Transsexuals Medical Guinea Pigs and Cash Cows?

[Stephanie]

This was intended as  a reply to someone's thread.   However, I decided that my reply would probably hijack her thread so I am posting it as a thread instead.


Nobody has the slightest clue about long-term hormone use.   We are all taking part in one huge unofficial medical self-experiment.    Doctors and the pharmaceutical industry con people like us all the time.  They pretend to know or at least have a plausible hypothesis but the truth is they are really only guessing and speculating about the long-term good or harm of HRT.   What they are really interested in is your MONEY!    Do you really think that the medical community removed transsexuality as a mental illness because they were being nice and kind and liberal?    No, they smelt MONEY!    Just think of all the procedures that have been invented over the years: SRS, Facial feminisation, tracheal shaves, orchiectomies, breast implants and HRT.    These techniques weren't designed to alleviate the suffering of transsexuals as such, No, they were designed to turn people like us into medical guinea pigs and cash cows who will keep pouring MONEY into doctors and hospitals pockets for years and years to come!
I have long been worried about our community's fascination with and desire for surgery.    Every newly announced technique, treatment, and procedure however, pathetic, unrealistic, or just plain harebrained is greeted with childlike wonder and excitement by many in our community.   If the medical community announced tomorrow that they had developed a new procedure for mtf's that involved feminising genetic male hips you can be sure that many transsexuals would be straight round to their doctor and therapist crying 'I want hip feminisation surgery, and I want it NOW and dam the cost.  I'll mortgage my home and work three jobs, just let me have slightly wider "womanly " hips than I have now.'  *   
I know how intense and psychologically disabling it is being female but inhabiting and exhibiting a male body, and having everyone make all sorts of judgements and assumptions about you.   I have felt - as we all have - like standing up in a busy place and telling everyone 'I am a woman', saying this over and over until I  faint with exhaustion or the security guards drag me away.    But for goodness sake, don't let the doctors and BIg Pharma etc gouge every penny from your pocket now and for years to come.     I don't mean any disrespect to American transsexuals but being British I have noticed that American are very susceptible to the siren calls of doctors and modern industrial medicine.   It is clearly a cultural difference between Britain and America that accounts for this near worship of doctors and medical procedures that many Americans exhibit.    I hope that nobody thinks that I am arguing the British transsexuals or British people in general are smug and superior to Americans?   The reason we British transsexuals don't seem to be nearly as fascinated and uncritical as our American sisters and brothers is probably less to do with gullibility and more to do with the fact that we cannot afford half the techniques available.   This lack of funds means that fewer doctors specialise in our area and fewer hospitals offer srs etc.     I haven't researched this but probably a lot of help for transsexuals is available for free through the NHS.   This sounds like a good thing but as British doctors are paid a salary by the government there is no real incentive for them to try and treat as many patients as possible.  Why increase your workload when you won't earn any money for doing so?

So please don't continue falling for every new technique, treatment and procedure.   Men and women come in all different shapes and sizes.  So your hips are narrower than most women.  So you are a little taller than they average woman.  On New Year's Eve I was at a party and I met a friend of my sister.   This girl has just turned 16 and she is 6' 1" and she is not the least bit self conscious of her height.   So your breasts a little more than an A cup.   Small A cup breasts look more natural that breast implants in my opinion.   The medical community is experimenting on you and getting you to pay through the nose for it.   Stop trying to transform yourself into Barbie or James Bond and just be the man or woman that you know that you are. 

[Double_Rainbow]

Well I'm glad the options are there if I choose to do so!  I would rather have those procedures available and pay for them than no procedures at all.  Doubt I will get FFS or something like a tracheal shave...but I've considered breast implants if I don't like the way mine turn out.  I don't expect them to do it for free!

[CaitJ]

Nobody has the slightest clue about long-term hormone use.

Really? What about all these cis women that have been on HRT since the 70s?
Surely there must be some data on them?

What they are really interested in is your MONEY!

HRT is free in many countries.

