Transgender Surgeries: Just One for Every 77,708 Americans

Only about 4,118 Americans surgically altered their bodies in hospitals from 2000 to 2014 to appear like members of the opposite sex, according to a pro-transgender medical study.

The peer-reviewed data in the Journal of the American Medical Association emerged as activists for transgenderism escalate their demands that 330 million Americans rewrite their society to suppress the basic and useful distinctions between male and female.

The number of 4,118 Americans who surgically modified their chests or genitalia during the 15-year period divides up to roughly 275 people per year, according to the study.

In percentage terms, the 4,118 people who underwent surgery is just 0.0013 percent of the 320 million people who live in the United States, according to the study.

In fractional terms, the population of 4,188 patients is just one surgery for every 77,708 Americans.

Opponents of the transgender ideology “have compassion for people who fall into the 0.01 percent” of people who feel the need to appear as members of the other sex, said Canadian pastor Paul Dirks. “But we’re not going to change [sex and privacy] policies for 50 percent of the population … it would be the tail wagging the dog.”

Moreover, the 4,118 are just 10.9 percent of the 37,827 people who checked into hospitals with “a diagnosis code of transsexualism or gender identity disorder” during the 15-year period, says the JAMA report. 

So just 10.9 percent of self-described transgender people who entered hospitals choose to undergo genital surgery.

Most “transgender” people do not undergo the high-risk genital surgery, but try to live with their original genitalia, perhaps with some facial cosmetic surgery.

Experts dispute the reasons for this partial sex-switch, with some experts saying that some non-surgical transformations are undertaken by heterosexual men to become closer to the women whom they desire sexually.

The JAMA report notes that roughly quarter of the estimated 4,118 people who underwent the surgeries recorded in the study did not have surgery on the genitals. “There are a lot of people out there who do not understand that that the vast majority of male-to-female [transgender people] … still have male bodies,” said Dirks. 

Medical researchers are still trying to discover the long-term medical and mental impact of hormones and surgery, amid evidence that the medical procedures often deliver few lifestyle benefits to people, while delivering much revenues to the medical sector. 

Aside from surgery, many additional people take opposite-sex hormones to create temporary changes in their body, such as enlarged breasts on men or male-pattern baldness in women. Many people also stop taking the hormones to return to normal, partly because the hormones are only partially effective and have many side effects.

The rising number of children who are trying to change their sex tend to take puberty-blocking drugs that may damage their growth and bones.

Other experts argue that young gay men and lesbians are being pushed to appear as members of the other sex, so concealing their homosexuality under an opposite-sex appearance.

A growing number of apparent transgender people avoid surgery and return — or “de-transition” — back to their sex.

Despite the tiny share of the population who take undergo the expensive, painful and difficult-to-reverse cosmetic procedures, top Democrats and senior judges are racing to declare that men can become women — and can freely use spaces and civic rules designed for women, regardless of what women prefer.

These declarations are being made amid pressure from transgender advocates who argue that the government should suppress any biological, legal or civic recognition of the distinctions between men and women, boys and girls.

"No matter what you look like, where you come from, how you worship, who you love, how you identify, or any other inherent identifier that you have, you should be celebrated because of who you are, not despite it." — Danica Roem #WomensHistoryMonth pic.twitter.com/iiARjohAIi

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) March 12, 2018

Despite the rarity of transgender people, Democrats and judges are accepting this ideological demand even for the many transsexuals who do not have surgery and are even applying opposite-sex descriptions to people before their attempted sex change.

In a March 7 decision, a three-judge panel on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals casually flipped the pronouns from “he” to “she” to show their agreement with the transgender claim that men can become women even before they say anything about wanting to change sex:

Aimee Stephens (formerly known as Anthony Stephens) was born biologically male. While living and presenting as a man, she worked as a funeral director at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. … Stephens was terminated from the Funeral Home by its owner and operator, Thomas Rost, shortly after Stephens informed Rost that she intended to transition from male to female and would represent herself and dress as a woman while at work.

