Would you see a transgendered doctor?

[arminnie]

Do you know any transgenders?

I actually know 3 transgenders (that I know of). One was a specialized vet that I used for a dog that was the love of my life. I had no problem at all. The process had happened at least 10 years earlier.

But that being said I might NOT use a doctor (or vet) that was in the middle of going through the process. This is not something that takes places in an afternoon of surgery.

It is a long and arduous journey. It is usually VERY, VERY difficult for the person going through the process. I would prefer that my health care professionals not be distracted by something so significant.

 

[Cindyluwho]

But that being said I might NOT use a doctor (or vet) that was in the middle of going through the process. This is not something that takes places in an afternoon of surgery.

It is a long and arduous journey. It is usually VERY, VERY difficult for the person going through the process. I would prefer that my health care professionals not be distracted by something so significant.

When I first read your post I began to agree but now I'm thinking about it. Doctors have a full personal life every day. Would you stop seeing a Doctor because he/she was going through a divorce? How about a death in the family? How about the death of their child? Any of those situations would be incredibly distracting, as much as or more than a sex change. I'm guessing here as I've never had a sex change. hmmmm I'm gonna think about this some more.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

I apologize if I have missed a post but it seems that people that are claiming that God makes people perfect and they should not change or alter their bodies haven't responded to how they feel about the situations that both Chobie and I presented.

All people are NOT born perfect and it happens more than people care to realize. Babies can be born with the characteristics and the "parts" of both females and males. Parents of babies born like this are faced with making a huge life altering decision for their child. Do they decide that their baby will be a son or a daughter. Lets face it, not everyone may make the right decision. How is the parent to know which of the genders the child will exhibit more as an adult? Why is it so wrong that as an adult, these children decide to change this mistake??

If you believe strongly that God made people "perfect", then how do you feel about Plastic Surgery? Do you have the same feelings towards a woman who is basically flat chested and goes and gets a breast augmentation and comes out a D-cup? Under your definintion, God made them perfect as they were and they altered their body. Same with nose jobs, cheek implants and many off the wall surgeries done in order to change one's appearance.

Since you called me out...
First, are you asserting that all transgendered people are hermaphrodites? I would be really interested to see your stats on that. Just a guess, but I would say environment has more to do with people's decision to "change genders" than does genetics. Could you disprove this with some statistics? And maybe this is a small quibble, but I did not say God makes people perfect. What I said (or at least hoped to say) was that God does not make mistakes. SOME congenital birth defects are due to human wrong doing (ie. crack babies, children whose parents are close relatives, etc.). Other things are just beyond our understanding.

Plastic surgery: I think elective plastic surgery is 99.9% silly. (My humble apologies in advance to the dozens of you I am sure I just offended) I imagine people in third world countries are quite puzzled by our national fascination with nose jobs, breast augmentation, and tummy tucks. I mean come on... can we be any more wantonly narcissistic? Our infatuation with ourselves could well be our downfall. You can fit that into the transgender discussion as you deem appropriate.

 

[JerseyJanice]

Can't get graphic here, but my friend, now physically a woman, had yearly gyn checkups as well as exams w/her initial surgeon. If you pm me I can tell more but not here. Suffice it to say, they DO have gyns once they have women's annatomy.

Sorry to say that your friend must be putting you on. Either that or she has found a gynecologist who is humoring her.

Transgender surgery produces what looks like the female form externally. It does not produce most of the internal organs a gynecologist examines (for example, a cervix, utereus, fallopian tubes or ovaries.) Nor does the surgery produce any more breast tissue than already existed.

A person who has had transgender surgery most definitely needs to see a urologist on a regular basis. With getting too graphic, suffice it to say that a new system for urinating has to be constructed and requires ongoing care.

What a lot of people may not know is that the surgery is still very imperfect. A lot of patients wind up with little to no sensation in the area. Many have to catherize themselves for life if the bladder/urethra part of the surgery doesn't work out.

A doctor has access to a lot of information that lay people do not. Based on that alone, I couldn't see a doctor who went ahead with the surgery.

IMO, it's not a question of being close-minded or prejudiced when it comes to a choice of doctors. Frankly, most doctors don't recommend the surgery. Like many other procedures, the results can vary greatly.

