MANIC
No, I don't mean bipolar. I'll get to that in a minute.
I am now in my mid-'60s and have been TG all my life. All my life. There was never a time when I was happy to have a male body and forced to lead a male life. Since I was born in the '40s, though, I did not have the option of hormone replacement therapy. I did not have the option to live in public as a woman. The only things I could do were to harm myself or accept that I would have to live as a man. So I chose the latter. Even though my gender dysphoria caused me significant depression, I did the things I had to do. I did my work, I got married, and I got by.
Then I retired and I was free to be myself more. I indulged my femininity freely at home and conservatively in public -- dressed as a woman but so subtly as to not draw undue attention to myself. And I became really happy for the first time in my life, a happiness that was consistent for over three years.
Then I had a marvelous idea -- to have sexual reassignment surgery! That would help to fulfill my lifelong dream of being more female without disturbing my already-happy life! I had no doubts that I wanted to do it, so I made an appointment with a psychologist who specializes in gender issues. And that's how I met WPATH and how I learned what it really is.
I spent my first appointment with my psychologist telling her how I had known all along that I really needed to be a woman. I explained that I did not want to disrupt my life by changing how I live, but that the surgery would help to complete my feeling of being a woman. At the end of that appointment she told me that she was inclined to support me, but that she had a few questions that I could answer during the next appointment.
The first thing my doctor said during that second appointment was that I should see an endocrinologist about HRT. I reminded her that I did not intend to do HRT, partly because I did not want my outward appearance to change, but mostly because I was happy and did not want to risk that. It is one thing to accept sure emotional upheaval when you're young, but quite another when the remaining good years of your life can be counted on your fingers. She didn't press the point.
During the third appointment we discussed issues in my marriage (a very happy marriage, but my wife was seeing the same doctor for several reasons and I wanted to help). At the end of the appointment I realized that we hadn't discussed my situation at all, so I asked her about the time frame, and she said a minimum of three months. A couple of appointments later she said three to six months, and during the seventh appointment she said a year. In spite of the $750 I had invested in this doctor, I fired her. I then descended into several weeks of one of the deepest depressions of my life, one from which I am just beginning to emerge.
I had met WPATH, and it had damaged me severely.
What are the standards of care called WPATH, that force someone wanting SRS to take hormones and live in a prescribed way for a full year? It is hopeful and generous to say that the standard is designed to protect people from making rash decisions that would harm them, and certainly it does that sometimes. In "True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals" by Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley, which was published in 2003, the authors state that 99% of FtM and 98.5% of MtF recipients of SRS are happy with the surgery. Those are great results, and the medical industry is happy to cite them as proof of the success of WPATH. Seriously, though, medicine doesn't have a 98.5% success rate treating stubbed toes or anything else. What's happening?
The answer is that WPATH should really be called MANIC -- My Ass Is Now Covered. In most cases it exists to protect medical professionals from malpractice suits. No matter that they are violating their Hippocratic Oath by refusing medical care to persons who need it -- money rules, even in medicine.
SRS surgeons are happy to be insulated from suits -- how can you sue someone who says she refused to operate on you because she was concerned for your overall health? So surgeons pass the buck to psychologists, who are only too happy to have a guaranteed patient for a year or more. The doctors get rich without having to worry about the real effects on the patients they reject or force to forgo surgery because the patient was not willing to completely upend their lives.
But what about those patients? In my own case I went into a deep depression during which I actually thought momentarily about ending it all. I got through that crisis, at least so far, but what about those who don't? Do they just continue to live on in depression? Do they take their own lives? Do the doctors even care? And what can we do about it?
It is very difficult now to attack WPATH in court because its adherents will claim that they are trying to protect patients. They will point to the high success rate of those who do undergo SRS. They won't mention the tens of thousands of patients who are denied care and who suffer deeply as a result. What we need to do is collect the stories of those unfortunate rejected patients and build it into a sufficient body of evidence to convince a court that WPATH is not what it is claimed to be, that it is an arbitrary standard designed primarily to protect medical professionals. That might have been impossible several years ago, but now that gender dysphoria is coming more into public view and is being more generally accepted as a normal (or, at the least, non-avoidable) condition that requires treatment, eventually a jury will decide that refusing treatment is not only unethical, but also immoral. WPATH will end, and it can all start here.
If you have been damaged by WPATH, please tell your story here, as I have. Make the medical industry responsible for the harm it does. Make it easier for people in the future to get the care they need. Make a difference.
It is not directly relevant to Your particular case, but I know that Switzerland has lost a case in the European Court of Human Rights when a TG applicant complained that she was put through mandatory TG-treatment care and the date of her SRS (which was covered by the state) was scheduled to occur ater two years (standard practice in Switzerland at that time - You had to apply and then if You got covered, You had to spend two years waiting). What this policy did not take into account was that she was quite an old person and forcing her to wait another two years essentially place her in the non-operation category because of her age at the date of scheduled surgery. Switzerland lost that case because the authorities failed to take into account her specific situation and applied general rigid approach.
I'm also in my 60's (late 60's) I don't blame WPATH for anything.
Life is never easy.
No, there wasn't any information readily available when I was young, I never even heard of TS until I was in my 30's. I knew I had issues my entire life, when I finally had a name to put to this, I made the decision to wait until my kids were on their own before I moved forward.
I had issues with therapists due to thing that happened when I was young, but was lucky enough to find a good therapist when I wanted to move forward and they did not stand in my way, they helped.
We all have our own journey and experiences so lets not use this as a place to "slam" the system.
Yeah, let's not bash therapists too much.. Without their assistance it is unlikely that trans people would be able to access any medical help at all.
Also, the current WPATH Standards of Care do allow for flexibility, far more than previous versions.
I'd much rather have to work within some guidelines than to have never been able to receive any treatment.