Daily Mail
'There isn't enough NHS psychiatric evaluation': Says the man who had £10,000 sex change to become a woman and now wants it reversed
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Update: An opposing view: Myths About Transition Regrets
Huffington Post
Recently there has been a spate of blog posts raising the specter of transgender people regretting transitioning. They cite their two favorite studies, without actually looking at what the actual studies said, and drag out some old anecdotes. In short, they try to muddy the waters the way climate-change deniers or creationists do by throwing up a cloud of chaff and hoping no one will look any closer. And then there’s the fact that the authors of these blog posts also think that same-sex marriage will abolish all marriage.
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The Federalist
They don’t want you to know: regret 20 percent, attempted suicides 41 percent, mental illness 60-90 percent among transgendered population.
When Carol Costello, CNN reporter, interviewed me in June on the subject of Olympian, trans-Jenner, she couldn’t help beginning with a false narrative that only 2 percent regret of transgender have regrets. That is, the media’s propensity to fluff over the regret statistics.
Early in the interview, she made the statement, “We have researched… and we found a recent Swedish study that found only 2.2 percent of transgenders, male and female, suffered from sex change regret.”
Costello is a bright reporter. That it is why it was so puzzling she would use her interview of me to misinform her audience, unless the intent was to diminish and dismiss reports of sex change regret among the transgender population. Costello used only one study to reach a conclusion on the frequency of regret. She or her staff did not look at the wealth of other studies that suggest sex change regret is quite common. One such study commissioned by The Guardian of the UK in 2004 reviewed 100 studies and reported that a whopping 20 percent (one fifth) of transgenders regret changing genders, ten times more than CNN’s Costello reported.
The review of 100 studies also revealed that many transgenders remained severely distressed and even suicidal after the gender change operation. Suicide and regret remain the dark side of transgender life.
The media cover-up of regret and suicides isn’t a new phenomenon; it was in play 36 years ago. In 1979 Dr. Charles Ihlenfeld, who worked alongside the famous Dr. Harry Benjamin for six years administering hormone therapy to some 500 transgenders, spoke to an audience in New York about his experience: “There is too much unhappiness among people who have had the surgery. Too many of them end as suicides.”
The media was unwilling to report the unhappiness then, and ever since has downplayed any results that would raise the alarm about poor outcomes. Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Thirty-six years of the insanity of ignoring poor outcomes and hoping they will go away is long enough.[...]
Transgender regret is not rare
The study commissioned by The Guardian of the UK in 2004 reviewed 100 studies and found 20 percent regret. Consider the findings of a 2011 Swedish study (not the study Ms. Costello used) published seven years after the 2004 UK review. It looked at mortality and morbidity after gender reassignment surgery and found that people who changed genders had a higher risk of suicide.[...]
My life story and the stories of those who contact me speak of regret over transitioning. Often, the stories include attempted suicide or suicide ideation.
I was a 4 year old trans-kid who grew up with gender confusion and underwent gender reassignment surgery at age 42. I lived for 8 years as a so-called trans-female named Laura Jensen. But no matter how feminine I appeared, like all transgenders, I was just a man in a dress. I was unhappy, regretful of having transitioned and I attempted suicide. Gender surgery is not effective treatment for depression, anxiety or mental disorders.
Astonishing evidence of other illness
According to several studies, the majority of transgenders have co-existing disorders that need to be treated. This helps to explain why regret and suicide are prevalent among transgenders. The following studies provide irrefutable evidence that transgenders overwhelmingly suffer from a variety of mental disorders. Neither CNN nor Carol Costello will report studies such as these. [...]
In all the rhetoric about gender change success you cannot find one sound bite from any media source that acknowledges that even one transgender suffers from a serious mental illness, much less reporting the 90 percent like Case Western Reserve University found, or the 61 percent that the survey of Dutch psychiatrists reported. The numbers are astonishingly high, yet no media reports it.[...]
believe that true compassion is shown by raising factual issues, based on scientific research, and having the best minds follow the evidence to provide the best care for this segment of our society that is suffering. Packaging the issue in the wrapper of political correctness or withholding the negative findings is not compassion. Political correctness hinders research and treatment of the medical conditions and muzzles a media that’s willing to participate in a false narrative. Who’s the loser? The transgender who regrets transitioning.
The White House plays politics with a vulnerable part of our population to score points with the LGBT but the risks of regret, suicide and untreated mental issues remain for the transgender population.
“The White House plays politics with a vulnerable part of our population to score points with the LGBT but the risks of regret, suicide and untreated mental issues remain for the transgender population.”
ReplyDeleteInternet March 2016:
“The NCJW NY Jewish Women’s Resource Center Steering Committee is privileged to present Susan Aranoff, co-author, with the late Rivka Haut, of their new book, The Wed-Locked Agunot: Orthodox Jewish Women Chained in Dead Marriages. Dr. Aranoff, a dedicated activist, has been an advocate of the issue of “agunot” for three decades.”
What about cases of regret for the 30 years ?? “Dr. Aranoff, a dedicated activist, has been an advocate of the issue of “agunot” for three decades.” These are the 30 years of Mendel Epstein et al. They worked together. My feeling is that there is much regret among Susan’s and Mendel Epstein’s agunot.
A lot of people regret things that seemed fun at the time. People getting drunk is an example.
ReplyDelete"Transitioning" -- or whatever they call it -- may be an exciting and uplifting time. The "trans-gender" becomes the subject of attention in their circle of friends, and anticipates all their unhappiness flip-flopping into pleasure as they become the person they think they were meant to be.
I wonder if there is some way to provide those who are suffering with the experience they seek without destroying them in the process.
That's probably why many of these meshugaim become trans activists, in order to continue and draw out the process as long as they can.
ReplyDeleteOK, but even if 20% regret it, doesn't that mean that 80% don't? I am not sure what the empirical data would tell you to do, and, in general, I am not sure how much any empirical data can determine a moral decision. There is a reason God gave the Torah, and didn't leave us to discover what is proper behavior scientifically.
ReplyDeleteAnd if many transgenders have other mental health issues, yes they should be addressed where the psychiatrists know how. But there are a great many conditions for which no cure is available and the palliative treatments often have significant side effects.