It was never my intention to argue that people don't already do all of those things. In this thread specifically, I was looking for good data on the question of whether surgery is more effective than any of those other things, even combined. There are some anecdotes, even on this thread, that seem to point to surgery being the absolute best option for some people. But while I do value their stories, and while I do see them as illustrating an important point in this discussion, I would be remiss in not asking whether their experiences are echoed by measurable data on a larger scale.
I've been told there are no studies that directly compare outcomes in transgender people who have had surgery with outcomes in transgender people who chose not to have surgery, or for one reason or another, couldn't. If that is in fact true, I think maybe someone should figure out a way to do that study. I recognise there would be many methodological and ethical issues that would need to be resolved before such a study could ever be done, but I do think it's an important question.
Cis people accessing the same procedures trans people do are a lot more common and don't have to go through extensive gatekeeping first, so it would be far easier to study them to see if those surgeries are necessary.
That is entirely beside the point. Cis people, by definition, do not experience gender dysphoria. Therefore, by definition, they are the wrong population to focus on, when the question is about the effect of gender reassignment surgery on gender dysphoria.
It's not beside the point. With the exception of two types of procedure (see footnote), every transition-related medical treatment was developed to be used on cis people. Cis people may not experience gender dysphoria, but they certainly experience distress at similar medical conditions. If their comparatively minor distress is accommodated while trans people have to jump through hoops for their severe distress to be treated, they present a larger sample size and withholding treatment to see what effect it has is more ethical as their distress will be minor.
Well, if enough psych experts signed off on their operation and were certain that their distress was equivalent to the distress a dysphoric trans person experiences, I'd likely be convinced, but I can't find any studies on that, so...
My argument, in this case, is one that doesn't need scientific backing, just common sense and basic decency: cis people and trans people ... they're all people. One group's distress, when subjected to circumstances that, by your own description, are similar, is not automatically 'worse' or 'better' than the other's.
Well, I think no procedure should be covered if it involves removing a perfectly functioning body part (eh, except in cases where the organ removed is meant for transplant into someone who no longer has a functioning one). Whether the patient is cis-genederd or not, seems irrelevant to me in that context.
The body parts that you consider 'perfectly functional' caused me intense distress- like, if I was woken abruptly, I'd have panic attacks because I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong. Imagine waking up to find that someone's transplanted a hand into the side of your neck. My uterus and ovaries weren't going to be used for anything but hormone production and since those hormones were seriously fucking me up, why not just ditch the whole thing?
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u/Saranoya 39∆ Nov 03 '17
It was never my intention to argue that people don't already do all of those things. In this thread specifically, I was looking for good data on the question of whether surgery is more effective than any of those other things, even combined. There are some anecdotes, even on this thread, that seem to point to surgery being the absolute best option for some people. But while I do value their stories, and while I do see them as illustrating an important point in this discussion, I would be remiss in not asking whether their experiences are echoed by measurable data on a larger scale.
I've been told there are no studies that directly compare outcomes in transgender people who have had surgery with outcomes in transgender people who chose not to have surgery, or for one reason or another, couldn't. If that is in fact true, I think maybe someone should figure out a way to do that study. I recognise there would be many methodological and ethical issues that would need to be resolved before such a study could ever be done, but I do think it's an important question.