A French gynecologist has been “barred from practising for a month because he refused to examine a transgender patient on the grounds that he was only qualified to treat ‘real women,'” reports The Times.
Dr Victor Acharian was accused by LGBT groups of transphobia in August 2023. Last December, he was summoned before a disciplinary panel of the French Medical Council, and he has now been suspended for a month. Édouard Martial, the patient’s attorney, crowed, “We have the satisfaction of having confirmation that what happened that day was totally abnormal.”
SOS Homophobie, a transgender activist lobby, issued a press release saying that Acharian’s actions are “also punishable by criminal sanctions”.
Some gynecologists have taken Dr. Acharian’s side, observing that treating transgender patients needs special training. Some feminists also agree with Dr. Acharian, observing that the patient had not had sex-change surgery and that a gynecological exam was thus impossible.
“LGBT groups, however, said that transgender patients often faced discrimination or difficulties in gaining access to healthcare,” The Times says.
Dr. Acharian, who practises in the southwestern French city of Pau, could try to challenge the suspension by filing an appeal, but he has not yet decided whether to do so. As The Times reports,
Weeks after the incident, Acharian apologised for any offence caused and said he had offered to refer the trans patient to a specialist who could provide appropriate medical care.
The patient, however, described his refusal as “hyper-violent”…Acharian said the patient shouted, “you’re transphobic”, and insulted his secretary before leaving the clinic.
“I was only trying to be honest when I said it wasn’t my specialty and I wasn’t competent. I offered to refer her to services that could take better care of her,” Dr. Acharian explains.
The patient’s partner left a hostile Google review attacking Dr. Acharian, and he replied with a message addressed to a “gentleman”, saying that he only treated “real women”.
“I have no skills to take care of men, even if they have shaved their beards and they come and tell my secretary that they have become women. My gynaecological examination table is not suitable for examining men,” Acharian explained.
Days later, he said: “I reacted spontaneously, out of anger, as I felt I was being attacked unfairly. My words were very clumsy and they may have caused offence. I’m well aware of that and I have expressed my regret on several occasions.”
Dr. Acharian argues that he is not transphobic or homophobic, having “helped many of my lesbian patients to have a child”.
The Times reports that “Marguerite Stern, a prominent women’s rights activist who has repeatedly clashed with transgender groups over the definition of a woman, said Acharian’s suspension was unjustified.”
“Gynaecologists are only qualified to treat women … We are living in a world of lunatics,” she lamented.
The French National Authority for Health is preparing new guidelines for doctors on treatment standards for transgender patients, which may further cement medical boards’ ability to go after gynecologists like Dr. Acharian.
Sex-change procedures come with serious side effects than can leave transgender people with lifelong pain and discomfort, as a transgender activist conceded in a New York Times op-ed, “My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy.” That’s because of the physical pain and discomfort that result from a sex change, and the artificial, subpar nature of the sex organ that doctors create in sex-change surgery. As Andrea Long Chu wrote in that op-ed:
Next Thursday, I will get a vagina. The procedure will last around six hours, and I will be in recovery for at least three months. Until the day I die, my body will regard the vagina as a wound; as a result, it will require regular, painful attention to maintain. This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me happier. In fact, I don’t expect it to.
A gender transition can result in a lifetime of pain, discomfort, and medications, such as hormone therapy. As Britain’s National Health Service explains, hormones “need to be taken for the rest of your life, even if you have gender surgery.” The FDA notes that puberty blockers can cause brain swelling and vision loss, and an FDA official who supported giving minors puberty blockers conceded that they actually increase suicidality. Indeed, the “FDA knew ‘gender affirming’ puberty blockers increase ‘suicidality’ in 2017,” reported Just the News.
Jazz Jennings is the most famous kid to undergo a gender transition, with a long-running TV show celebrating Jazz’s gender transition. Health providers falsely said that a sex change would make Jazz happy, and falsely told Jazz’s mother that Jazz was at risk for suicide if she didn’t allow Jazz to transition. “Do you want a live daughter or a dead son?,” they asked Jazz’s mother, peddling a talking point that is often used on parents of transgender teens.
But by 2023, Jazz was miserable. Jazz’s penis was surgically removed at age 17, after Jazz was put on puberty blockers at age 11. Jazz became depressed, saying “I don’t feel like me, ever.” After Jazz’s sex change, Jazz experienced pain, constant reflux, a lack of sex drive, an inability to orgasm, rapid weight gain, and mental illness.
Giving minors sex-changes or puberty blockers does not seem to reduce suicides. The transgender lawyer challenging Tennessee’s ban on certain transgender treatments for minors, Chase Strangio, conceded to the Supreme Court that “completed suicide is thankfully and admittedly rare” among transgender youth, even those not given gender-affirming treatment, and that “there is no evidence…that this treatment reduces completed suicide.”
