tits and back pain is 'normal for women' apparently.

Effectively I have lived a life more painful than it needed to be because I am female!

A friend of mine has had this surgery and shared pretty much everything pre and post in graphic detail on Facebook. It was traumatic enough to read - let alone what it must have been like to go through it.

Hopefully it will help both of them and neither will have regrets.

Samphire, sorry to hear that. We know 17 year old girls are having this operation if they have a trans identity - absurd that grown women with lifelong health issues aren't listened to.