TRANSGENDERISM: GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERY DOES NOT WORK AND MAY BE HARMFUL
GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERY DOES NOT WORK:
“There was no significant change in the different sub-scales of the SCL-90R scores in patients with male-to-female GID pre- and within six months post-surgery. The results of the study showed that GRS had no significant effect on functioning as measured by SCL-90R within six months of surgery.”
“A trans activist woman who detransitioned in 2018 has sparked controversy by claiming that many people who have gender reassignment regret the decision and want to return to their original sex.
Hundreds of people – just 30 in the Newcastle area alone – have contacted her seeking help, she says, either asking her to speak out or to help them find support over their decision to detransition.
“I’m in communication with 19 and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved, they don’t feel better for it. They don’t know what their options are now.”
Evans, who made her story public last year, says she is shocked by the number of people who have contacted her saying they have found themselves in a similar position to her.”
“Had I not been misled by media stories of sex change “success” and by medical practitioners who said transitioning was the answer to my problems, I wouldn’t have suffered as I have. Genetics can’t be changed. Feelings, however, can and do change. Underlying issues often drive the desire to escape one’s life into another, and they need to be addressed before taking the radical step of transition.”
“There is no conclusive evidence that sex change operations improve the lives of transsexuals, with many people remaining severely distressed and even suicidal after the operation, according to a medical review conducted exclusively for Guardian Weekend tomorrow.
The review of more than 100 international medical studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham’s aggressive research intelligence facility (Arif) found no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery is clinically effective.
The Guardian asked Arif to conduct the review after speaking to several people who regret changing gender or believe that the medical care they received failed to prepare them for their new lives. They explain why they are unhappy with their sex change and how they cope with the consequences in the Weekend magazine tomorrow (July 31).
Chris Hyde, the director of Arif, said: “There is a huge uncertainty over whether changing someone’s sex is a good or a bad thing. While no doubt great care is taken to ensure that appropriate patients undergo gender reassignment, there’s still a large number of people who have the surgery but remain traumatised – often to the point of committing suicide.”
Arif, which advises the NHS in the West Midlands about the evidence base of healthcare treatments, found that most of the medical research on gender reassignment was poorly designed, which skewed the results to suggest that sex change operations are beneficial.
Research from the US and Holland suggests that up to a fifth of patients regret changing sex.”
“When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings. Some 25% did have persisting feelings; what differentiates those individuals remains to be discerned.
We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into “sex-reassignment surgery”—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as “satisfied” by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a “satisfied” but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.
At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. “Sex change” is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.” – Dr. McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, is the author of “Try to Remember: Psychiatry’s Clash Over Meaning, Memory, and Mind”
“The results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison.”
“After the reanalysis of the data, we conclude the following:
- The mental health needs of people suffering from gender dysphoria are significantly greater than those of the general population, which confirms previous research
- No mental health benefit of hormonal interventions was demonstrated
- No mental health benefit of “gender-affirming” surgery was demonstrated
- Specific to the question of longitudinal association between time from surgery and mental health outcomes, due to unaddressed study design limitations, no improvement of mental health with time after surgery was demonstrated
- Despite the higher rate of suicide attempts requiring hospitalization in the “surgery” group, the study design precludes the assertion that that “gender-affirming” surgery is harmful“
“Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence available at this time, there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria. There were conflicting (inconsistent) study results – of the best designed studies, some reported benefits while others reported harms.”
“The majority of studies were non-longitudinal, exploratory type studies (i.e., in a preliminary state of investigation or hypothesis generating), or did not include concurrent controls or testing prior to and after surgery.”
“Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.”
GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERY MAY BE HARMFUL:
“This letter analyses individual data on 24 patients from Joseph et al.’s sample of 31. It finds that after 2 years of GnRHa, up to a third of patients had abnormally low bone density, in the lowest 2.3% of the distribution for their sex and age. A few patients recorded extremely low values, in the lowest 0.13% of the distribution.”
“BMAD z-scores decreased during GnRHa treatment and increased during gender-affirming hormone treatment. Transboys had normal z-scores at baseline and at the end of the study. However, transgirls had relatively low z-scores, both at baseline and after 3 years of estrogen treatment.”
“BMD z-scores after 12 to 24 months of testosterone treatment remained below z-scores before the start of GnRHa treatment.”
“Between the start of GnRHa and age 22 years the lumbar areal BMD z score (for natal sex) in transwomen decreased significantly from −0.8 to −1.4 and in transmen there was a trend for decrease from 0.2 to −0.3. This suggests that the BMD was below their pretreatment potential and either attainment of peak bone mass has been delayed or peak bone mass itself is attenuated.”
“Gender-affirming hormone therapy has been shown to maintain or promote acquisition of bone density as measured by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Trans children and adolescents on gonadotropin-releasing hormone may be at risk for decreasing bone density.”
“To conclude, suppressing puberty by GnRHa leads to a decrease of BTMs in both transwomen and transmen transgender adolescents. The increase of BMAD and BMAD Z-scores predominantly in the LS as a result of treatment with CSHT is accompanied by decreasing BTM concentrations after 24months of CSHT.”
“We conclude that the incidences of strokes and VTEs are higher in transwomen receiving THT than in both reference women and men. In addition, transwomen and transmen receiving THT are at higher risk of MIs than reference women.”
“From a synthesis of the literature, we conclude that there are many barriers preventing TAYAs from pursuing FP, including a lack of awareness of FP options, high costs, invasiveness of the available procedures and the potential psychological impact of the FP process. The available medical data on the reproductive effects of GAHT are diverse, and while detrimental effects are anticipated, the extent to which these effects are reversible is unknown.”
“Utilization rates of FP are low among transgender adolescents.”
“Existing data reveal significant intervention-associated morbidity and raise serious concern that the primary goal of suicide prevention is not achieved. In addition to substantial moral questions, adherence to established principles of evidence-based medicine necessitates a high degree of caution in accepting gender-affirming medical interventions as a preferred treatment approach.”
“The results demonstrate that emotional reactivity during spatial tasks was compromised by the blockade of gonadal steroid signaling, as seen by the restorative effects of testosterone replacement, while traverse times remained unchanged during assessment of spatial orientation and learning. The blockade of GnRH signaling alone was associated with impaired retention of long-term spatial memory and this effect was not restored with the replacement of testosterone signaling. These results indicate that GnRH signaling is involved in the retention and recollection of spatial information, potentially via alterations to spatial reference memory, and that therapeutic medical treatments using chronic GnRHa may have effects on this aspect of cognitive function.
Testosterone replacement decreased emotional reactivity and motivation in tasks.”
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