CDZ 7 things I am learning about transgendered people

[Asclepias]

Why give mental health treatment to someone who isn't mentally ill?

Medicine has already established it is at least in part a brain function, which by definition is a mental state. As I asked earlier, why do you ignore a high probability solution to the issue?

Everything is at least in part a brain function. If mental health treatment worked why did people continue to be transgender?

 

[saveliberty]

Why give mental health treatment to someone who isn't mentally ill?

Medicine has already established it is at least in part a brain function, which by definition is a mental state. As I asked earlier, why do you ignore a high probability solution to the issue?

Everything is at least in part a brain function. If mental health treatment worked why did people continue to be transgender?

There is more than one treatment method and perhaps an entirely new one is needed. Frankly, if breast surgery or knee surgery had as poor results as working with transgenders has, we would have neither of those.

 

[Dot Com]

Yes, those outliers like Johns Hopkins that pioneered the surgery and now refuses to do them. Don't let facts get in the way of making a point.

I think we need to pursue mental health treatment until it fails like surgery has for this condition. But the left is strongly against trying this type of help. What is their goal?

what kind of "surgeries" are you referring to?

 

[saveliberty]

what kind of "surgeries" are you referring to?

What kind of thread are you posting in?

 

[320 Years of History]

What have you learned about transgender people as the result of increased focus on this issue?

• About transgendered people: not much.
• About some non-transgendered people: quite a bit.

Do you know any transgender people in real life?

Not that I'm aware of, but I have met some trans folks.

Why do you think they are so misunderstood?

I think trans folks are misunderstood by some non-trans folks because many folks in the latter group espouse provincial attitudes about their own infallibility and awareness of the world in which we live, and having those ideas, they intransigently refuse to so much as confirm objectively whether their preconceptions hold true in fact. I think for most thusly adamantine folks, gender dysphoria hardly demarks the the limit of their mulishness.

 

[pillars]

They're not mentally ill, but even if they were, we have to deal with schizos and paranoids and allow them in the bathroom.
We used to think mentally ill people were possessed by demons. Now we know better. Get with the program.

The article clearly states that the BRAIN does not line up with the body. That makes it a mental issue. The medical community seems to be leaning away from fixing the body with surgery, that leaves hormones which effect the mind and body or psychology.

Actually, no. The medical community is not leaning away from surgery. Only a few outliers. If you link to American College of Pediatricians, know that they have about 200 members versus the American Academy of Pediatricians, which has 60,000 members. ACP is an anti-gay/anti-trans organization. They are not a credible representative of the medical community.

Stop lying.


Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution
We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into "sex-reassignment surgery"—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as "satisfied" by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a "satisfied" but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.

It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.

Paul McHugh is not speaking for the institution, but his personal views (he is retired). He is part of ACP and is also virulently anti-gay. Research your source.

 

[Dot Com]

what kind of "surgeries" are you referring to?

What kind of thread are you posting in?

Don't answer a question w/ a question. This is the CDZ.

AGAIN- What kind of surgery are you referring to?

 

[saveliberty]

yeah saveliberty/ Seems like forcing someone to be something they're not is a conservative belief

It seems you want to ignore the obvious physical evidence of what they are. This discussion is finding viable ways of matching mind to body. I have suggested a way, many here simply dismiss it without offering an alternative.

 

[saveliberty]

Paul McHugh is not speaking for the institution, but his personal views. He is part of ACP and is also virulently anti-gay. Research your source.

If Johns Hopkins is not doing that type of surgery anymore, it seems he is stating the institutional view.

 

[pillars]

Paul McHugh is not speaking for the institution, but his personal views. He is part of ACP and is also virulently anti-gay. Research your source.

If Johns Hopkins is not doing that type of surgery anymore, it seems he is stating the institutional view.

Johns Hopkins stopped doing these surgeries in 1979. But, McHugh retired from Johns Hopkins and is not speaking for the institution in his recent articles. While Johns Hopkins doesn't perform sexual reassignment surgeries, doctors at Johns Hopkins SBCU (Sexual Behavior Clinical Unit) do consultations with transgender people, prescribe hormone therapy, and refer them out to other doctors for surgeries. So, it isn't true that Johns Hopkins doctors oppose these surgeries. It's just political, as many things are.

Here is some history on the subject: Hopkins Hospital: a history of sex reassignment

In 1979, SBCU Chair Jon Meyer conducted a study comparing 29 patients who had the surgery and 21 who didn’t, and concluded that those who had the surgery were not more adjusted to society than those who did not have the surgery. Meyer told The New York Times in 1979: “My personal feeling is that surgery is not proper treatment for a psychiatric disorder, and it’s clear to me that these patients have severe psychological problems that don’t go away following surgery.”

After Meyer’s study was published, Paul McHugh, the Psychiatrist-in-Chief at Hopkins Hospital who never supported the University offering the surgeries according to Schmidt, shut the program down.

