Saturday, July 31, 2004
A not utterly awful article about transsexuals who regret having SRS in the Guardian. I say not utterly awful as the author doesn't seem to take into account that the men and women he talked to went through the system at the start of the nineties at the latest, important in that the central part about the state of research into post-operatives is current.
The key paragraph is this one: Rachael Padman, a physicist at Cambridge University, was treated at Charing Cross from 1977 to 1982. Now aged 50, she has no regrets about her decision to change gender. Although she had an overwhelming desire to change gender from early childhood, Padman believes the main reason for her post-op success is that her identity is not solely based on her being transsexual. She was working on her doctorate while undergoing gender reassignment. She saw genital surgery as just a step towards leading the life she wanted, rather than her ultimate goal. She says: "I don't think that surgery is what created me. I suppose it did make me feel more female because I wasn't loaded up with two competing sets of hormones any more. But being an astronomer and physicist is my prime identity. I do get the impression that some people lose sight of the rest of their life."
The key paragraph is this one: Rachael Padman, a physicist at Cambridge University, was treated at Charing Cross from 1977 to 1982. Now aged 50, she has no regrets about her decision to change gender. Although she had an overwhelming desire to change gender from early childhood, Padman believes the main reason for her post-op success is that her identity is not solely based on her being transsexual. She was working on her doctorate while undergoing gender reassignment. She saw genital surgery as just a step towards leading the life she wanted, rather than her ultimate goal. She says: "I don't think that surgery is what created me. I suppose it did make me feel more female because I wasn't loaded up with two competing sets of hormones any more. But being an astronomer and physicist is my prime identity. I do get the impression that some people lose sight of the rest of their life."
