Doctors “forced to carry out sex change ops”, says the Daily Mail

 

 

I’m coming a couple of days late to this as the Daily Mail thoughtlessly published their piece whilst I was offline at the weekend, but it’s still worth a blog post to clarify the issues. According to an article they’ve run, (Caution: Daily Mail Link) Doctors are being “forced to carry out sex change ops” under “new guidelines” by the General Medical Council. (GMC)

(Edited to add: The GMC guidance is available on their web site. (PDF Link). The relevant piece is the footnote to paragraph 5 on page 3)

Firstly, these are very specialised surgeries and you can’t just rock up to an operating theatre and carry one out without quite a bit of training and it’s not an area one accidentally stumbles into. I only know the surgeons practising vaginoplasty (I.e. for transwomen) but there are perhaps two or three who do any significant number in the whole of the UK – Phil Thomas, James Bellringer and possibly if he’s still practising, Tim Terry.

The idea of being “forced” to carry out such an operation is ludicrous. The guidelines are there simply to prevent GPs from blocking patients who want to access these services, not push people into specialisations they don’t want to pursue.

Secondly, this is not new but just clarifying the GMC’s existing view. The GMC made it clear at a meeting in January that they regard this as bad practice already. (I do not entire agree with this stance, as getting care for Trans people often requires a GP willing to fight on the behalf of their patients and go that extra mile)

Oh, there’s some random bleating about how the marginalises Christian medics. They need to get over that obsession that followers of one particular incarnation of the gods are being persecuted, as Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on being transphobic. You don’t even need to be religious to be prejudiced.

So pretty much the usual level of accuracy we’d expect from a Daily Mail post on Trans issues, really.

I'm in slight disbelief at how a newspaper can create such nonsensical sensationalist stories, this article is utter tosh. 
But then again it is the Daily Mail.
No doctor is being forced into carrying out sex changes! It is of course a hugely specialist area, and as commented above is only able to be carried out by very few surgeons in the UK. God forbid (pun intended) that random doctors should be told they must "have a go" at sex change surgery on anyone who is referred to them.
The Daily Mail have, not for the first time, entirely made up their headline. Perhaps some Christian GP's are reluctant to help TG patients, either with prescriptions or referrals to the relevant specialists. I can't believe there really are many such GP's in practice in the UK though. As one observer commented on this article: "They are doctors, if they want to make a stand on religious ethics, they should have become priests."
Religion has no place in medicine (not to mention the modern world). But the Daily Mail really are scraping the barrel this time. Have they learnt nothing from the recent Richard Littlejohn incident? They seem determined to ridicule gender dysphoria and its treatment in this country. They are unbelievably out of touch, but their complete making up of such stories shows that someone there must have a certain agenda.
The world is changing around them, they surely can't go on printing this drivel for much longer.
Foolish, foolish people.

Firstly, thanks Cristine for being the one who has to trawl the sensationalist, reactionary pit of middle-aged, middle class angst that is the Daily Mail. Still being susceptible to the ravages of testosterone, it would probably make me spontaneously combust to have to do that job!

 

As both you and Lucy have said, it is complete nonsense and fabrication (but when does the Daily Mail ever consider the actual truth when there is a salacious story ?).

 

I am assuming that an official representation has been made to the Press Council? If not, can we do that and also perhaps petition the Daily Mail who continue to print this garbage to pander to their readership, who are all convinced the country is about to be overrun by a coalition of transgendered/gay/asylum-seeking lefties. It's a wonder they can sleep at night with all that worry, poor loves!

 

xx

Don't you just love the tabloids?

 

Take the facts and then warp them into something far more interesting for their readers to digest as 'the truth'. 

 

It must have been a slow week in the press for that to be printed.