Just think of all the procedures that have been invented over the years: SRS, Facial feminisation, tracheal shaves, orchiectomies, breast implants and HRT.

Again, you do realise that public health pays for this in countries other than America?

These techniques weren't designed to alleviate the suffering of transsexuals as such, No, they were designed to turn people like us into medical guinea pigs and cash cows who will keep pouring MONEY into doctors and hospitals pockets for years and years to come!

That's ludicrous; trans people are typically poorer than cis people and have less money to spend.
If the medical establishment were to form a conspiracy to get cash out of unsuspecting victims, the trans community is a really ->-bleeped-<-ty choice. Not to mention that we make up around 0.2 to 0.4% of the population, so as a target demographic, it's a big pile of fail to single us out. Cis women are are far more lucrative and proportionately massive group compared to trans women.

I have long been worried about our community's fascination with and desire for surgery.    Every newly announced technique, treatment, and procedure however, pathetic, unrealistic, or just plain harebrained is greeted with childlike wonder and excitement by many in our community.   If the medical community announced tomorrow that they had developed a new procedure for mtf's that involved feminising genetic male hips you can be sure that many transsexuals would be straight round to their doctor and therapist crying 'I want hip feminisation surgery, and I want it NOW and dam the cost.  I'll mortgage my home and work three jobs, just let me have slightly wider "womanly " hips than I have now.'  *

I think that's really disrespectful of trans women in general; saying that we're basically grabby, irresponsible children.

But for goodness sake, don't let the doctors and BIg Pharma etc gouge every penny from your pocket now and for years to come.

I don't. My HRT is largely free and my surgeries are over.

I don't mean any disrespect to American transsexuals but being British I have noticed that American are very susceptible to the siren calls of doctors and modern industrial medicine.   It is clearly a cultural difference between Britain and America that accounts for this near worship of doctors and medical procedures that many Americans exhibit.    I hope that nobody thinks that I am arguing the British transsexuals or British people in general are smug and superior to Americans?   The reason we British transsexuals don't seem to be nearly as fascinated and uncritical as our American sisters and brothers is probably less to do with gullibility and more to do with the fact that we cannot afford half the techniques available.   This lack of funds means that fewer doctors specialise in our area and fewer hospitals offer srs etc.

Of course! Britain and America are the only countries in the world!
Silly me for thinking otherwise!

So please don't continue falling for every new technique, treatment and procedure.   Men and women come in all different shapes and sizes.  So your hips are narrower than most women.  So you are a little taller than they average woman.  On New Year's Eve I was at a party and I met a friend of my sister.   This girl has just turned 16 and she is 6' 1" and she is not the least bit self conscious of her height.   So your breasts a little more than an A cup.   Small A cup breasts look more natural that breast implants in my opinion.   The medical community is experimenting on you and getting you to pay through the nose for it.   Stop trying to transform yourself into Barbie or James Bond and just be the man or woman that you know that you are.

I agree with the sentiment expressed here, but there's one phrase that I'll borrow from the pro-choicers here: my body, my choice.

[Stephanie]

My mother has had two major operations in the last 10 years.  My aunt has just had a major operation, and my father had a big fatal operation so please forgive me if I don't appear  supportive of surgery.   I, and of course a number of people here, have seen the short and long-term effects of surgery up close and personal, and it is ugly, brutal, and destructive of relationships.    When my mother was recuperating at home, she and my father would get into screaming fits.  Then my sister and I would get involved.  We all said the most terrible things to each other.  My mother would calls us into her bedroom, apologise profusely for what she had said the night before explaining to my sister and I that it was just the pain talking(which it was) and vowing that such shouting and swearing wouldn't happen again.  Well when the pain kicked in and the pain killers had yet to take effect.  The whole family was treated to a repeat performance.  This went on for about a week before they took my mother back into hospital, there where times that I wished my mother was dead! *
Something similar happened to my father after his final operation.  He took his pain out on my mother so at least we kids were spared his pain fuelled rants.  My father died later that night.
When my mother, sister and I went to visit my aunt, we could see how grey and exhausted her family looked.  It is a great strain coping with an invalid at home. 
I hope that I have shown why I view surgery as something not to be undertaken lightly or for vanity.    Also, given the fact that I am very tall I have decided that with the possible exemption of an orchiectomy(sp?) I won't be undergoing srs etc.   

