When you learn that your top surgeon from two years ago has moved out of state, and now the only top surgeon in the state for transmen has a fat-phobic practice. So while you’re glad you had your surgery when you did, you now feel bad for other transmen and trans-folk in the state wanting top surgery being forced to lose a ridiculous amount of weight before this surgeon will operate on them.
That’s awful! How are they fat-phobic and couldn’t they be fired for that?
They require patients to be within a certain weight-range based on height. On the one hand this does play into the aesthetic success of top surgery (such as not having “dog ears” where the ends of the incision line stick out in a triangular fashion), but on the other hand this particular office has an overly-stringent restriction to the weight requirement. For example, my normal range is 120-130 lbs., and I’m 5’1.5″ tall. This just so happens to be where my weight naturally sits, and I’ve never had medical folks tell me that I should lose weight (I actually had a nurse worry that I didn’t have enough fat on me when I wanted to switch from taking my testosterone injections intramuscularly to subcutaneous). I have a friend an inch shorter than me, and this surgeon wanted them down to be 120 AT THE MOST. Very unreasonable restriction that wanted my friend to essentially become a stick.
In addition, I’m not certain about the legal logistics concerning fat phobia, but I certainly hope there can be ramifications because this is a very unhealthy expectation to have on people.