Putting It All Out There and Hoping for Understanding, Not Backlash
I am a Registered Nurse. I work with a family doctor who is seen as being “trans friendly”. I worked with him for 2 years before my daughter first spoke of her feelings. I have cared for a number of both MtF and FtM transgender young people. I am keenly aware that many of them have co-morbid psychological issues, not the least of which is Depression. And I have yet to meet any of them who are truly “happy”. I have had to change the dressings from a lower arm donor site on an FTM patient who recently had a phalloplasty surgical procedure. The donor site was ¾ the diameter of the lower arm and ran from just above the wrist to just below the elbow. The diameter of that arm now is substantially smaller than the arm which has had not surgery done to it. The donor arm will never look the same again. I have absolutely no issue calling this surgery “mutilation”, as this donor/muscle and tissue removal surgery was not performed to remove anything dangerous like cancer or flesh eating bacteria. Also, the vagina was not cancerous or dangerous, and yet it’s been obliterated. The patient is only 24 years old. Will she end up having “regrets”? I don’t know…
…There is no other mental health issue which “requires” surgery as a treatment. This current focus on “transgender” as “normal” could actually be a smoke screen for other mental health issues- which could be treatable or manageable without surgical or harmful medications.
In my job, I spent years dealing with trans people. All of them had serious mental health issues that went beyond the sort of depression that you would associate with someone ostracized from family and friends. These were very serious psychiatric issues that impaired their decision-making and daily life. It was so frustrating to see the mental health establishment treat these disorders as symptoms of needing to transition as opposed to the underlying problem of which transitioning was one symptom. I cannot imagine medical and mental health providers treating patients with anorexia or body identity integrity disorder the same way: encouraging delusional thinking and performing medically unnecessary procedures with long-term consequences. I know that many mental health providers are afraid of appearing close-minded, yet their indulgence of these people is just as unhealthy as the condemnation of homosexuals by the mental health authorities in previous decades.