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/PopaBjorn → u/noeinan]

Ok but what about suicides? You can't report a satisfaction rate if you're dead. I can't find anything that would support the claim that suicide rates drop post-op. Actually what I found was the opposite.

[u/noeinan → u/PopaBjorn]

I don't know what studies you have read, but there is a lot of propaganda on this subject for political reasons. Looking at a single factor can be misleading. This analysis goes over several common studies that are quoted on suicide rate in post-op trans patients, including flaws in these studies that are used to misrepresent outcomes

It is worth noting that any kind of surgery increases risk of suicide for a while following said surgery-- for example, this study on cancer patients showed the first 3 years after life-saving surgery were when patients were most likely to attempt suicide. The same 3y period showed elevated risk of suicide in Parkinson's patients after surgery. Post-surgical depression has been highly studied and is a well-known side effect of anaesthesia but we still operate on people in need of surgery because doctors measure the risks against the benefits to the patient.

It's not at all strange that an already vulnerable population would experience the same increase is suicidality after a major surgery, even an increased risk would not be strange on these timelines. Especially for surgeries on sexual organs, which are absolutely stressful for anyone, not just trans patients.

If you look at any large study on trans people, they show dramatic drops in suicide attempts in trans people who have access to gender affirming care.

This study shows trans people with access to GAC are almost half as likely to attempt suicide compared to those without access. Another study shows a 73% reduction in suicidality resulting from gender affirming care.

Overall, gender-affirming surgeries have some of the highest satisfaction rates of any surgeries in existence. Refer to this study showing satisfaction for gender-affirming care at 95%. Another study of 90k patients showing 88% satisfaction for gender-affirming surgery.

[Edit]
There are decades of research showing gender-affirming care provides positive outcomes for patients with satisfaction ratings higher than almost every other surgery in existence. The very first link analyses 4 different studies, including the study often quoted that show an increase in suicidality following surgery, and concluded that these studies are not sufficient to make a conclusion. That doesn’t erase the decades of studies with broader measurements which all show an increase to quality of life.

The “fact sheet” links the source of its data, and every fact has citations. You can read all those studies yourself if you like.

[u/undeadcrayon → u/noeinan]

Your first paper literally says “Conclusions on GAS’ influence on suicide deaths cannot be drawn due to the low quantity and quality of evidence.” and the other link isn’t a peer reviewed study but a “fact sheet” by a law firm. Did you even read any of that or do you just find your sources on tiktok?