Why do we let them do it to us?

[rejennyrated]

Ok here is a little question for you folks.... and it's something that has been really bugging me for some while. Why do we make gender into such a big thing?

Seriously I am starting to think the whole trans phenomenon is a massive psychiatric con! Now before anyone jumps down my throat an accuses me of being in league with Janice Raymond and the like, I don't mean that I don't get the need to identify with a different physical sex and alter your body accordingly. Of course I get that completely. I just mean why does this become such a big and convoluted process?

I mean no one has to go to the psychiatrist because they want a nose job, or a boob job right?  So why did I, and thousands like me, who want to alter their reproductive organs have to be treated by a shrink in order to gain "permission" to do what we want to ourselves? Why are we supposed to need counseling? Where is all the big confusion really coming from? Is it us? I don't think so. So why do we let the rest of society foist their confusion and anxt over this onto us?

It's not like there is some terrible divide and when you cross it you won't be able to live anymore if you don't completely fit the stereotype. What does it really matter if I choose to be a "constructed female" or a man who has been surgically altered to look like a woman, or whatever else my detractors and critics would claim. If I am happy doing that to myself what is the big deal really?

Sure it isn't how I see things - obviously I see myself as a woman but hey who really cares as long as I can feel that I am the person I want to be?

So why do we let the medical fraternity make this whole thing into something so complex that a whole industry seems to have grown up around us. Thoughts anyone?

[Jamie-o]

I totally agree with you.  By the same token, why should I have to get a permission slip from some shrink - whose only claim to expertise on my life is that he spent 10 years of his studying the dubious psuedo-science of psychology - to have my chest sculpted to match the rest of my presentation, when any bimbo can walk in and say, "My boyfriend wants me to have tits the size of basketballs," and that's considered perfectly "normal" and O.K.?

I think the reason we "allow" it, is because it's so hard to get the medical community to give us the treatment we need, unless we jump through all these hoops.  Hoops, I'd like to point out, that have been set up by the psychiatric community.  (A little self-serving, don't you think?)  And for those of you on NHS, or similar systems, the only way you can get it paid for is by jumping through those hoops.

Personally, I've had enough.  I will do everything in my power to get the rest of my treatment without the "permission" of any more shrinks.  I realize that they can be helpful to some people, but for me, I just can't see wasting any more money - $120 an hour, or roughly 1/4 of my weekly take-home pay - to be told what I already know.  That money will be better served being put toward surgery.

[/rant]

[Martin]

Lacking anything much to add to this, I'll just say that I totally agree with everything you've said. The more I've read about all the [long and convoluted] processes necessary to transition physically, the more I've been thinking this in the back of my head...
I suppose the answer to why we allow this is that for each person it comes down to a choice of playing the game and getting what they want in the long run, or fighting the system and probably not achieving anything that will actually get them any results. Which is frustrating and wrong, and the more I think about it the more I think something should be done about it...

[justmeinoz]

I agree wholeheartedly.  I am now 56 years of age. I spent 30 years in a job where I was expected to be prepared to put my life in danger for the public, and have to ask someone for permission to do something with my own body!

Nobody is going to wrestle me to the ground if I want to smoke, which the medical profession keep telling us is horribly dangerous to both ourselves, and those around us. So why the fuss about something which is "curable" by surgery. It is strange that a psychological condition can be cured by physical surgery.

If I was a criminal seeking to avoid justice I could conceivably get a cosmetic surgeon to alter my appearance, simply by claiming to want to look different. All I would have to do is pay for it.

How is that more aceptable than wanting to live a happy life, instead of suffering from not being comfortable in my own skin? If it doesn't affect my work or immediate family what business is it of anyone elses?

[sneakersjay]

In our lawsuit-happy society, it's called Covering Your Ass.

They're probably paranoid about performing surgery on someone who later will regret it and sue them.  And probably  it's part of our male-dominated society thinking that what man in his right mind would cut off his penis?!  He must be insane!  To the shrink!!

Because they don't get that HE is not a he at all, she is really a SHE, and doesn't want the blasted thing. What woman would?!

I agree with you.

Jay

[Chloe]

So why do we let the medical fraternity make this whole thing into something so complex that a whole industry seems to have grown up around us. Thoughts anyone?

I don't (let 'em take my money that is) - never needed them up to this point but I suppose, eventually and just like a lot of cis-gendered as well, I'll want some medical assist in the form FFS too but of course,

All Remains Personal Choice & nothing more-or-less than Purely Elective at best!

[cynthialee]

The need to acuire power and wield it over others is a pathological condition I am sure. I have seen it in many members of the 'mental health' world.
Not only are they being stoked by personal power over others it lines their pockets. The idea that normal people are incompitant and degree holding people are 'authorities' is also insanity. I gaurenty you that very few people who hold achedemic degrees know anything about many of the things I am very well versed in, does that make them uneducated buffons needing guidance? (If we go post apocalyptic and I survive, you bet it does.)
The measure of worth being a penis is also a manifestation of how utterly sick in the mind our culture is. Somehow a mostly flacid piss tube makes a human worthy.