Probably if I hadn't experienced the above and I wasn't so tall.  I would be posting such things as ' Woo hoo, next week I am flying to Dr X in Y to have my facial feminisation surgery and then three months later I am getting my breast implants.  After that I am thinking of undergoing a tracheal shave'.


* ten years on my mother still gets twinges and pain from those surgeries.

[CaitJ]

My mother has had two major operations in the last 10 years.  My aunt has just had a major operation, and my father had a big fatal operation so please forgive me if I don't appear  supportive of surgery.

Were these elective surgeries or where they due to a medical illness?

BTW, I'm 6'4" and had SRS. I don't see what height has to do with not wanting SRS. Please...enlighten me.

[Stephanie]

Hi Vexing

We are the same height, I am a 1/4 inch off 6' 5".    You obviously have more courage and confidence than I do.   I look at my size 10 feet and my largish hands and think 'who are you trying to fool, no one will believe you are a woman for a moment'.
My mother's surgeries were for what my grandmother called 'womens' problems'.

I live in Glasgow Scotland and here people don't hesitate to make personal comments to complete strangers.  The following happened to me a couple of years ago:

Walking along a quiet city street.  I was approached by a man in his early sixties who said:

Old man: Excuse me, I have seen you about, can you tell me what height you are?
Stephanie: Yes, I am 6' 4 and 3/4s.
Old man: (laughing and smiling) It must be great to be that height!

Male Stranger: Haw big man!   what's it like up there?

Another male stranger: Haw big yin, if it rains you'll be the first to know.

Old Lady: Excuse me could you hand me that item down please, I can't reach it and you are so nice and tall.

My Mother: (on a regular basis) Do you know how many men would love to be as tall as you?!

[CaitJ]

Hi Vexing

We are the same height, I am a 1/4 inch off 6' 5".    You obviously have more courage and confidence than I do.   I look at my size 10 feet and my largish hands and think 'who are you trying to fool, no one will believe you are a woman for a moment'.

That contradicts the last paragraph of your original post.

My mother's surgeries were for what my grandmother called 'womens' problems'.

So the surgery was probably to prevent something becoming potentially fatal, correct?
Given the choice between surgery and death, I pick surgery.

[Glenn]

I personally can't say dam the costs and run of doing everything.  But I will try to be the most woman I can for what I can afford.  It's part of what I need to do for myself to feel I am who I am supposed to be.

I'm sorry you are down on surgeries but many of us can be helped a lot by some elective surgery.

Hugs Simone.

[spacial]

Stephanie.

Your post does raise some issues and food for thought.

But the reality is, these things apply to any technologies. I don't know of any medicinetha doesn't have side effects. Here in the UK, medical people get a book called the BNF, every few months. It lists every drug available in the UK, without special licience. The side effects are also listed and can be quite alarming. Those listed for paracetamol, for example.

But we take risks to achive what we want.

Incidently, comiserations on livig in Glasgow. I lived in the area for 4 years. Complete strangers really do walk up to you and make comments. My favourite is if you ask for directions, the response is often, 'Why do you want to know?'

Once, I was in some area I'd been sent to, looking for a particualar place. There was, what appeared to be a sports ground of some type. I asked a man what that was. He looked at me is if I was daft and said, 'That's Hampden!!'.

Oops!

[VeryGnawty]

Nobody has the slightest clue about long-term hormone use.   We are all taking part in one huge unofficial medical self-experiment.

Yeah.  Isn't science GREAT!  That's what makes science fun:  the more you learn, the more you realize you have no clue what the hell is going on in the universe.

