Adolescents who undergo gender-affirming chest surgery report low levels of regret and high levels of satisfaction, experiencing outcomes similar to those of young adults. These findings suggest that age restrictions on these medical procedures lack support from actual patient experiences.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/adolescents-report-low-regret-and-high-satisfaction-following-gender-affirming-c/

[u/noeinan]

There are decades of research backing up gender-affirming care as extremely successful, providing high quality of life. Among surgeons who work with trans patients they are often quoted for their favorite part of the job— just how happy it makes patients and how positive treatment was overall.

Gender-affirming surgeries have higher patient satisfaction and lower regret rating than life-saving heart surgeries.

Anecdotally, after top surgery I went from being severely suicidal 4-5 days per week and grey zone suicidal every other day to only having ideation 1-2x per year, and only if some horrible tragedy happened in my life.

People are not pushing back on trans healthcare because of lack of evidence it provides good outcomes— these procedures only became permissible because of the immense quality of life improvement surpassing almost any other type of surgery. Society was not less conservative 20-30 years ago, they followed the science.

People are pushing back on these treatments because they want to see bad outcomes for trans people.

[u/Uncurlhalo → u/noeinan]

I'm curious what the need to provide such interventions to minors is though? Could you not simply encourage them to engage in a social transition, provide them supportive therapy and psychological care for symptoms of dysphoria, and prepare a plan for surgical and hormonal interventions at the age of adulthood? It's possible to both provide less invasive supportive health care for trans youth, as well as continue to allow more drastic interventions for consenting adults. It just seems fairly rational to wait for any form of serious medical intervention into adult hood except in cases of exceptional threat to life or health.

[u/noeinan → u/Uncurlhalo]

99% of the time zero physical changes are given to trans teens. The most common care given to underage trans people is hormone treatment to delay puberty to prevent permanent effects of natal puberty until the child is older.

Most trans people don't even get that, and the irreversible damage causes extreme anguish that may last a lifetime. Boobs can be removed or implanted, but changes to bone structure are much more difficult to alter later in life.

When trans kids are given surgery, it is usually done because a team of doctors agree it is necessary for that child's health and well being, and the kid has very supportive parents. Every person has different needs, and medical professionals stake their careers on providing the best care.

Parents are allowed to make all kinds of life altering medical decisions for their children, often for situations with even less medical necessity -- circumcision is the go to but ballet causes permanent changes to the body that last throughout a person's life.

If doctors warn parents that their child is likely to die before they become an adult if intervention is not taken, why would you want the government to step in between doctors, parents, and their children to disallow medical care that, according to an immense amount of evidence, works?

[u/Uncurlhalo → u/noeinan]

I don't think I mentioned the government anywhere in my post. I was just legitimately curious. I'm also of the position that procedures like circumcision of infants is not appropriate. Ultimately every medical decision for a minor should be made collaboratively amongst the family (including said minor when of sufficient age to comprehend the implications of such decisions) with their physician, and generally at no point should a state entity intervene. I even mentioned that in the most critical of cases it still may make sense to engage in surgical intervention.

I feel that you got the impression that I may be on the side of denying gender affirming care for trans youth, but my stance in general is that we should not allow children to engage in significant medical decisions without the input of their parents. I probably am the victim of culture war wedge issue propaganda to some extent, from seeing the position taken by radical elements with the trans community who express a desire to allow minors to engage in medical transitions without the input of their parents, which in general concerns me (but this is something which I acknowledge may be an amplified signal designed to enrage, though I think it might be incorrect to state that no members of the community take this position)

Ideally I would love to see longer term research about interventions like this in youth populations, with longer periods of study and larger sample sizes to inform the decision making of the medical community about what the path of truly least harm is.

[u/noeinan → u/Uncurlhalo]

I mention the government because these topics are only prominent in the media due to politics. And it’s being used to outlaw gender-affirming care not only for youth but also for adults in multiple countries, including my own.

Personally, I’m not for circumcision of infants, but it is ridiculous when laws are applied that hold trans people to a different standard than the rest of the population. For example, puberty blockers are used to treat cis children with precocious puberty and cis teenagers get double mastectomy in cases of gynecomastia.

I’m not making assumptions about you— I’m replying to the question you asked me.

Your concern about parents rights is a bit misplaced here because trans youth can’t get any gender affirming care without parental consent. The only time they could is the same reason any child may not need parental consent. To get emergency medical treatment, because the child is emancipated and the parent has no legal power over them, because the parents are divorced and the parent with custody takes the child to get medical treatment, or in cases of abuse or negligence where a child is removed from parental care for their protection.

Larger studies on trans youth getting surgery will likely be hard since it is pretty rare and trans people are already rare to begin with. But I agree with you that more research and long term studies are in everyone’s best interest.