[spacial]

In our lawsuit-happy society, it's called Covering Your Ass.

I also agree completely.

I accept that there is a need to ensure that someone is sane, that they have thought about ti and really want to do it.

But that should only take about 2 visits separated by a couple of weeks. The rest, like so much of the mental illness industry, is about power.

We are being made to beg for what we need and are expected to show suitable gratitude for it

[Genevieve Swann]

As was mentioned, a criminal can get surgery to modify their appearance for enough money. So can we as long as a shrink gets part of the action. Many things are labeled an illness or disease merely for the benefit of the medical and pharmaceautical industry. For example acid reflux disease. It is not a disease and acid stomach is cured with simple vinegar.

[Kay]

Ok...I guess I'll be the devil's advocate here.
.
No, I don't like jumping through all those hoops.  It would save a lot of time and money if I didn't have to.
.
That said, not everyone has as firm a grip on reality as many of us here.  I've met people over the last decade that wanted to transition because they thought they were a real-life anime cat girl...and others who thought they were fairies and always wore wings because of it (and both of them believed it quite earnestly).  While I don't think the process should be quite as convoluted as it is...for some people, it's the only way they're going to get the shot of reality that they need.  Others may toy with the idea due to male/female privelage issues, perhaps being pushed there after a particularly turbulent or emotional period (divorce, abuse, etc).  Essentially, something that will pass, but if they have enough money, they could do themselves some serious harm if there were no hoops to jump through to make them consider the temporary strong emotions.

Transition isn't right for everyone.  Yes, the hoops are very frustrating for those of us that know it's right for us.  They slows us down, and more than they should.  But the system isn't meant to catch us...it's meant to weed out people who may not be considering things rationally or realisically.  When the net isn't intended to catch you in particular, it can seem a rather superfluous thing.

[rejennyrated]

Thank you all for some interesting thoughts and discussion... and actually I'm not really trying to have a go at the professionals who are trying to help...

I am just trying to express a feeling of frustration that by observation, in the nearly 30 years since I was in treatment things seem to, if anything have gone backwards, The Internet and wonderful sites like Susans being the one major exception to that. What I could have done with an internet. It would have saved me hours of digging about in reference libraries when I was about 12 years old.

Transition isn't right for everyone.  Yes, the hoops are very frustrating for those of us that know it's right for us.  They slows us down, and more than they should.  But the system isn't meant to catch us...it's meant to weed out people who may not be considering things rationally or realisically.  When the net isn't intended to catch you in particular, it can seem a rather superfluous thing.

This is a fair point but one which goes to the heart of what worries me. Why should some physicians care more about the mistakes than they do about those who are genuine.

I was lucky to go through before most of the "net" had been made. These days I am far from certain that I would have made it. I might easily have become one of the statistics I think, because since my day a lot of the loopholes that I used to survive the system and get swift treatment have been closed.

My worry is this - a doctor makes it hard to catch the misfits - but in so doing he may destroy an equal number of very genuine lives - because some people lack the resources, resilience or whatever to jump through the hoops. So is that really a good result?

They may congratulate themselves on having protected a few people from themselves but they then ignore the equal number of people whom they destroyed by wrongly discouraging them or weeding them out!

If someone is going to be a crazy - they are going to find a way to be crazy and mess themselves up anyway - I don't like defensive psychiatry and medicine. I think the doctors should concentrate on helping expedite the genuine people and worry less about the misfits, whom quite frankly the greedy lawyers should send away with a flea in their ear instead of helping them to sue!

I am very disappointed at the way that this whole system has developed. By now I had hoped that there would be a proper system of diagnosis in place of the obstacle course that seems to become a positve feedback loop. The doctors seldom hear our true stories, because we all tend to tell them the things we know they want to hear for fear of being rejected. So they never find out that their model of this condition is vastly distorted. And the result is things like the whole DSM debacle.

I don't know - I just wish it could be simpler. I managed to have no real counseling, yes in my teens I had a false start when I was forced to do a sort of reparative therapy for a while, but after that I got my HRT on my first return visit, and my SRS surgical referral on my second... Who has that happen these days? Once I came back into the system I was postop within 9 months, which saved my life. Who today is allowed that sort of swift treatment?

Today it's all years of real life tests and endless delays whilst you get poorer by the day and try to say the right things to your counsellor to get your letters.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do feel there has to be a better way and I wish that we could pool our resources with those of the professionals in order to find it.

