this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023

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Some conservatives say transgender people regret surgery. A new study says otherwise (www.sacbee.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Just a reminder for when you listen to people being presented as trans persons who regret their surgery:

Norma McCorvey - Jane Roe of Roe v Wade - was presented for decades as a devout Christian (evangelical and later Catholic) who regretted her decision. She was used as a prominent voice in the anti-abortion movement and in the attempts to overturn Roe.

She revealed on her deathbed that she was being paid to take that position. The narrative was also complicated by her 35 year relationship with Connie Gonzalez, later claiming that she was no longer a lesbian before confessing that she was paid to say that as well.

Also remember that when they call the child survivors of school shootings “paid actors,” it’s because that’s exactly the tactic they engage in.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago

It's always projection. "Accuse your enemies of what you are guilty of."

[–] [email protected] 56 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

In fact, one systematic review found that the average prevalence of surgical regret was 14.4% among all research studies analyzed

Holy shit that's actually crazy to me. [I actually tracked down that number because I was so curious] (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1007/s00268-017-3895-9) It's over half cancer surgery. I've known that the regret rate for transition surgery was low for a long time, but that piece of context kinda blows my mind. You're more likely to regret a variety of life saving procedures than gender affirming surgery, and it's often by insane orders of magnitude.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 7 months ago (11 children)

And even the rare case of transition regret, it's usually because 1. lack of peer group, 2. social condemnation and 3. your family now hates you.

Not because of the procedure, but because of the assholes around you. (This by one older Swedish study on the subject).

It's a literal miracle cure. Any sane doctor would jump for it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Even when it is the procedure, it is generally due to poor results, not the decision to have the surgery to begin with.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Is "regret" here necessarily supposed to be interpreted as "would rather have died"? I have had cancer surgery, it was not necessarily life saving, it was more precautionary (as I understand it, I was quite young). And I have some regrets related to it, but not that surgery itself. I can imagine there are a lot of cases like that for other cancer treatments as well, "I should have gone another round of chemo instead", "another round of radiation". Which may mean higher risk of not making it, but may still not be the same as "I regret having my life saved by this necessary surgery".

I'm not saying this to cast doubt on the relevance for making the comparison to gender affirming surgery. I think the comparison is apt and relevant. For gender affirming surgery there are basically no equivalent to radiation or chemo alternatives to surgery (not that they necessarily are an alternative to surgery for cancer either. Surgery may absolutely be necessary for survival). Since gender affirming surgery does not have an "I should have done treatment X instead, hence I regret my surgery", maybe this explains the discrepency in the regret rates?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Fear of death makes you gullible to accept treatment when it wouldn't have been the best outcome for you. Some cancer treatments prolong your life very little compared to the time you'll spend in a hospital, and instead of living 2 weeks longer after 6 painful months in the hospital, some people could have been in palliative care among their loved ones for 6 months and die. It is easy to regret agreeing to hospitalization at the end of your life.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Yeah, that is also one factor to account for possibly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Don't forget wringing your bank account dry so there's nothing left for your family after you go!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I will always forget some parts of the world are crazy like that.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Even if they'd been right - it's not a justification for taking away peoples' right to choose. I've made many decisions in my life that I regretted afterward, some irrevocable. (And at least one that I'm certain has a far greater than average regret rate) That's NOT basis for making it illegal for me to make those decisions, and it's for sure not justification for making it illegal for others to make those decisions.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Not to mention the last statistic on regret rates I saw showed that a lower percentage of people regretted transition surgery than regretted things like hip or knee replacement. But of course to them literally anyone who regrets transition is cause to ban it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Globally, a staggering 310 million major surgeries are performed each year; around 40 to 50 million in USA and 20 million in Europe. It is estimated that 1–4% of these patients will die, up to 15% will have serious postoperative morbidity, and 5–15% will be readmitted within 30 days. Source.

Yeah, when you look at the statistics for all surgeries and see that up to 4% of patients will die, and up to 15% will have serious complications, all of a sudden the regret rate seems pretty average.

I can’t recall where I read this, but I’ve also heard that a big part of it is regret when the surgeon does a bad job too. I think it was mainly top surgery, and surgeons that were trained to do mastectomies for cancer patients, who leave a bunch of loose skin bc that’s desirable when the patient wants breast augmentation. Which obviously isn’t what a trans person would want. Or just not removing all of the breast tissue, more severe scarring than average, etc. I bet these are the people conservatives quote about feeling “disfigured”.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I hear so many horror stories from trans masc people in particular who are just not fucking listened to by surgeons. With traumatic consequences, frequently. It makes me furious - every time it's a similar story, they explain that they want no breasts and the doctor goes "well that would look odd, I'll give you a c cup"... Bruh no.

I don't think it's so bad for transfemmes, because "top surgery" in that case is the same (I mean, I assume) as a breast augmentation for a cis woman.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I don’t think it’s so bad for transfemmes, because “top surgery” in that case is the same (I mean, I assume) as a breast augmentation for a cis woman.

Bottom surgery is traditionally oriented around male pleasure at the expense of what trans women actually want. The same thing happens to us, and it happens to our genitals

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Could you elaborate on this please? I hadn't heard of that before

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

For a lot of surgeons that do bottom surgery, they care more about how it looks rather than how it feels. i.e. they don’t care if you can’t orgasm.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh god well I guess that's one more thing to worry about, thanks for the heads up

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

To add on, they also care more about depth for penetration than sensation

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Do you have any advice for finding surgeons that aren't like that?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago

I haven't done research on it in years

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Actual people regretting it is irrelevant and inconsequential. Remember how, for many years, the same people kept trying (and failing) to find any significant voter fraud? Then they decided to just ignore that detail and tell people it was happening anyway?

The exact same thing applies here.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

You're missing the point. They regret when people choose gender-affirming surgery. That's the real issue. I know it's not the argument they're saying out loud, but it's the real issue.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

I'm not trans, but I wholeheartedly agree with you. As living beings we deserve autonomy, which includes the right to make choices that we may later regret. It isn't up to anyone else but the individual to decide what's right for them. It's no-one else's business (especially the government)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago

I wonder what the regret rate is for getting married? Having kids? Having conservative parents?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

old studies say otherwise too

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (4 children)

…. see there IS regret!!

Please kill me….

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

Buyers remorse is a thing too. Better outlaw purchases of anything outside of the essentials to live. Those can also cause buyers remorse. Guess we're just outlawing all purchases.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

What conservatives say rarely aligns with reality in any way, so this should come as no surprise.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

No surprise there; it's just more of the same self-serving bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Conservatives regret it. Not the people having them. Poorly written headline. /S

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Same old intellectually lazy right-wing bullshit: Take an isolated example or two and apply it to an entire population.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

Of course, because they just made that shit up.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

The only one I regret is orchi and thats because I could have made OnlyFans money cosplaying as a femboy for the cishet male simps. sigh

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

It's so ironic bc the "regret the surgery" narrative depends on body dysphoria being a thing.

I mean wouldn't it just be fucking awful if your body didn't match your gender?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So the claim is here is that no transgender people regret surgery?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

The claim of the study is that less than 1% do, contrary to conservative/TERF claims of a large ever growing wave of regret.