The Future of Transsexual Medical Care
by dentedbluemercedes on January 6, 2009.

http://dentedbluemercedes.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/the-future-of-transsexual-medical-care/

and http://www.bilerico.com/2009/01/the_future_of_transsexual_medical_care.php

This article has been a long time coming. Each time I'd revised it, some new discovery added a pertinent dimension that needed to be addressed. But one thing is certain: the future of medical care for transsexuals is changing — whether this change comes in the form of a delisting of Gender Identity Disorder as a mental health condition, or a revision of GID of any significance in the planned DSM-V, or simply new scientific discoveries akin to the finding surrounding the elongated Androgen Receptor gene or studies of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals such as diethylstilbestrol (DES) that call for further research.

What is needed right now is to assess what our community itself can do in order to (best case scenario) drive the change toward a better model of transsexual health, or at least to (worst case scenario) avoid a future in which transition and surgery are further restricted or made unattainable to the people who need them. I've said that I don't think that we should scrap the existing diagnosis of GID without another medical model in place. We — and our trans medical professionals, students and allies — strongly need to work toward this alternate medical model now. Finding problems is easy; finding solutions takes much more effort. And I'm not presuming that we can just do this without the checks and balances from professionals that would typically be accorded to any other medical study, but there are some fundamental ways we can help shape the model of care to come.

Because if we don't, someone will do it for us.