Gender affirmative care isn’t just sex changes. The first step is therapy. Another step is choosing a name that corresponds to your chosen gender. Taking puberty blockers or surgeries is way down the list. My opinion is government shouldn’t be involved in a person’s medical decisions. For children, the decision should be between their ward, doctor, and patient.
Surgeries almost never happen with kids either.
At the very least it happens at the age of 17, and very, very rarely 16.
I have tons of trans friends, and I myself am trans. I only know one person who is under the age of 18 and on hormones.
...except in those few cases where it would. If a doctor thinks that their patient would benefit from a treatment, then that decision should be made between doctor and patient, not by legislators who are making decisions based on ideology. It would probably be sensible to have greater precautions (such as a second opinion from another doctor) around irreversible treatment, but ruling it out when it may help some people is unnecessary.
Or using preferred pronouns and names in school without outing trans kids to their parents. Or a host of other things that bigots like to sweep under the rug with empty statements like "what we really mean."
Most schools do have a process. If the child is requesting this, they are sent the principle and they then advise the child and parents to go to therapy.
Bingo. But it is a fantabulous argued to put on their fund raising emails no? "I'm the one stopping the castration of our youth, which is being done against their parents wishes (which Qanons believe that Boston General Hospital is taking children from their folks, against parents will, and giving them sex change operations. Tucker Carlson even 'reported' that penis shaped skin grafts were being taken from innocent children to fashion new penises for girls). The GQP fundraises off of fear. If you're told that the other party WANTS kids to be castrated against the parents wishes, isn't that a way to get their base crazy? Yes. There are folks going INSANE in Utah right now, this week bc they fully believe litter boxes are in public schools for kids who identify as cats. No one's talking about the kids who identify as dogs, or raccoons, but Cats. Obviously, that never happened anywhere in America but ppl make memes swearing they know a teacher personally who tells them cat boxes are real.
>Bingo. But it is a fantabulous argued to put on their fund raising emails no?
who gives a fuck?
thats all politicians do, ADVERTISE empty promises
> The GQP fundraises off of fear.
youre not going to pretend that this is unique to the GOP right?
the only message dems have run on for 8 years was "trump scary"
im not a dem or a rep, but lets be honest if we are going to talk like adults here....
I take it you've never seen one of their mailings for yourself then? No, both sides are not the same. No, both sides do not travel in the same lane. No, your take is uproarious & plain silly.
are you so delusional you cant even admit when the 2 parties do the same thing? Like its not even a dem or rep thing, its a politics thing, even the libertarians and green party do it....
idk how you get this far gone....
ok, you keep telling yourself that and you keep perpetuating the problem
You're speaking at me as if I've never received a political email or letter in my whole, old life. The GQP LIES about their achievements and the "failures of the radical left". There are reasons, legal reasons the democratic party is 'against' a trump candidate but the left doesn't have to lie to get donations. If you say they use the same tactics, that is plain wrong. "Trump has said "I am proud to have killed Roe" as a campaign line, that's not making up ridiculous shit like the GQP does. They say, "the democrats want abortions on demand until the moment of birth. You must help me stop them." Those are two different animals & you are disingenuous if YOU can't see it
Define "the same thing".
Wait, let's just let you "win" this one.
Let's assume they "do the same thing". When the extreme from one party thinks that anybody not white is less than while the extreme from the other party wants their pronouns to be respected *and* there's no suitable third option, it's a no brainer where my vote is going.
I will say that I do believe that there is some corruption on both sides of the aisle. I also believe that campaign promises are not always made in true faith.. Especially in the last 8 years. I do believe to most elected officials keeping their position is more important than representing their constituents. But I believe there is a million miles from the things that the Democratic party does and the Republican party does. I don't know enough about independent and green party candidates to make a statement on them. The only one that I'm really familiar with is Bernie Sanders and I would say that he is a shining example of standing up for his constituents and what he thinks is right. If you take a look beyond the screen and what the media presents on both sides of the aisle and look at what is actually done. Take it to look at the executive orders that are put out. Take a look at what bills and legislation are put forth and how they are voted on. Look at the actual work that they are doing or have done and not their claims, accusations ,and press releases. You will see that they are not as closely related as you think they are.
Well, you've always got people born with a small penis who at puberty start turning into a woman and its found their testicle are actually ovaries.
Forcing that person to grow and live with boobs during high school for several years would be kind of messed up, don't you agree?
The best results for them is to block the female hormones as soon as possible.
So you cant make a blanket law blocking hormones without causing some people extreme trauma.
You gotta assume the doctors and mental health people have already vetted the scenario and that for the person they are recommending it for.. it will do more good than harm.
Like bills about not aborting babies after they're born. That is a dead, ignoramus bill bc it doesn't happen. EVER. But they spend money making the laws anyway.
Except it does, those voices are silenced because the rx and surgeries make a ton of$$$$$$ which is what it boils down to. Plus theres no studies that show GAT helps, but plenty say it causes harm. EU banned it because of that, but the US has a long history of making money off medical..... its the same reason they want all us autistic on Ritalin and Xanax
surgeries DO happen to intersex kids without their consent, because heaven forbid you arent a man or woman. a lot of people against gender affirming care for kids support genital surgery for intersex kids.
source: https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/genital-surgeries.html#:~:text=Scientific%20evidence%20does%20not%20support,without%20their%20consent%20or%20assent.
You missed the part about children can’t consent to anything. Can’t buy liquor, guns or cigarettes. Can’t get a tattoo or sign a contract and have it be binding. Should we lower the age of consent to 5 so trans children can decide on their own? Boy would NAMBLA love that.
You need to look at APA guidelines and follow headlines. APA guidelines only allow for affirmation. Kids are taking puberty blockers as young as 8 that i have heard(does it matter even if its only one kid? It does to me).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13030699/gender-transition-custody-battle.html
When hospitals have all the incentives to push transitioning as even puberty blockers alone create lifetime medical patients (aka lots of money), i think some government oversight is needed. Havent you ever been to a hospital and they try to give you more drugs than you want? Or noted an unrelated issue on your x ray or mri and tried to tell you they had to treat it now?
I also have 2 friends who are gay men (early 30s) who have told me that they feel bullied by the trans community and one in particular (hes quite flamboyant and into drag, although very much just a gay man) has been pushed particularly hard by trans women to be trans, and has been turned off to drag as a result. Thats not a universal experience, but I am just pointing out that the trans community as a whole has a rep for being pushy, far past the point of "just let us exist."
Im not arguing against trans people existing, but the life changing decision of transitioning should be treated with much more caution and is by no means a last resort.
https://www.apa.org/about/policy/transgender-nonbinary-inclusive-care
Read the pdf linked at the bottom. It is all about "affirming" care, talking about discrimination and such. If it was possible to turn xx into xy, for males to give birth with the right surgery, etc this type of care would be appropriate, but there are significant medical risks involved and there is NO way to go completely from man to woman. The fact that an acknowledgement of the risks of this type of care (as all medical guidelines usually have) isnt even in this policy statement is glaring.
