The Moral and Human Rights Perspectives of Gender Affirmative Surgery
Thank you sincerely for your assistance with the essay. I have a request: could you please provide me with an idea for the essay, along with the questions you intend to include, as soon as possible? Two or three sentences would suffice. However, if you believe that time is insufficient, you may deliver the essay on July 09. In any case, I kindly ask that you provide me with the draft essay before the due date
Purpose: Assignment 2 was your first venture into your professional field, and this third assignment asks you to creatively expand upon something you already know how to do (writing a research paper).
Background: Scholarly personal narratives are essays that braid together stories from one’s lived experience (and/or the lived experiences of one’s family and community) with academic scholarship, linking the issues mentioned in this personal narrative to larger concerns of contemporary society. Like the traditional academic essay, this type of writing will demand that you pay close attention to the rhetorical task of persuasion, but also draw upon the tools of writing creative narrative nonfiction, such as: clarity of intention, engaged storytelling, and choosing personal anecdotes for effectiveness. The SPN may not be organized in the same way as the “traditional academic essay,” but its purpose is still to persuade an audience to consider a particular perspective about an idea/institution/belief, or perhaps to question their previously-held assumptions. The organization may not be standard, but the essay should be carefully arranged and presented according to a logic (that you have the freedom to design). Your reader should come away from your SPN with a clear sense of your essay’s argument, without having been presented with a traditional thesis statement at the end of a traditional introduction.
In its combination of story and research, the scholarly personal narrative (SPN) can speak to audiences both within and beyond the academic classroom, meaning that the writing can have a great deal of impact. You’ll have to decide for yourself how specific or wide your intended audience will be.
With regards to arts and humanities, the SPN is particularly effective for exploring the ties between individual experiences and societal trends. If you’re feeling stuck, think about issues that are important to you and put those issues into the context of your own life, your own story. Narratives can be experimental, visual, mixed media—have fun as you consider all kinds of genre conventions, styles, and approaches to telling your story.
Required Sources: You are required to cite at least 4 sources in your SPN, at least 2 of them must be “scholarly” i.e. peer reviewed journal articles or books (scholarship, theory, or history). They should be integrated so that they enhance the narrative you craft, just as the narrative should enhance the sources. Review the document on integrating sources, as paraphrase and summary will be essential to integrating sources without interrupting your personal style.
Writing TaskChoose an issue that relates to your own personal / familial / communal experiences, that can be researched through scholarly articles and book chapters, and on which you have a distinct point of view. Ideally, this will be your WP3 topic. Then, consider the following prompt in a 1500–1750 word essay:
Craft an essay about an issue through your personal experiences, weaving the two together to persuade your audience to consider your particular point of view and/or to question potential assumptions they may have had about said issue.
Then, in a separate, attached document (i.e. an afterword on a new page), respond to the following prompt in 250 words: Describe your intended audience. What understanding and/or particular way of thinking or acting did you hope they would adopt moving forward, after reading your essay?
The Moral and Human Rights Perspectives of Gender Affirmative Surgery
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The Moral and Human Rights Perspectives of Gender Affirmative Surgery
Gender affirmation surgery emerged over 90 years ago in Europe. In the first 50 years of its existence, gender affirmation surgery evolved from a rare treatment with uncertain outcomes to an accepted procedure for medical diagnoses in America and Europe (Mumford, 2023). Today, it is challenging to argue against gender affirmation surgery from a moral or human rights perspective. This difficulty is especially so with the growing empirical evidence suggesting that such procedures are critical for the well-being of transgender people. However, the fact that not all procedures go according to plan means that decisions on gender affirmation procedures should be made by individuals willing to take risks. This scenario means minors should never be subjected to the procedures until they are old enough to give informed consent. Before coming to this conclusion, it is essential to clarify the morality of the practice and explore how human rights apply to the same.
