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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026

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This is just flat wrong, and brings your supposed expertise about "gender-affirming care" into question.

I said that it was to the best of my knowledge. I am not an expert compared to professional chirurgeons, but compared to those who think a vagina is a lack of penis, and imagine the male-to-female operation to be something akin to the work of Lorena Bobbit, I think I'm doing fairly well, much in the same way as, while I do not claim be able to run the U. S. Defense Department better than James Mattis, I am fairly certain I could do a better job than Pete Hegseth.

You may have noticed that female people have no flesh in between their legs

This is a common misconception held by many men, leading to an epidemic of bed-time headaches among their wives.

which can be used to fashion a crude imitation of a penis. To accomplish this, surgeons (or "chirurgeons" as you insist on calling them,

'Chirurgeon' is from the Greek 'χείρ' (hand) + '-ουργός' (worker); 'surgeon' is an eroded form of the same.

apparently for no better reason than obfuscation and misdirection)

I am getting just a wee bit tired of the snide insults.

must carve out a chunk of tissue from elsewhere on the patient's body, typically the forearm or thigh. It's similar to a skin graft, except that much more flesh is required, meaning the tiny minority of trans-identified females who undergo phalloplasties have telltale scars on their thighs or forearms for months or years afterwards.

The same applies for cis-men, who were born biologically male in all respects, identify as men, and suffer injuries between their legs. Does this make such a man less male, or is this merely an appeal to disgust?

Even if 100% of people who get breast implants don't regret doing so, that wouldn't tell us anything about how realistic breast implants are.

Well, are we talking a woman whom you never suspected had implants because she went to a chirurgeon who made them look natural, or a woman who chose a doctor whose work was obvious at first sight so that everyone would know that she could afford them?

I've heard so many trans activists independently recite this canard, and they never provide a source.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/transgender-debate-gender-affirming-surgeries-have-a-regret-rate-of-one-per-cent-or-less-for-knee-replacements-its-17-per-cent-vic-valentine-4258947

I'm taking this about as seriously as "trans panic laws have enabled people to literally get away with murder!!!1!"

D. F. McLaughlin?

Paris Lee?

  • -15

chirurgeon

So, for real, what’s the deal here? I don’t have a dog in this ongoing argument, I’m sincerely curious. I had never even seen this word before skimming through this thread, and a quick google only gives “archaic synonym for surgeon”. To my knowledge it’s not used by any surgeons or even seemingly medical historians. Where did you pick this up? Are you just a super-hellenophile classicist, or something?

Indeed an archaic fake synonym for surgeon since English already had "surgeon" and people tried to replace it with a "correct" version like they had in other languages such as French. It didn't catch on.

Might be french; we still use "chirurgien" to mean surgeon.

'Chirurgeon' is from the Greek 'χείρ' (hand) + '-ουργός' (worker); 'surgeon' is an eroded form of the same.

If you're trying to convince anyone here of anything (and not just shit-stirring), this cringeworthy attempt at verbal elitism is really not going to help. We know how to speak English very, very well around here. Feel free to join us.

I said that it was to the best of my knowledge. I am not an expert compared to professional chirurgeons, but compared to those who think a vagina is a lack of penis, and imagine the male-to-female operation to be something akin to the work of Lorena Bobbit, I think I'm doing fairly well, much in the same way as, while I do not claim be able to run the U. S. Defense Department better than James Mattis, I am fairly certain I could do a better job than Pete Hegseth.

And despite not being a professional "chirurgeon", I can do a better job than you. So you were obviously wrong to arrogate to yourself the responsibility of "correcting the record" on bottom surgery. (There's actually a specific Facebook group devoted to cataloguing this kind of behaviour.) If I ask someone if they can drive a car, I want to know if they can actually drive a car. Being able to drive a car better than an amputee who just drank a fifth of vodka is not a high bar to clear.

This is a common misconception held by many men, leading to an epidemic of bed-time headaches among their wives.

Har de har har. You knew perfectly well that I meant that female people have no flesh between their legs which could be used to fashion a crude facsimile of a penis. A clitoris (even a massively engorged clitoris) cannot be used to make a neopenis. We both know this. Why do you insist on wasting both our time with crude potty humour?