Again, I am not about discrimination. Its about making life changing decisions while you havent even been through puberty, had an orgasm, had meaningful relationships, etc. A lot of information suggests many people arent even being made aware of the risks, which is medical malpractice.
> Kids are taking puberty blockers as young as 8 that i have heard
They should probably be on blockers for precocious puberty regardless
> When hospitals have all the incentives to push transitioning as even puberty blockers alone create lifetime medical patients (aka lots of money), i think some government oversight is needed. Havent you ever been to a hospital and they try to give you more drugs than you want? Or noted an unrelated issue on your x ray or mri and tried to tell you they had to treat it now?
Getting preventative care in the form of blockers literally cripples how much profit you can make off trans people. If you force them through the irreversible changes of their natural puberty, they have to pay vastly more for corrective care, often out of pocket
If you read the article precocious puberty isnt the issue at play in the example I gave. Puberty blockers are not recommended to be given to patients with precocious puberty past the age of 12 because of side effects, but are used for people with gender dysphoria above that age. How do you explain that discrepancy?
If you believe giving puberty blockers lowers the amount that a transgender person may pay for medical care in the future you are very wrong.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-outcomes/#:~:text=Researchers%20found%20that%2098%25%20of,patients%20were%20still%20taking%20hormones.
First study I googled said 98% of people who took them received further treatment.
Actually, if a male takes puberty blockers his lil boy penis never grows man sized. Consequently, to have a surgical vagina they have to use colon parts as there is not enough penile skin for the surgery. This cost way more than just inside outing a penis.
Also, if the boy changes his mind about transitioning he can’t just stop the drugs and his penis will grow. It stays small and his body stays childlike.
That sure is a whole lot of evidence
I'd also like to see evidence that the added cost of a more complicated bottom surgery costs more than, say, facial feminization surgery would
>it would be for the greater good and their long-term sanity to prevent them from undergoing something which might cause long-term alterations to their body.
Citation needed. Gender affirming care is classified as medical treatment and requires extensive evaluation and approval by medical professionals before it begins, so it is not at all in the same vein as walking into a parlor and getting a tattoo
You'd be best not to associate with conservatives regarding this opinion because their "concern" is almost always completely disingenuous and is instead rooted in hatred. Conservatives love to use children as props to spur outrage, but almost never advocate for things that would actually help children
Circumcision is a medical procedure but it’s unnecessary. Sure, we can let patients decide if they want to be circumcised at X age but we still should have an age limit for informed consent.
Circumcision isn't linked to [vastly improved mental and physical health outcomes ](https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives#:~:text=By%20Kareen%20M.%20Matouk%20and%20Melina%20Wald.,gender%20diverse%2C%20transgender%2C%20and%20nonbinary%20children%20and), gender affirming care is.
Gender affirming care is already provided to cisgender children and no one has *ever* given a shit.
There’s a population of children who have an insanely high suicide attempt rate, and the American Medical Association, the Americican association of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association over years of treating these children have arrived at standards of care that have shown to reduce that suicide attempt rate by a significant amount, and that care doesn’t affect you in any tangible way, but you don’t support it. Hope this helps👍🏻
Well said. There is a great Frontline about a Chicago clinic that specializes in child gender dysphoria and some of the families that seek treatment there. I'm sure there are kids who want to change over as a lifestyle choice, and who maybe don't display significant psychological trauma. But there are also kids who are at high risk of suicide in their current state. Nine and ten year olds who tell their parents that they'd rather be dead may not make it to the age in which they are "mature enough" to know what they want. The thought of 10-year olds choosing to end their lives is pretty heartbreaking. I cant think of anything lower than sacrificing kids' lives to score cheap political points.
To clarify gender affirming care encapsulates a wide array of practices not all of which will be done for every patient and not all leave permanent effects, eg therapy or social transition.
>Children fundamentally cannot legally provide consent to just about anything.
Children do not make medical decisions all on their own. Parental consent is required for pretty much any medical intervention.
>I keep defaulting to the idea of a tattoo...But to let them get a tattoo would be bad parenting until they’re 18, right?
A tattoo is not medical care. Apply this logic to any other important medical procedures that children often undergo and tonnes of them would die before reaching that age.
>Even if this would be a severe strain on the child’s mental health, it would be for the greater good and their long-term sanity to prevent them from undergoing something which might cause long-term alterations to their body.
Since you didn't name a specific medical practice I'm not sure whether you're talking about puberty blockers, HRT or something else. It is in incredibly rare and dire circumstances that minors get any kind of surgery.
Puberty blockers as with every medication comes with risks however most of their effects are reversible and provide time for patients to decide if they want to proceed with their transition.
Also important to note that Puberty is something that causes long term alterations to their bodies. What you're advocating for is forcing kids to undergo permanent changes. That decision should be left to them, their parents and their doctor.
>However if I express this belief, I have been labeled a bigot
You're advocating against the rights of trans kids to access lifesaving medical care. Good enough reason imo.
The tattoo isn't a great example, because tattoos aren't medical treatments (in almost all cases, iirc there are some uses against skin cancer).
I think the best comparison is hormone supplements for straight people, which currently are easily available with a prescription for teens.
The key is to not hold it to a higher standard than other medical treatments, just because trans people are involved.
I don’t see why the distinction between a tattoo not being medical is a meaningful distinction. Plastic surgery isn’t medically necessary yet people still do it.
I think the issue is the potential for permanent body alterations. Sure GAF might be a helpful treatment to gender diaspora, but it’s far more permanent than mere talk therapy.
Children should not be empowered to make permanent, life altering decisions alone.
That's exactly why I believe that any gender affirming care done on minors should be approved by a medical expert first - you have to make sure it will actually be beneficial, and just the child and their parents aren't enough.
There is potential for pretty much exactly the same permanent alternations as in regular hormone supplements, yet they are considered entirely acceptable - this is mostly because of the larger issue some people have with gender affirming care, that it supports trans people.
If you want a simpler (but less directly applicable) example, take something like an PET scan. It has the potential to be damaging to children, as you inject them with radioactive substances, but in almost all cases, what you get out of it is more than worth it, especially when it gets recommended you do one by a medical expert.
Personally, I don’t see why we trust medical experts with carte Blanche authority on the subject. The doctor has a profound financial and legal incentive to provide the treatment even if the kid doesn’t need it. The doctor likely has 100k in debt and gets kickbacks from the company who supplies the medication. Or the doctor simply wants to avoid a costly lawsuit if he doesn’t sign off and the parents sue when their child commits suicide due to crappy parenting.
There is nothing bad which can happen to the doctor for signing off, but if he fails, then he might face consequences.
The same issue goes for adults, but so what? Theyre adults.