To those who have commented on the topic, you can't compare fixing an infant whose genitals didn't form correctly to an adult who goes ahead with transgendering surgery. When the sex of a baby is ambiguous, doctors recommend fixing the situation so that the resulting gender is the one that the internal organs are closest to.

Anyway, I could not trust my medical care in the hands of someone who decided to go ahead with such a risky surgery for himself.

And please don't suggest that I don't know whether any of my current doctors is transgendered. Aside from the fact that I work in a hospital and therefore have excellent medical recommendations to go by, I wouldn't go to a doctor who wasn't well known in my area.

I can say with absolute certainty that none of the doctors who have ever treated me or a member of my family were transgendered.

 

[Robindianne]

Sorry. You should probably ask a reassignment dr. Transgender women have ******s and the same cancer that is cervical cancer is ******l cancer. Women who have radical hysterectomies still need gyns for paps. Surely you knew this?

Sorry to say that your friend must be putting you on. Either that or she has found a gynecologist who is humoring her.

Transgender surgery produces what looks like the female form externally. It does not produce most of the internal organs a gynecologist examines (for example, a cervix, utereus, fallopian tubes or ovaries.) Nor does the surgery produce any more breast tissue than already existed.

A person who has had transgender surgery most definitely needs to see a urologist on a regular basis. With getting too graphic, suffice it to say that a new system for urinating has to be constructed and requires ongoing care.

What a lot of people may not know is that the surgery is still very imperfect. A lot of patients wind up with little to no sensation in the area. Many have to catherize themselves for life if the bladder/urethra part of the surgery doesn't work out.

A doctor has access to a lot of information that lay people do not. Based on that alone, I couldn't see a doctor who went ahead with the surgery.

IMO, it's not a question of being close-minded or prejudiced when it comes to a choice of doctors. Frankly, most doctors don't recommend the surgery. Like many other procedures, the results can vary greatly.

To those who have commented on the topic, you can't compare fixing an infant whose genitals didn't form correctly to an adult who goes ahead with transgendering surgery. When the sex of a baby is ambiguous, doctors recommend fixing the situation so that the resulting gender is the one that the internal organs are closest to.

Anyway, I could not trust my medical care in the hands of someone who decided to go ahead with such a risky surgery for himself.

And please don't suggest that I don't know whether any of my current doctors is transgendered. Aside from the fact that I work in a hospital and therefore have excellent medical recommendations to go by, I wouldn't go to a doctor who wasn't well known in my area.

I can say with absolute certainty that none of the doctors who have ever treated me or a member of my family were transgendered.

 

[outstandinfarmer]

If they were a real good doctor that I had already been seeing, maybe. My grandmother would have a heart attack though and once she got out of the hospital, she would throw her body in front of my car so that I wouldn't be able to go to my appointment.

 

[Robindianne]

OMG Heather, I literally laughed out loud picturing this. I think I woke up my dog. BTW My grandma would do the same.

If they were a real good doctor that I had already been seeing, maybe. My grandmother would have a heart attack though and once she got out of the hospital, she would throw her body in front of my car so that I wouldn't be able to go to my appointment.

 

[tiggersmom2]

If they were a real good doctor that I had already been seeing, maybe. My grandmother would have a heart attack though and once she got out of the hospital, she would throw her body in front of my car so that I wouldn't be able to go to my appointment.

Sis?

 

[tiggersmom2]

Sorry to say that your friend must be putting you on. Either that or she has found a gynecologist who is humoring her.

Transgender surgery produces what looks like the female form externally. It does not produce most of the internal organs a gynecologist examines (for example, a cervix, utereus, fallopian tubes or ovaries.) Nor does the surgery produce any more breast tissue than already existed.

A person who has had transgender surgery most definitely needs to see a urologist on a regular basis. With getting too graphic, suffice it to say that a new system for urinating has to be constructed and requires ongoing care.

What a lot of people may not know is that the surgery is still very imperfect. A lot of patients wind up with little to no sensation in the area. Many have to catherize themselves for life if the bladder/urethra part of the surgery doesn't work out.

