Thailand, the world’s gender reassignment capital, appears to be cracking down on inverted penises. New regulations similar to those adhered to in the U.S. require prospective reassignment patients “to consult psychiatrist to assess people’s mental state before they are allowed to get hormone therapy from endocrinologists. After that they have to live as a woman for a year before they can undergo a sex change.” The new rules take effect next week.
Why It’s Going to Be a Lot Harder to Go From Male to Female In Thailand Next Week
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Kropotkin
As far as I know, these “new rules” are going in affect for people under the age of twenty. There were technically self-imposed standards-of-care like rules in place for people older than that beforehand. Knowing Thailand, this isn’t really going to “make it a lot harder” if past performance is an idicator of how they’ll do.
Of course if I had my way, the whole requirement of consulting psychiatrists would be abolished across the board.
Tina
As a trans person, a large majority of these rules are imposed by white upper class shrinks who have NO idea whats going on, and think they know what it feels like to be transgender better than we know.
On the other side, living full-time for a year and the psych requirements definitely helped me…but I know too many people who basically have to hoop-jump in order to get the care they need. These restrictions are a step up from previous, but they’re still less strict (by far) than the Henry Benjamin Standards of Care.
Fitz
Did these new rules come out of something? Are there outcome studies showing a lot of buyer’s remorse or is just the intuition of some straight law makers and MD’s? Personally, I’d say fine. But make it across the board, you know, for other medical problems. Make someone get a psych eval before starting insulin. I am not opposed to psych evals, and giving people time to think over serious decisions—- but it seems like the Holy sacred penis gets a lot more careful thinking than 1000 other procedures.
Kian
Needing a doctor’s permission to start transitioning implies that trans people are psychologically unstable and are making rash decisions. In reality, trans people know themselves better than most, IMO, and have thought about it for a long time before even telling anyone what they want. Hopefully, TPTB in Thailand will realize that this law is superfluous and will not result in fewer transitions, only more heartache.
there are very few trans people who have “buyer’s remorse”, but it does happen. These select few have to live with their decisions just like supposed ex-gays have to live with their past. Putting up road blocks and obstacles to prevent these isolated cases is shameful and illogical.
Sidenote to Queerty: You keep choosing articles that seem to be fanning the flames, rather than leading to thoughtful discussions. And reducing transitioning to a “penis inversion” is childish. Keep up the bad work!
Kropotkin
Okay, I just double checked this and it turns out this is taking place across the board, no matter what the age is. There were rumors about new under age 20 rules last year but this is news.
Like I said before, I don’t think this is going to be in forced too stringently.
“Did these new rules come out of something? Are there outcome studies showing a lot of buyer’s remorse or is just the intuition of some straight law makers and MD’s”
There have a couple of studies on SRS satisfaction rates and they showed, if I remember correctly, there was a 95% rate of people woh didn’t have regrets and most regrets centered around technical quality, not having the surgery itself.
That being said, I think people going so far as having SRS and then turning out to not be transsexual is pretty much a myth, I’ve never heard of someone (who has gone public) who had massive regrets who didn’t detransition after having “found religion” under the influence of their family or funide preachers, kinda like “ex-gays” but much more rare (like three or four cases I’ve heard of in the media).
TL;DR: All available reports of “Transsexual regret” show that it’s a very rare occurrence and worries about it are pretty overblown.
helen
It’s incredibly rude and insulting to call sex reassignment “penis inversion.” I don’t think you’d find it so funny if you were in that situation.
vis-a-vis
I find Transexual people to be among the most well balanced of human beings. The perspective that they’re freaks and abnormal is just certain people’s psychopathy (is that a word?) being projected onto their “fields.”
(I hope I don’t sound like a scientologist!)