‘NHS trans surgery damaged my body for ever — it’s not safe’

[Igneococcus]

In the Sunday Times today about Richie Herron's and another unnamed patient's lawsuit.

"At the seven NHS adult gender clinics in England and Wales, surgery and cross-sex hormones are offered after the age of 18. Patients have at least two assessment appointments with a specialist medical practitioner before hormone treatment is recommended, and those who are considering surgical treatment have two further meetings with separate clinical professionals before they are referred."

I had more appointments (over a period of 18 months) for my pre-cancerous thyroid nodules before I was referred to surgery.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cf857796-01ec-11ee-b730-2607a18701aa?shareToken=37ab04ab9cda65fdbba5187efb95be79

Judicial review

Judicial review into adult GIDs www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4820055-judicial-review-into-adult-gids

So sorry Lois. Leave the Ritchie articles lying around?

If the therapy is 100% affirmation only (so not proper therapy) and other issues not explored it's not informed consent surely?

They should at a minimum be talking to people about how the rest of the world may continue to perceive then as their birth sex. Not doing so is a failure if responsibility.

I'm so sorry @loislovesstewie. That's awful. Ritchie's mother raised concerns at one appointment and they were also dismissed.

Completely agree.

I wondered what the situation would be for men who wanted a vasectomy.

This is from the NHS website.

Common questions about vasectomy
Can I have the operation if I'm single?
Yes. But if you're under 30, you'll find many surgeons are reluctant to do it in case your circumstances change and you regret it later.

Could being sterile affect me emotionally?
... if you feel anxious or uncomfortable about the procedure, or you think you would find it hard to accept being infertile, it may not be suitable for you.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/contraception/vasectomy-male-sterilisation/

So it seems many surgeons won't carry out vasectomies on healthy 29-year-old men, but some are still willing to carry out complete removal of the genitalia of an autistic 21-year-old man with mental health problems.

Perhaps the TRAs are right about one thing - people who identify as transgender do seem to end up with worse healthcare than other people.

At some point I will take up the issues that I think have been overlooked. I genuinely think that because he is an adult and the therapist has been captured by the ideology then no one is rigorously testing his belief. I don't understand how someone who has a beard, presents completely as male, does nothing stereotypically female, has no interests that would be considered female is affirmed as female. BTW I don't believe that women are a stereotype, but surely if he feels female then he should be doing something 'female'? Not just carrying on as normal and expecting others to accept it? Hard to put into words, but observing, I see nothing that would make me believe anything else.

What about if a mum suffering from hyperemesis wanted to be prescribed Thalidomide? Should the NHS do so? What about private doctors?

Should the NHS prescribe mercury for syphallis? That was once considered the best treatment and many people took it in good faith. They are adults after all.

The case comes as a large number of 17-year-olds who have been on the 8,000-strong waiting list of the Tavistock clinic in north London, England’s only NHS gender identity clinic for children, are being referred to the adult service.

The large number of teenagers entering the adult service is terrifying. Many if these will be females identifying as male.
NHS England is funding a new service at Chelsea and Westminster hospital which appears to be specifically for females only as it is listed as providing "masculinising genital surgery". Brutal surgery with high complication rates on the NHS.

I would sincerely hope that the main reason for talking to a therapist at that stage would be to have your desire very very rigorously examined and challenged, not affirmed.

It annoys me that this person has had 100+ hours of counselling, yet the waiting list for counselling in my area for mental health issues/anxiety/depression is two years and you get a paltry six sessions.

I agree, I think he should have been challenged. I really see no evidence though, and as for ' living as a woman ' that seems to be the bare minimum of changing name. Sorry, but today I am finding it so very depressing. Probably lots of other reasons, but I feel helpless in the face of, what I consider to be cult like ideology.

The service is expected to provide for 280 patients a year when it is fully up and running and there is further provision at two private hospitals.

Note that the proposal includes a whole time Tissue Viability Nurse. For those that don't know the work of a TVN is to manage wounds that aren't healing. Chronic Infections. Deep tissue pressure injuries. Necrotising fasciitis. That sort of thing. My hospital has four TVNs on the team, all part time so probably two full time equivalent for a 700 bed hospital.

It's almost as if they are expecting multiple complications.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/nhsserviceeforprovisionnof_mas#incoming-2108473

So sorry @loislovesstewie
That sounds very difficult to be dealing with, especially if your son is living at home and you have to be walking on egg shells at all times.

Yes it's mad. They all talk about the waiting lists and difficulties of accessing support etc. Everyone knows the mental health services generally are in crisis, and it is very difficult to be referred for therapy, with long waiting lists. I can't see how it can be sustainable to offer never ending therapy sessions on the NHS without an end point but certainly achieving an end point shouldn't involve pushing a person into irreversible surgery and crossing them off the list as "job done".