A doctor has access to a lot of information that lay people do not. Based on that alone, I couldn't see a doctor who went ahead with the surgery.

IMO, it's not a question of being close-minded or prejudiced when it comes to a choice of doctors. Frankly, most doctors don't recommend the surgery. Like many other procedures, the results can vary greatly.

To those who have commented on the topic, you can't compare fixing an infant whose genitals didn't form correctly to an adult who goes ahead with transgendering surgery. When the sex of a baby is ambiguous, doctors recommend fixing the situation so that the resulting gender is the one that the internal organs are closest to.

Anyway, I could not trust my medical care in the hands of someone who decided to go ahead with such a risky surgery for himself.

And please don't suggest that I don't know whether any of my current doctors is transgendered. Aside from the fact that I work in a hospital and therefore have excellent medical recommendations to go by, I wouldn't go to a doctor who wasn't well known in my area.

I can say with absolute certainty that none of the doctors who have ever treated me or a member of my family were transgendered.

Thanks for the post....it really made a lot of sense and made me think of things I hadn't before (honestly, I have never thought of my male Dr. turning female...lol). Very concise and informative.

 

[JerseyJanice]

Sorry. You should probably ask a reassignment dr. Transgender women have ******s and the same cancer that is cervical cancer is ******l cancer. Women who have radical hysterectomies still need gyns for paps. Surely you knew this?

You are seriously misinformed if you are under the impression that a transgendered male's body parts take on the same physical characteristics of a "real" woman.

A cavity is constructed to resemble the body part that is shown as asterisks above, but the tissue that comprises it is not transformed into a genuine asterick-thing or a cervis. The resulting body parts are simply not subject to the same kinds of cancer risks that those "real" body parts are.

My sister had a radical hysterectomy 12 years ago, and I am absolutely certain that her anatomy is still a lot different than a transgendered patient's. She doesn't, for one example, need to wear a stint to keep a cavity from closing up.

 

[Robindianne]

You are right. Of course a transgendered woman's "cavity" isn't the same as a woman who was born that way. Cervical, and other so-called female cancer isn't caused because of the type of tissue the cavity consists of (although it is more prevalent in a cervix than the walls themselves (trying to use nonmedicalish, non-filtered terms here - please bear w/me) it can be caused by HPV which isn't specific to a cervix. Also, there are other parts to a gyn exam than a papsmear.

In any case, I just realized in my reply to your earlier post that I said "surely you knew that" and now I just can't get the picture of that Leslie Nielson movie out of my head where they say, "and don't call me Shirley." Sorry, humor creeps up on me sometimes.

We can agree to disagree based on our different experiences with the different doctors and different transgendered and different post-hysterectomy people we know. Neither of us need be labeled seriously misinformed, just the recipients of different experiences

Take care,
Robin

You are seriously misinformed if you are under the impression that a transgendered male's body parts take on the same physical characteristics of a "real" woman.

A cavity is constructed to resemble the body part that is shown as asterisks above, but the tissue that comprises it is not transformed into a genuine asterick-thing or a cervis. The resulting body parts are simply not subject to the same kinds of cancer risks that those "real" body parts are.

My sister had a radical hysterectomy 12 years ago, and I am absolutely certain that her anatomy is still a lot different than a transgendered patient's. She doesn't, for one example, need to wear a stint to keep a cavity from closing up.

 

[AnaheimGirl]

So this means that if I feel like I am actually a dolphin I can have my legs surgically fashioned into flippers? And I should expect everyone to take me at face value and not think I'm silly or confused?

Well, that's quite a leap.

What is the fascination with animals? People who are against gay marriage always compare it to bestiality, and now people are comparing transgender to trans-species? I don't get it.

But anyway, to answer your question... yes, I would think you were odd to turn yourself into a dolphin. But I would not say "I don't buy the whole 'dolphin in a human body' nonsense", (vis a vis the post to which I responded) because if you were actually transforming yourself into a dolphin, then you obviously do think you're a dolphin in a human body and you know yourself better than I do.

Good luck trying to find a doctor who would perform that surgery, though.

 

[AnaheimGirl]

What I said (or at least hoped to say) was that God does not make mistakes. SOME congenital birth defects are due to human wrong doing (ie. crack babies, children whose parents are close relatives, etc.). Other things are just beyond our understanding.

