Oregon lawmaker wants to bar transgender teenagers from sex reassignment surgery without parents' permission

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2015/09/transgender_teenager_surgery.html

Oregon Live/By  Casey Parks | The Oregonian/OregonLive   
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on September 17, 2015 at 2:30 PM, updated September 17, 2015 at 3:22 PM

"An Oregon legislator wants lawmakers to bar 15-year-olds from using the Oregon Health Plan to pay for sex reassignment surgery.

No minors have yet used the state insurance to pay for such a surgery. But Carl Wilson, R-Grants Pass, said a 2014 decision to offer Oregon Health Plan coverage for transgender-related medicines and procedures could allow teenagers to make life-altering decisions they will later regret. "

Hate to see such good progress stalled,  seems one case is bringing skylines because a group of people disagreed with the fifteen year olds choice.
What is right and what is wrong should not be decided by how many times a politician's phone rings, which is what it sounds like here.

Note that it said no 15 year old has tried. Regardless of whether or not they will pay for it, any person seeking SRS would still need to meet WPATH standards.

It is not as if (like the opposition is suggesting) a 15 yo can walk into a doctor's office and walk out with a vagina. They would need 2 letters, which I cannot imagine any counselor/psychiatrist writing for a 15 year old, given that most won't even write an HRT letter for anyone under 16/18. Plus, I can't think of a single US doctor who will perform SRS on a 15 year old.

There are some Neurologists who believe that the part of the brain that determines how well we understand the consequences of our actions doesn't develop fully until we are in our twenties. Though I doubt they take that into account anyway, I don't think it should be applied to the subject of whether or not  teens should be allowed to have gender reassignment surgery or not. If someone has felt they are in the wrong body since early childhood or since they can remember, its doubtful that feeling is going to change when a person becomes an adult.

There are some anatomical traits that can't be altered even if HRT and surgery is done in the early teens, but some changes could be stopped before they occurred, allowing the person to adjust more smoothly. I still think part of the problem is the general misunderstanding of gender dysphoria by the public as well as much of the medical community. Until the rest of the population catches up, there will be problems getting transgenders help early on. Denying us help early on only winds up causing more emotional pain and the need for additional surgery.

Take a M to F transgender for instance. If they started HRT and had the testes removed before puberty, they could avoid the need for electrolysis to remove unwanted hair and surgery to reduce excess laryngeal tissue. There wouldn't be a need to retrain the voice to go up a couple actives because it never would have deepened in the first place.

F to Ms could avoid having to bind and have mastectomies. Early smaller testicular implants would have more time to  stretch the skin and give a more natural look to the scrotal sac once surgically created. Nerves transplanted during phalloplasties would be more apt to regenerate correctly and allow for better sensation.

Delaying HRT and surgery just seems to cause more problems and cost more money in the end. If arguments have to be made in the name of saving insurance companies money rather than for the transgender's welfare in order to get us the help we need sooner, then so be it. Government seems to move faster when its own welfare is at stake rather than the individual's.

sam1234

I doubt there is a single SRS surgeon in this country who would touch a minor with a barge pole.  The whole name of the game in the medical profession is to avoid malpractice suits, and SRS on a minor sounds like a potential career-ender.

Thanks so much for making an issue out of a non-issue and riling up the haters, Carl.