I am very anti suing the NHS

But on this he should go for the jugular

NHS England is funding a new service at Chelsea and Westminster hospital which appears to be specifically for females only as it is listed as providing "masculinising genital surgery".

The very hospital at which the doctors at their excellent menopause clinic didn’t want to give me an unnecessary hysterectomy as they felt the risks outweighed the benefits (as mentioned upthread).

I don't think young people are able to comprehend just how bad severe and constant urinary issues are, just how much misery they cause and how debilitating. Severe urinary problems make living an ordinary everyday life impossible.

I've been reading about the aftermath of both male and female gender surgeries for a few years and it strikes me that the worst and most common complications are related to this.

It's dismissed too easily as something that's fixable but quite often it's just not. Young people in their 20s and 30s are experiencing something that previously might have only happened in the elderly or a small number of the worst childbirth injuries. From what I've seen and read urinary complications from SRS tend to be by some magnitude worse than either of those scenarios.

The very worst complications appear to arise from phalloplasty. I'm sure I read somewhere recently that the NHS has now appointed a surgeon to do this surgery because there's a waiting list. Many of those on the waiting list will be very young and potentially have a poor understanding of what it can lead to.

Given that there are so many procedures the NHS won't do based on a risk to the patient basis it's just insane to me that this still sits outside of normal guidelines. So many of these people will be coming back again and again to the NHS with complications and revisions, possibly for the rest of their lives due to something the surgeons knowingly caused in the first instance.

In the US due to how their healthcare system works we can cynically point at the amount of profit gender surgeons make if a patient ends up needing multiple surgeries but that's not how the NHS works. In the UK these people potentially will become very expensive patients funded entirely by the NHS and the tax system and over a great number of years.

Wow. Thank you for sharing. So deeply sad. I hope that the daylight now being shone on this issue will result in long term change.

The very worst complications appear to arise from phalloplasty. I'm sure I read somewhere recently that the NHS has now appointed a surgeon to do this surgery because there's a waiting list. Many of those on the waiting list will be very young and potentially have a poor understanding of what it can lead to.

See the FOI I have linked @OvaHere

How ironic @borntobequiet
Glad they sorted your problems and you are happy with the outcome. Though won't you need the coil removing after five years or so? What if the problem comes back then?
You sound like a good case for endometrial ablation. Was that offered?

Sorry but to blame the NHS for something that they wanted and they asked for?

If the NHS Hadn't have treated them, would be have been classed as transphobic and anti- LGBT.

This is not the NHS fault at all.

This is an unfortunate consequence of someone who has no changed their mind.

It's awful and it's unfortunate. But ultimately, they chose to do this to themselves!

Now*

BTW, I am also not anti-trans. I do not care if someone wishes to be another gender. That is up to them and no business of mine. But this was their choice. Not the NHS.

My friend had to fight for sterilisation after 7 children. In case ‘she wanted more’. She has surprise twins and definitely did not want more.

We know someone who had M2F surgery. They had a year of therapy and ‘living as a woman’. It was perfectly obvious to everyone around him that it would be a disaster. It was, he gave up dressing as a woman, wearing his wig, dilating within a year. He was a gay man and was ashamed of it, therapy did not pick that up. Now he is mutilated.

DD has a friend whose brother has decided he is a woman. He is obviously ASD (like 2 other siblings) and is very unhappy. His mother seems scared to question it. Worst of all the name he has picked is basically the same as his sister. Everyone has to go along with it to keep them happy though.

So if someone wants one of their limbs removed, and they can find a surgeon willing to do this, it's all their own fault and they're 'doing it to themselves'? Is it your belief that the surgeon and the NHS have no responsibility for procedures that they carry out on the request of the patient?

Should this surgeon have been allowed to carry on amputating healthy limbs from patients who requested it? After all, it's what the patients wanted and were asking for.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/625680.stm

No they didn't.

A very distressed gay young man with extreme OCD who was later also diagnosed as autistic experienced elements of social sexism and homophobia growing up in the NE of England, which, as a resident, I can say isn't the most progressive of areas.

The internet told him he was trans. He sought therapy and help from the nhs.

The nhs told him he was trans. His mother queried this and was dismissed.

The nhs continued his therapy and didn't explore other ideas - that he had internalised homophobia, autism and OCD + the internet added fuel to the fire.

Eventually they said they'd have to stop the therapy unless he transitioned. The THERAPY was the one thing holding him together.

So he agreed to transition.

I'm holding that as that is not an informed consent decision. That's coercion.