Hi Steven,

I have often heard people site the big money being made by the medical industry by promoting “transgender ideology”. I can only speak from my personal experience, but I am a transgender woman. My HRT is a set of very common drugs already mass produced for other medical issues like high blood preassure and menopause. When I couldn’t get my insurance to pay for it, it was like fifty bucks a month. One of the primary surgeries offered to transgender women is GCS/SRS (you would know it as a sex change operation). When I have gotten quotes for GCS/SRS, the prices ranged from around 15k to as high as 22k. As a frame of reference an appendectome can cost between 33k and 55k. In the US they do about 220,000 appendectomes a year. There is a rough estimate of about 1.4 million transgender people in the US…total. Some number of those are female to males and some number are male to females. FTMs don’t get GCS too often because the medical science just isn’t there and the results aren’t as good as vaginoplasty. Some number of these transgender people can’t get GCS for medical reasons. Some number of these transgender people just can’t afford the procedure. Some number of these transgender people are too young to get the procedure yet. Out of the handful of doctors that do GCS in the US, some of those doctors do it because they themselves are transgender and want to help others in the same boat they are in. Many of these doctors in the US that do GCS have waiting lists over 3 years long.

So compared to ripping out an appendix at 2 to 3 times the money of a vaginoplasty procedure and probably less effort and time. Noting that HRT is already mass produced for other purposes and relatively low cost….also noting that there are only really a handfull of us any way…..where is all this money being made by big pharma. If it is such a huge windfall for them, why not stay quiet with your knowledge and invest?

There are very few children who are transgender. There is an entire set of guidelines to ensure someone is transgender and not suffering from some other issue. Children, the vast majority of the time, will not be given HRT until they are of adult age (there are some exceptions). Children can, after seeing a therapist for a long time, go on puberty blockers right as they start puberty….not at 8 like some would make you think. Puberty blockers can be discontinued without ill affect if the child changes their mind. Their puberty would just pick up from that point.

Being transgender is not generally something someone is going to latch on to for attention as it is a very difficult life. One of the things that makes it very difficult is the way the rest of society treats us. Being transgender is something that happens rarely to some people. Most of us know from a very early age. Helping children at a young age, saves lives and allows them a much easier path to living life as the opposite gender they were proclaimed at birth. After puberty is gone through, transition becomes much more difficult. The use of puberty blockers is something new here….but it has been done in Europe with very possitive results for a very long time.

TERFs do not have any respectful debate to give, they’re just bigoted people and hold the same views of the patriarchy, they’re really just people to find excuses to dislike people and often team up with conservatives for the chance to bring oppression to matters they don’t understand anything of.

Okay you don’t know anything about the gay culture or how it even started, stonewall and gay movement started with transgender people, also gender and sexual orientation is very linked as you often view yourself as something when you have sex, like “this makes me feel like a woman” or something, and last time I checked it’s still difficult for transgender people to get medicalized

There is a body of scientific evidence and peer reviewed material that supports the view that the medicalisation of children (under 18year olds) is harmful. You don’t get to hear about it because it is often censored by news providers cowering at the threat of transgender complaints.

People such as yourself try to stifle debate with name calling. If you are so sure of your point of view you should welcome an opportunity to have a respectful debate on the topic. The medicalisation of children and the resultant life long drug dependency only benefits one group – pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders.

Trans*people are already probably one of the most medicalised and pathologised minorities in our ‘civilised’ societies. Time to allow informed consent for hormones and surgeries and not necessarily restricted by age.

So they are trying to keep minority groups un-umpowered, as privilege is only privileg over other people, and if we are all equal then there is no such thing as privilege.

i

Check this out, I’ve got a thumbs down already – I don’t care about others’ opinions of me but I’d love to know the reason why my comment was objectionable to someone in this instance. Can anyone explain to me why the gay community seems to me to have as much anti-trans feeling as the broader community? I can recall a conversation with a lesbian 20 years ago who objected to me referring to a transgender woman as “she”.

Again I say, not cool. But if you think I’m wrong tell me why.

Meanwhile, perhaps the Star Observer could do an article on this?