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- cross-posted to:
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- news
- [email protected]
- health
The Medical University of South Carolina initially said it wouldn’t be affected by a law banning use of state funds for treatment “furthering the gender transition” of children under 16. Months later, it cut off that care to all trans minors.
One Saturday morning in September 2022, Terrence Steyer, the dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, placed an urgent call to a student. Just a year prior, the medical student, Thomas Agostini, had won first place at a university-sponsored event for his graduate research on transgender pediatric patients. He also had been featured in a video on MUSC’s website highlighting resources that support the LGBTQ+ community.
Now, Agostini and his once-lauded study had set off a political firestorm. Conservative activists seized on one line in particular in the study’s summary — a parenthetical noting the youngest transgender patient to visit MUSC’s pediatric endocrinology clinic was 4 years old — and inaccurately claimed that children that young were prescribed hormones as part of a gender transition. Elon Musk amplified the false claim, tweeting, “Is it really true that four-year-olds are receiving hormone treatment?” That led federal and state lawmakers to frantically ask top MUSC leaders whether the public hospital was in fact helping young children medically transition. The hospital was not; its pediatric transgender patients did not receive hormone therapy before puberty, nor does it offer surgical options to minors.
No they don’t.
Most HRT is less than $50 a month. And trans people make up 1% of the population. Surgery is expensive, but even fewer trans people get those, they tend to be one-offs, and are only performed by a few specialists.
In comparison, therapy costs $100 a week.
You think medical and research organisations in countries all around the world are all risking their reputations to obscure the truth on a highly scrutinised treatment, in order to… Make less money than if they suggested therapy? To take less than fifty bucks a month from one percent of the population?
just because it’s less expensive doesn’t mean it’s right either, just hacking off your body parts to feel “right” in your own body is even cheaper but that doesn’t make it tight, because you shouldn’t have to feel that way in the first place.
The fact that you describe “hacking body parts” off is already an indicator that you have no idea what you are talking about. Many, many trans people never even have surgery and surgeries are not really just chopping bits off. My mastectomy was an outpatient procedure where they sucked some fat out through a tube - essentially what they would do if I was cis and had gynecomastia. Plenty of cisgender men have low testosterone and take the same injections I do.
except low test men aren’t doing it in an attempt to fix a core discomfort with their own identity, you deserve real help instead of bandage fixes.
I have zero discomfort with my own identity. I am a man whose body doesn’t produce enough testosterone. Conversion therapy is not “real help” and is not effective.
I made no mention of conversion therapy, but I am happy you are content with yourself now.
You continue to suggest that trans people get “real help” which you do not believe is gender affirming care. What method are you suggesting, if not conversion therapy?
No no, don’t move the goalposts.
You made a claim of conspiracy, that people are being lead to transition because the treatments “rake in ridiculous amounts of money and would bring in more money than just fixing their real issues”.
That claim is complete nonsense, and you pulled it out of your arse.
Acknowledge that.
okay, I acknowledge that maybe it’s not prohibitively expensive for the end user. You don’t think the development of new products to sell you also makes money for other companies in the chain? They have to develop the product, ways to harvest or synthesize the chemicals in it, deliver it, test it, and refine and iterate upon it.
Now that I’ve acknowledged that, are you going to acknowledge the moral implications of encouraging people to physically and chemically deform themselves to feel comfortable in their own bodies, whether they’re okay with it or not?
I still stand by my point that it’s like putting a band-aid and topical anesthetic on a 3rd degree burn and saying it’s okay because the victim doesn’t have pain anymore.
No.
Acknowledge that you were parroting a ridiculous conspiracy theory.
There is not enough money in this to justify what you are suggesting.
What new products?!
It’s testosterone and estrogens, that’s it.
Every drug and procedure trans people take was developed for cisgender people first.
There are basically zero new, trans-specific products.
I cannot say this strongly enough: what you are saying is a ridiculous conspiracy theory that has zero basis in reality.
so you’re going to ignore the clear moral implications of forcing your body to be something it wasn’t designed to be and instead hyperfixate on me mentioning the cost of the treatment. You can’t call it a conspiracy theory that the medical industry isn’t earning money from it. Any marketable product is a source of income and clearly hormones are in high demand, and as mentioned by another user, something that is purchased regularly throughout the life of the person. Also, you don’t know anything about what areas of hormone production are or aren’t profitable. I can assure you that somewhere down the supply chain, there is a company profiting from it, otherwise it wouldn’t be available in the first place.