How Accessible Should Transgender Surgery Be?

December 22, 2014

(Johns Hopkins) – How many doctors should have to sign off before a transgender person is allowed to get sex reassignment surgery? A newly published paper calls into question the ethics of the current protocol, which requires that transgender people obtain two separate referrals from mental health professionals. Unfortunately, the paper also argues for a strengthened use of another requirement – the so-called “real life test” – that’s long been criticized as ethically unsound.