The same applies for cis-men, who were born biologically male in all respects, identify as men, and suffer injuries between their legs. Does this make such a man less male, or is this merely an appeal to disgust?

It's not an appeal to disgust: it's pointing out that you were mistaken. You described a phalloplasty as "the same [as a vaginoplasty] but in the other direction". You were wrong: there was a massive piece of the procedure that you were conspicuously omitting. The appropriate response to this being pointed out to you is to admit your error. The appropriate response is not to throw a strop, bring up a completely irrelevant "analogy" and say "oh whatever, stop trying to make gender-affirming care sound gross!"

I could just as easily make the same argument in the opposite direction: that by failing to accurately describe what a phalloplasty entails, you were either ignorant about what the procedure entails, or you were knowingly trying to make it sound less invasive than it really is. Neither is a great look.

I am getting just a wee bit tired of the snide insults.

I will happily desist, if you can provide me with a better explanation for why you insist on using antiquated terms that aren't even terms of art in the professions under discussion.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/transgender-debate-gender-affirming-surgeries-have-a-regret-rate-of-one-per-cent-or-less-for-knee-replacements-its-17-per-cent-vic-valentine-4258947

I note that this is an opinion piece, and that Valentine doesn't actually show where they got their figures from:

Of nearly 3,500 trans people attending the UK’s largest clinic in London just 16 of them – 0.47 per cent – had any regrets. And an analysis of studies from around the world found a regret rate of one per cent for gender-affirming surgeries. It is hard to compare different interventions (as I say, we’re all different) but, as a yardstick, the regret rate for knee replacements is 17 per cent and for hip replacements five per cent.

This paragraph doesn't contain any hyperlinks. I asked you for a source for the claim that knee replacement surgery has a higher regret rate than gender-affirming care, and instead you provided me with an example of someone else making the exact same unevidenced claim as you.

D. F. McLaughlin?

From the source you provided: "The jury acquitted Patnode of second-degree murder and convicted him of second-degree manslaughter".

Paris Lee?

From the source you provided: "Ward was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in May 2025." I understand a retrial is pending, but Ward certainly hasn't "gotten away with murder" yet.

I suppose technically being convicted of manslaughter rather than murder is "getting away with murder", but I'm not aware of a single person who used the "trans panic" defense and then walked, which is the affirmative claim that dozens of trans activists have independently made to me. Show me an example of that, and we can talk.

Har de har har. You knew perfectly well that I meant that female people have no flesh between their legs which could be used to fashion a crude facsimile of a penis.

The same works the other way. Two inches isn’t a penis. It’s a large clit.

It's an enormous clit.

I think I'm doing fairly well, much in the same way as, while I do not claim be able to run the U. S. Defense Department better than James Mattis, I am fairly certain I could do a better job than Pete Hegseth.

No, I'm sorry, you're doing worse than Pete Hegseth. You don't need to know the fine details of the surgery to know what you're proposing could never work. It's basic anatomy.

This is a common misconception held by many men, leading to an epidemic of bed-time headaches among their wives.

If you really actually believe it can be fashioned into a penis, how do you explain doctors carving out huge chunks of forearms during phalloplasties?

I am getting just a wee bit tired of the snide insults.

Is he wrong though? What's the point of using a form of a word that no one uses when writing in English?

The same applies for cis-men, who were born biologically male in all respects, identify as men, and suffer injuries between their legs. Does this make such a man less male, or is this merely an appeal to disgust?

You claimed a vaginoplasty does not involve chopping anything off, and that a phalloplasty is the same process in reverse. He's pointing out how you're completely wrong on the facts, why are you trying to change the subject now?

http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/transgender-debate-gender-affirming-surgeries-have-a-regret-rate-of-one-per-cent-or-less-for-knee-replacements-its-17-per-cent-vic-valentine-4258947

Of nearly 3,500 trans people attending the UK’s largest clinic in London just 16 of them – 0.47 per cent – had any regrets. And an analysis of studies from around the world found a regret rate of one per cent for gender-affirming surgeries. It is hard to compare different interventions (as I say, we’re all different) but, as a yardstick, the regret rate for knee replacements is 17 per cent and for hip replacements five per cent.

The only link around these statistics is the word "London", it leads to the "London" tag of the newspaper you just linked to, not a study done in a London clinic.