Last week essayist Andrea Long Chu had an opinion piece published in the New York Times that rocked the transgender and cisgender communities alike. Chu is about to have vaginoplasty, a surgery that will give her a new vagina as part of her process of transitioning from male to female. However, instead of persuading readers of how incredible it will be, Chu admits it may not make her happy after all.
Chu even admits that taking female hormones as part of partially transitioning has made her feel worse. Still, Chu is going ahead with the surgery, and believes the rest of us should support and encourage her, because desire to transition (regardless of results) should trump outcome, necessity, and even science.
Chu lists a number of emotions describing how she feels after starting hormones to help her transition to a woman more fully: She feels “worse,” suicidal, and like a “marshand of regret.” The surgery, she reveals, could be difficult and recovery will be hard:
Chu is right. Healthline describes a vaginoplasty recovery this way.
“Your surgeon will provide you with a dilation schedule. Typically, it involves inserting the dilator for 10 minutes, three times per day for the first three months and once per day for the next three months. Then, you’ll do it two to three times per week for at least one year. The diameter of the dilator will also increase as the months go by.”
Chu admits what conservatives have been warning for years: “Buried under all of this, like a sober tuber, lies an assumption so sensible you’ll think me silly for digging it up. It’s this: People transition because they think it will make them feel better. The thing is, this is wrong.”
Chu continues to argue, despite all this, she should have the surgery. The medical community, in addition to anyone else with an opinion, should support this, Chu argues: “But I also believe that surgery’s only prerequisite should be a simple demonstration of want. Beyond this, no amount of pain, anticipated or continuing, justifies its withholding.”
Chu closes by saying it’s not the surgery or its outcome that matters. Whether the surgery alleviates psychological or physical pain is irrelevant. What makes going through with surgery important is that the medical community, peers, and others take Chu seriously in her process of going from male to female.
This is a terrifying standard of medicinal practice, or really anything. If doctors viewed any potential surgery or treatment under the lens of whether or not someone simply had a legitimate desire, that would not only fail to be taken seriously, it would be unhealthy.
Look at drugs, for example: Some drugs might really alleviate pain, but they can also cause addiction and even death. Do we keep allowing an addict to partake just because they want to? Because the patient wants be taken seriously?
For not having yet fully transitioned, Chu is remarkably intuitive and her statements are as profound as they are heartbreaking. In trying to convince the rest of us, conservatives and liberals alike, that we are wrong, she inadvertently persuades us we have been accurate in trying to discourage transitioning, particularly by young people.
In making the case that transitioning may not help her and still saying she should be allowed to simply because she wants to, she reminds us how much dysphoria needs to be addressed in terms of pure psychology and that a full blown transition, hormones and surgery, should be avoided.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
