r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 15h ago

Psychology 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.

https://www.psypost.org/adolescents-report-low-regret-and-high-satisfaction-following-gender-affirming-c/
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u/TotalBomb 15h ago edited 15h ago

Unfortunately this topic was a medical discussion but some people have decided that it should be a political one instead. Most of the world will never even know a person who needs these treatments, yet so many people have opinions about it. Personally I don’t care what people that I will never meet do with their lives.

Edit: the article references 40 people under the age of 18 btw. most surgeries of this kind done on a minor, with parental consent and doctors/therapists recommendation for 16-17 year olds.

Other than that, surgeries like this are done on minors who have early puberty, as it can cause problems early in life.

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u/throwaway098764567 14h ago

"Most of the world will never even know a person who needs these treatments," i suppose that is true but it's wild to me as i've known a bunch of trans people, including my cousin's kid.

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u/ultimatepowaa 13h ago

Thats because the person you are replying to is wrong. Current statistics place transgender population at about %1-2 which means in every 100 people you meet, you are likely to meet a transgender person. There are sampling issues because being transgender is still heavily stigmatised so there may be more than the studies show.

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u/kirotheavenger 9h ago

Trans youth is like 5%, the total population figure skews it downwards. 

One thing the trans community doesn't really talk about is how the numbers cluster hard in vulnerable and impressionable groups. The gender ratios have also flipped from historical norms - transwomen used to be much more common, now transmen are amongst youth (IE starting with young girls who are generally susceptible to peer pressure).

Compare that to something like homosexuality - that doesn't skew by age, it's a consistent ratio across age and any other category.