More Trans Teens Are Having Top Surgery, Feeling Comfortable in Their Own Skin
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While still rare under the age of 18, more teen trans men are having top surgery and feeling comfortable in their own skin and are finding surgeons like Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher·on TikTok despite facing headwinds like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and so-called “Don’t say gay” laws.
After many months of deliberations over its new guidelines, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health initially decided to endorse top surgeries for adolescents 15 and up, part of a suite of changes that would have made gender treatments available to children at younger ages. But the organization backtracked this month, after some major medical groups it had hoped would support the new guidelines bristled at the new age minimums, according to Dr. Marci Bowers, a gynecologic and reconstructive surgeon and the president of WPATH, who is transgender.
“We needed consensus,” Dr. Bowers said. “I just think we need more strength for our argument and a better political climate, frankly, in order to propose this at a younger age.”
Instead, the guidelines kept the previous recommendations, published a decade ago, allowing surgeries for minors on a case-by-case basis.
Most of the people who had the surgery are happy, “In 2018, doctors at the pediatric gender clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles published a study of 136 transgender patients ages 13 to 25, half of whom had undergone top surgery. Adolescents who had not undergone the procedure reported significantly more distress because of their chests.”
Political rhetoric is causing a chilling effect with, ” Republican politicians in states across the country are pushing to ban all gender-affirming care for adolescents, focusing much of their rhetoric on surgeries. In Florida, where the medical board is considering such a ban for minors, Gov. Ron DeSantis has argued that surgeons should be sued for “disfiguring” children. In Texas, where parents of transgender children have been investigated for child abuse, Gov. Greg Abbott has called genital surgeries in adolescents ‘genital mutilation.’”
But some like William find a way even when they can’t get it done in their home state, “William, 14, who has identified as a boy since he was a young child, was supposed to see a plastic surgeon in Plano, Texas, for top surgery in May. But the surgeon canceled the appointment in March because the medical center’s malpractice insurer stopped covering top surgeries for minors.”
In August, William and his family flew to California, paying $10,000 more to get the procedure out of state.Two weeks later, William started ninth grade as just another boy in school. He looks forward to swimming with his shirt off and going to class without wearing a binder.
“It’s like something was unburied,” William said. “My chest was just covering what was always there.”
@gendersurgeon #ftm #topsurgery #drgallagher #transman #nonbinary #enby #topsurgery #drgallagher #ftmtrans ♬ Blue Blood – Heinz Kiessling & Various Artists
