The Incidence of Transsexuality

[Shana A]

Monday, 10 August 2009
The Incidence of Transsexuality

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/08/incidence-of-transsexuality.html

Over at Pam's House Blend, the irrepressible Autumn Sandeen crunches some of the numbers regarding genital reconstruction surgery (usually, but inaccurately called Sex Reassignment Surgery, SRS) for transsexual people. RTWT as they say. Read The Whole Thing.

The prime source she uses for the incidence of surgery is The Incidence and Prevalence of SRS among US Residents(PDF) by Dr Mary Ann Horton. She used a simple technique - she determined that most such procedures are performed by a comparative handful of specialist surgeons. It's not exactly a common form of surgery, nor is it simple. Getting it wrong, even in a minor way.... let's just say that trans people take very great care indeed in choosing which surgeon to go to. As should anyone contemplating surgery on their "naughty bits". And in order to qualify for surgery, one of the hoops that must be jumped through is convincing the gatekeeper psychs that you've done the research in this area, and know the Pros and Cons of different surgical techniques.

[metal angel]

you shouldn't be so dismissive of the hoops to jump through and the gatekeepers.

you may be quite confident it's right for you, but they need to weed out the people it wouldn't be right for. the people who are doing it for the wrong reasons (the only example i can think of is homophobic homosexuals trying to fit into a conservative view of gender roles) or people who are unhappy with their gender but would not really be any more happy in the other gender.

it makes sense that they need to be careful who they let go through with it given it's major treeatment which is largely irreversable.