Is it wrong and beta of me to feel sad and be sympathetic for trans?

submitted by 8thmonitor from self.AskSaidIt

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I wish we would get these people the real mental help they need instead of giving hormones and surgery.

It turns out gender affirmation has the best results of any treatment we know about.

[–]hfxB0oyA 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Really. Then why are people still trying the rope at a rate above the national average even after they get the surgery?

These people need mental healthcare, not platitudes and fake vaginas.

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Really. Then why are people still trying the rope at a rate above the national average even after they get the surgery?

It's not obvious what your claim is here. What surgery? Are we talking breast enhancement or removal, or genital reassignment surgery, or cosmetic surgery on the face or jaw or beard removal?

[–]hfxB0oyA 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Doesn't matter. Without psychological help, surgery doesn't do much. Psychological help, with or without surgery, leads to better outcomes.

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

If you don't know what surgery you're talking about when you say "... people [are] still trying the rope at a rate above the national average even after they get the surgery", in what way is it true?

In answer to your question as to why transgender people in general have a high suicide rate:

Gender-based victimization, discrimination, bullying, violence, being rejected by the family, friends, and community; harassment by intimate partner, family members, police and public; discrimination and ill treatment at health-care system are the major risk factors that influence the suicidal behavior among transgender persons.

However that paper doesn't compare transgender who've had or not had any or some surgery.

[–]hfxB0oyA 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This article and thread are relevant.

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The nature of the beast is that controls are going to be sub-optimal because all the evidence points to the fact that gender affirming care improves quality of life, anxiety and suicidal ideation, so it is unethical to not give that treatment.

Shitloads of medical procedures are like that. As are most safety interventions.

In the US the recent denial of gender affirming care in some cases does give us a control. And it looks like we are right that a randomised trial would be unethical:

Access to GAH during adolescence and adulthood is associated with favorable mental health outcomes compared to desiring but not accessing GAH.

But the evidence that we do have all points to improvements in some or all of quality of life, suicidal ideation, and anxiety. Studies that attempt a control or at least a cohort, and studies with larger numbers don't tend to deviate, which suggests that the results are robust.

But sometimes you get misleading statistical quirks. We thought anti-oxidants would be good for us to eat at one point, but it turned out to be an anomaly just from random variation. So keep an eye on it and if the results start suggesting that gender affirming care has negative outcomes, revisit it. But at the moment the best guess is that gender affirming care has positive outcomes.