[gothique11]

I guess it would depend on where you live and what are all of the requirements. Here (when they covered SRS) you saw just one doctor... the wait list was about a year, which was a pain, but also he was the only doctor who could sign off the funding for SRS in the province (there were two, but one retired, before that the wait times were much less, like 6 months). You'd see the doctor 3-4 times a year... so every three months.

You then needed to be FT for a year before he'd sign the paperwork and you'd go for SRS. So, if you started FT before seeing him, it was only the year (and you'd get SRS near that FT year date). If you weren't FT yet, he'd count it from the day you started plus the 1 year RLE.  Unfortunately, because of provincial rules, if you were FT before it wouldn't count for the provincial funding. He would usually get someone else in the office to sign the second letter, this doctor you'd only usually see once.

Of course, you always had the option of getting your own doctors and doing things that way.

In terms of hoops, there weren't much and if you wanted you could easily dupe the system if you didn't mind the wait list. Seeing a doctor 3 times before going for SRS isn't a whole lot. And, that doctor, of course, was covered by the provincial health care insurance.

A lot of honestly was placed on the patient that they know what they are doing is right for them. A lot of emphasis was kept on the patient that they be sure that transition is right for them... not so much on gate keeping. the 1 year Real Life Experience is more there for you, than them.

The SRS funding in this province has been cut (although, they have now started a phase-out program in response to law suits... which means, if you started transition and have seen (or have an appt this year) with the Doctor who signs off on SRS, then you can get funding).

I know a lot of people who, besides the 3 visits, never saw a shrink. But, I also know a lot of people who did, and even paid for that, to help them along through the process.

Transitioning is a process, and it can help to have someone there to help you through the hard times. It's not like getting a boob job or a nose job -- those things aren't changing your identity in society. And SRS is a big step, and probably why there's a 1 yr RLE around it... giving you time to figure out if SRS is right for you.

I agree that gate keeping should be kept to a min, but the recommendations are also there for you and your benefit. It's there to give you time to get through the transition process, but also for you to know if transitioning, especially SRS, is the right thing for you to do.

Not everyone wants, needs, or requires SRS. Some people can be perfectly fine with transitioning and not getting SRS (I know a few) -- there's no real loop holes to start transitioning. You don't have to have a shrink give you permission to transition.

I think a balanced approach is warranted.

[Janet_Girl]

In countries where it is paid for by the government, I can see it because they want to save money for their little pork barrel projects.

But here in the states, it is to keep from getting sued.  As Jay said "CYA".

But with that said if a woman wants a boob job and can pay, it is done.  However, if it is one in a series of cosmetic surgeries, they send her to a shrink to see if the is an underlaying problem.

And remember that no one in there "right" mind would want to do this to their bodies and their lives.  So we must be crazy to go through all of this.  But they just can't see what we go through.  They can not see that these surgeries are life saving.

[Teknoir]

I don't think it's a psychiatrist conspiracy. They have enough work as it is (judging by the appointment waiting times most people state - they don't make people wait for fun).

The clinical psychiatrist I spoke to gave me the distinct impression it was just a "check over" the endo or surgeons required to make sure I knew what I was doing, and no mental illnesses (delusions sort of thing) were behind my need for extensive physical modifications. Basically it was to confirm I am psychologically a sane man.

He didn't drag things out to line his pockets (far from it, actually). I didn't have to jump through any hoops.

I can understand an endo or surgeon having reservations (not just arse covering) about performing procedures that permanently disable or remove physically healthy organs (and some functionality), until they know (as well as they can) that it's going to help the person long term.

Trying to see it from their view, I think it comes down to them not being in our heads. They don't know what it's like, what we're going through, or that the surgery / HRT will really ease (and not increase, as it would for them) our suffering. To them, what we are doing is as odd a concept as cutting off your leg.

As for time - it depends where you are. I'm not post-top-op because I don't have the cash or could get the time off. But to give you an idea of what is possible these days - I went from visiting the GP for a referral to "bend over and drop your pants, sir" in single digit weeks. I did do all my own running around though.

Oh, and so far I've picked all my own doctors, and paid only for T (as I was a student at the time - endos and shrinks were covered). I don't have private health insurance - only government.

[cynthialee]

If they would make getting SRS a situation that precludes a lawsuit except in the case of gross medical malpractise, then they wouldnt have to CYA.
I am of the opinion that I should be allowed to do anything not illegal I wish. Especially when it comes to my body.
I have mulled over the desision to transition for 32 years. (since age 9) I do not imagine that anyone can ask me a question that I havent answered for my self. I am pretty sure that 32 years is a reasonable amount of self analysis. Which it was, I have been in a serious state of self analysis my entire life.
The idea of gate keepers really irks me. It is my life my body my desision to make. If some people transition who shouldnt then they become examples to those who would just jump into this blind.
This should be a simple matter of personal responsibility.
JMHO

[spacial]

I don't think it's a psychiatrist conspiracy. They have enough work as it is (judging by the appointment waiting times most people state - they don't make people wait for fun).

