I'm not sure if it's appropriate to speculate here, but I would assume being conjoined means your endocrine systems are at least partially connected, which is rough if you wanted to start hormone replacement therapy but your conjoined twin understandably did not. In any case, good on him for coming out and being himself.
Also, re. the questions Lori and George always got about separation, I'm surprised the article doesn't mention Laleh and Ladan Bijani, cranially conjoined twins who tried separation surgery in adulthood and both died :( They were clearly aware of the risks, and it was their choice to make, but still super sad.
Maybe I'm just having a low-caffeine day, but I spent the whole article waiting for it to explain what it means for George to refuse to be separated from conjoined Lori who has now died, and what's going to be done about it. To save anyone else the time before facepalm, they both died last month aged 62.
(In defence against seeming a complete idiot, with the way they were conjoined it's not totally obvious, to a layman anyway, that there would be too much shared for one to survive the other. Plus surgeons obviously thought separation possible.)
It's perhaps a bit morbid/crass to ask, but as they've both since passed (rest in peace), I wonder how in fact the death of the conjoined twin resulted/impacted the other twin biologically and how long one was able to live with the other passed?
Their circulation is connected, the dead twin is going to give the live twin septicaemia. If a person has a gangrenous limb, we can amputate it. But what to do if the whole of your conjoined twin is gangrenous? Usually the cases of twins still conjoined in adulthood are cases where separation was not medically feasible, so “amputation” is not an option. Given this, they can live for a few hours, but once one twin is dead, death for the other becomes imminent and inevitable.
From other cases I'm aware of it sounds like the living twin tends to follow suit not long after. Chang and Eng Bunker died on the same day, and that was several centuries ago, but I can't imagine modern medicine has done much to change things.
Plus, I'm not normally one for woo, but witnessing the death of your conjoined twin seems like a situation where you might truly die of fright (or a broken heart). Just awful to think about.
Conjoined twins are always genetically identical, so if his twin was a cis woman, I think it's safe to assume he was not assigned male at birth :)
The article also mentions that George was his chosen name, not his given name. Although FWIW I am one of those nonbinary people who goes by the name my parents gave me, so fair enough :P
Also, re. the questions Lori and George always got about separation, I'm surprised the article doesn't mention Laleh and Ladan Bijani, cranially conjoined twins who tried separation surgery in adulthood and both died :( They were clearly aware of the risks, and it was their choice to make, but still super sad.
(In defence against seeming a complete idiot, with the way they were conjoined it's not totally obvious, to a layman anyway, that there would be too much shared for one to survive the other. Plus surgeons obviously thought separation possible.)
Plus, I'm not normally one for woo, but witnessing the death of your conjoined twin seems like a situation where you might truly die of fright (or a broken heart). Just awful to think about.
I do not blame you for this mistake, it is very easy to make. But it proves my point!
The article also mentions that George was his chosen name, not his given name. Although FWIW I am one of those nonbinary people who goes by the name my parents gave me, so fair enough :P
I will not comment about surgery.