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Cosmetic Surgery Among Transgender People: Is it Ethical?
The prevalence of transgender individuals, those who do not feel comfortable with the sex that nature granted them with, have been around throughout all times for virtually every culture on the globe. Some cultures embraced their transgender folk, allowing them to freely express their complex sexuality. But these cultures are not as well known. What is more common are those that persecute transgender people. Yet, as gayness and other alternative lifestyles come to the forefront of many Western nations, the transgender way has started to become more accepted. In fact in Western nations, (along with those trying to emulate them), modern advances in cosmetic surgery has taken the transgender lifestyle to a new physical level.
What type of cosmetic surgery do transgender people get? Technically, it can be the same type of cosmetic surgery as anyone else gets; nose jobs, liposuctions, etc. However, these forms of cosmetic surgery do not normally cause controversy. The type of cosmetic surgery that does cause some people to feel uncomfortable is what is known as a sex change. Through a sex change the transgender person uses cosmetic surgery to remove any physical signs of their former gender. Men get implants to create breasts, while also removing the testicles and surgically manipulating the penis. Why should the word manipulating be used instead of 'remove' when it comes to a male-to-female sex change? It's because the penis is actually inverted to create a vagina. So in actuality the penis just changes form, allowing the man to retain sexual feeling. Women, on the other hand, get their breasts, vagina and uterus removed, though the outer portion of the vagina is also surgically 'manipulated.' The clitoris is either elongated to create a small penis, or a penis is created through skin grafts. To create testicles the labia majora are sewn together, after which prosthetic testicles are inserted. When using this form of cosmetic surgery, women will not be able to get a natural erection as those who were born men.
So, once this form of cosmetic surgery is done, does it make a person feel any better about their gender? And is it ethical? The answer to both questions is it depends on who you ask. There have been stories of transgender people that get on the operating table again, using cosmetic surgery to change themselves back to their original sex. Yet, there are also stories of people who were completely satisfied with their operations and their new lives as a different sex. In terms of ethics, on the one hand the sex change form of cosmetic surgery has made many transgender people 'happy'. On the other hand, is the sex change form of cosmetic surgery just a cover-up for feelings that are really homosexual? Does the transgender person think by being the opposite gender their 'homosexual' urges become less noticeable by society?
Indeed, many homosexuals do not like the transgender phenomenon. Many of them feel if you're gay, you should just be gay. You don't have to change your sex to do that. In fact, the more that people change their sex the more they might be sending the message that being a 'normal' gay person is unacceptable.
However, what about transgender people that still go to the opposite sex once their sex change form of cosmetic surgery is finished? To the outside world, they would look gay, but biologically they wouldn't be. But then again many 'normal' people straight or gay would wonder why go through such a drastic form of cosmetic surgery if you're going to the opposite sex anyway?
All in all there are no clear-cut ethical solutions when it comes to the most extreme cosmetic surgery a person can get: the sex change. Perhaps the best piece of advice that can be given to those considering this type of cosmetic surgery is that it's still a surgical procedure, complete with risks that may not give you the results you want or worse physically damage you. It is better to try to exhaust non-surgical means of dealing with inferiority feelings, rather than thinking a scalpel can solve all your problems, especially with cosmetic surgery of such magnitude.
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