As someone who has witnessed the dangers of gender affirmation surgery, I have developed an opposition to the practice, which means that my views might be biased. Before being judged as discriminatory, it is only fair to understand where my ideas are coming from. Were it not for gender affirmation surgery, my friend would still be alive. My friend was a transgender person who identified as male at birth. His transgender identity was visible by the time he was ten years old. His parents always wanted a girl. Since they could not get another child, they considered adopting one. However, they thought it would be easier to get their child a gender reassignment surgery to identify as a girl.
Even though my friend was aware of the transgender condition, he felt okay with it and believed he could choose what he wanted to identify with later. In other words, he had no problem identifying as a male. He was also okay with using they/them pronouns as his family embraced him and never made him feel isolated. The surgery seemed to have worked, but health conditions emerged later, resulting in my friend’s death. Seeing how close we were, his death devastated me, and I was left questioning why parents would subject their children to a procedure that risked fatal outcomes.
Even without the pain of my friend’s death, I still believe that individuals do not have a moral obligation to dictate the gender identification of another or attempt to change their gender without their consent. As an individual who believes no one should try to change nature, I would be okay with transgender people remaining transgender. This view means being opposed to the idea of gender affirmation surgery. However, I have no moral right to dictate what is good and bad for others, mainly if my situation differs from theirs.
Understandably, transgender people are among the most discriminated against populations worldwide, which explains their desire to identify as either male or female. The normalization of the binary identity and disregard for others are the leading causes of the pain and suffering faced by transgender people. Therefore, it is easy to argue that society is to blame for failing to accept and acknowledge transgender people. Recent research by Gerritse et al. (2023) indicated that many transgender people could be okay with their status but are afraid of being left behind. The waiting lines at facilities offering gender affirmation procedures are growing, which indicates how desperate many transgender people are to get their genders reassigned.
The issue of morality is difficult to argue because it is a question of what society believes to be right or wrong. Decades ago, gender reassignment was frowned upon until many successful cases changed people’s perceptions. Even so, countries, including the United States, allow healthcare workers to make conscientious objections to gender-affirmation surgery (Morrison et al., 2023). In this case, moral judgments appear to be left to the individuals. Those who believe it is ethical to conduct gender reassignment surgery will support it, and those who think it is unethical will have the chance and right to reject involvement. Personally, gender affirmation surgery is evil if it causes harm to individuals. If society can treat transgender people equally and embrace them without discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping, they will learn to be proud of their identity. They would escape the dangers of gender affirmation surgery. On the other hand, individuals still wishing to pursue the procedures should not be prohibited, in which case the human rights argument comes in.
Besides human rights, the most compelling ethical argument for gender affirmation surgery is the suffering of transgender people and the empirical evidence suggesting that gender affirmation surgery positively influences their well-being. Gender affirmation surgery has been shown to improve the quality of life, eliminate gender dysphoria, and improve psychosocial functioning in transgender individuals (Leerdam et al., 2023). Levels of body dissatisfaction also decline, and overall mental health (including emotional, psychological, and social) well-being is improved (Achille et al., 2020). Therefore, there cannot be any moral justification to object to a medical procedure that improves the overall health of individuals.
If modern society believes homosexuality and abortion, among other contentious social issues, as morally acceptable, then society should be willing to accept the moral acceptability of gender reassignment. However, only individuals should be allowed to define their identities. Similar to how homosexual individuals decide for themselves that they are gay and lesbian, transgender people must be allowed to choose for themselves the gender affirmation procedures. My friend should have been allowed to choose gender-affirmation surgery when he was old enough to make informed decisions. Neither the parents nor any member of society should decide for minors since they risk going against the wishes of transgender minors.
When speaking of human rights, it is essential to understand how to approach this argument. In other words, society needs to ask itself where human rights apply and how they are enforced. In many countries, it is perfectly legal to undergo gender affirmation surgery. Indeed, some countries have legislated laws legalizing medical procedures and requiring the national government to develop frameworks allowing transgender individuals to access gender affirmation surgery. For example, the Transgender Persons ...