I'm curious. Are you saying that birth defects or disorders which aren't caused by human wrong doing are not mistakes, but just "beyond our understanding"? Like my dd who was born blind in one eye or my niece who was born with the fingers of one hand fused together? What's the difference between something like that and something like transgenderism? Why isn't transgenderism just "beyond our understanding", as well?

I don't mean to keep singling you out Zippa, this post just intrigued me.

And BTW, I also think most elective plastic surgery is silly. I also think high heel shoes are silly. I think of a sex change as more reconstructive than cosmetic, though.

 

[UrsulasMyHero]

Well, that's quite a leap.

What is the fascination with animals? People who are against gay marriage always compare it to bestiality, and now people are comparing transgender to trans-species? I don't get it.

But anyway, to answer your question... yes, I would think you were odd to turn yourself into a dolphin. But I would not say "I don't buy the whole 'dolphin in a human body' nonsense", (vis a vis the post to which I responded) because if you were actually transforming yourself into a dolphin, then you obviously do think you're a dolphin in a human body and you know yourself better than I do.

Good luck trying to find a doctor who would perform that surgery, though.

Perhaps the poster watched too much South Park?

 

[Iggipolka]

I would absolutly continue to see this doctor. If I liked the doctor prior to transition, I'd like the doctor after transition.

I dated a woman who transitioned during the 7 years we were together. She is an amazing person and we are still good friends today. She had SRS (sexual reassignment surgery, now known as GRS or gender reassignment surgery) about 5 years into our relationship. Prior to that, she had been on hormones, had thousands of dollars of very painful eletrolysis and had been in therapy for years. She will be on hormones for the rest of her life (similar to HRT) and does see a GYN for her medical care. She has never needed to see a urologist.
She was a very smart person who worked in the computer field prior to her transition and she is a very smart and happier person who works in the computer field today.

 

[JerseyJanice]

Sorry, guys, but I'm going to maintain there is absolutely no reason for a male who has transgendered to female to see a gynecologist. The patient simply does not wind up with enough female "equipment" to make seeing a gyn necessary.

I don't know whether the resulting anatomy can be infected by HPV, but I do know that without a cervix, it's impossible to perform a PAP smear.

 

[Robindianne]

Sorry, guys, but I'm going to maintain there is absolutely no reason for a male who has transgendered to female to see a gynecologist. The patient simply does not wind up with enough female "equipment" to make seeing a gyn necessary.

I don't know whether the resulting anatomy can be infected by HPV, but I do know that without a cervix, it's impossible to perform a PAP smear.

Sorry. You are mistaken about paps. Ask a gyn w/continuing ed. Or not. But in any case there are women who know from experience, not heresay or opinion or wishful thinking.

 

[JerseyJanice]

Sorry. You are mistaken about paps. Ask a gyn w/continuing ed. Or not. But in any case there are women who know from experience, not heresay or opinion or wishful thinking.

No, I am not mistaken.

A person who transgendered from male to female does not have a cervix, and therefore, cannot have a PAP smear.

I won't say that a doctor wouldn't or couldn't check the person for cancer, but there isn't any way to perform a PAP smear on a person who doesn't have any cervical tissue.

As I'm sure you know, a PAP smear is a scraping of the cervix in which cells are removed and examined. It is simply impossible to perform this procedure on a person who doesn't have a cervix.

And that's a fact--not opinion or wishful thinking or hearsay. If there is a procedure where a transgendered patient is checked for HPV, it can not possibly be a PAP smear.

 

[GoofieRuthie]

I missed the posts where this subject first came up. But...From the show that I watched, I would see how a male to female would need to see a gyn. They might not have a cervix, but they do have to use a tube several time daily to keep the opening from closing. They may need to see a gyn to make sure that the new parts are working properly. THey are supposed to do this procedure for the rest of their life.

 

[JennyMominRI]

I found this link during a search.It's about a court case about a transsexual..It has a lot of info about the procedure,doctors opinion etc.Very interresting..It probably won't change any opinions,but It's a good article.

http://transsexual.org/1damned.html