“I Have No Skills In Treating Men, Even If They've Shaved Their Beards” – French Gynecologist Suspended For Turning Trans-Patient Away

Via Remix News,

A French doctor in the city of Pau serving as a gynecologist has now been sanctioned for declaring himself “incompetent” to treat a man who had transitioned to a woman, which triggered the rage of LGBT associations.

The case dates back to August 2023, but the doctor, Victor Acharian, has only been sanctioned now by the Order of Physicians with a one-month ban on practicing medicine. In total, Dr. Acharian was given a six-month ban on practicing medicine, but five of the six months are a suspended sentence. If he were to violate the sentence, the gynecologist would be suspended for the full six months.

The trans patient had scheduled an appointment though Doctolib and went to the doctor’s office with a partner.

“The lady explained to me that she was in transition,” the secretary of the doctor’s office told Le Figaro newspaper. “I immediately notified the doctor by internal messaging. He replied: ‘I don’t deal with that; there are specialists in Bordeaux or Toulouse,’ a message that I forwarded to them. But they became very aggressive and called me ‘transphobic.’”

The trans person was dismissed from the office, with the doctor reportedly saying he only treated “real women.”

The couple with the trans woman then left a bad Google review for the doctor, and they claimed he responded “offensively” to their review.

“I have no skills in treating men, even if they have shaved their beards and come to tell my secretary that they have become women,” he wrote in response.

Once the couple went to various NGOs and activist groups, including SOS Homophobie, they went public with the case and filed a complaint with medical authorities. The trans woman also contacted the Order of Physicians.

On Dec. 16, 2024, the first instance of the regional council of the Order of Physicians in Bordeaux sentenced the man to a six-month suspension.

“We are satisfied to have confirmation that what happened that day was totally abnormal,” the trans woman’s lawyer told French newspaper La République des Pyrénées at the time.

Dr. Acharian stated that he saw “50 patients per day, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.” and “regretted” that his response to the “derogatory opinion” posted on Google “could have hurt a person”

“It was far from my intention,” he said. “I am not transphobic or homophobic, and I have helped many of my homosexual patients to have a child. I could have received this person, made them pay for the 80 euro consultation, to tell them that I am totally incompetent: Is that what they wanted? These people are on hormone treatments, prescribed by specialized services. I leave it to them to control them.”

The suspension of the doctor comes at a time when France is already struggling with an incredible shortage of gynecologists.

France is facing a severe lack of gynecologists

A report from 2018 noted that there had been a 42 percent drop in gynecologists in the last decade, to just 1,136 across France. The report noted that “it means busy doctors are having to turn away women looking for a specialist.”

Another report from Sante Academie provides slightly different figures from different years but also details the growing crisis facing women due to a lack of gynecologists.

“We saw, in our first article dedicated to the shortage of specialized doctors in France, that the waiting time to get an appointment with a gynecologist was 60 days. For International Women’s Day, on March 8, Jean-Philippe Tanguy protested that a third of French departments lacked gynecologists. These are alarming figures that, fortunately, are not entirely accurate. Indeed, in 2007, there were 1,945 gynecologists in France, while in 2023, there will be only 816 practicing gynecologists for 30 million women, including “only” 11 departments that are without them.

Sante Academie further notes that the government is seeking to take action to combat the crisis, including senators seeking to raise awareness. “On May 9, 2024, Senator Jean-François Langeot drew the attention of the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Labor, Health and Solidarity, responsible for health and prevention, to the situation of medical gynecology,” wrote Sante Academie.

The report then quotes Langeot: “The Committee for the Defense of Medical Gynecology (CDGM) requests that medical gynecology be accessible to every woman and that effective measures be taken in terms of open intern positions for the training of new gynecologists.”

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