“Gender Affirming Surgery”

Here parents talk about surgery for their kids. For those of you assuming this relates to genital surgeries the parents use this for other procedures such as FFS (Facial Feminisation Surgery) or double mastectomies, euphemistically labelled ”top surgery”.

This is part 12 of a series looking at a research project sponsored by Oxford University, amongst others. Mermaids, the controversial lobby group for ”trans” children, was also involved.

You can access the project at healthtalk.org. Here is the link to the page covering surgeries.

Gender Affirming Surgery

Here Richard is speaking about his son having surgery to remove his male genitals. For Richard this is not ”elective” surgery, it is “needed”. There are few people who openly admit to regretting this surgery and there is a cloak of silence on post-operative complications.

This is some research after follow-up for 189 patients from one year to five years. This looks like a high complication rate to me. 👇

Worth noting that a ”neo-vagina will require dilating for the rest of your life. This is because your body will be trying to heal a ”surgical wound” Here is the initial, recommended dilation schedule by one surgeon.

It is not for the faint-hearted. Failure to dilate can cause closure /collapse and will require revision surgeries.

These are the procedures a female may choose:

These are procedures for a male:

In the U.K most of these procedures are available on the NHS. Though not the phalloplasty (penis construction) because of the high rate of complications. Gender is a surgical construct. All so you can be your ”authentic self”.

Two parents talk about their daughter’s double mastectomy.

One parent had paid for facial feminisation surgery for her son. There is a casual reference to the loss of sight in one eye. We are not told if this was only temporary:

Four hours of surgery!

One parent’s son had genital surgery after waiting five months. They were not happy with the post-operative care. They found out the nurse was taking a holiday and not available after the operation.

Her son ended up in accident and emergency and relying on inexperienced medical staff.

What is striking is how normalised this is for these parents. Here one talks about her foster daughter only wanting a double mastectomy, ovary removal and a hysterectomy. All described as routine.

They typically research among other trans people and talk in terms of excitement.

The language of bodily autonomy recurs on this topic which, I would argue, is a deliberate framing to echo narratives around reproductive choice.

Here a parent talks approvingly about someone who identified as non-binary who is excited about finding a lump in her breast because she might get quicker access to a double mastectomy:

All of which reminds me of these narcissistic tweets. I bet your mum is proud. 😳

This one is furious that cancer patients are “queue jumping”

Only Elijah expressed any misgivings.

Next I will look at parents who have had familial conflict over this issue, where family members do not agree with the medical interventions their children /grandchildren are having.

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