Meyer’s study came after a study conducted by Money, which concluded that all but one out of 24 patients were sure that they had made the right decision, 12 had improved their occupational status and 10 had married for the first time. Beyer believes that officials at Hopkins just wanted an excuse to end the program, so they cited Meyer’s study.

“The people at Hopkins who are naturally very conservative anyway … decided that they were embarrassed by this program and wanted to shut it down,” she said.

A 1979 New York Times article also states that not everyone was convinced by Meyer’s study and that other doctors claimed that it was “seriously flawed in its methods and statistics and draws unwarranted conclusions.”

However, McHugh says that it shouldn’t be surprising that Hopkins discontinued the surgeries, and that he still supports this decision today. He points to Meyer’s study as well as a 2011 Swedish study that states that the risk of suicide was higher for people who had the surgery versus the general population.

McHugh says that more research has to be conducted before a surgery with such a high risk should be performed, especially because he does not think the surgery is necessary.

“It’s remarkable when a biological male or female requests the ablation of their sexual reproductive organs when they are normal,” he said. “These are perfectly normal tissue. This is not pathology.”

Beyer, however, cites a study from 1992 that shows that 98.5 percent of patients who underwent male-to-female surgery and 99 percent of patients who underwent female-to-male surgery had no regrets.

“It was clear to me at the time that [McHugh] was conflating sexual orientation and the actual physical act with gender identity,” Beyer said.

...Though the surgeries at Hopkins ended in 1979, the University continued to study sexual and gender behavior. Today, the SBCU provides consultations for members of the transgender community interested in sex reassignment surgery, provides patients with hormones and refers patients to specialists for surgery.

The Hopkins Student Health and Wellness Center is also working toward providing transgender students necessary services as a plan benefit under the University’s insurance plan once the student health insurance plan switches carriers on Aug. 15.

“We are hopefully working towards getting hormones and other surgical options covered by the student health insurance,” Demere Woolway, director of LGBTQ Life at Hopkins, said. “We’ve done a number of trainings for the folks over in the Health Center both on the counseling side and on the medical side. So we’ve done some great work with them and I think they are in a good place to be welcoming and supportive of folks.”

McHugh is a politically polarized and polarizing figure. I think think that you should read more than his views to get a more objective view of the subject, if that is your goal.

 

[Asclepias]

Paul McHugh is not speaking for the institution, but his personal views. He is part of ACP and is also virulently anti-gay. Research your source.

If Johns Hopkins is not doing that type of surgery anymore, it seems he is stating the institutional view.

It only seems that way but the facts definitively state otherwise.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

How is it irrelevant, I asked if people knew transgender people in the OP.

"due to increased focus on the issue"

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

Seven things I’m learning about transgender persons

The article is too long to copy and paste all, but it is well worth a read.

What have you learned about transgender people as the result of increased focus on this issue? Do you know any transgender people in real life? Why do you think they are so misunderstood?

Nothing I didn't know before.

No, I don't know any.

They are not misunderstood. The only misunderstanding is caused by the propensity of the Left to accept mental illness as the norm.

They're not mentally ill

Oh but they are, and the Democrats are simply using them to destroy long-standing social norms.

Get with the program.

I have my own program, thanks.

You didn't even look at the link, did you? So much for you.

I did. Does it follow that I must nod an affirmation of it?

 

[pillars]

How is it irrelevant, I asked if people knew transgender people in the OP.

"due to increased focus on the issue"

From the OP:

What have you learned about transgender people as the result of increased focus on this issue?
Do you know any transgender people in real life? Why do you think they are so misunderstood?

If you would like to discuss a different subject, please feel free to post your own thread. Thanks!

 

[pillars]

I did. Does it follow that I must nod an affirmation of it?

Are you actually interested in discussing the topic of this thread or would you prefer to discuss your personal biases?

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

How is it irrelevant, I asked if people knew transgender people in the OP.

"due to increased focus on the issue"

From the OP:

What have you learned about transgender people as the result of increased focus on this issue?
Do you know any transgender people in real life? Why do you think they are so misunderstood?

If you would like to discuss a different subject, please feel free to post your own thread. Thanks!

Indeed. There it is. [emphasis mine]

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

I did. Does it follow that I must nod an affirmation of it?

Are you actually interested in discussing the topic of this thread or would you prefer to discuss your personal biases?

You asked for an opinion. I gave it.

 

[pillars]

I did. Does it follow that I must nod an affirmation of it?

Are you actually interested in discussing the topic of this thread or would you prefer to discuss your personal biases?

You asked for an opinion. I gave it.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[BuckToothMoron]

Seven things I’m learning about transgender persons

The article is too long to copy and paste all, but it is well worth a read.

What have you learned about transgender people as the result of increased focus on this issue? Do you know any transgender people in real life? Why do you think they are so misunderstood?

One reason they are so misunderstood is that they are an extreme minority. Another reason is that certain people, mostly the overtly religious, can't accept the fact that somethings that are not normal can still be natural.

 

[OldLady]

It was a poor metaphor, can we move forward?

Actually, it was a simile, but don't tell anyone. Better to move on.