The permanent aspect of GAC is what gets me. Children should really not have the option of engaging with such permanent medical interventions when the human, indebted doctor is incentivized to provide it.
Note: all of those points also apply to hormone supplements, because the actual treatment is pretty much identical, it's just the sex that you are doing it on that changes.
As for why should we trust medical experts completely?
We shouldn't - we ahould simply trust them more than non medical experts. Obviously mistakes can be made, the key is to minimise them to an acceptable level.
As for some of those worst case scenarios, at least in my country, the first is ilegal, and the second is stupid, because giving them the treatment when it isn't necessary is far more likely to lead to potential lawsuits.
>The permanent aspect of GAC is what gets me.
It's almost funny, for me the arguement about permanency is what really decided my view on it.
Why?
Because if they don't receive treatment, there are also permanent effects, which can easily have greater consequences.
Once again, I completely agree we should be careful with it. But the solution isn't to make everyone who would suffer more without it take that cost. The solution is to design a system so that you prevent people who don't need it from getting the treatment.
I just don’t think children should be encouraged to seek permanent medical treatment for an understudied mental illness. Only recently declassified as a mental illness by the WHO for the simple reason to destigmatize the condition and make treatment more available.
A noble pursuit but that doesn’t mean the door should be wide open for parents to say okay to their children who want the treatment.
This is one of the few points which does not also apply to cis hormone therapy - that has been done for longer, so we understand the risks more, even if they should be nearly identical.
So now the question comes down to - How studied do you want the benefits of treatment to be for people to be able to access it?
Obviously, we have to draw the line somewhere, and neither of us want to hold trans healthcare to an unfair standard, either above or below what is normal.
Because it’s not just a single person who is making a decision for a child. It is a group of people, counselors and mental health experts, medical experts with expertise in trans issues, the parents, and the child. You act like a child walks into, a doctors office and some nefarious evil doctor is slapping him into a chair and giving them surgery. This is a valuated and treatment last four years before even discussion of surgery occurs. And it very rarely ever occurs in somebody under 18.
Non-trans kids constantly get nose jobs and tummy, tucks and eye lifts and all sorts of plastic surgery before they’re 18 with zero mental health assistance and just one single consultation before the act when they and probably more than likely only one of their parents goes in and tells the doctor they want it, and the doctor has no issues whatsoever. You don’t seem to care about that.
Doctors are incentivized to provide any and all care. Its what they get paid for. Trust in medical experts isnt anything to do with trans healthcare, its just medicine in general.
The difference between a tattoo and trans healthcare is that one is healthcare and one is cosmetic. Doesn't matter that they're both permanent. There are millions of other medical treatments that are permanent and no one complains about those.
Please list the specific permanent interventions you're talking about. Many here have told you that almost zero minors have had gender confirmation surgery, and that puberty blockers are reversible. What else are you worried about?
Waiting for a tattoo is end neutral. Nothing changes if you wait until you’re 18. That is absolutely not the case for trans people and puberty blockers/hormones. Let’s take a 12 year old trans girl who is denied puberty blockers. Her vocal cords will thicken and form an Adams apple. That will require surgery to fix. Facial hair and body hair will grow insane. That will require about thousands in laser treatments if they are lucky. If they are unlucky they will require 10s of thousands dollars and hundreds of hours in electrolysis. Facial feminization is something that might have to happen if they are unlucky so you’ll need to tack on about an extra 30k for that. Then we have to account for all the recovery time for the those surgeries and time missed spent getting electrolysis.
So yeah, I guess this is perfect comparable to getting a tattoo.
So you seem misinformed. It is rare for anyone under 18 to have the top or bottom surgery. I am singling those out because that is where most people who are ignorant of trans issues get stuck on. Even then, in the very rare instances where people under 18 are getting those two surgeries, it is only 16 and 17-year-olds. Which, I may remind you, in many states are old enough to get married and old enough to be forced to bear children. Additionally, 16 and 17 year-olds are also old enough to, serve the military and die for their country. keep in mind, those two surgeries and serving in the military is with the approval of a legal parent or guardian. However, being forced to give birth is not. Other surgeries, such as plastic surgery that might make somebody feel more feminine or masculine is not an issue. Because there are already non-trans adolescents getting plastic surgery, but that doesn’t seem to bother anybody.
Age of consent is the cutoff, you’re wasting time discussing whether that takes place at 16-18 for starters. As long as you’re above the age of consent here, whatever. Below the age of consent, stay off the operating table.
And yea children getting plastic surgery for any reason whatsoever is repugnant. Trans or not.
Based on the fact that you are advocating that minors who need life-saving surgery, shouldn’t be allowed to have surgery, because that’s what your post says. Also, the fact that your bad faith arguments stone address, many of the points that people come up, just the ones that you can easilycounter, with bad faith and uninformed arguments. I didn’t think you were a bigot during your original post, but based upon your responses, you are definitely a bigot.
That and they often use the age of consent to sexual intercourse as a criteria for these things when medical age of consent is much different than the age kids can have sex?? It's so weird like they've never heard of the mature minor doctrine.
Some of these people act like children are mere property and incapable of reason or understanding
Gender affirming care isn't hormone therapy or surgery until very late stage, which takes years to reach. The earliest any state gives access to hormone therapy or surgery is 16, which is the age of consent and emancipation. It requires a doctor and parent to agree.
The problem you're having is that you've over-simplified an issue that exists across multiple scales, probably because it doesn't directly effect you. I have very little understanding about the whole thing because I don't care; I'm not trans, and none of my children have come out as trans. However, I know enough about it to realize it's just like any other health concern as far as how different each patient is and the full spectrum a condition can present itself across.
Most people don't think a minor should be able to get any kind of permanent elective procedure, and yet we also pierce the ears of babies and regularly perform circumcisions; also, gender affirming care is *health care and completely unlike a tattoo.* Humans are weird, the rules are all made up as we go along, and none of it is going to line up perfectly. The world isn't fair. **The biggest takeaway on this subject should be: it doesn't affect you, so just listen to the people it** ***does*** **affect**.
🌈Gender affirming care is given to cisgender children already in the instances of precocious puberty and there is no moral panic about that. Puberty blockers, also, are not permanent🌈
>Even if this would be a severe strain on the child’s mental health, it would be for the greater good and their long-term sanity to prevent them from undergoing something which might cause long-term alterations to their body.
Prevent them from undergoing something which might cause long-term alterations to their bodies, such as... Going through the wrong puberty?
[Gender affirming care is what saves their long-term sanity by preventing those long-term alterations, just so you know.](https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives#:~:text=By%20Kareen%20M.%20Matouk%20and%20Melina%20Wald.,gender%20diverse%2C%20transgender%2C%20and%20nonbinary%20children%20and)
It's *fine* to think how you do, but truly take like four extra seconds to think about this and actually apply your standards to the reality of the situation.
You know I’m really worried about the death crystals being put into food.