That's one of the reasons I decided to do my own research on biology and come up with my own metamorphosis experiment.  I wasn't terribly interested in the current technology and research on the human body.  I wanted to be female on a more fundamental level than just surgery and a few secondary sexual characteristics.  Since I was constantly depressed and wasn't particularly doing anything else, I realized that I had a huge amount of time to blow on research.  About a third of my current age, actually.

There is still much more about biology that I don't know, than that which I know.

[lilacwoman]

the original post sounds like a drunken monologue written by Billy Connnolly for sale to the Daily Mail or Guardian

[Debra]

I think my biggest issue with the post is you don't propose any solution

If HRT and surgeries are all just about money and we should NOT do them.....then what SHOULD we do? Be dysphoric for the rest of our lives and ignore any solutions because they're "all about the money" or "experimental"?? Doesn't sound any different than the Christian Right, frankly.....

[CaitJ]

I think my biggest issue with the post is you don't propose any solution

If HRT and surgeries are all just about money and we should NOT do them.....then what SHOULD we do? Be dysphoric for the rest of our lives and ignore any solutions because they're "all about the money" or "experimental"?? Doesn't sound any different than the Christian Right, frankly.....

Well, under a capitalist society there's still a market for competition. One SRS doctor will undercut another to get more business, another will undercut her. Now if there was ONE surgeon who performed SRS, then we'd have a problem as they'd have a monopoly and they could set the price.
Fortunately this is not the case.
TG surgeries are still driven by supply and demand. There is no monopoly. There is no conspiracy.

[Glenn]

sure  


Just wait in 50 years they'll have a perfect SRS FFS Breast augmentation Drive through. Drive up walk in pay at window one. Out the other end pops the new you! Wouldn't that be nice? 

Just joking but really.

I can't believe that everything that's been researched or done for us has been done for the single minded porpoise of making money. I have to believe that many of the doctors therapists surgeons counselors care as a base reason for getting into the field. Because if it was all about money for everyone.  Then companion wouldn't exist.

I know it does, I have it, you have it.  I have to believe money is the reward they receive for years of dedication to helping us.

Hugs from the nieve Simone.

[Miniar]

I love it how every time I'm prescribed a cheap box of pills to help alleviate my fibro symptoms, someone tells me that the doctor is doing it just so he can make money of the pills that I get from the pharmacy...
Which he never sees a fraction of a cent from!

My T is covered by Iceland's single payer insurance system as are all my surgeries.
I'm paying 1/5th of the T's original cost, and 0/1 of the surgeries cost.
The rest is on the state.

HOW does that make me a cash cow?

[Stephanie]

Miniar, you might only be paying a small amount for your T, and a very small amount for your surgeries.   However, the State pays  Big Pharma the rest of the balance.   Big Pharma gets its money whether you pay the total cost or the government does.    Actually your present arrangement suits the pharmaceutical industry perfectly as the government has much greater financial resources and therefore a regular order for your medication is always placed.   If you paid for everything yourself there might be times when you say ' I can't afford my T this week as that big Christmas credit card bill has just come in.'   Also, don't forget that you will be on T for the rest of your life.   You will require regular physicals, check-ups, lab tests, therapist sessions etc.  All this generates a nice regular income.

[Lisa]

@Stephanie,
Sorry to hear that you have had some bad personal experiences, But that is not really the systems fault.

Why do you have souch a big problem with capitalism? I mean dont you thing people deserve to get paid for putting years in to learning specific skills, doing research, developing/manufacturing drugs, etc...

Let's take any other industry, say Internet service providers, you don't think someone deserves to get paid for maintaining the infrastructure that allows you to access this forum and the rest of the internet?

[CaitJ]

I want in on this cash-cow conspiracy. Where do I sign up?

[Glenn]

whole topic is a downer

[JohnR]

Stephanie, just because your parents didn't have the good grace or decency to control their own behaviour, using pain from surgery as an excuse to behave badly to other people, it doesn't mean that everyone has the same lack of understanding about how to manage pain.

But it's good of you to share, thanks.