You are blatantly transphobic and I better I look better than you sweetie.

i think you need to learn some respect your clearly a homophobia idiot with no respect for other get with the time and grow up will you!! silly moo!!!!!!!

I know in my case growing up I was threatened with all manner of things to stop me from being who I was. It worked well enough to get me to the point of making the mistake of trying to be the person my body dictated. I ended up with demands on me that further prevented me from moving forward with transition. Finally after years of struggle and living with the thoughts of ending my life, I moved forward with transition. I was rewarded with loss of my job, alienation of many of my family and friends, and little or no help in regard to my medical needs. It is not a journey for the faint of heart. It is no more immoral than fixing the cliff pallet on a child, and perhaps some day people will come to understand how shamefully those of us who have this condition have been treated. How many of us are very strong and worthwhile people left to go to waste for reasoning that lacks any degree of compassion. I would wonder how many would argue so strongly about any medical treatment for a condition if they found they were afflicted by it.

Some food for thought to those who would think me insane, perverted, or immoral. Given the rampant use of hormones leaking into our environment, the effects shown on some other life forms we share this planet with, we may find a high percentage of our descendants born Transsexual. This may fix the problem of acceptance in the long run.

My advice to any transexual do it before 16 and do it quick. Do it post 16 and you won’t pass not in western europe. Like I said for 5ft 7, own hair and 10st 6 I struggle to pass so if I do imagine a transexsual 6ft 2 that clearly looks male – tragic.

You have to be seriously brave, seriously strong and I tire of it one day I might not be so strong any more and when that happens then I will die !

Post op transexuals are scathing of their medical treatment and in all honesty as a post op of 6 years it doesn’t work. I warn against it. Why because society punishes you in only the way it can – Britain is one of the most intolerable societies in the western world I can’t think why really but it is, the fact that it and Albania were the only two countries in Europe where a transexual didn’t have a female birth certificate says something

I have been to europe many many times and always feel better treated in France, Belgium and Holland than I do in Britain. Britain isdefinitely more bigoted

I am a great believer in karma and all I can say is what goes around comes around and over the last 3 plus years Britain as a nation has sure had it 10 fold. Long may it continue

Sorry to disappoint your bigoted views but the NHS will be funding a replacement implant operation if you have an issue write to your mp about it, I am covered by HRA and I will use it

That is the difference between pre and post op if you no longer have the funding because of bigotry I am sure not going to a.) curl up and commit suicide nor b.) live on psychiatric medication and deal with being labelled a freak just because a large part of the population have issues in both the states and in Britain and we all know how bigoted Britain is the fact that it had to be taken to the european court of human rights just to enforce a transexuals right to a birth certificate the only other country in that situation is backward albanian so please don’t say the brits are decent people they are anything but may be nice to everyone else but trans people are bottom of the pile.

Some of us though will fight back and play you people at your own game – so complain the NHS have no choice but to fund it, because if I don’t and should I become ill as a result of the implants due for replacement then my pct are liable for huge damages – and I checked it out

For other transexuals in Britain all I can say what will happen to you is pot luck really, how appreciated you are at work, how you were viewed before hand , what your support networks are like, and how supportive your gp and or health professionals are.

Unfortunately there are people on here even so called gay men who have a bigoted hatred of us it’s not just the hetrosexuals. What saddens me, is a gay man isn’t any better than a transexual female to male or male to female -

Surgery even with experts can and does go wrong, and if you don’t have the money you can be left disfigured and desperate and bereft

I strongly advise against FFS unless you really need it and only after two years on feminising hormones

Finally, it is a fact that there is very little research on post operative follow up of transexuals in the UK and US but research that is available shows 92 per cent are scathing of the medical care and the way they are treated in society.

Employment discrimination is rampant, those brave enough and I really mean they are brave take risks to sex work not all of us are like that certainly not me.

