After taking estrogen for three months!

"

Deadpeng wrote:

Well I assumed that you were discussing about whether it is a good idea to undertake SRS. Comparing pre to post OP transgender statistics have shown us to be happier after operation.

Re read my post, pay special attention to the bit I put in bold.

"

Well I dont mind people thinking that my gender dysphoria is a mental illness, unlike most other transgender people. I am well aware that cisgender people somehow do not have my issue and I can never understand how cisgender people feel.

You missed my point; I don't think gender dysphoria is a mental illness (or more accurately, I don't know, I'm not a mental health expert and neither are you), but you implied that it is. If it isn't, then why can't we compare rates of mental health problems between cis and transgender people (post op or pre op)?

My initial post wasn't related to surgery, it was simply regarding why your friends or family would be fearful at you being transgender, regardless of what stage you're at with it. You are part of a group that has astronomically high suicide rates and high rates of other mental disorders compared to the rest of the population. That would be deeply concerning to anyone who cares about you.

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Deadpeng wrote:

Well. What can I do? If there exists the medical technology that can convert me from transgender to cisgender I totally would not mind. But there isn't one right now, so let's face up to it and deal with the truth.

Again, for the third time, I was responding to a specific post (the one I quoted before the reply) just trying to help shed light on why your friends and family might be "fearful" (your word, not mine). It may have nothing to do with your genitals and more to do with the mental health statistics surrounding the subject.

You then made the statement that comparing mental illness rates for cis and transgendered people isn't a fair comparison, which to me raised the obvious question of whether you consider gender dysphoria to be a mental illness in itself. I didn't give a personal opinion on it either way because I don't have one.

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MonstaMunch wrote:

Spoiler

Being true to yourself is very important, but post surgery transgender people have statistically far higher rates of depression than non transgender people, so it's hard to be convinced that they are doing what makes them happy.

Do You know why? Do You know why they stopped making FULL transisions? WHY they do not remove vaginas in womans and penises in men (biologically)? Because remowing penis/clitoris makes those people unable to feel orgasms and without orgasmsm there is only depression for them. And from there there is only suicide.

Only blinded fkers do full transision.

Also in porn business there is too many people forced or persuaded to do something they shouldnt do. But despite all those situatione there are peole who in their mind feel in "wrong" place. Knowing The Self is the key. Without it - no matter if trans or not - there is only sadness and suffering.

"

MonstaMunch wrote:

Spoiler

"A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered [sic], evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered [sic] began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population."

Sure, that could be an interesting study. I wouldn't qualify it as evidence--certainly not as fact-- however.

As with all long-term research involving human subjects you have to be hesitant of accepting conclusions at face value given the impossibility of properly controlling the study around the operationalized variable, in this case the mental well-being of people with sex-reassignment surgery.

Not knowing anything else about the study except your snippet, I can rationalize that if this study began 30 years ago in the 1980s, then the post surgery mental difficulties follow from a more conservative and less understanding society in which said individuals might never have been able to come out or gain even a smidgen of acceptance/understanding relative to what they might experience post-surgery in 2017. You would also have to carefully examine how the researchers chose the 324 people (e.g., most obvious did the 324 have a history of mental illness prior to surgery or familial occurrences of mental illness, etc.).


---

...finished reading the study, time period 1973-2003. That's a decade earlier than I thought, so certainly society is much different.

The study gets the variables in order, no doubt, by discussing census data and how they arrived at 324 persons.

The problem is the study is a purely Quantitative observation of the phenomenon and, as such, deeply impersonal. The authors never spoke with any of the 324 to determine anything about their lives. Which is fine, researchers wouldn't want to interfere and reveal they've been spying for so many years (researchers have IRB approval, but the anonymity part is really dubious given that there are only so many people that undergo reassignment in the first place. That's not anon in the same way I randomly call numbers for polling). But, if society was absolutely treating them horribly and might have led them to depression, then is the sex reassignment surgery really the operative reason or rather is it attributable to the behavior of society? If you correct the latter, as say might happen naturally in 40 years, then these individuals might have lived on just fine. The only control they had was that the non 324 never changed their identity in the census. That's it. Over 30 years of a person's life, that's the only control of consequence.

I mean, you can pick this apart any which way, but in the "Characteristics Prior to Sex Reassignment" section the authors state: "Immigrant status was twice as common among transsexual individuals compared to controls." Well, that's interesting. You'd have to now consider possible xenophobia of Swedish society circa 1980s and how that might contribute to harassment leading to mental health deterioration.

Then there's this: "In other words, the results should not be interpreted such as sex reassignment per se increases morbidity and mortality. Things might have been even worse without sex reassignment." OK, so in their own study they speak to the spuriousness of the research as a function of selecting on the dependent variable. "No inferences can be drawn as to the effectiveness of sex reassignment as a treatment for transsexualism". The authors are interpreting health of transsexuals after reassignment without identifying if said surgery addressed the underlying psychiatric problem in the first place. That sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. In that case, the surgery itself might be completely incidental to the eventual suicide.

Everything about this study is quantitative...numbers, statistics, confidence intervals, significance, etc. I'd suggest the whole field of gender reassignment is much more than that.



Not to say any of my blah blah is true, but it's worth considering. That study is hardly cause for absolute alarm given 300 random people in Sweden over 30 years since the 1970s when the authors casually mention that statistical power is limited even though the entirety of the study is a Quantitative approach. Not to say it's a complete waste, great as a starting point or to use in a follow up study, etc.

"

Laurium wrote:

the impossibility of properly controlling the study around the operationalized variable, in this case the mental well-being of people with sex-reassignment surgery..........

The authors are interpreting health of transsexuals after reassignment without identifying if said surgery addressed the underlying psychiatric problem in the first place. That sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. In that case, the surgery itself might be completely incidental to the eventual suicide.

Everything about this study is quantitative...numbers, statistics, confidence intervals, significance, etc. I'd suggest the whole field of gender reassignment is much more than that.

Much more than that in what sense? The point is that 41% of people who had reassignment tried to kill themselves. Saying "those are just numbers and statistics, it's more complicated than that" is a total cop out.

I wasn't assigning cause or effect, simply noting the astonishingly high number of people who have surgery then end up with serious mental problems. It would be of valid concern for anyone who cares about someone who is considering it.

"

Deadpeng wrote:

I get your point....but the problem is that things will be worse if we do not undertake the surgery.

I don't think you do get my point; If someone truly believes that they are a goat trapped in a human's body, letting him get surgery to remove his hands and feet and have them replaced with hoofs could make things better or it could make them worse. The other option is to try to find out why he feels like this and get him some mental help.

If you tell him that the problem isn't in his head, it's actually society's fault for not being more accepting of goats who are born into human bodies, and if he just makes himself more like a goat then everything will feel better, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

The point of that particular study was that things got a lot worse AFTER surgery, around 10 years after to be precise. There are a lot of other studies out there with similar findings.