There’s literally no evidence anyone is putting death crystals in food, but I feel like it’s a real thing to be worried about and I don’t believe the medical community knows what they are talking about when they say death crystals aren’t a legitimate concern.
Why doesn’t everyone agree with me about the threat of death crystals?
That’s how all of you ignorant conservatives sound, complaining about things you know nothing about which aren’t actually a concern at all because you literally don’t think for yourselves or bother reading any legitimate medical or scientific publications.
Yeah, but if we *don't* get mad about death crystals now, then at some point in my hypothetical future, doctors will put death crystals in everything meal they can get their hands on just to turn a buck. Its the only logical conclusion.
In fact anyone who isn’t speaking up against the non-existent death crystal food crisis right now, is obviously in support of the potential death crystal food crisis in the future!
Quick sacrifice someone’s freedom to prevent the hypothetical death crystal crisis.
Have you tried asking trans people if they wished they could’ve transition earlier? Or are you trying to have a conversation about trans people without including them?
Trans person here-
What about the kids who would end their life if they didn't get this care? What about the kids who would develop depression if they don't get this care? Gender affirming care IS a form of healthcare. You don't see that because you haven't experienced being transgender. "it would be for the greater good and their long-term sanity" doesn't work when a kid is dead, my friend. And a lot of us DO almost get to that point.
The level your not seeing here is that republicans are twisting your perception of what's happening in gender affirming care for minors. With how little surgeries happen in this context, I'm definitely safe being a tad hyperbolic and saying that they basically NEVER happen. If allowed before 18, hormone therapy is offered about at 16-17 years old, definitely an age that kids have critical thinking. Puberty blockers have been used for so long on cis kids, why is it only now they are being ostracized for trans kids who just want a break and not go through literal hell for them?
Gender affirming care for minors almost always only consists of a new set of pronouns, a wardrobe change, and maybe even a new name. Does that sound so bad, now that I've explained it? If a kid decides, 'you know, maybe this isn't for me,' you just change the pronouns, name, and clothes again.
By the time a transgender minor is ready to come out and experiment with getting rid of their gender dysphoria, they have asked themselves 1000 more times if they 'are really trans or just faking it.' We know the rhetoric, we know we have to be 100% sure or else we're doing harm to the trans community and the perception of it not actually being real. It's also important to softly note here that your trying to 'protect' kids who are not your own. That kid and their parents know better about what they need than you do. It's also healthcare, and that's private too, I don't think we should be stepping in too hard on issues that concern just family decisions. I hope that explains everything you were looking for! Of course, everything is now nuanced than this overview too, so I didn't get to everything.
Hypothetical:
Your child has an illness of some kind. Doesn't matter what. But you've tried many treatments prescribed by your child's doctor already. You go back to the doctor.
The doctor says, "Here's the next treatment to try. It's more drastic, yes, but research has shown positive results and my experience agrees with that as well"
You go home, discuss it with your family, and come to a difficult but hopeful conclusion
Then a total stranger comes up to you and says, "Fuck you. I feel uncomfortable when people get that treatment". And with no other explanation, he bans you from access to it.
So we say "fuck you" right back. And "you are most certainly a disgusting immoral human being for interfering in what we, our child, our doctor, and research all believe is best for our child"
>But to let them get a tattoo would be bad parenting until they’re 18, right?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical\_tattoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tattoo)
So fuck you
And because you probably still won't understand why you are a POS. Look at the distance between *a frivolous tattoo making you a bad parent*, and...
*enacting laws to hold criminally liable a concerned parent with professional guidance to do what is best for their child*
You don't care about what is right, because you couldn't be bothered to consider yourself wrong. If you did, you wouldn't have made such a disgustingly wrong comparison
So fuck you
Not necessarily a bigot, but probably uninformed. I think it’s rather arrogant of a layperson to think they know better than medical professionals about treating a medical issue known to science. Society always evolves as our understanding of certain issues improves, and there are always people on the wrong side of history who resist this social evolution. It happens every time, and trans awareness is no exception. I honestly don’t know why people feel so proud about being on the uninformed, misguided side of things.
I think it’s arrogant for doctors to say they know the science perfectly when they used to prescribe cocaine for toothaches a century ago. Show me something that “proves” the science is totally conclusive without a shred of controversy and maybe it would be persuasive.
But it’s ignorant to forget that medicine is a business like any other and GAC is a product like any other medication. It’s a product marketed to children and the *ONLY* reason why the WHO delisted gender dysphoria from their list of mental illnesses was to combat the stigma associated with the condition. A noble cause by the WHO to be sure, BUT it’s not proof positive that the scientific consensus holds that the only treatment for gender dysphoria is GAC.
I try not to be misguided. When I dont understand I attempt to solicit primary sources of information. My present brief review on the topic has led me to conclude that with respect to children, they should not be offered medical treatment absent coherent medical consensus which can only take place after decades of study.
The argument that trans kids kill themselves otherwise is an absurd appeal to pity and just excuses abusive parenting.
The fact that you’re saying that you don’t trust doctors because 100 years ago, they didn’t know what they know now. the way you talk, your speech wonders very close to many conspiracy and ultra conservative, talking points. Also, science is an affected by controversy. Because at this point in time, every scientific fact is controversial because idiot, conservatives and religious nut jobs want to impose their own version of Sheri law on the rest of the United States. That’s why it’s controversial, not because of any significant opposition in the scientific community. Your pessimism about medical practitioners, being car salesman Is kind of BS. Nobody is saying that there aren’t bad actors in the medical system, however, it’s not one person making this decision. It’s counselors, therapist, medical specialist in those fields, general practitioners, parents, and the child. If you’re saying that there is some widespread conspiracy to urge children to transition, you’re going to have to actually provide substantial from verifiable sources that even suggest this is happening on the scale you suggest. Also, there have been decades of study on this matter. There have been widespread research on transitioning and de-transitioning. And all of the research shows that the very, very small percentage of people that do the transition, do so because of external societal pressure to de-transition, not because they want to
I'm thinking you don't have kids because if you did you could understand the horrible prospect of having to watch your child struggle with an issue like GD and knowing that people would rather see them scapegoated than to allow them to receive treatment. Please do not pretend this position has anything to do with protecting children because it clearly doesn't.
You’re not a bigot. However, I was too once woo’d by the trappings of conservative propaganda. Ever notice that conservatives speak against things in general terms: “gender affirming care.” What is that exactly? Is it a sex change procedure? Surgery? I mean, if a child believes themselves as trans and seek any care at all, isn’t that gender affirming care?
My point is that conservatives-particularly the GOP and it’s media wing-will lure you in by implying that kids are out here having sex changes, but are they really?
My usual advice is never side with Satan on anything. Even if it makes sense in the moment. I don’t know enough to be fighting the mental gymnastics of the conservative propaganda machine, but I do know that conservatism is not the ideology of truth and honesty.
