Castration in the news

In the red hot trans culture wars, the (what?) anti trans/trans sceptic/TERF-y side has recently been talking about this:

Now, “eunuch” has become a gender identity, according to the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), which released revised standards of care last month. The standards say a eunuch isn’t just a castrated male but now also includes men who “wish to eliminate masculine physical features, masculine genitals, or genital functioning.” This would include men who have not been castrated but want to be one day. The association says eunuchs are part of a “gender diverse umbrella” that includes being transgender and nonbinary....

To discourage men from pursuing risky back-alley castrations, WPATH now recommends licensed medical professionals perform orchiectomies (surgical removal of testicles) and oversee any hormone treatments.

Facilities and surgeons who offer transgender treatment usually do not offer services for men wishing to become eunuchs. But some already do, including a plastic surgeon in California who performs “gender nullification” procedures as part of a male-to-eunuch operation.

Most self-identified eunuchs suffer from what academics call body integrity identity disorder—a desire to cut off parts of one’s body—or body dysmorphic disorder, an obsession over the flaws in one’s body. While these professionals concur that eunuchs have particular healthcare needs, there is disagreement about how best to treat them.

The matter of underground castration is also in the news because of a case in London:

Two men have admitted removing body parts of a man who is accused of carrying out castrations and broadcasting the footage on his “eunuch maker” website.

Nathan Arnold, 48, a nurse from South Kensington, west London, admitted the partial removal of Marius Gustavson’s nipple in the summer of 2019.

Damien Byrnes, 35, from Tottenham, north London, admitted removing Gustavson’s penis on 18 February 2017.

Gustavson, who is originally from Norway, is said to have been the ringleader in a conspiracy involving up to 29 offences of extreme body modifications, the removal of body parts, the trade in body parts and the uploading of videos.

Readers may recall that I have posted before about a similar case that happened in Brisbane recently.

I do think that a group of surgeons and psychologists/psychiatrists who make a living out of providing transgender services using language to normalise men desiring castration as "just another gender identity" should give pause to all reasonable people to at least question their reasoning in all transgender matters.