Let me have sex change treatment NOW,
says schoolboy age 14

By BRIAN FLYNN

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2741447/Lad-aged-14-in-NHS-sex-change-plea.html

A BOY was last night backed by his mum as he begged to begin sex change treatment on the NHS - at the age of just FOURTEEN.

Georgie Smith, who dresses as a girl and wears make-up, insisted: "I'm old enough to know what I want. What I want is to be a girl."

Mum Carole, 41, blasted health chiefs for slapping a ban on youngsters taking sex change drugs until after puberty.

------------------------

Boy, 14, wants sex change
A teenager from Dorset has been told by the NHS that he must wait until puberty to have a sex change.

By Harriet Alexander
Published: 10:46AM GMT 23 Nov 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6635008/Boy-14-wants-sex-change.html

The boy, known as Georgie Smith, has wanted to be a girl since he was a toddler.

He said: "I'm old enough to know what I want. What I want is to be a girl."

His mother Carole, 41, has criticised the NHS for preventing treatment until Georgie reaches puberty – meaning that his hormones will give him a manly appearance.

----------

'Give my 14-year-old son sex change treatment on the NHS', demands mother

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:37 PM on 23rd November 2009

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230140/Give-14-year-old-son-sex-change-treatment-NHS-demands-mother.html

The mother of a 14-year-old boy who is desperate to undergo sex change treatment has hit out at the NHS for refusing to give him hormone blockers.

She wants her son to receive the medication now to stop his adolescence from progressing.

By the time the youngster, who wears make-up and dresses like a girl, turns 18 it will be too late for him to look like a woman, the mother believes.

As all three articles state, she is asking for puberty blocking medication.  This seems a sensible request and the compassionate response would be to grant it.

There is something missing here.  The UK has the policy of giving puberty blockers to children who have been approved for them by gender therapists.  And 14 is VERY late to have them administered.
So, either the child is late coming to the protocols, or she is not yet approved by the therapists.

This is another reason I don't like government healthcare. You don't get to decide what is best for your health or your children, the government does. Even in the U.S., where I am from, there is so much regulation that just to start HRT, I will have to go to a dozen or more "therapy" sessions followed by endless doctor visits. In other words, I can't just be satisfied that I identify as female. I have to prove to a series of government or government-approved officials that this is what I really want. As always the excuse is about safety, readiness, etc. which translates as "I need someone else to protect me from myself."

---

Post Merge: November 23, 2009, 11:42:57 PM

---

Adding to the problem, what these health authorities don't realize is that by them trying to protect against a trans person making a permenant choice they may later regret, they instead end up encouraging self-medication which is far more dangerous. I know a rather large number of transsexuals who either currently are or have been taking hormones bought illegally off of the street. These individuals are completely capable of going to the doctor and I certainly don't recommend self-medication. The problem is that these individuals want the hormones NOW; they don't want to spend a year going through gatekeeper after gatekeeper to get them. Ultimately, we are the ones who suffer. As to the individual who may think they are a TS and get surgeries/treatment they later regret, there is a thing called "personal responsibility." It is sad if someone makes permenant changes they later regret but that is their choice and I don't believe that everyone else should be subjected to extreme scruity and legal hoops to get what they want to protect a few confused people. Enough said.

Bournemouth teenager 'should be allowed to have his sex change'

8:31am Tuesday 24th November 2009
By Diana Henderson

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/4755944.Bournemouth_teenager____should_be_allowed_to_have_his_sex_change___/

A 14-year-old schoolboy demanding a sex change should be allowed to go ahead with it.

That's the view of a Poole resident who underwent gender reassignment in middle age.

The boy from the Bournemouth area, who dresses as a girl and wears make-up, desperately wants to change sex and is supported by his mum.

Quote from: Britney_413 on November 23, 2009, 11:36:25 PM
This is another reason I don't like government healthcare. You don't get to decide what is best for your health or your children, the government does. Even in the U.S., where I am from, there is so much regulation that just to start HRT, I will have to go to a dozen or more "therapy" sessions followed by endless doctor visits.

Uh, Britney, good luck trying to get private health insurance to pay for hormones in the absence of these therapy sessions.  I would be extremely surprised if any private insurance company paid for transgender hormones which hadn't first been justified by the WPATH SOC.  For that matter, many private insurance companies will deny coverage, despite compliance with the SOC. 

