How not to talk about Caitlyn Jenner
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]Sorry for changing the title but I felt it was appropriate.
I am posting this more in response to seeing Walt Heyer talk about Jenner on CNN (with no counterpoint). His disinformation needs to be pointed out and I think this article does a good job of that.[/font]
[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/04/29/3652514/bruce-jenner-interview-responses/[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]How Not To Talk About Bruce Jenner
BY ZACK FORD POSTED ON APRIL 29, 2015 AT 3:39 PM
[snip]...
[font size=3]Countering Jenner’s Story With “Transition Regret”[/font]
Ironically, as supporters quibble over Jenner’s unassuming role as a spokesperson for all transgender people, opponents of trans equality are countering by spotlighting their own singular spokesperson. When The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan T. Anderson stopped by CNN Monday morning, he said that he thinks in addition to Jenner’s story, “It will be important that we hear other peoples’ stories, that we hear Walt Heyer, who has spoken on his experience being transgender and he had the sex reassignment surgery. It didn’t help him in that situation. He’s speaking about that.” Indeed, Heyer shared his story this past week on The Public Discourse, which Anderson edits, as well as at The Federalist.
Heyer’s story is an outlier — far more exceptional than Jenner’s. He describes himself as “a former transgender [sic],” explaining that after eight years living as a woman, he began to experience “the shame of being so narcissistic and self-absorbed as a transgender female.” Essentially embracing the rejection of others, Heyer admits that he believes his transition “hurt the ones I loved.” He now advocates against gender-affirming therapies for transgender people, writing this week that “Jenner would do better to change his mind” — as if that were possible.
While Heyer’s own experience is not in question, his broad claims about the rates of transition regret have been thoroughly debunked. Much of the research that is cited to suggest negative outcomes for transition surgeries actually still advocates for those surgeries, acknowledging that they nevertheless do improve the quality of life for transgender people. Modern studies find that surgical regret is particularly uncommon — something less than 4 percent of people experience. In fact, the incredibly low regret rate for transition surgeries is fairly similar to the regret rate for gastric banding (about 2 percent), while regret rates for cosmetic plastic surgeries can be as high as 65 percent.
Heyer and Anderson also both rely on the expertise of Dr. Paul McHugh, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University whose bias against all LGBT people is well documented. As Anderson explained on CNN, McHugh believes performing transition-related surgeries “creates more problems than it solves.” To arrive at that conclusion, McHugh relies on a selective reading of the research, which has earned him the title of “the Mark Regnerus of transgender issues” — a reference to the researcher who erroneously claims that same-sex parenting is harmful to children. McHugh, like Heyer, is an exception, one who stands alone against the consensus of medical organizations that affirm transgender people and support appropriate treatments for them.
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]More at link...[/font]
= new reply since forum marked as read
