Gender Reassignment Surgery

This surgery is quackery...it's obvious mutilation. Why aren't we helping persons with gender identity disorder to become happy with who they are from the inside out? This is tragic, and studies show that these people become more suicidal post-op.

This is so sad. That a person would have their sexual organs sliced open to become the opposite sex is horrifying. I fee sorry for these poor men (and women).

Jason:
“…and studies show that these people become more suicidal post-op.”

Actually, the satisfaction rate post-GRS is well in excess of 90%. Can you point to these studies you are referring to?

The suicide rate for the trans population generally is about 50%, but post-op it is much lower. The reason for the high rate is the same as the reason for the elevated (but not 50%) rate in LGB people: societal rejection, economic disenfranchisement, and so on.

In other words, the problem is society, not being trans. Being trans is just another human variation.

“Why aren't we helping persons with gender identity disorder to become happy with who they are from the inside out?”

Because it doesn’t work. The psychological profession has a “cure” rate in transsexuals of essentially 0%. Endocrinologists and surgeons, on the other hand, do better than 90%. In other words, we cannot change the mind’s gender identity, any more than we can change a person’s sexual orientation, even when the person really wants to change. On the other hand, within limits, we can change the body.

You are identifying “who they are” by what you see, which is natural. But which is more important to you, which is more essentially YOU: your body or your mind? If your body were uploaded into a virtual environment without your mind, would that still be you? Most people would say, “No.” If your mind were uploaded into a virtual environment without your body, would that still be you? Most people would say, “Yes.”

So, rather than change the essential person to match the person you think you see, we change what you think you see to better express the essential person.

In the words of a wise trans woman I know, “…from the standpoint of people who reject the gender they were assigned at birth, transition and its related activities can be seen as taking what has been inside and bringing it out into the world for others to experience. The brain is ordered, it is simply that the brain's orderliness is obscured for others by the screen of our bodies. In this sense, transition isn't changing so much as revealing.”

Grace

helpful video.