The Psychopathology of "Sex Reassignment" Surgery: Assessing Its Medical Psychological, and Ethical Appropriateness
Creator
Fitzgibbons, Richard P.
Sutton, Philip M.
O'Leary, Dale
Bibliographic Citation
National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 2009 Spring; 9(1): 97-125
Abstract
Is it ethical to perform a surgery whose purpose is to make a male look like a female or a female to appear male? Is it medically appropriate? Sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) violates basic medical and ethical principles and is therefore not ethically or medically appropriate. (1) SRS mutilates a healthy, non-diseased body. To perform surgery on a healthy body involves unnecessary risks; therefore, SRS violates the principle primum non nocere, "first, do no harm." (2) Candidates for SRS may believe that they are trapped in the bodies of the wrong sex and therefore desire or, more accurately, demand SRS; however, this belief is generated by a disordered perception of self. Such a fixed, irrational belief is appropriately described as a delusion. SRS, therefore, is a "category mistake"?it offers a surgical solution for psychological problems such as a failure to accept the goodness of one's masculinity or femininity, lack of secure attachment relationships in childhood with same-sex peers or a parent, self-rejection, untreated gender identity disorder, addiction to masturbation and fantasy, poor body image, excessive anger, and severe psychopathology in a parent. (3) SRS does not accomplish what it claims to accomplish. It does not change a person's sex; therefore, it provides no true benefit. (4) SRS is a "permanent," effectively unchangeable, and often unsatisfying surgical attempt to change what may be only a temporary (i.e., psychotherapeutically changeable) psychological/psychiatric condition.
Permanent Link
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http://timetravel.mementoweb.org/memento/2009/http://ncbcenter.metapress.com/app/home/journal.asp
http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1029434
Date
2009-03Collections
Metadata
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