EDITORIAL: Sex change is afoot
College kids are switching more than their majors
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Friday, December 9, 2011
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/9/sex-change-is-afoot/ (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/9/sex-change-is-afoot/)
Harvard University has announced that next year its campus insurance plan will cover the cost of "bottom surgery" for people undergoing "gender reassignment." Bottom surgery - the swapping out of the private parts - is often the last step taken by girls trying to become boys, and vice versa. Transgender activists hail this new coverage as a breakthrough for those purported to have "gender-identity disorder" (GID). They consider sex-change operations medically necessary treatment rather than an elective procedure as most insurance companies do.
In the name of being progressive, Harvard is choosing sides in a very controversial social, psychiatric and medical debate. According to a recent Swedish study tracking post-surgery mortality rates for "transsexuals," a sex change "is a unique intervention not only in psychiatry but in all of medicine." Solid information on long-term results is scant despite these radical procedures being conducted for over half a century. After following participants for 30 years, this study found that post-surgery transsexuals have higher rates of death, suicidal behavior and psychiatric morbidity (mental illness). This is hardly surprising.