The American Psychological Association, representing 157,000 members, has issued a resolution calling for an end to trans care bans and misinformation around care.
Here’s the thing. Medical regret has it’s own feild of associated study. There are different causes to medical regret and there is no proceedure not immediately life saving you can take has a 0% regret rate. Hip and knee replacements for instance have a very high rate of regret.
Some of the key causes of regret are things like believing that there will be more function than you’ve been lead to hope, slower recovery rates and cosmetic issues arising from surgery.
Trans paitents are a unique demographic. By the time they reach the operating table they have likely been binding, packing, tucking, voice training and giving the operation exhaustive levels of thought. These acts cause “temporary” physical discomforts in themselves but they serve as a sort of training period to figure out if these are going to be viable long term wants. The cosmetic issues of scarring is less of a problem because those are things those paitents know what to expect.
As for issues of impaired function caused by surgical complications… Those risks are discussed at length with paitents beforehand in the lengthy consultation process. Some trans people elect to skip some surgeries in favor of allowing social acceptance of partial transitions to fill in the gaps.
Saying there’s nobody ever who will regret a surgery is unrealistic. Removing a medical course of treatment with an incredibly low rate of post surgery regret - even among the paitent cohort who experience less than the ideal anticipated results… Isn’t logical.
Here’s the thing. Medical regret has it’s own feild of associated study. There are different causes to medical regret and there is no proceedure not immediately life saving you can take has a 0% regret rate. Hip and knee replacements for instance have a very high rate of regret.
Some of the key causes of regret are things like believing that there will be more function than you’ve been lead to hope, slower recovery rates and cosmetic issues arising from surgery.
Trans paitents are a unique demographic. By the time they reach the operating table they have likely been binding, packing, tucking, voice training and giving the operation exhaustive levels of thought. These acts cause “temporary” physical discomforts in themselves but they serve as a sort of training period to figure out if these are going to be viable long term wants. The cosmetic issues of scarring is less of a problem because those are things those paitents know what to expect.
As for issues of impaired function caused by surgical complications… Those risks are discussed at length with paitents beforehand in the lengthy consultation process. Some trans people elect to skip some surgeries in favor of allowing social acceptance of partial transitions to fill in the gaps.
Saying there’s nobody ever who will regret a surgery is unrealistic. Removing a medical course of treatment with an incredibly low rate of post surgery regret - even among the paitent cohort who experience less than the ideal anticipated results… Isn’t logical.