Should cometic surgery to 'affirm' someones gender be banned?

[happydappy2]

Should cosmetic surgery to 'affirm' someones gender identity be banned?
So things like males getting silicone implants (not including males requiring that after breast cancer.) Just silicone implants to give them a female shape. Males having having their sex organs removed-being made infertile. Mastectomies for females and the very risky phaloplasty....with hideous infection rates after the op. Again this operation renders them infertile...
This is not health care-this is harming otherwise healthy bodies....if we ban tongue splitting why not ban these types of operations as well?

It's also worth considering the entire cosmetic surgery industry, what drives it, what models it uses and relies on, and the effects.

I'm not generally keen on 'banning' things, but the industry certainly should be questioned.

Banned, no- same as the recent question about breast implants for males: a condition of having it done privately should be the purchase of insurance to cover the costs of any care required if there are complications.

NHS funded, no. But a ban is a different thing.

To ban it for trans identifying people but still allow it for everyone else is actual discrimination. I don't like the cosmetic industry for obvious reasons but people do have rights to do with their bodies as they please. This is part of the dangerous path I've been afraid we've been slipping down so it's good to see so many people here being sensible and disagreeing with OP.

currently 45% agree and 55% disagree, so a pretty close call.
I would argue that if someone has a mental health issue that makes them think they should be the opposite sex, then therapy to help them come to terms with the sex they are, might actually have better outcomes for them, than trying to live a lie. Especially when viewed through the lens of how they fit into wider society, and what adaptations need to be made to accommodate them, ie creating a whole load of gender neutral bathrooms because a very few individuals don't wish to use the facilities that align with their sex.

We know that people have attempted to transition and been so horrified by the results they've taken their own life. More and more detransitioners are speaking out now saying they deeply regret alternating their bodies as they can't get hose body parts back.....

This is just not a good pathway for people

I agree with all this, but woud add two points covered on the previous thread.

One is that the NHS can end up stepping in when private surgeries go wrong, either as an emergency during the surgery or down the line when, the private surgeon washes their hands of any complications. I'm not saying that is right or wrong, but 'the NHS should not fund this' is not possible in an absolute sense.
PP on the other thread suggested compulsory insurance to go along with any UK cosmetic procedure that is not available on the NHS.

Secondly, there is still an issue with people travelling abroad for treatment. Harder to get them to take out insurance for potential future NHS treatment related to their surgery.

That is because you didn't clarify in your OP whether you were asking if it should be banned just on the NHS, or banned completely. Your poll is therefore meaningless.
The comments on this thread have been insightful though.

If you're an adult I don't care. You do you.

But not on the NHS's dime. Unless it's reconstructive after say, cancer. Other than that you need to fund it yourself. Some of those operations should be over 21 though. Especially phalloplasty.

Arabella Scott posted on the last page, about the mental state of the people requesting extreme surgery on healthy bodies. Wanting healthy limbs amputated is one example.

Doubtless anorexic patients would love to be prescribed weight loss drugs, and if possible to have 'fat-reducing' surgery.

It would be obvious that any surgeon or mental health practitioner, or teacher, or anyone else, should not be encouraging these distressed people to continue in their deluded fantasies. Above all, those making money out of them ought to be removed from professional registers.

It appears that men are capable of creating a s fetish out of absolutely anything, so why would autogynophilia be singled out for approval under law, over-riding the safety of women and children, and for public-purse funding?

(Actually, on the creeping mould of approval of s fetishes, others among the most popular are also being sanctioned by 'bewildered' officials, e.g. apparently in some prisons, (Irish??) the men who get s excitement by dressing up in giant nappies, pretending to be babies, are allowed to have guards hold their hands as they walk from the cells, and to have their food pureed and spoon fed to them by guards. They also require two guards with them in their cells, round the clock. Keeping people in prison, with no extra attention at all, costs the public purse a thousand pounds a week. There is a dire shortage of staff. )

Do you have any actual evidence that gender affirming procedures have a higher rate of serious complication than every single other cosmetic or elective procedure? Or is it just something you reckon?

