"I thought gender surgery would make me feel better. I was misled"

[SidewaysOtter]

I've always said that one of the things that would finally do for this ideology was big lawsuits...and here we are:

https://www.thetimes.com/article/60b9377e-aeba-4e02-9244-dc49098eab5a?shareToken=879697222a082259a21ab3ead7c4d33d&ver=article

It's difficult to find sites which are anti-trans gender affirming surgery unless you specifically look. And someone who thinks having his balls cut off will make him happier and is told this by his therapist is unlikely to do that specific search - and won't believe the sites even if he finds them, because they are by definition anti-trans.

Unfortunately I’d bet my house those are not words anyone ever said to him prior to his op.

Remember this is a whole culture that deliberately obfuscates – to the point where no word means what you think it means and true horrors are rendered benign (see also: top surgery). And the lack of clarity leads directly to these horrible stories of medical mutilation. I hope they have to pay these poor kids big time.

The important thing is the informed consent, clearly lacking in this case.

I’ve recently had knee replacement surgery. I was fully informed of the possible consequences, the risks and benefits. I understood what I was letting myself in for. I don’t think I will regret it - it’s still early days and I have some pain and impaired mobility - but if I did, it wouldn’t be because I wasn’t properly informed.

So not the same sort of situation at all.

Disingenuous.

Yes, the language around these operations is not “we are going to castrate you thereby rendering you infertile”. It’s all “bottom surgery” “affirmation” “feminisation” “confirmation” “align you to your true gender” “increase your confidence”.

I’ve read recently about a trans-identifying woman who has had a double mastectomy (top surgery as she put it, of course) whose testosterone prescription was refused by her GP, and she was genuinely convinced that her breasts were going to start growing back without the T. It’s mind blowing.

Of course, if there’s money to be made out of lawsuits, that’s going to become a gravy train for the lawyers. The Times article above mentioned a US law firm called Campbell Miller Payne that was founded purely to deal with detransitioner cases. I have the utmost sympathy for detransitioners and hope they get the justice they deserve, but it’s all so depressingly predictable. Hopefully this will be the thing that brings the trans juggernaut to a halt, but what a waste of lives, time and money.

Have you encountered Helen Webberley? (Former) Medical professional who would have told him the surgery would magically make him a woman. Not just a woman but a biological one.

Of course, if there’s money to be made out of lawsuits, that’s going to become a gravy train for the lawyers. The Times article above mentioned a US law firm called Campbell Miller Payne that was founded purely to deal with detransitioner cases. I have the utmost sympathy for detransitioners and hope they get the justice they deserve, but it’s all so depressingly predictable. Hopefully this will be the thing that brings the trans juggernaut to a halt, but what a waste of lives, time and money.

I don’t think that there should be any financial payouts.. yes to revocation of fitness to practice for the gender affirming medics… but no money paid out to those who went in search of this surgery

This isn’t about being pro or anti gender affirming surgery. It’s about all the information, including risks, being explained to the person so they can make an informed decision.

Sites on both ends of that spectrum are unhelpful. It needs to be explained clearly without any motivation or agenda.

You don’t know that the surgeon didn’t have this conversation and do an informed consent-it’s a legal process. Many patients forget/misunderstand or confabulate after consultations. Possibly because sometimes they hear what they want to hear rather than what was actually said. The number of patients who have insisted things have been said that are never said in a million years is huge. But everything said is always in their letters/notes. Often they have to come back to clinic to clarify things-and they try to argue back! And yes this is for joint replacement surgery. It happens. And if patients are wanting a specific answer, they will look for it in what anyone says to confirm it. And obviously all the affirming blogs, neighbours, friends, relatives postman and stupid Helen Webberley…

When I’ve had surgery, they’ve gone through the expected risks and benefits beforehand, and it’s all documented on a consent form that you sign.

They also ask you again, immediately before the procedure, why you want the surgery and what you understand the benefits to be. You get a copy of the form too. Being the NHS, it was old-fashioned carbon-copy paperwork in 2026.

Obviously I don’t know the details of this particular case, but I’d be surprised if they were taking it to court if there were a signed consent form explicitly identifying this as a known risk.

As for sexual function, I don't known how this works and have no desire to Google it. Obviously it wouldn't he the same but perhaps he thought they could construct a clitoris or easily achieve orgasms through penetration in the "neo vagina".

There's definitely men who think that's easy to do.