I never said I liked private insurance either and that wasn't the point. I never said anything about who would pay for it. While it is sad that often when it does come down to issues like this that money does play a role, I still don't like having to suck up to authority to get what I want. Even if I have $100,000 in cash sitting right in front of me which would pay for hormones and all the surgeries, I would still have to go through endless hoops, middlemen, etc. to prove I'm a transsexual. There is just something about that I really don't like.

Granted I'm sure many of you know far more about these hoops than I do because I haven't even begun therapy yet. From my understanding, however, you have to be "diagnosed" with "Gender Identity Disorder" in order to get a green light and generally these diagnoses will come from therapists and psychiatrists after a certain number of visits. I certainly don't think visiting professionals over life changes this big is a bad thing and I do plan on doing this myself. At the same time I'm not 100% comfortable with gender identity issues being treated as "disorders" or "illnesses." While our situations are perhaps relatively rare, I don't consider myself to have a sickness and I don't consider any of my trans friends to be sick either. We simply have gender variance outside of the "norm."

I don't know how they prove you have GID anyway. I mean if you feel like a girl, identify as female, and want your body to become female, what else is there to say? I suppose they could do some test or something but the questions will simply be long versions of you saying the exact same thing. It is my body, I should have the choice in what i want to do with it, and I shouldn't have to explain my decisions to other people to get what I want. Of course these days asking for something as simple as freedom is apparently asking too much.

Quote from: Britney_413 on November 24, 2009, 11:51:29 PMI don't know how they prove you have GID anyway. I mean if you feel like a girl, identify as female, and want your body to become female, what else is there to say? I suppose they could do some test or something but the questions will simply be long versions of you saying the exact same thing. It is my body, I should have the choice in what i want to do with it, and I shouldn't have to explain my decisions to other people to get what I want. Of course these days asking for something as simple as freedom is apparently asking too much.

Well, I do kind of understand it from a legal point. Doctors don't want to be sued or lose their job because they misdiagnosed someone who was confused.

Doctors don't want to be sued or lose their job because they misdiagnosed someone who was confused.

Yet they fight against informed consent because like $10 whores around a $20 bill - they gots to have that money.

Quote from: tekla on November 25, 2009, 12:16:22 AM
Doctors don't want to be sued or lose their job because they misdiagnosed someone who was confused.

Yet they fight against informed consent because like $10 whores around a $20 bill - they gots to have that money.

Because the person is underage and that can present a tricky scenario.

Well, this is England, not the US, and the laws are very different - and the parents are going along, so...

Quote from: tekla on November 25, 2009, 12:29:42 AM
Well, this is England, not the US, and the laws are very different - and the parents are going along, so...

And I am Canadian where the laws are similar in many aspects to the UK. Even in countries like the UK and Canada we still have precautions that are set by law to protect people(especially if healthcare systems are involved.) That I can understand, however I think informed consent should be allowed in the form of a parent, but I do realize that this is overall a very touchy subject.

It's very hard in the US to overrule the parental judgment. As long as I consented, and found a doctor who would do it, if it were my kid it would be a done deal long before anyone even knew about it.  That's the trouble with a state health care system, the state, not you, gets to decide.

Quote from: tekla on November 25, 2009, 12:45:29 AM
It's very hard in the US to overrule the parental judgment. As long as I consented, and found a doctor who would do it, if it were my kid it would be a done deal long before anyone even knew about it.  That's the trouble with a state health care system, the state, not you, gets to decide.

Exactly. Once you've got a Healthcare system that's decided by state you run into people like Zucker. They also cut things out of it because they need to save on money, which makes for a long waiting list. When transgender coverage in Ontario got put on again back in 07 or 08 I think it was, the public was showing their ignorance because that got picked over hip surgery. The reasoning was that there are only 8 people diagnosed per year by CAMH so they could afford that but not the many people with bad hips. Go figure.

Although in Ontario you can start hormones with parental consent, not sure about surgery, it varies from Province to Province to Territory, and some don't even have healthcare systems(like British Columbia.)I think healthcare systems are a good option, but they have to be really good.

At any rate, I think they should allow it in the UK.

The reasoning was that there are only 8 people diagnosed per year by CAMH so they could afford that but not the many people with bad hips. Go figure.

Ahh heck T, that's easy to figure, as Bruce Lee said in one of his movies "It's the dough Roper".  So its cheaper to do one than the other and they took the Sears option, not the Macy's option.  That's the trouble with that system, is, in the end, its not about providing care, it's about rationing it.