Doctors Advocate for Loosening Restrictions on Sex Change Operations

Two doctors are advocating for an end to mental health assessments as a requirement for sex change operations. 

An academic article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) argues that “requiring gender-affirming surgical adult patients to obtain an assessment letter prior to surgery is an unnecessary barrier to care,” according to one synopsis celebrating the article. 

Titled “Moving Beyond Psychiatric Gatekeeping for Gender-Affirming Surgery,” the article’s abstract reads, “Gatekeeping in gender-affirming care refers to unnecessary and harmful barriers to gender-affirming hormone therapy … or gender-affirming surgery.”

Authored by doctors Catherine A. Wu and Alex S. Keuroghlian, the article goes on to say, “What constitutes gatekeeping vs reasonable precautions to ensure surgical candidacy has been controversial.”

It also notes that “surgical standards are primarily designed around the nonmaleficence principle of medical ethics to prevent regret about undergoing irreversible procedures” before going on to claim “detransition, or cessation of gender-affirming care, is largely due to external factors (eg, nonsupportive family, discrimination, or limited finances) rather than a change of gender identity, and regret for transition is exceedingly rare.”

Author Alex S. Keuroghlian argues that “[c]isgender adults routinely undergo hysterectomies, breast augmentation or reduction, and rhinoplasty without a requirement for separate assessment by a mental health clinician.”

“We should trust transgender people to know their own identities and health care priorities in the same way we trust cisgender people,” he also added. 

The synopsis celebrating the article states that those who identify as transgender are already “engaged in other forms of affirmation” such as binding, tucking, changing their name, and taking hormones to artificially masculinize or feminize themselves. 

Breitbart News previously revealed that mental health clinician and clinical supervisor Sarah Eley advocated for getting individuals approved for sex change operations in as few sessions as possible. 

She also urged health care professionals to act as “allies,” saying “We are still in this process of putting up barriers for trans, non-binary, and gender diverse people and it’s really crucial in this process of serving as allies.”

The talk was given through the Fenway Institute, a pro-transgender organization. Eley was previously an outpatient therapist at Fenway Health, where she provided “gender affirming, trauma informed care, through a Liberation Health and racial equity lens.”

Meanwhile, Keuroghlian, one of the authors of the article, directs the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at The Fenway Institute and as well as the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Gender Identity Program.

Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com.