Gender Dysphoria

[Delkaetre]

Are you familiar with it? You may know someone who has it. Gender Dysphoria , in particularly simple terms, is when someone feels they are trapped within a body of the wrong sex.
With over a third of cases resulting in attempted suicide if the sufferer is left without help, and multiple suicide attempts in up to 14% of cases, gender dysphoria is not a condition to be ignored. Some groups choose to see it as a sin or particular aberration, to be left untreated or to be 'fixed' in the same way as fundamentalist Christian de-gay centres. Others believe that a course of therapy followed by hormonal treatment and eventual surgical correction is the right way to deal with things.

At the moment, Oxfordshire in England doesn't give GD sufferers the second option . It refuses surgical treatment unless patients fit exceptional criteria. The problem with this is that the selected criteria automatically prevent a GD sufferer from undergoing surgical treatment. Since 2006, only one individual has been referred for Gender Reassignment Surgery, and that was only after taking legal action against Oxfordshire PCT.

Placed in politics because treatment of GD varies across the world, because how it's treated and whether treatment is subsidised is often a matter of government morality, and because gender issues are still incredibly important in day to day life and political issues.
And because, if you're in England and think that Oxfordshire PCT is doing a very unpleasant and dubiously legal thing, there is an online petition to sign to try and get this changed.

[Alarica]

Oxfordshire has far bigger PCT issues that not recognising and offering help for gender dysphoria. They want to shut important facilities such as the childrens ward and maternity unit at Banbury's Horton hospital, in order to pump even more money into the John Radcliffe. Because they are STILL expanding the JR and the Churchill, they cant afford to provide vital cancer clinics in Banbury, or most childrens clinics, and for these, some people have to travel to oxford which is a good 45 minute journey when there isnt traffic. Banbury's SCBU doesnt have a c-pap machine, but the PCT has the funding to build a new cancer wing onto the Churchill. They have only stopped trying to shut the Horton because of people fighting to keep it. Because oddly, people think it's far more important people not have to travel 45 minutes to Oxford with a sick child or a woman in labour, than they do the very small minority who think they are the wrong sex.

[isobel black]

Great initiative, this petition! (and your mentioning it here)

This particular condition is one I have difficulty getting my head around personally, but I feel it is definitely wrong to deny treatment outright.

But what's this bollocks about having to be a U.K. resident in order to sign?

[Delkaetre]

Isobel, it's a UK petition- UK residents to influence UK domestic affairs, especially local stuff. Most governments prefer not to have foreign parties trying to interfere in local affairs.

Alarica, I was not aware that Oxfordshire PCT was so bad on general medical support.
However, please do not so lightly dismiss the problems the GD sufferers have. "A few people who think they're the wrong sex" is pretty insulting to those who suffer from it. They are, yes, a minority- 1 in 4000 undergoing treatment, but that figure is changing and there may be many more with GD. They also, yes, seem to think they're the wrong sex. But there's also evidence to suggest a possible chemical or hormonal reason, a real physical reason. So they don't just think they're in the wrong body.
From what you say everyone has it bad- therefore, it's not a matter of picking sides and claiming one group's suffering is worse than another's. A more sensible approach, perhaps, would be for all constituents affected to make a single, unified attack. Not just pressuring for children's wards. Not just pressuring for maternity services. Not just pressuring for cancer wards. And, indeed, not just pressuring for GD aid.
The GD thing came up because I follow the PennyRed blog linked in my post, and I tend to feel strongly about it. GD is something that gets only minimal support at the best of times- everyone agrees that cancer is bad, but a lot of people see GD as a false thing and not worth bothering with. It was open to everyone because, well, it's the only way to get support across the country. It can be really hard for GD sufferers to get support from their own family, never mind individuals who've never met someone with it.
(all this said, the GD sufferers are looking for referral to Charing Cross *before* they end up suicidal or damaged. This is hardly expensive and doesn't require new hospital wings or the kind of specialist equipment a neonatal ward needs- just a change in guidelines.)