Look, they've been doing surgeries starting in the 1950's and studying this phenomena since before that point in time. In the 60's and 70's, they were still gathering information about surgical viability because there were no long-term results, complicated by the fact that typically transpeople wanted to just disappear after surgery so they had a very limited study pool. (And just like in customer service and Yelp reviews, guess who most wants to be vocal?)
At the time people were down on surgery, there were lots of mitigating factors (and this is at least the USA environment, I can't speak for Europe):
- People who transitioned typically lost their jobs. So they could go from a lucrative career to part-time service work at best, at a time when they needed money to survive and to pay for treatment.
- They lost their families (including access to their kids) because everyone thought they were sexual deviants, just like gays.
- They were kicked out churches that they might have been members of for decades (and sometimes in positions of authority) regardless of their moral practice over the years.
- People transitioned later in life after secondary sex development was established so they were visibly recognizable as trans. Medical intervention was not nearly as good as it is now.
It's not really a wonder the ones who survived and did well either went totally incognito and were never in any studies, or they entered the sex/entertainment trade because the money was lucrative (compared to anything else they could do) but of course this creates other issues, the same as cisgens who go into sex work as well as sexualizing the entire visible demographic of transpeople.
What matters is the context of why suicide rates are up for transpeople... and it's not because of surgery. I don't hear about transpeople committing suicide because they had surgery; I hear about them killing themselves because
1. They can't get housing.
2. Their friends all reject them.
3. Their family ostracizes them socially and financially.
4. They lose their children.
5. They lose their marriage if they were married.
6. They become social pariahs.
7. Other members of their faith label them as evil or perverse and shun them.
8. They lose their jobs.
9. No one will date them, so there is no romantic future for them.
10. People are allowed to beat, abuse, and even kill them for being trans.
11. They are regularly viewed as mentally ill and "fucked up" -- in the broad sense and that's the extent to which some people talk about them.
Teens kill themselves because they don't even have the benefits of adulthood -- income, their OWN support network, self-sustainability. Typically it's the rejection by friends and family and the feeling that they have no future (romantically and occupationally) that lead them to an act of self-destruction.
So in other words:
- They lose the ability to actually survive, practically speaking
- They become pariahs and lose everything they cared about.
- They believe their lives are over, so why live?
And people wonder why suicide rates are up for that population?
More study? After decades of the studying, the American institutes of the AMA and the APA (the main medical and psychological bodies of the United States) have affirmed medical intervention for transsexuals when warranted for a decade now. And Johns Hopkins, the most major institute that said, "Hey, let's wait and see" because of issues happening back in the 60's and 70's, as of this past year now have a medical intervention transsexual wing again because they believe it is warranted with proper screening. Johns Hopkins... they have always wanted to protect their reputation, and even THEY now are convinced enough to reopen their medical help resource wing. Last I knew, this was also considered tax-deductable by the IRS now and was covered by many of the major health insurance providers on at least one plan each offers (just in the last few years), although Trump and his religious conservative sub-coalition are now mucking around with stuff and there's a hell of a lot of fighting politically... typically driven by the evangelical coalitions.
I've heard in some surveys that satisfaction with medical intervention (depending on whether you are dealing with competent doctors obviously) is higher than standard operations like heart surgery, which are commonly accepted. I think people don't realize what the actual satisfaction ratings are with MOST surgeries, let alone anything related to this condition. Every surgery has complications, recovery periods, and impact on a person's life.
What else can really be said? It's really bizarre to me how the main medical bodies in the USA -- the most highly respected professionals -- continue to move in one direction, but the average joe without medical background seems to just cling to outdated viewpoints that make it harder for transsexuals to be integrated into society and be happy, and instead end up denying them medical intervention when proper screening has been done. I mean, along with this, none of this intervention gets approved without some years of psychological and medical screening, and there's a world-wide platform of care that provides the groundwork for what this screening is (WPATH) to make sure that certain treatments are only provided to those who fit the right diagnosis, to avoid any kind of regret. This is also why there's more emphasis on hormonal treatment versus surgical, because most hormonal treatment can be reversed.
The USA has a mindset problem, though -- distrust of science and investment in certain faith institutions. I mean, the same folks worried about transsexuals using their assigned bathrooms are represented far more heavily in terms of who actually molests kids and assaults women. I'm getting tired of hearing about white cisgen males, many conservative and often political figures who are anti-LGBT, who keep getting dragged out for assaulting and molesting people. Here a lot of the misinformation is just another part of the culture wars; for me, if I'm going to make a decision about a medical process, I am going to look at what medical professionals seem to be saying, not what religious groups or certain movements (like the feministas or the alt-rights) are pushing.
All that aside, fuck anyone who decides to treat another human being without due dignity simply because their brain is wired a little differently. Start that shit around me and I'll cleave your fucking jaw off. Cunts.
Yeah, totally.
I should clarify I called quick an idiot colloquially. I am an idiot when it comes to many things as is everyone in the world on various topics. That said I can not backup if QT is or is not an idiot so I'll drop the topic.