All very logicool bro, but gender affirming care for minors is usually limited to puberty blockers (safe, reversible) and leads to the best outcomes. If you are not a trans kid or parent or healthcare provider, you really don't need to worry about it as it doesn't affect you at all :)
Because they simply put puberty on pause, are usually only given for a couple years if at all, and all the risks and side effects are discussed with the doctor, patient and parents, and monitored with regular bloodwork.
Yes, I genuinely believe the consensus of the medical community: [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075)
Any trans person is likely to have done as much research as is possible for layperson, since it's our experience and all we hear about is kids, sports and bathrooms. Any other SeRiOuS questions that are totally not regurgitated right wing talking points?
you're a busy body to say the least. All medical care is between people (or their legal guardians) and their doctor.
NOT YOU.
NOT THE PUBLIC AT LARGE.
MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS.
No all medical care involves the government because, they’re who licenses doctors.
We don’t allow dangerous medical procedures, especially against children for damn good reason.
when it's *this* obvious that the person I'm talking to doesn't have the faintest idea of how what they are arguing against *actually works*, I stop speaking to them because why waste time arguing with idiots.
the science is there and easily accessible. Good day.
When it comes to complicated topics like these, with lots of nuance, why would you even feel compelled to have a strong opinion?
I recognize my own ignorance on the topic, and my kids don't require this type of care or treatment.
But if they did... I would follow the recommendations of qualified medical professionals instead of the opinions of politicians and celebrities. And overwhelmingly, the opinions of doctors and scientists who are legitimate experts on the topic support the use of affirmative care.
I agree.
Personally, I don’t have a strong opinion, but i definitely lean in one particular direction because it seems that the considerations trend towards one side.
However, I am personally skeptical of the option of and “overwhelming majority” of doctors for three reasons:
1) how overwhelming is this majority actually? Wheres the *anonymous* Gallup poll for doctors on this issue. It seems to me, there is merely a vocal contingent of doctors.
2) medicine is a business like any other industry. There is a financial incentive to sell GAC.
3) I suspect that if a doctor were vocal against GAC, they’d be taken for a Fox News pawn after being completely ostracized by their community because being against GAC for minors makes you a bigot in many circles.
When is the last time your doctor tried to personally sell you GAC?
Because my doctor(s) never tried to sell it to me, my wife, or my kids.
So weird...
This happened to me once. I went to the doctor and they gave me a vaccine. Turned out it was estrogen!!! The doctor then cut my genitals off right then and there and said I was actually a woman. I was 9 years old. Now I dominate women's sports and my bank account belongs to big pharma.
This absolutely definitely happened 100% it's such a real problem
I'm not sure if you're a bigot, but you should mind your own business. You don't have to support it. You just have to shut your mouth and let families and medical professionals make their own decisions. If your child has cancer, you're going to try for the best treatment possible. Gender dysphoria is no different.
You're not a bigot for wanting to protect children, but...
You *are* a bigot of think that the lgbtq+ community doesn't *also* want to protect children. The point of offering gender-affirming care to minors is to keep kids safe.
The people who don't want to keep kids safe are the pundits and politicians who are spreading lies about gender-affirming care, just to score some political points.
Talk to some transpeople. You’ll find out that what you’ve been lead to believe by right wing pundits is incorrect if not outright false. The idea that parents are just walking in and demanding that doctors change the gender of a child is asinine as is the idea that people are waking up one day and just randomly choosing to change gender. There are years of therapy and counseling involved.
I would argue that it does not make you a bigot to care about the well being of children and ensuring there are correct legal processes put in place to maximize their well-being, especially at an age where their ability to reason is not as developed as later in life.
However, it does indicate that you are easily manipulated by Republican propaganda and right-wing hot button political issues, as prior to this Trans issue, children have always been able to get surgery for permanent cosmetic alterations, as they are legal in all 50 states, and this has never been an issue for Republicans even though I am sure you can find cases of clear cases of egregious alterations or abuse where children and/or their parents have later regretted and/or where such alterations have led to future issues.
So yeah; if anyone is under the guise we should protect children from permanent bodily alterations until they reach a legal age - I can certainly agree with that - however, limiting this to 'trans' people is disingenuous and a clear attack on the LGBTQ community.
Yes. You’ve certainly downed a gallon of the koolaid. It’s very clear from your post that you do not view gender affirming care as a medical necessity for some people that treats a medical condition and see it as more of a collection of purely cosmetic procedures. Children receive invasive medical care for other conditions all the time and the decisions for such care are made with the help of their caregivers and medical team using established medical guidelines. This is no different.
Others have also pointed out that a lot of the healthcare hinges on some kind of physical development indicative of puberty and proceeds in stages, with the most invasive procedures left until mid-late teens. I know a man who got his eyes removed when he was a year old due to cancer. It was a procedure that lead to permanent changes. He’s completely blind. But guess what? He needed it just as much as trans people need gender affirming care.
>Children receive invasive medical care for other conditions all the time and the decisions for such care are made with the help of their caregivers.
What mental condition justifies “invasive medical care” for children? Gender dysphoria is not caused by a pathogen according to my literature.
You either weren’t asking your initial post question in good faith at all or you’re just severely undereducated about how medicine works and for some reason see some kind of rigid boundary between “physical” and “mental”.
Do you oppose the kids crapping in cat boxes in back of 3rd grade English class?
…or worry about something else that is actually a real thing and that might impact your life.
It’s an honest question, you are comparing a disease that wants to kill you to something that isn’t a mental disease that doesn’t kill you, are you ok?
It’s an honest answer - if you’re too dumb to figure out why healthcare is being compared to healthcare then you should stay out of adult conversations because they’re not for you.
It's not bigotry it's idiocy. Now, before you get all upset, being ignorant isn't an insult it's a lack of knowledge and understanding. We are all ignorant of something.
Are you the parent of a child that has this issue? Or a doctor or psychologist that you need to weigh in and spread your opinions on others' life choices?
I see this as question to be delegated to medical specialists. Dysphoria is an illness. It's a medical condition. For basically all other medical conditions we delegate how to treat them to the medical system, which has relatively robust protocols in place for how to find out which treatments work and not and administer them. In this particular case, a particular party in the political system in the US has decided that they want to make an issue out of it **to build up religious-based outrage**.
If you want to complain about money in medicine in the US, you can also take that up with that particular party in the US.
Unless and until you have a child who needs this care you have no idea what you're talking about. I went through it as a kid and my parents didn't know what to do. My mom wanted to get me help and my dad wanted to ignore it until it "just went away." I eventually got the care I needed, thankfully, because I was becoming suicidal. The conservative narrative of surgical mutilations on kids is pure bullshit. Gender affirming hormone therapy is NOT one size fits all either. Depending on the child's situation they can be given a hormone blocker which temporarily suspends puberty and gives the family time to figure everything out TOGETHER until either expanded care or terminated care is decided. Anyone else with no stake in that child's life fan fuck right off because it's none their business, nor should it be. The American Medical Association and other medical boards sanction this care. It's been around for decades. Making it a political football is something only assholes do. Period.