You also put on weight with post op hormones and need to watch what you eat and excercise rigourously, other symptoms include leaky bladder, raised blood pressure risk of stroke and cancer not to mention brittle bones and nails if your hormone dosage isn’t high enough. I know of many transexuals that self medicate or pay for their hormones privately because the GP will not prescribe. In that respect I have been fortunate to have a great relationship with my GP’s over the years and also to minimise my own risks to my health because I look after myself –

Depression also doesn’t alleivate with most post ops, society isolates you and gender dyphoria remains. It is medical fact. Some people have different experiences but what research there is out there on post op transexuals the argument gender reassingment works is dubious – it doesn’t
So be warned !

A gender recognition certificate that is worth nothing if your social security, tax and police records are for all intent and purposes still in your original gender and name which they are in Britain.

Because breast implants needs replacing if you don’t have the money because of the medical risk the NHS has to pay they don’t have a choice and a post operative of nearly a decade would be able to legally challenge this much more than a pre op based on living in the wrong body. It depends on individual circumstances.

Being a transexual woman isn’t all about dressing in high heels and short dresses, those who think that make a big mistake, you are less equal than most genetic women and those with high earning jobs as engineers and still ride their motorbikes still behave as males in my view as most women are not like that

It is a well known fact that you can pass, but you cannot be accepted. Sadly the only true transexuals that pass are those of 16 years and less at reassignment. Even the thai’s are distinguishable from genetic women and I am pretty hot on transexual issues. It isn’t as easy as people make it out to be you need be very brave and very strong, mobility and income is mainly downwards unless you are very secure and most stright men will not date transexual women. You cannot live in stealth no one can live a lie – unless they are pathologically predisposed.

The NHS does not have an obligation to do gender reassignment surgery in the UK. I do not know where you get your information from.

Gender reassignment is seen as elective surgery, you may not like it, I don’t but many PCT’s take this attitude (Primary Care Trusts). You are more likely to get funding if you pass and adjust that if you don’t.

The reality is an older transexual isn’t a good investment for the state. A post operative however is entirely different pre and post operative transexuals have different needs.

You should also bear in mind many pre op transexuals prefer to remain just that, in some cases to be a sexual fetish for men to abuse !

You have to defend yourself certainly don’t rely on the police not in the UK anyway

As a pre op and young at the time I paid for everything myself

As a post op the state pays now, I have paid my taxes and have a medical need for someone who is nearly a decade post op

The answer that post ops blend in is really a lie I am 5ft 7,my own hair and slim less than 10st and a size 8 and look as good as most women my age but I know i get read, and I really don’t care I can tell a fellow transexual a mile away just some transexuals lie to themselves that they look good

In my case I have a medical need to reduce my breast size to a smaller cup as I have lost a lot of weight medically related and due to stress and now have a lot of back pain and the psychological affects of what is now totally inadquate breast implants for my height and build and is affecting my mental health – because the implants need replacing the nhs will hopefully pay as they have already paid for another procedure

Also transexuals are not mentally ill, society is unaccepting and makes us out to be demons based on hate and gay men are the worst purveyors of it a man that goes with a pre op transexual is gay though most won’t admit it

Many post-op transexuals opt to at least try and blend in with the rest of the population, to disappear if you will

You’re beautiful.

Don’t hide.

Hmmm….where have I heard this kind of thing before….

“The Earth is Flat. End of story.”
“Gays are mentally ill. End of story.”
“God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. End of story.”
etc etc

Here’s what the people who actually know the facts say:

– Such a therapeutic regimen, when prescribed or recommended by qualified practitioners, is medically indicated and medically necessary. Sex reassignment is not “experimental,” “investigational,” “elective,” “cosmetic,” or optional in any meaningful sense. –

That’s from the medical standards of care, which if they’re not followed, leave a medic wide open to charges of malpractice.

I can think of cases where a breast enlargement would make the lives of some trans people better, so i support this. What you people don’t understand is that the NHS treatment of trans people is antiquated and very rigid, I’ve heard many a horror story about the NHS system in regard to trans people, so this is probably making up for it a bit.

But people are going to get hot and bothered by this? Get over yourselves, seriously people.