One way in which gender affirming procedures differ from many other procedures, especially when they are done on the NHS, is there is a lengthy (sometimes very lengthy) process of assessment and discussion and diagnosis before the procedure goes ahead, which reduces the risk of a hasty or uninformed decision. One perennial problem with banning stuff is it doesn't stop people accessing it, it just drives the process underground, making it unregulated and more dangerous so if your actual concern is with the risk of side effects and complications, banning it is probably only going to increase the risk of unsafe surgeries.

Is your real concern actually with safety though, or do you just want to stop trans people from being trans people?

do you just want to stop trans people from being trans people?

I thought that neither surgical procedures nor medical interventions make someone trans or more trans than someone else and aren’t required to activate the gender reassignment protections of the EA2010 or to acquire a GRC under the GRA?

If I posted photos here of the travesty that these operations can end in-the thread would likely be deleted.

We're told to listen to trans people-well I am listening to people who regret terribly believing they were trans and being pushed into hormones & surgeries.

There is simply no diagnostic tool to provide an evidence based diagnosis that someone is trans...

Yes, but you could find gruesome pictures of surgery gone wrong of any surgical procedure. My question was do you have any evidence serious complications are always significantly more likely for gender affirming care than other cosmetic procedures? A few pictures proves nothing about actual statistics.

We're told to listen to trans people-well I am listening to people who regret terribly believing they were trans and being pushed into hormones & surgeries.

While ignoring the significantly larger majority who have not had serious complications and who don't have regrets. So no you are not listening to trans people, you're listening to people who confirm what you already want to believe.

There is simply no diagnostic tool to provide an evidence based diagnosis that someone is trans...

Yes. There literally is. The diagnostic criteria used by doctors is listed in the DSM-5-TR (for gender dysphoria) or the ICD-11 (for gender incongruence).

Really? You've never heard of a vasectomy or a tubal ligation???

I don't understand how banning them would be justified when we allow the same cosmetic surgeries for others, and sometimes even on the NHS. Is a labiaplasty not in some way gender "affirming" (although I hate that word) as there's no clinical reason other than them feeling they don't conform to a notion of what a vulva should look like.

They are not cosmetic.

Anyone can make themselves look convincing in a photo, especially with filters etc but face to face walking down the street is a completely different matter.

It's impossible to disguise a male or female gait/musculoskeletal system because something will always look not quite right.

This is an important point. The NHS ends up funding a lot of things around and after private care, so it's not possible to completely unfund something from the NHS. If they have a complication, infection or pre-op.flags something to be resolved before surgery that all falls on the NHS.

The NHS doesn't do any cosmetic surgery, unless it's fixing something that has gone wrong in some way/is unhealthy. They certainly don't do cosmetic labiaplasty just because you want a different appearance! You would only qualify if your labia are considered abnormal and you have problems, such as painful sex.

Umm they absolutely do! If a consultant agrees to add them to a list it will be done and the majority of patients I see have this are young early 20 something's where the appearance is what they believe to be abnormal and it's getting them down despite being completely normal. Perhaps don't make such blanket comments if you're gonna be so incorrect.

We allow adults to get all sorts of cosmetic surgeries that are not necessary for physical health. Unless we ban all of those, we have no business evaluating the reason an adult wants to spend their own money modifying their body.

I would hope a reputable surgeon would consider just how many surgeries an individual can undergo safely. Beyond that, it is their choice.

I am gender critical, however, trans people will say that the emotional pain of living with the ‘wrong sex’ genitals leads to depression and sometimes to suicide. I assume the surgeons performing the surgery take this into account when considering ‘do no harm’. I am also a doctor and would welcome a more open and public debate about what the NHS will and will not fund

People say a lot of things.

Did you read about Neil Hopper?

If they are an adult, are self funding it and have proven to be mentally fit to make that decision then I think it’s fine.

Do surgeons amputate in such situations? Or is BIID treated with talking therapies, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics etc?

Oh god didn't you get enough affirmation of your vitriolic views in the other thread?🙄