Abstract
Currently, the WPATH guidelines recommend that a person be at the majority age in order to be considered a candidate for bottom surgery. In British Columbia, the majority is 19 years. However, in our clinical experience, there are youth between the ages of 16 to 19 that may benefit from having the surgery earlier. Some may say that waiting until 19 to have bottom surgery done is a "safe" practice, but we often ask ourselves if it is the best interest for our clients. First of all, different provinces and countries have different standards on the "age of majority". Therefore, to consider a youth's readiness based only on the age of majority can be misleading. Perhaps it may be more accurate to reflect their readiness based on the youth's maturity, support systems, and consistency of their gender identity development. This paper used a focus group with nine different youths to generate themes regarding their experiences of having to wait for surgery. This paper will also examine how they perceive the risks and benefits for early surgery.
Author Information
Wallace Wong, Diversity Emotional Wellness Center, Canada
Paper Information
Conference: ACP2016
Stream: Qualitative/Quantitative Research in any other area of Psychology
This paper is part of the ACP2016 Conference Proceedings (View)
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