BBC Discusses The Failures of Sex Change

BBC Discusses The Failures of Sex Change

This August 1, 2007 BBC report of course mentions that some of the critics of sex change surgery are radical feminists:

Radical feminists have ideological reasons for opposing sex change surgery.

To them, the claim that someone can be "born into the wrong sex" is a deeply threatening concept.

Many feminists believe that the behaviours and feelings which are considered typically masculine or typically feminine are purely socially conditioned.

But if, as some in the transsexual lobby believes, the tendency to feel masculine or feminine is something innate then it follows that gender stereotypical behaviours could well be "natural" rather than as the result of social pressures and male oppression.

But they also go on to admit that there is beginning to be significant non-ideological concern about this as well:

Claudia says she was referred for surgery after a single 45 minute consultation.

"At no time did I say to that psychiatrist that I felt like a woman. In my opinion what happened to me was all about money."

She is one of a small number of trans people who have publicly expressed their regrets about having had sex change surgery.

Another is Charles Kane who, as Sam Hashimi, was the subject of a BBC documentary One Life: Make me a Man Again, televised in 2004.

This showed Sam, a transsexual woman, undergoing surgery to become a man again.

She told the BBC that her desire to become a woman had developed following a nervous breakdown.

For her, these feelings were caused by a longing to retreat into a fantasy character rather than having a crisis of gender identity.

"When I was in the psychiatric hospital there was a man on one side of me who thought he was King George and another guy on the other side who thought he was Jesus Christ. I decided I was Sam."

Others, like Miranda Ponsonby, blame post-operative discontent on society's lack of willingness to accept transsexual people.

In her forthcoming autobiography, The Making of Miranda, she describes having a strong sense from a young age that she was a female trapped in a man's body.

However, like Claudia, she says that, since her surgery, she has lived a life apart.

She claims that she is no happier now than she was before the operation.

Her advice to those contemplating sex change surgery is "Don't do it."

The article does say that there are satisfied customers. Well, heck, there were satisfied customers who bought Yugos, too. Admittedly, you could get out of a Yugo a bit easier than a sex change.

Perhaps the greatest surprise to me in the article was this discussion of how happy the "customers" are:

It comes as something of a surprise to learn that the medical profession does not yet know the answer to this question.
According to a review carried out by the School of Health and Related Research at Sheffield University, the poor quality of research in this area means that "little robust evidence exists" on the outcomes for patients who have sex change surgery.
Dr Kevan Wylie, a consultant in sexual medicine and the head of the UK body looking into standards of care for sex change surgery patients, admits there have been difficulties.
"The problem is that we tend to lose touch with our patients after a relatively short period of time following surgery."
Some local health authorities now refuse to fund sex change operations on the basis that there is a lack of evidence about the surgical efficacy and psychological benefits of surgery.

A related BBC story from May 25, 2007 tells of a doctor being disciplined:

A doctor hailed as an expert in transsexualism has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council (GMC).

Dr Russell Reid, 63, had denied rushing five patients into hormone treatment and sex-change surgery without properly assessing them.

The tribunal concluded that the doctor had acted inappropriately and not in the best interests of his patients.

And yet, he is still allowed to practice medicine in Britain--although, with significant supervision. Look, if a doctor rushed into an appendectomy, or a tonsilectomy, putting his own interests ahead of the patient, we would be appropriately concerned. We would be talking about criminal charges if a doctor decided to do a masectomy without any better cause than "It's time to pay the Porsche insurance bill." But a sex change? That's a rather....dramatic change--and one that can't really be undone.