Quote:
Originally Posted by Weiser Wonder
The woman should be allowed to compete. To exclude her because of a trans history is a very obvious example of discrimination.
As for the argument about the effectiveness of sexual reassignment surgery. The truth is that being transgender is difficult and is more difficult for some than others. Most trans people are very much scarred by their upbringing. A lot of trans people will always look like their assigned gender no matter the surgeries and hormone regiments they are put on. A lot of trans people have zero support. It's no wonder that all trans people don't live happy, fulfilling lives.
But the procedures do work. They do eliminate/reduce gender dysphoria. What's needed to improve the lives of trans people is not to question their legitimacy, but to accept them as who they are.
And keep in mind surgery is a very small part of the transgender experience. Not all desire surgery and only 20% have had SRS.
Here's a study on the subject:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/
Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group. |
The procedures though patently don't work in the overall sense, yes if we give a person the body they think they should have they no longer are able to fixate on that as a problem but it appears clear that in a large number of transexuals that isn't really the problem or the cure.
I would also argue that it is almost impossible to accurately survey how happy transexuals are after their gender modification and your link states that follow up studies are thin to non existant anyway. These patients have gone through hell and back to get the treatment, my guess would be a large number of them, having been so adament, even in their own mind, that this is what will fix all their issues, are going to be loathe to sit down in a follow up interview and say they were wrong.
If we allowed anorexics the medical support in order to safely starve themselves down to belsen like levels they would also no longer think they were too fat but it doesn't make that an appropriate treatment any more than giving an addict an easy supply of drugs or alcohol is a 'treatment' for addiction.
But again what really worries me about this is that the medical community does not approach gender dysmorphia as a psychological condition that needs to be cured, they approach the idea that a man could be a woman trapped inside a mans body as fact and without question, unlike any other dysmorphic thought process.