Wow, didn't expect people to read my post
Seoulfire:
1. I'm not a medical professional, I just did a lot of research into the literature to come up with briefing notes, so these are just my best opinions.
To answer your first question, I think gender disorder just has a larger body of evidence, and seemingly more common than in the other types of dysphoria you are thinking of (be it all of these disorders are still exceeding rare in the population). I'm sure if it can be shown that people suffering from amputee syndrome (sorry, I can't think of the correct term right now) were suffering from similar rates of depression and suicides, maybe the policy for surgical interventions would be similar.
2. I was referring to Biological gender as the body type the patient was, but maybe it isn't the best term. For this individual, there was a difference between the body (in a man's body) and the brain (female identifying brain).
3. Gender is a a developing field and terms and the science will continue to change. I hesitated in using "biological gender" since even what makes one a man or a woman can be a little complicated. Traditionally, chromosomal XX = Woman, XY=Man. However, there are XXY people (usually born male) and X (usually born women). There are people that have androgen insensitivity, so they are born XY, but because their bodies don't respond to testosterone and developed as women instead. I guess the easy way would be determine a person by their reproductive parts.
4. The problem with determining gender that way though is what the French has shown, and is being backed up by other scientist. When you take a cross section of the brain from a transsexual person and compared it with the cross section of a man and a woman's brain, the transsexual brain much more closely resembles a female brain than the male one, despite being born XY and having all the male parts. What this tells us is that for these people, their brains are literally hardwired differently than their cis-gendered peers
5. Hence the debate, is it a brain issue or a body issue? In my opinion, it's probably a genetic thing and the brain is wired as female, and the body develops as male. You can't fix the neural wiring, so the next best thing after therapy is the physical option. I would imagine that is there was a magic pill that would re-write the brain to the proper body gender, these gender dysphoria patients would definitely take it over invasive surgeries and chemical rebalancing
6. The other interesting thing is that gender and sexuality are 2 different things. Transsexuals are usually attracted to the opposite gender they choose to be (Male to Female would be attracted to men, and vice versa) but that is not always the case.
Badger Bob:
7. I'm not as familiar as the US health system so I may be mistaken. I would expect if John Bobbit got it sliced, and went to the emergency room right away, the surgeons would re-attach it as part of his emergency surgery. The bill would then go to his insurance or to him if he didn't have any.
If he decided a time later that he needed an artificial one, it would no longer be emergency and cosmetic, and I guess it really depends on his insurance if they cover it or not. For prisoners, like in Canada, their health care is covered by the state and they are insured by the state. In this case, she was she successfully had her treatments covered by the states including the final operation as she was able to document that it's a legitimate procedure. As a civilian on private insurance, I can see how that might not be fair, but such the way the system works. In theory here, a prison is covered by the Federal system rather than provincial, and they can have much faster access to MRIs and other procedures. In fact, I think there already has been a Canadian precedent where a prisoner got SRS while serving a jail sentence.
8. I think you got the counsellor and the patient confused
, it's the patient that has to convince the counsellor that they are living in the room gender and to be given treatment to transition into their new gender. Transition is not something just anyone can do (well not medically transition, as I suppose anyone can just start living in the other gender if they wanted to, just not with hormones and surgeries). In fact, for these people, more often than not, it involves the complete destruction of their family life, their careers, and social life. However, that's something they are willing to risk to finally be able to be themselves.
8. With such a stigma and the risks that come with gender issues, are you surprised that people wait until so late in life to transition? Transsexual have literally hit the breaking point that they either transition, or they do something detrimental. There are people who get married, join the army, try to be a manly man, all to try to suppress these feelings of wanting to be a woman. Many who transition would say that it was the first time they ever felt like they can be themselves
9. As for precedent, I really don't think there will be a rush of prisoner getting SRS
LChoy