What do we know about the effects of hormone and surgical treatments for gender-dysphoric patients? Many people might assume they are highly effective because they are widely presented as the obvious proper medical and compassionate course for such patients. The prevailing narrative is that parents and patient advocates who disapprove of surgeries or hormone treatments are both evil and dangerous. The best research, however, indicates just the opposite.
In other words,
They're messed up, and no amount of hormone treatments or surgery's going to un-mess them.
On Aug. 1, however, the journal printed a correction saying this was wrong. After multiple letters to the editor from medical and research professionals critical of the authors’ conclusion on the efficacy of surgery based on the data presented, the journal conducted an independent analysis. The correction, agreed upon by the authors, stated, “[T]he results demonstrated no advantage for surgery in relation to” alleviating the mental struggles of trans patients.
The authors explained that a vast collection of literature documents that gender-dysphoric people have significantly increased health problems compared to the general population. These people are:
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- Six times as likely to have had mood and anxiety disorders serious enough to require a doctor’s care.
- More than three times as likely to have received prescriptions for antidepressants and anxiolytics.
3. More than six times as likely to have been hospitalized after a suicide attempt.
When your gut tells you that putting a five-year-old kid on puberty blockers, or slicing off the penis off a teenager and reconstructing a fake vagina, or cutting off the perfectly healthy breasts of a 30-something female is not the right way to treat a problem that exists in the mind, be assured the latest and best science backs your conviction.
Yes, the Bruce Jenners of the world are certifiably nuts. Genetics don't lie, and if you have a Y chromosome, you're a guy.
Surgery and hormones don't change that.