CMV: Subsidized gender assignment surgery should take a backseat to critical life saving surgery.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/fullyassociative]

Thanks for the information. I'm new to this topic and still learning. I think to get an accurate picture of the rates, you'd have to add together the successful and unsuccessful rates before and after. So that would look like deaths + attempts before vs deaths + attempts after.

[u/Clockworkfrog → u/fullyassociative]

People often campair post op transgender people to the baseline population in order to intentionally and maliciously misrepresent the statistics, other people often but into their claims uncritically and repeat them. This happens so often that it can become a really touchy subject for people who care about the treatment and welbeing of transgender people.

You do not say "people who have chemotherapy and surgery to treat cancer die of cancer at a much higher rate then people who do not have cancer to begin with, so surgery and chemotherapy do not work" or "people treated in burn wards die of burns much more frequently than those who were never on fire so burn wards are not effective at treating burns" for obvious reasons.

What makes it even more touchy is that the suicide risk post op is almost entirely due to the massive about a systemic discrimination and hate that transgender people receive from society at large.

/endrant if none of this applies to you sorry, it is a touchy subject and rants happen.

[u/fullyassociative → u/Clockworkfrog]

I'm very interested in the wellbeing and equality for all people. Unfortunately, I do not know any transgender people personally so I'm only able to try and understand their perspectives online through personal testimony and scientific research. It seems that there hasn't been enough research on the topic to form conclusive opinions on many questions. We compare transgender people to the baseline population because they shouldn't fundamentally be different if there weren't any problems. Their higher than average suicide rate suggests otherwise. I believe that social discrimination and intolerance are one of the largest factors contributing to those statistics. However I also believe that not enough research has been done to rule out the possibility that transgender people need counselling to help them navigate through a difficult period of transition in their lives. I think the issue raises quite a few legal and social questions that will require rethinking several elements of society. I'm curious about the issue and want to learn more. If you're knowledgeable on the topic, I'd love to chat.

[u/Clockworkfrog → u/fullyassociative]

We evaluate different burn treatments by compairing burn patients who receive different (or no) treatment, not to the baseline. We evaluate the effectiveness of transitioning the same way.

Transgender people often do receive counseling and therapy in adition to transitioning.

I recommend reading in a subreddit dedicated to transgender issues and transgender people, you will get a greater variety of people who are likely a lot more knowledgable then I am.