“A law like this would kill a lot of patients.” Plastic surgeons have criticized the planned ban on sex reassignment in Russia

If the State Duma passes a bill prohibiting sex reassignment, including surgery, death threatens a significant number of patients with gender identity disorders. This was told to Russian media by plastic surgeons who perform gender reassignment operations in Russia.

On May 30, a bill was submitted to the State Duma to ban sex reassignment operations. Among the 360 ​​co-author deputies was the speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, as well as his deputies.

In recent months, the demand for operations has increased, apparently in connection with current events – patients are already coming with a change of sex in their passports, Dmitry Krasnozhon, candidate of medical sciences, oncology surgeon and mammologist, told Russian media.

The surgeon performs 10 to 15 operations a year. He is more often approached with a request for FTM, i.e. female to male. Female-to-male transition surgery may include phalloplasty to create a penis and removal of the breast (mastectomy).

Transsexualism is a disease, emphasizes Krasnojon. “In general, I think in LGBT “T” is superfluous. After a sex change, people adapt to society and do not suffer from suicidal tendencies. Most transsexuals do not show their illness and live in peace. If the law is passed, then, of course, in my opinion, it is a step backwards in our development of medicine. The next step back will be in psychiatry, and then we’ll cremate all sick children at birth? he asks.

In the practice of a plastic surgeon from St. Petersburg, Maxim Usungvan, who performs sex reassignment surgeries, there are also more FTM operations – that is, from women to men. “Several dozen operations a year, I definitely perform a sex change. The number of patients with this disease is always constant, ”he specifies.

Many associate sex reassignment with “non-traditional” sex, but that’s not the case at all, experts say. “We have a region in the brain that is responsible for gender identification. When there is a disturbance in the work of this part of the brain, a shift between the external and internal state occurs. For example, the external state can correspond to the female sex, but inside the person believes that he is a man,” explains Usungwan.

According to the doctor, this category of patients requires treatment that can bring the internal state into line with the appearance. And banning sex reassignment ends the lives of people with gender identity disorders.

“It’s like a ban on operating oncology patients. We have to treat it as a disease, not as some kind of leprosy or vice that society or especially legislators endow with this disease,” Usungwan said.

Statistics show that the number of suicides in these patients can reach 50%. This happens because society does not accept them and because they do not have the opportunity to align their internal state with the external, explains Usungwan.

“A law like this would actually kill most of these patients. They will not be able to receive adequate modern treatment, which is recognized worldwide and literally saves the lives of these patients,” Krasnojon added.

These patients will seek opportunities to travel to other countries to perform operations. But it should be understood that their cost is extremely high, and many people with gender identity disorders are not socially adapted in Russia.

“It means that society does not accept them, it is difficult for them to adapt socially and find a good job. Most do not even have an average income and therefore the ability to pay for such treatment. It’s not just surgical treatment, it’s hormone therapy and endocrinological treatment. All of this requires a lot of finance,” Usungwan pointed out.

Maybe lawmakers just don’t know this disease can be cured, suggests the surgeon. “In some countries, for example, like Israel, this disease is treated free of charge under an insurance policy. All operations and all so-called transitions are paid for by the state,” he said.

Read the Latest Ukraine War News on The Eastern Herald.