I never meant to offend him. Oops, there I go again. He is now a She and I'm supposed to call him Miss. He's the first sex change patient I've ever looked after. I was supposed to check his surgical wound, or operation site is more like it, but I ended up asking one of the female staff to take a look.
He still looked like a man, he still needed to shave, although he did have long wavy blonde hair which most women would die for. I know as a nurse I'm supposed to be professional and not think the strange thoughts going through my head, but I can't help it. This man had 'IT' chopped off. I don't even know if they took his testicles off as well. If they did he must have to take hormone treatment or something. I wonder what sort of chromosones he has. I've heard of people with and extra X or extra Y chromosone, so I imagine that must be confusing.
He didn't talk to me much during the course of the day, in fact I would say he looked rather depressed. I hope he wasn't regretting his decision because it's way too late now. Unsurprisingly his voice didn't change, didn't become higher by an octave or two.
I don't mean to sound cruel or uncaring, and this may not seem like a big deal to most people, but what do I say to the guy. Maybe he's pissed off at me because I keep calling him Mr Jones instead of Mrs.
Curiousity is such a powerful force, and by the end of the shift I was almost regretting not having checked on the surgical site. Would it look normal, would it be convincing. Oh well, maybe I'll come across another patient like this one day, maybe in another twelve years.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
He was a She
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2 comments:
Sir, you were indeed being incredibly transphobic in your attitude and approach towards this woman. It does not remotely surprise me that your patient (who by the way should be correctly referred to using female pronouns) was uncomfortable around you. I am not at all surprised that she didn't want to talk to you. She is a woman, she is not a guy. If I were to constantly call you a woman and refer to you as she/her you would eventually find it insulting.
The correct term is transgender or transsexual and not "sex change patient."
The condition you were referring to of people having an extra X or extra Y chromosome is accurately referred to as intersexed.
The sort of chromosomes she had mostly likely were XY. And for your information yes, they remove the testicles.
The patient herself was most likely transsexual. Transsexual is a more specific term and refers to people who live as the opposite gender than they were assigned at birth. They may take hormones, and they may have sexual reassignment surgery, but it's not a requirement.
In many countries the requirements for a patient to undergo SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) is living as a member of their desired gender for one year and taking hormones for a certain period of time as well as two notes of recommendation and a diagnosis of GID (gender identity disorder). So yes you were indeed correct in the assumption about the hormones.
Transgender is the overall umbrella terminology for people who don't identify with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Intersex and transsexual are two more specific categories underneath that umbrella terminology.
For future reference as to how to address transgender individuals in the future please read this website thoroughly:
http://www.glaad.org/media/guide/transfocus.php
Also it is not appropriate to look at the "site" as you called it just to satisfy your own curiosity. That's rather sick. If your mother had some sort procedure done to her genitals you would not want a nurse or doctor or anyone who was just curious to come stare at her genitals.
I really enjoyed reading your blog up until this point, but based on the extreme transphobia in this post I will no longer read your blog.
I suggest that you educate yourself on transgender issues especially because you are a health care worker and may come into contact with transgender individuals again in the future. Your attitude towards this woman was 100% unacceptable.
Dear Anonymous, in response to your comment: Before you make up your mind (although it sounds like you already have) I should explain some more.
1. I was a quite a big younger, less experienced and worldly when I came across my first transgender patient. I did sometimes get his/her gender mixed up, but we're not perfect.
2. Most people would be curious to see just how such an operation turned out, to actually visually see how good, or bad a job a surgeon can do in such a case. I of course didn't take a look as that would be unprofessional, but to say that people aren't curious us rubbish. I bet you've had some thoughts where you wondered something, but of course wouldn't because it would be unprofessional.
3. It's dissapointing you find my post phobic as I see it more as ignorant, but honest. What's the point in having a blog if we can't show the bad as well as the good.
2.
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