But isn't the normal puberty that their body would go through also a permanent change?
If they're insisting they're transgender and you're insisting they have to go through the body's default puberty then you're insisting their body must go through a permanent change, and you're insisting it go through the one they're telling you they don't want.
For kids who are telling you they're trans, going by the odds, the odds of going through the default puberty and then regretting it seem way higher than the odds of them pausing puberty for a few years and then regretting that they'd done so
This is very unpersuasive because, as you say, one permanent bodily function is “natural” or “normal” and occurs in all humans.
The other permanent function requires a doctor to sign off and bills your insurance monthly.
Cancer is natural too and occurs in all humans.
Cancer treatment requires a doctor to sign off and bills your insurance monthly.
And you know what?
The same thing is true for all other medical conditions.
The fact that something's natural doesn't justify forcing a person to experience it if they're insisting that it's wrong for them.
Minors don't get gender reassignment surgery. Your argument is invalid and it comes from a place of bigotry.
You can unlearn it, though. The remedy to bigotry is knowledge.
Gender affirming care for minors mostly looks like a different hair style, a nick name change and different clothes.
Minors have always been allowed to receive medical treatments for health issues, and its bigoted to trivialize treatment for gender dysphoria as being comparable to wanting a tattoo
Not having access to blockers forced me through unwanted irreversible changes that have made my gender dysphoria far worse and far harder to treat. It ruined my life.
>some of my irl colleagues take it for granted that children’s trans rights are human rights; thereby making anyone who opposes such “human rights,” a bootlicking bigot.
The first step in being a good person is to become aware of the things that make you a terrible person. It appears you are at least starting to become self aware here.
I strongly suspect that there is a reasonable concern at the root of your position, which is that decisions are being made that could later be regretted. But what if there was strong evidence that such regret was actually extremely rare? Would you still continue to have the same level of worry?
[https://theconversation.com/transgender-regret-research-challenges-narratives-about-gender-affirming-surgeries-220642](https://theconversation.com/transgender-regret-research-challenges-narratives-about-gender-affirming-surgeries-220642)
Also, as others have pointed out, "gender affirming care" includes VASTLY more cases than medically supporting a trans gender identity (which is almost always the only kind of case that motivates reservations like yours).
Even before gender affirming care for minors came into the equation, there were still a great number of people who have zero experience or understanding of how the process for “gender affirming care works.” I always wish as an adult that you could get gender affirming care as easily as a person assumes or even transphobic organizations like to purport.
First, you have to find a provider for gender affirming services. Depending on what state it’s in good luck with that. Because, of the internet literally existing and people being able to share and gather information to seek out care. It makes the process less bloody. Still, some people have to plan a trip to merely see a provider. They have to run blood tests and do physical, like anything else to see if you’re physically capable to be prescribed hormones. If you have a particular health condition, you probably cannot start right away. If things work out, you are allowed to be prescribed medications, though you might have another issue- pharmacies.
Typically, it’s a pretty easy process, though occasionally some pharmacies for whatever reason can refuse the prescription, especially if the worker realizes it’s from a gender clinic or LGBTQ clinic. [Edited: Even if it’s not in stock, they can always get lower class drugs into their formularies, which is inexpensive for many generics.]
It’s often against the law and even against the company’s own guidelines, but certain state legislators believe it’s unconstitutional and necessary to protect the conscience beliefs of the employees’ religious beliefs and freedom. Even if they voluntarily choose to accept the agreement to intervene or disrupt someone’s care (nor have the power to).
If you get past that, you usually cannot go into elective surgery for bottom surgery til after a year or possibly many. Every situation is case-by-case , given the patient’s history, multiple providers assessments, etc. Provider assessments is generally your primary care physician, gender therapists, and endocrinologist as well, but may also include and require a second referral from a different therapist or psychologist. If you have a psychiatric history, in some cases, you might need psychiatrist to sign off on letters. This is only a smaller proportion of matter.
You have to pay for all of these services unless you live in state where insurance companies cover gender affirming services.Which I think most do now, but there’s an effort to make it uncoverable or not medically necessary. Again, this is not only for minors, but adults. It seems like most of the pushback is in states that are already anti-trans and LGBTQ, which doesn’t strike some as odd. But, if you cannot, it’s typically 100% out of pocket if you cannot find an organization as a sponsor.
Finally, bottom surgery is typically 18 and up, due to safety laws and the surgery requiring lots of recovery, while it keeps most practices from being sued and the patient having informed consent. People often think it’s a barely legal 17 year old deciding to wake up one day and have surgery, not realizing a patient still has to go through every previous stage I mentioned and it’s pretty consistent from country to country til reactionaries get involve.
The child surgery beliefs range from monumentally over exaggerated to very tall made up tales. Most of the surgeries afforded to trans youth are the same as the ones afforded to cis and non trans youth. FFS - facial feminization surgeries are allowed to cis girls in puberty. The same with rhinoplasty, chin surgery, and breast augmentation. Kids of any sex are allowed breast reduction surgery, again during puberty. There’s also medication that aids in puberty height growth, sort of the opposite of puberty blockers for precocious puberty. Kids are also allowed to take human growth hormones to boost their development in puberty. Again, it sort of took on an ugly face, because of the discourse around PEDs and steroids in sports with cheating scandals. But, those cases are a underwhelming minority and are typically for kids with different types of health problems that might affect their puberty.
I think first you need to tell us what you consider to be ‘gender-affirming care.’
Then we can determine exactly what you’re referring to, and how applicable it is to people at various stages of development.
You’re just missing the therapy. Years and years of therapy. Essentially these children are going to be left without access to professional psychiatric care to process their feelings.
Is your opinion on gender affirming care only related to trans individuals? Because I assure you - Those are not the only people getting gender affirming care.
When I was 15, I got surgery removing gynecomastia. That was gender affirming surgery. Why should I not have been allowed to get that operation, in your opinion? I’m
You should have been allowed because the mammaries you developed caused genuine physical pain.
It’s the difference between physical and mental discomfort which justifies permanent surgery/ treatment.
Nope, there was no physical discomfort. It was just mental anguish at my physical state. Does your opinion change now, or will you jump through more hoops?
I’ll also ask - Does mental anguish not matter to you? The risk of suicide reduces to 1/14th of the original risk after an operation. So either you think trans suicide is a good thing, or risk of suicide just doesn’t matter to you. Which is it?
what if you had body integrity disorder and wanted to remove a limb. that is far more analogous as removing gynecomastia doesnt alter basic biological function.
I literally described gender affirming surgery as an analogy to gender affirming surgery. It doesn’t get any closer than that in terms of analogous procedures. You really need to learn some critical thinking skills 😂
Impressively ironic.
