Exploring the Medical and Moral Ethics of Transgender Surgery in Children (Essay Sample)

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27 July 2016
Exploring the Medical and Moral Ethics of Transgender Surgery in Children
During the previous years, the awareness of society on how it is to be a transgender growing up have increased. Certain hospitals do their part in helping children who identify themselves as transgender have a deeper understanding of their adolescence The generations of transgender people that have passed were only given the option to undergo surgery or take hormones to make transition possible. Although, because of research and innovation, children can now transition regardless of age. There are medical risks involved that have been discovered and some are yet to be revealed.
There is vitality in recognizing the variety of treatments for persons that have “gender dysphoria” – it is being used to refer to individuals that declare psychological distress in terms of imbalance among those perceived gender identity and the biological sex. The need to absorb the spectrum of these treatments, their limitations and possibilities they can offer to the modern world need to be explored.
Based on the study done by the Primary Care Protocol for Transgender Patient Care in the University of California, the typical concern of parents is if what their child is going through is only a stage or phase in their child's life. According to research, majority of these boys will go on as gay adolescents, and 50% of the gender variant natal girls will grow up to become transgender adolescent and men. In simpler terms, there is a chance that these children are going through a phase as suspected by parents and people in the medical field. This is an indication that majority of children with gender dysphoria will not continue to adolescence. Clinical experience says that “gender dysphoria” can be assessed after the child shows early signs of puberty.
If someone makes a decision to undergo transition, there is a possibility that part of the process is social in terms of selecting a new name, change of pronouns, a shift in the clothes worn, and due to medical reasons. The use of puberty blockers is one medical development to treat transgender children. These medications keep the body from producing estrogen or testosterone to stop the changes that happen during puberty. It gives families the chance to cease the process to stop natal puberty until the right direction for the child is determined. These puberty blockers allow children to feel gender dysphoria in order to feel that they're in the wrong body making them contemplate on their gender identity. No tests exists yet that can tell if a child is only experiencing distress about there is going to become a transgender. There are studies showing that gender dysphoria is only present in a minority of children, but only a small number of children are tested and it is done abroad.
The objective of gender surgeries and therapies is to lessen the sexual characteristics of the child's gender at birth, and to promote the development of the sexual characteristics of the opposite sex. This has been deemed as impossible because no treatment is able to change one's genetic genotype, and the traits linked to sex will always be shown by the original genome. A lot of the characteristics like, bone structure, stature, anatomy, and vocal cord structure are all irreversible. Due to these limitations, the physicians that treat patients with gender dysphoria can only do limited changes to the body of the patient in terms of appearance until the patient is satisfied with the outcome.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth have the tendency to experience suicidal thoughts and behaviors. It is because the ones who have been claiming to be the opposite sex are having a difficult time accepting the secondary sexual characteristics that their body undergoes during puberty. The voices start to become deeper, beard starts to grow, and breasts begin to develop in girls. This is unacceptable to them as they are not comfortable. This is psychologically stressful to them and there is a possibility that society is going to judge and mistreat them.
Majority of the treatments offered today are not affordable to those who do not have insurance. The injectable...