The New York Times reveals painful truths about transgender lives
Dec 7, 2018 by Jill
by Ryan T Anderson, Mercator Net:
Gender dysphoria deserves real care and support.
In Sunday’s
New York Times, Andrea Long Chu writes a heartfelt and heartbreaking op-ed on life with gender dysphoria. Titled “
My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy,”
the op-ed reveals painful truths about many transgender lives and
inadvertently communicates almost the exact opposite of its intended
argument.
Next week, Chu will undergo vaginoplasty surgery. Or, as Chu puts it:
“Next Thursday, I will get a vagina. The procedure will last around six
hours, and I will be in recovery for at least three months.”
Will this bring happiness? Probably not, but Chu wants it all the
same: “This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me
happier. In fact, I don’t expect it to. That shouldn’t disqualify me
from getting it.”
Chu argues that the simple desire for sex-reassignment surgery should
be all that is required for a patient to receive it. No consideration
for authentic health and wellbeing or concern about poor outcomes should
prevent a doctor from performing the surgery if a patient wants it. Chu
explains: “no amount of pain, anticipated or continuing, justifies its
withholding.”
This is a rather extreme conclusion. Chu writes: “surgery’s only prerequisite should be a simple demonstration of want.” This is quite a claim. And we’ll come back to it. But as the op-ed builds to this stark conclusion, Chu reveals many frequently unacknowledged truths about transgender lives—truths that we should attend to.
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