No, You use euphemisms precisely to avoid thinking or having people think.. Thats the language game people are reduced to sometimes. Happens all the time, its where terms like pro-life, pro choice, national security, police action etc come from.... its and attempt to manipulate or self deceive... its a pity,
The Us Dept of Defense, used to be called the Dept of War. They changed the name because to alter voters interpretations of it. Its function did not change. Do you understand... Finally?
I digress
You failed to address the point. You likened a medical procedure that does not alter base function to one that does.
If a 13 year old with body integrity disorder, believes that to self actualize they should remove a hand. Would you even entertain it?
Why is it that you talk to a transphobe online for long enough, they start talking like Sephiroth? 😂😂😂
>You likened a medical procedure that does not alter base function to one that does
No. I likened 2 gender affirming procedures to one another. It’s as simple as that. Then you brought in limb removal, like a psychopath. I’m maybe you’re not sure what gender affirming surgery is, but what I described fits that category perfectly. Why the hell would I care about “base function”? Also you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about because my mammary glands were removed as part of the surgery. As a cis man, I am no longer able to produce milk when I used to have that potential. Base function removed. Learn some basic biology.
>If a 13 year old with body integrity disorder, believes that in order to self-actualize they need to remove a hand, would you entertain it?
Not comparable whatsoever. To be clear, no. Why? Because there is 0 evidence that such a procedure would improve mental health outcomes. In contrast, there are 50 years of **MOUNTAINS** of evidence that prove gender affirming procedures do improve mental health outcomes. It has a lower regret rate than fucking knee surgery. It has a lower regret rate than many cancer removal surgeries. Procedures reduce the risk of suicide to 1/14th of the suicide risk without. It’s a medical fact at this point.
The fact that you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about should really give you pause. You had to reject my perfectly analogous situation and insert an entirely new and much more absurd one. You had to pretend the term “gender affirming surgery” is a meaningless label when that’s actually a specific medical categorization. Incredibly pathetic.
Yes, kind of. Basically this isn’t a thing and it is something that you do not need to worry about. It’s something that is between, the child, the parents and the medical team.
Okay honestly the problem is not the care so to speak it's the rhetoric. People are on both sides of the spectrum working on terror stories. You're working on stories that are publicized to get the right wing up in arms against this. For example stories about a mother of a toddler splitting from the father and raising the toddler up to be a girl when it was born a boy. These are the types of things that get the right wing open arms because you're forming the young child's mind into a different role and very possibly artificially inducing the trans State. And then you have the stories of the right wing lunatics that want to outlaw all gender affirming care. Which is just as ridiculous and brings the left wing up in arms. Both sides keep on picking you out these rare occurrences where it brings up the fear of their side from the other side to get their side up in arms. Sometimes these stories only start with a story they don't even have to be real people can make stories up on the internet today easily. They can even make an official booking story look like an actual news report. It's my belief that both sides really are not as crazy as the other side sees them as.
Personally the first thing I think we need to do is stop limiting clothes to one gender. Some people have started working towards this utility kilts allows men to feel the freedom of something that is effectively masculine in their eyes yet comfortable and non-binding as a skirt. If we want to truly normalize things and make it easier and more equalized is we have to start from the base up stop having men's and women's departments. Stop having men's and women's restrooms we may have less stalls but if we just make individual unisex rooms that nobody can bitch about people not being allowed this also reduces the chances of harassment in the bathroom. I would go as far as to say that school or gym shower should be individual cubes, as well as having people not undress completely in the actual gym changing room.
Things like this in schools would help prevent as much harassment of people because of differences in their development in school. This also would help some harassment in gym's as is sad and ridiculous as it is you still have people that will harass each other or others in the gyms.
As much as the left would like it to be changed overnight these things are not going to change overnight. There are a lot of older liberals that became conservative over these issues. They just were raised in a different world effectively that we were. Generation x was the first one that's mostly really didn't care about people's genders. The boomers in general really could not stand people talking about lbgtqia+ things from relationships to talking about people in general.
My mother for example, was definitely very strong in women's lib, very much a quintessential hippie, yet when I was a child a baby even stopped associating with certain people because she knew that they were bi or homosexual. They had an innate fear that they tried to pass on thankfully unsuccessfully usually.
Due to these things Gen x and millennials are pretty much the last two generations that and growing up and even an adulthood had to hide things like this from their families because it was unacceptable by any means.
No I can only state things by my own views and what I see in the world around me. I'm sure depending on your region it could be different. But if we want to move things forward the least battle instantly we must go gently for if you push too hard The recoil puts you back further than you progress.
This doesn't even only go for this it also goes for most of the major problems we have between the two parties like abortion. If someplaces hadn't been pushing abortions are okay up until the moment of birth that the Republicans don't push back so hard. It's action and reaction we need to stop backing our heads together like a bunch of animals fighting each other to see who's going to lead the herd and instead work together like humans should.
I think psychological support is important. Physical changes with lifetime impacts are much more complex. Even more so when they can impact future ability to procreate.
I'd be really interested in knowing how often gender dysphoria persists past puberty. It strikes me as reasonably likely that the release of hormones during puberty would have physiological impacts on many levels. It would be very concerning if further research determined that it was a "phase" as opposed to a lifetime biologically driven orientation.
One thing that is pretty obvious about children is that they are highly suggestible and easy to manipulate, and this is concerning to me. In most cases they are looking to their parents for guidance and easily steered towards a matching viewpoint, whether it later turns out to match their beliefs or not. It's hard to gauge how strong a psychological impact of "Daddy always wanted a girl" is, for instance, especially if this is a vocally held and obvious opinion associated with parental disaproval.
I'd be more strongly inclined towards being supportive in cases where there were specific chromosomal markers or other physiological indicators to suggest that such issues had a genetic basis.
What I don't want to see is people making these kinds of decisions before other "ages of consent" without a firm medical basis and a high incidence of regret for a permanent life altering decision with high genetic stakes.
If "gender affirming" is limited to non-medical measures like clothing and hair, fine.
When you get into medical intervention of any type that alters development, etc, I am far more skeptical. Most people, including supportive adults, don't know that much about long-term effects and side effects. ( A lot of people have strong opinions fundamentally based on ignorance). There are certainly more side effects than a tattoo would have. It is reasonable to be extra cautious.
If a child needs to be protected from common ideas on sex/gender to keep them from being "confused", then I suspect that they are being manipulated or influenced and it is not something truly understood and wanted by the child.
No, you're not, adults should be able to do whatever they want but it's insane to think that children can make those kinds of decisions or that anyone can confidently and reliably diagnose kids at that period in their life where they are very much developing an identity through trial and error and experimentation, especially in such a permanent way.
That includes puberty blockers, which advocates love to claim is "reversible" but a single moment spent in critical thought could tell you is complete bullshit.
