One evening at dinner, my mother could not remember something; she also felt her vision was blurry and that she could not speak well. She spoke to her friends and then searched online. People told her she must have had a small stroke. She called me and told me she had had a stroke.
My sister and I took her to the emergency room where they ran an EKG on her heart and did a CT scan of her brain. Thankfully, both showed her to be healthy. The doctor assured her she had not suffered a stroke and sent her home.
When my son struggled with dysphoric feelings, he spoke to his friends and went online. People told him he was a woman. He went to a doctor. The doctor did not run any tests. This is unusual. Doctors like tests; they show how a patient is doing, and they make money for the doctor and the hospital. Some doctors will order a test even though the results will not change the patient’s treatment plan.
My son could have been given a cheek swab test for XX chromosomes. He could have been told he is not a woman and sent home. Instead, they affirmed his feelings and prescribed estrogen and testosterone blockers.
When my son told me he was a woman, he also told me that brain scans of “trans women” were similar to brain scans of women. I asked him if they had scanned his brain. They had not. Why don’t doctors routinely do brain scans on men who claim to be women? They would profit financially from running the test. Could it be that brain scans would not show that some men have brains like women? Could it be that there is no scientific basis for a theory of male or female brains? Could lack of evidence reduce their profits in the long run?
My father is 90 years old and is declining. Since we have ruled out a physical problem, this is likely the cause of my mother’s distress. We are going to seek out a caregiver support group for her. Hopefully, she can find some ways to cope with her distress.
I wish the doctors had told my son that he is physically healthy and sent him home with no treatment, except encouraging him to allow someone, his family, clergy, or an honest therapist, to help him find the cause of his disturbing feelings and ways to cope with his distress.
Isn’t that how medicine is supposed to work? Do doctors still take an oath to do no harm?
My gut reaction to this is I’d like to take every damn doctor who’s done anything to our children that shouldn’t have been done and string them up! I am so sorry to hear this again and again and again it’s over again. These doctors are taking advantage of our children and we can do nothing. My son‘s not a child anymore. He’s a grown man that thinks he’s a woman and thank you to the doctors and nurses and therapists who did this to him. He’s no more a woman than I’m a cat. I’m so tired of this. I’m sorry for your mother and your father and for you and for me.
Totally agree! My son was struggling for several years with depression and very overweight...he told me he didn't pass the psych test for lapband surgery but when he decided gender was the answer no one tested him! In fact he told me had not even been seen by a psychiatrist!