In D.C., pro-transgender lobbying groups try to maximize the number of transgender people.

The 4,118 surgery patients is a tiny percentage of the transgender population claimed by transgender activist groups:

An estimated 0.6% of adults in the United States, or 1.4 million individuals, identify as transgender, according to a new study authored by researchers at The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The study provides the first ever state-level estimates of the percentage of adults who identify as transgender throughout the United States, ranging from 0.3% in North Dakota to 0.8% in Hawaii.

But the 4,118 surgery patients are only 0.3 percent of the claimed 1.4 million population, or 1-in-333 of the claimed 1.4 million population.

The 37,827 recorded hospital patients are only 2.7 percent of the claimed 1.4 million population, or one-37th of the claimed population.

The Williams Institute also says an “estimated 150,000 transgender individuals have served in the U.S. armed forces, or are currently on active duty.” If so, that number is 36 times JAMA’s estimate for all of the people who had hospital transgender-related surgery from 2000 to 2014.

The JAMA report does include some good news for transgender activists, including the rising number of surgeries funded by the taxpayer. The report said :

The number of patients seeking these procedures who were covered by Medicare or Medicaid increased by 3-fold in 2014 (to 70) compared with 2012-2013 (from 25).

Also, the number of people claiming to be uncomfortable with their body has risen sharply amid the growing media coverage of the transgender ideology. The rate of claimed transsexualism or gender identity disorder” rates increased by 3.67-fold, from 3.87 per 100 000 patients in 2000 to 14.22 per 100 000 patients in 2014,” the report says.

The JAMA study was based on “health record information from approximately 1000 hospitals per year across a varied number of states, with 46 states represented in 2011.”

The JAMA report admits the hospital data may be misleading — but it does not know whether the data exaggerates or downplays the number of people who object to their sex.

For example, some people to get genital cosmetic surgery in Thailand, so concealing a larger number of people who say they are transgender.

But the hospital data used by JAMA may exaggerate the numbers because it allows does not have patient identification numbers, ensuring that the 32,827 recorded hospital visits many be repeat visits by individual patients.

Even adding in estimated surgeries in Thailand,  “10,000 would be a safe number” of Americans who have had gender-related surgery, said Dirks.  “It is still very small,” he added.

The transgender ideology is deeply unpopular, especially among women and parents. In 2017, former President Barack Obama told NPR that his promotion of the transgender ideology made it easier for Donald Trump to win the presidency.

In practice, the transgender ideology requires women to silently accept men who claim to have a female “gender identity” in women’s bathrooms, showers, and sports clubs. It also requires parents to stand aside when their children decide to begin a lifetime of risky and self-sterilizing medical treatments to help them pretend they are members of the opposite sex.

But multiple polls also show that most Americans wish to help and comfort people who think they are a member of the opposite sex, even as they also reject the transgender ideology’s claim that a person’s legal sex is determined by their feeling of “gender identity,” not by their biology.

Despite the huge expense, conflict, and damage to young people, the gender ideology is rapidly gaining power, aided by huge donations from wealthy individuals and medical companies. In Ohio, for example, in February, a judge forced parents of a teenage girl to give up custody so she can begin a lifetime of drug treatments and surgery that will allow her to appear as a male. Also, officials in New York and various universities have threatened to penalize people who do not refer to men as if they are women, and several judges have declared that Pentagon officials must accept recruits who want to change their sex.

The progressive push to bend Americans’ attitudes and their male-and-female civic society around the idea of “gender” has already attacked and cracked many of the popular social rules which help Americans manage the cooperation and competition among and between complementary, different and equal men and women.

These pro-gender claims have an impact on different-sex bathrooms, shelters for battered women, sports leagues for girls, hiking groups for boys, K-12 curricula, university speech codes, religious freedoms, free speech, the social status of women, parents’ rights in childrearing, practices to help teenagers, health outcomes, women’s expectations of beauty, culture and civic society, scientific research, prison safety, civic ceremonies, school rules, men’s sense of masculinity, law enforcement, and children’s sexual privacy.