If you think trans women aren’t real women and SRS is just a vanity kick, if you think they should just suck it up and stay male-looking, if you are trying to push a half-argued agenda equivalent of the “ex-gays”, that some transitioners regret it and so it’s OK to tell every trans woman “no” – then you are a bigot. You are in exactly the same category as homophobes who make disingenuous arguments about “waste” when a government spends its money promoting tolerance of gays. You have made yourself part of the problem – be ashamed!

The article you chose to post makes contradictory statements and ultimately comes to the conclusion that there is no way to know WITH CERTAINTY whether gender reassignment is the best treatment because they can’t withhold care for the sake of science. Maybe we will never know that it works for every single transsexual because of this quandary, but that does not mean that right now its the BEST treatment available for gender dysphoria.

If you are going to use a crappy article that doesn’t cite anything, then you might as well not post. Its bullshit that people can use one article to refute thousands of trans people willing to testify and sue for the right to transition. If this doesn’t convince you that perhaps you need to take a look at your own prejudices, then I don’t know what will. Its very disheartening to hear hurtful arguments against this transwoman’s need for surgery because these arguments are often based on pseudo science and faulty arguments.

So tell me again that you are just not conforming, that you’re not really bigoted, that you have a friend who’s trans… because I don’t believe you.

When you argue against the best treatment option available for trans people you open the door for criticism. To then deflect that criticism into posting that article is cowardly, manipulative, and ignorant.

There is no conclusive evidence that sex change operations improve the lives of transsexuals, with many people remaining severely distressed and even suicidal after the operation, according to a medical review conducted exclusively for Guardian Weekend tomorrow.

The review of more than 100 international medical studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham’s aggressive research intelligence facility (Arif) found no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery is clinically effective.

The Guardian asked Arif to conduct the review after speaking to several people who regret changing gender or believe that the medical care they received failed to prepare them for their new lives. They explain why they are unhappy with their sex change and how they cope with the consequences in the Weekend magazine tomorrow (July 31).

Chris Hyde, the director of Arif, said: “There is a huge uncertainty over whether changing someone’s sex is a good or a bad thing. While no doubt great care is taken to ensure that appropriate patients undergo gender reassignment, there’s still a large number of people who have the surgery but remain traumatised – often to the point of committing suicide.”

Arif, which advises the NHS in the West Midlands about the evidence base of healthcare treatments, found that most of the medical research on gender reassignment was poorly designed, which skewed the results to suggest that sex change operations are beneficial.

Its review warns that the results of many gender reassignment studies are unsound because researchers lost track of more than half of the participants. For example, in a five-year study of 727 post-operative transsexuals published last year, 495 people dropped out for unknown reasons. Dr Hyde said the high drop out rate could reflect high levels of dissatisfaction or even suicide among post-operative transsexuals. He called for the causes of their deaths to be tracked to provide more evidence.

Dr Hyde said: “The bottom line is that although it’s clear that some people do well with gender reassignment surgery, the available research does little to reassure about how many patients do badly and, if so, how badly.”

There are around 5,000 post-operative transsexuals in the UK, according to the transgender pressure group Press for Change (PFC). It is estimated that up to 400 sex changes will be performed this year on the NHS and privately. Each operation costs the NHS around £3,000, while private patients pay upwards of £8,000 for surgery.

Christine Burns, of PFC, said the campaign group’s research suggested that the vast majority of transsexual people enjoyed much happier lives following surgery.

Ms Burns added that the greatest flaws in medical literature about gender reassignment were in those studies unsympathetic to transsexual people. For example, one study was based on a survey of seven transsexual prostitutes interviewed in one gay bar in Chicago.

She said: “The fact that research is badly constructed isn’t a poor reflection on transpeople, but on the people we should be able to trust for our care. If they “lose” half the patients they ought to be able to track the question is why? As we’ve repeatedly pointed out ourselves there is really no difficulty in getting transpeople to come forward and cooperate in research that is properly constructed and conceived with people’s true well-being in mind.”

Research from the US and Holland suggests that up to a fifth of patients regret changing sex. A 1998 review by the Research and Development Directorate of the NHS Executive found attempted suicide rates of up to 18% noted in some medical studies of gender reassignment.

Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, has written to the mental health minister, Rosie Winterton, requesting a “thorough assessment” of the long-term effects of sex change operations. He wants the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which decides what treatments should be available on the NHS, to draw up guidelines on gender reassignment.

Transgender psychiatrists, who assess whether patients should change sex, agree that more scientific research is needed. But Kevan Wylie, chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ working party on gender identity disorders, said that all of his patients’ lives have drastically improved following gender reassignment surgery.

Dr Wylie added that it was difficult to conduct research on the outcome of gender reassignment, or to compare its effects with alternative treatments, because transsexualism was such a “rare experience”. Urological surgeon James Bellringer, who has performed more than 200 sex changes over the past four years, claimed that trying to carry out research that involves studying a control group of transsexual patients who were denied hormones and surgery would be unethical.

Mr Bellringer, who works at the main NHS gender identity clinic at Charing Cross hospital in west London, said: “I don’t think that any research that denied transsexual patients treatment would get past an ethics committee. There’s no other treatment that works. You either have an operation or suffer a miserable life. A fifth of those who don’t get treatment commit suicide.”

My money should go to things that help our society. Not to people who have made a decision they can’t afford! — Heather

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m assuming you’re a lesbian. Did you choose to be a Lesbian? Did you wake up one day and decide “I’ll choose to become something other people hate; I’ll choose to become someone they want to dehumanise, torture and kill”?

If you didn’t, what makes you think being trans is a choice, any more than being lesbian, gay, bi or straight is a choice? And given how trans people are targeted by violent homo- and transphobes why would you, and another LGBT person, choose to deny them basic compassion?

Gender reassignment is cosmetic surgery. End of story. If they want it they need to pay for it themselves.
— DeAnimator

Not under British law which, in this case, trumps your personal opinion. US healthcare insurance generally does cover gender reassignment, therefore gender reassignment is paid for by those people who pay into the insurance scheme. For the vast majority of Britons, the role played by American health insurers is covered by the NHS; it would be unreasonable for the NHS to deny a minority access to important surgery when that surgery is not denied to Americans. It is, after all, being paid for by those who pay into the NHS. And since healthcare is viewed as a civil right in the UK, denying gender reassignment surgery should rightly be viewed as a breach of civil rights.

Also, a sizeable minority of trans people are actually born intersex and have their gender incorrectly surgically assigned shortly after birth – like all forms of infant genital mutilation it is barbaric, yet it still continues, and happens while the person is too young to give any form of consent, let alone informed consent. Given that it was the barbaric practices of certain medical “professionals” that caused their problem in the first place, does it really sound fair to deny these men and women the right to have their sex realigned with their gender? IMO it’s merely a case of correcting a past mistake.

In this case, the key issue is the effect it will have on the person’s health and well-being. If her lack of breasts makes it more obvious to others that she is a transwoman, denying her surgery places her at risk of physical harm, limits her options for employment or promotion, and has a significant negative impact on self-image and psychological well-being due to increased anxiety. I doubt she would be requesting surgery be funded by her PCT if she had an alternative option available, due to the fewer hurdles of the private option and due to the fact that West Berks PCT does not have a good track record on acting in patients’ interests – it is well known for denying cancer treatments in the past.

What you propose – that she pay for the surgery out of her own pocket – may well leave her in a catch-22 position. It’s entirely possible that, whether consciously or unconsciously, she is discriminated against in work because her lack of breasts make it obvious she’s trans. As a result she’ll have a low income, or perhaps find it impossible to hold down a job, so doesn’t have the money to pay for the surgery herself. She doesn’t have a good job because she doesn’t have breasts; she can’t afford breast augmentation because she doesn’t have a good job.

Even if she does have the money to pay for it herself (which is probably the case if she’s paying her own court costs) there’s good sense in her bringing the case – just because she is able to afford the surgery doesn’t mean all trans people like her can. By bringing the case she would be acting in behalf of those who don’t have the option. She would be acting with compassion, which is more than can be said for you.