Bad treatment
I might not have survived NHS treatment of my gender dysphoria, had that private route not been available, which the General Medical Council now seeks to close down.
In 1998, I saw a consultant who wrote to my GP, “Mr Languish is not transsexual”. He is clearly wrong, in hindsight: I have been transitioned ten years. He put back my transition at least three years, and that harmed me. Could he really not have spotted that I am trans, had he not been unduly prejudiced against the possibility?
In 2001, I saw a gender psychiatrist. This was 8 months after my GP’s referral, which is an abnormally short delay. He made no diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and told me that I could not get hormones until after I had changed my name: that is, after I had taken the plunge, gone full time as female.
Separately from those decisions, the consultation made me so upset that I could not bear to see him again, and went private.
I wanted reassurance that I could make a go of transition, and support in doing so: voice training, facial hair removal, hormones. He gave me nothing. So I went to Russell Reid, who gave hormones, I found a speech therapist and electrologist, and transitioned. Of these doctors, it was Reid who was investigated and found guilty of serious professional misconduct. He retired.
He sold his practice to Richard Curtis, who now is also up before the GMC with similar complaints.
Far more people are hurt by refusal of treatment than by wrong treatment. But the ones hurt by refusal don’t matter. They are only trannies, after all. The important thing for the doctors is to avoid anyone for whom the treatment is wrong, getting it. And for the media: “tranny refused treatment” is not a story, probably not a real tranny anyway- but cutting the breasts off someone who later objects is a hugely salacious story. Any psychiatrist should be capable of diagnosing my condition: it is easily described. But we must be referred to gender psychiatrists.
I do not know why people revert. I was capable of making my own decision, I knew I would be permanently changed and infertile, and I had no psychosis or other condition which might make me falsely believe I was trans. So Dr Dalrymple told me. I did not know I could make a go of it but I knew I had to try. The two questions:
Am I transsexual?
Will I be happier if I transition?
may have the answers yes- no. If you revert, there may be huge pressure to find reasons why transition was wrong in the first place.
One I know who could not afford to go private transitioned before me, and may have her operation this year, ten years later. No. That is not shocking at all. It is only strange in that she is actually getting her operation.
I hate the salacious, prurient Telegraph article, especially in giving Curtis’ former name and the area he lives in; but it reveals he is “non-homosexual“. One of my lot.
Very interesting. I study psychology. This is an area I have never been introduced, yet my interest is suddenly very peaked.
What is it like from the inside? See here.
Thank you
In many ways the NHS is hampered by arrogance and ignorance, and we who know more about ourselves than “they” do, come out of experiences like this badly. Perhaps the average GP is taught, or learns to expect, that most of his/her patients have low expectations, a deferential attitude and the vocabulary and understanding of someone out of infant school, but that is not always the case.
Because they do not listen, and cannot tell the difference between someone who knows and someone who is fishing…..it is hard for them to get it right; and they have lots of patients to see every day, but it does hurt when they get it spectacularly wrong. Notes on a file, done and dusted, and all wrong.
So self empowerment is the way, and you did it, so that deserves a pat on the back. Medicine is as prejudiced an area of life as anywhere else, unfortunately. You expected people to understand you? Weeeell, that is often the exception, not the rule.
xx
) ♥
These were the specialists, paid for by the NHS, who ought to know all about the condition they specialise in- and they give nothing but barriers to treatment. They want you to go away. Like the Rule of St Benedict, making the candidate for monkhood stay outside the abbey for days, begging to be let in.
But they see us, they know who we are, they could treat easily if they could only say, well, it is the patient’s responsibility if anything goes wrong. It so rarely does.