No, it isn't a conspiracy and I don't think anyone is suggesting it is.

All higher animals have a tendency to seek to dominate others. To reach the top of the pack or to reach a position, within the pack, where they can associate with those at the top.

Human have developed civilisation. We appoint leaders with enormous power on the understanding they will protect us against those we call thugs. A civilisation based upon laws, where our rights, our expectations and our obligations are predictable.

People can generally, alter their appearance at will. They can cut and dye their hair. They can get a whole range of plastic surgeries. Such notions represent dysphoria. They seek to alter appearance to change their position within society.

Yet for our dysphoria, we need to seek the permission of self appointed guardians of opinion. Though they call themselves (social) scientists, they are, in reality, contemporary clerics. They may well compile statistics, they may well construct models. But theirs is a profession based upon their own personal judgement.

This is adequately demonstrated by the enormous, generally intractable, differences of opinion. Because that is what they deal in, opinions.

No surgeon will perform elective surgery without informed consent. They will almost invariably conduct several interviews with their patient, prior to surgery. But we should be treated no differently.

In essence, there are only five mental illnesses. Disorders of perception, disorders of mood, disorders of structure, dementia; trauma; developmental; disorders of empathy and disorders of self control.

It is in this last that, especially over the past 40 years, has seen an explosion is therapists along with drugs and preposterous titles, ODD; MPD; BPD; and so on.

We have allowed ourselves to come under the control of this group. They seek power as all animals do. They exercise their power and we submit by giving to them, personal information which none of us should be obligated to share.

But it has occured to me that there may be a way to deal with this.

We can become single minded. We can fix in our minds exactly what we want and why we want it.

We want the surgical intervention to change our appearance.

We want it because we are adults, we are sane, this is our choice about how we wish to live our lives.

we do not need specious and possibly irrational justifications. We may have been born women, inside, but we can never prove it. We may have sought this since we were about 4 years old, but again, we cannot prove it.

We fully accept that this will create enormous complications. But life is full of complications. These will be complications we will face through our own choice.

[rejennyrated]

No, it isn't a conspiracy and I don't think anyone is suggesting it is.

All higher animals have a tendency to seek to dominate others. To reach the top of the pack or to reach a position, within the pack, where they can associate with those at the top.

Human have developed civilisation. We appoint leaders with enormous power on the understanding they will protect us against those we call thugs. A civilisation based upon laws, where our rights, our expectations and our obligations are predictable.

People can generally, alter their appearance at will. They can cut and dye their hair. They can get a whole range of plastic surgeries. Such notions represent dysphoria. They seek to alter appearance to change their position within society.

Yet for our dysphoria, we need to seek the permission of self appointed guardians of opinion. Though they call themselves (social) scientists, they are, in reality, contemporary clerics. They may well compile statistics, they may well construct models. But theirs is a profession based upon their own personal judgement.

This is adequately demonstrated by the enormous, generally intractable, differences of opinion. Because that is what they deal in, opinions.

No surgeon will perform elective surgery without informed consent. They will almost invariably conduct several interviews with their patient, prior to surgery. But we should be treated no differently.

In essence, there are only five mental illnesses. Disorders of perception, disorders of mood, disorders of structure, dementia; trauma; developmental; disorders of empathy and disorders of self control.

It is in this last that, especially over the past 40 years, has seen an explosion is therapists along with drugs and preposterous titles, ODD; MPD; BPD; and so on.

We have allowed ourselves to come under the control of this group. They seek power as all animals do. They exercise their power and we submit by giving to them, personal information which none of us should be obligated to share.

But it has occured to me that there may be a way to deal with this.

We can become single minded. We can fix in our minds exactly what we want and why we want it.

We want the surgical intervention to change our appearance.

We want it because we are adults, we are sane, this is our choice about how we wish to live our lives.

we do not need specious and possibly irrational justifications. We may have been born women, inside, but we can never prove it. We may have sought this since we were about 4 years old, but again, we cannot prove it.

We fully accept that this will create enormous complications. But life is full of complications. These will be complications we will face through our own choice.

Quoted for absolute truth! I could not have expressed my own thoughts any better or clearer Spacial.

[rejennyrated]

Good for you Laura.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that help should not be available to those who feel it is useful. Merely that to foist such help on those who do not need it may be akin to trying to take a horse to water and make it drink... ultimately counter productive.

The same logic applies to those who say that they have had no obstacles. That is good. The problem is that by hearsay evidence at very least, it is not the way that many centres, which treat this condition, seem to operate.

[Rock_chick]

I have a solution...lets invade the Isle of Wight and start our own country.

[rejennyrated]

Nah - lets just take over Cornwall! Much more fun and the food is better!