Yet at the same time, there were countless occasions where the surgeon would explain the risks to a patient, the patient would nod in agreement, the surgeon would leave, and I’d come in afterwards and ask ‘so you understand everything’ and the patient would respond ‘oh no I didn’t understand anything the surgeon said but I trust him’.

Just because the words were spoken doesn’t mean that the patient actually understood. I’ve long thought informed consent was damn tricky.

Wasn't it from WPATH - the people maintaining the gold standard of trans surgery, that video clips were leaked of medical professionals claiming there had often been no informed consent.

IIRC it was with youngsters, but the issue is they still went ahead.

No one is an ideology, and trans surgery has a very low regret rate.

One person's story is their story alone. Same as regretting abortion - it is no reason to ban personal choice.

Quite why so many people here waste their lives whining about a minority is beyond me. Dear god get a life and leave other people alone. Difference is normal, obsessing over it really isn't.

It does make me chuckle when transactivists deliberately seek out the feminist board of a parenting website, to write post after post telling us off, and then claim we're the ones wasting our time 😄

Also, just a little reminder, that the Supreme Court judgement was achieved by, er, time wasting Mumsnetters.

I'm unhappy. I don't enjoy my masculinity. I'm struggling to come to terms with myself.

OK. We'll cut your balls off. That will make you happy.

In what world does this make sense?

Quite. If the surgeons were being really honest, they would call it delusion affirming surgery.

The surgeon may have had this conversation. But the patient was suffering mental health issues that weren’t properly explored and which impaired his understanding, so the surgery should not have gone ahead.

Every effort should be made to ensure that any patient does understand the risks and benefits for any surgery. But in fact joint surgery is a weak analogy in terms of the medical issues. Osteoarthritis is properly diagnosable and well understood; the surgery is routinely and successfully performed on millions of people; without it, the patient will eventually suffer more pain, lose mobility and be vulnerable to other conditions that arise from the pain and forced immobility. Most people recover well and have vastly improved quality of life, mostly in old age, as a result. In comparison, gender incongruence isn’t properly defined; where identified, often resolves itself, and can be treated in other ways that at least should be explored before surgery, which is often unsuccessful and leads to lifelong complications, especially in young women - the “cure” being worse than the condition - in some ways the exact opposite of joint replacement surgery.

The first point has to be a legal obligation on clinics and surgeons to call both cross-sex hormone administration, and surgery, 'sex (characteristics) removal (or negation) treatment'.

It has no effect on gender, which is all in the imagination and can be changed without any harm to the body. It is very questionable as to how 'affirming' it is, or what it affirms. If it effects the body, it is sex removal. At least then people know what they are letting themselves in for.

It's harsh language for people who need mastectomies or hysterectomies or other brutal life-saving procedures, but judging by my own friends and family, they do tend to have thought things through, and will understand.

And this is why saying do your own research does not work, we keep being told the regret rate is less than one percent.
stop making a big deal out of the few etc.

It is very sad that he's been mutilated surgically causing irreversible consequences. Cancer patients who have come to a point in treatment where this surgery is a last resort would still have difficulty coming to terms with the loss of sexual function. But in this man's case his healthy functioning body has been damaged so unnecessarily and I really do believe he was not fully aware of the outcome. Whether he just chose to ignore the surgeon due to his mental state or was never told of the implications I don't t know. I do know that tras go out of their way to condemn detransitioners who speak up. There's something very devious and sinister.

It reminds me of the recent case here where a tw is suing the NHS for not cutting his balls off as demanded.

Also I remember years (decades) ago of a tv program that followed a transexual in the UK who was facing surgery to become a woman. He had to live as a woman for years and have regular counselling to prove that he was fully aware of the implications. Now it seems if you have the money surgeons will do whatever you demand. It's a disaster.

If you have the money, you can go abroad to get it done, no questions asked, no follow-up provided. So I can see why local surgeons would do it too.

This.

I am not nor have I ever been a man, but I think that the fact that trans identifying males' 'affirming' treatments do not usually involve the removal of the prostate gland (which it should really to be logical, it's an entirely male piece of kit) they probably still can have some kind of orgasm.

Educational article.

Men having their testicles removed severely impacts sexual function.🙄

Are these the same people who tell us that biology is complicated and too much for us to understand?

I wonder how different it is in the UK. If you're having this type of surgery on the NHS I'd hope there would be a lot more discussion about the life changing effects of the surgery and checks that the patient really understands and consents to a lifetime of infertility and sexual dysfunction.