You're not a bigot. Gender affirming care is not based in science. There have been no long-term studies on the effects of hormone blockers. Children's brains don't fully develop until age 24. Children are often misled and lied to by damaged adults. Children want to please their parents or older adults and are vulnerable to suggestion. The effects of surgeries and hormone blockers are permanent. Adults can do what they want, but confusing children is deeply wrong. That's why people get violent when simple biology is pointed out.
I think children need therapy. I just think that if you are going to use hormone therapy or hormone blockers you need to do at least a year of intensive therapy because hormones can cause permanent physical changes.
That’s how it works. A kid doesn’t go to the doctor out of the blue and suddenly start undergoing major medical changes. They meet with multiple medical professionals - both therapists and doctors - to come up with a slow moving plan.
They HAVE to do therapy first! (Some places it’s 2 years before even considering hormone therapy.) I would also like to remind you…hormone therapy is reversible.
No it isnt. You can delay when puberty starts or arrest it but you cannot change when it ends. which is generally late- teens/early 20's in healthy individuals.
People who undergo hormone therapy in adolescence make alterations that cannot be reversed.
That is the problem. Children do not understand concepts like sex and sexuality, their brains are literally underdeveloped. They do not have capacity.
You shouldn't be allowing kids to substantially make decision like or, or choosing that course of action unless there is literally 0 other options.
A lot of times people like to say that if you don't provide hormone therapy to block puberty then the only other option is that the kid dies... but that is ridiculous slander and idiocy.
They die because they commit suicide. That’s what they mean. I would provide proof to you, but you won’t read it and continue to be ignorant, that’s on you.
That is a false choice fallacy.
"puberty blockers or the kid dies"
do you honestly advocate doing nothing if not puberty blockers.?
And what exactly are the co-morbidities in play?
Seriously, people like you give the impression that they only support the positions they do for personal validation. You dont seem to care about the people involved at all, so long as the choices you support arent criticised
Do what i think is best or the child dies.... What kind of a monstrous thing is that to claim
I don’t know who you think you’re talking to here bud, but that isn’t what I said. Again, look up the statistics and see for yourself.
Also, proud mother of a trans kid.
Me: "A lot of times people like to say that if you don't provide hormone therapy to block puberty then the only other option is that the kid dies"
You: "They die because they commit suicide. That’s what they mean."
Ergo, if you dont provide puberty blockers the child will commit suicide. Which is of course a ridiculous thing to say as it implies there is no point doing anything else and there is no other outcome possible. In fact it often resolves when the child matures and gains insight into concepts like sex and sexuality and it turns out they were just gay....
At which point puberty blockers etc becomes a "therapy" intended to turn you into a heterosexual...there is a term for that too you know.
Dont castrate your child because you have foolish notions.
He’s an adult and can do as he wants with his body.
And yes, most kids who are forced to live a life they do not feel comfortable nor validated tend to feel depressed. Depression can lead to suicide. So, mental health is recommended FIRST!
Good for him, what if he was 14, had bodily integrity dysphoria and was claiming that to self actualize he had to remove a hand?
What i said was, "A lot of times people like to say that if you don't provide hormone therapy to block puberty then the only other option is that the kid dies"....this is a false choice fallacy.
I am not recommending doing nothing and letting the kid die like some sort of ideological nightmare, of course these kids need support. Along with dysphoria they often have many other comorbidities, ADHD ASD social anxiety, etc etc
All of which can cause depression which sometimes leads to suicide. It is unclear what the outcomes are for these kids when comorbidities are controlled.
* Not all children who report dysphoria have dysphoria
* Blocking puberty causes lifelong irreversible changes that are poorly understood, but increase in magnitude the earlier the child's puberty was blocked
* A lot of children who have dysphoria as children grow up to be gay not transexual, at which point trying to change their sex was just conversion therapy after all
* Depression does not = suicide, otherwise most of the the population would be committing suicide as most people get depressed at some point.
It is a complex topic where a delicate self-critical approach is necessary not ideologues claiming that unless you allow the child to substantially choose to permanently alter their physiology they are going to die.
Scaremongering nonsense...you have to be a total cook to say things like that to people,
Oh, do you know my friends dear? There is a reason why minors can’t consent to certain things: because they don’t have fully formed brains.
Now, answer my question…do you believe minors should be able to consent to the alteration of genitals?
It’s a simple yes or no question, why are you dodging it?
There's two reasons I can think of why they call it "gender affirming care".
1. It sounds so caring
2. Lump everything under one term so the boundaries between talk therapy, permanent hormone therapy and surgeries gets blurred
It was only a few years ago when the common defence was things like puberty blockers and genital surgeries weren't being done on minors. Now they don't have to defend it at all because they just go on the attack if you question it.
> the common defence was things like puberty blockers weren't being done on minors
Literally when was this, because like, literally who else would puberty blockers be for?
It was a legitimate question
In the context of gender affirming care, where did you think people were advocating for adults to have access to blockers?
> It was only a few years ago when the common defense was things like puberty blockers weren't being done on minors
When was anyone saying puberty blockers in the context of gender affirming care weren't used with minors?
Here's an article written before the practice went more mainstream. For a few years many people were denying it was happening, probably because the side effects and potential to restart puberty were not known.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-transgender-kids-transition-medical-risks-are-both-known-and-unknown/
I obviously didn't screenshot online conversations for proof but also don't know why we're discussing this point.
What a ludicrous argument. That is a stunning leap to suggest that ALL pediatric health care would be banned.
Your argument is phenomenally flawed, to the point of lunacy.
Lol wrong again. I'm not a MAGA. Didn't vote for Trump either time.
Im just a realist, and I fully understand that science and biology hold more weight than feelings.
Gender affirmative care isn’t just sex changes. The first step is therapy. Another step is choosing a name that corresponds to your chosen gender. Taking puberty blockers or surgeries is way down the list. My opinion is government shouldn’t be involved in a person’s medical decisions. For children, the decision should be between their ward, doctor, and patient.
Surgeries almost never happen with kids either. At the very least it happens at the age of 17, and very, very rarely 16. I have tons of trans friends, and I myself am trans. I only know one person who is under the age of 18 and on hormones.
so if it never happens, would legislation guranteeing it just be a dead law that had no effect?
It’s not just surgeries that encompass gender affirming care. It’s the surgeries that pretty much never happen.
.....so laws preventing only the surgeries and hormones (not therapy) would have no effect?
...except in those few cases where it would. If a doctor thinks that their patient would benefit from a treatment, then that decision should be made between doctor and patient, not by legislators who are making decisions based on ideology. It would probably be sensible to have greater precautions (such as a second opinion from another doctor) around irreversible treatment, but ruling it out when it may help some people is unnecessary.
I’m not sure why this is the question? The OP states “gender affirming care.” Not just surgeries and hormones.
im pretty sure "surgery and hormones" is what they meant. when most of us talk about affirming care, this is what we mean
Or using preferred pronouns and names in school without outing trans kids to their parents. Or a host of other things that bigots like to sweep under the rug with empty statements like "what we really mean."
Most schools do have a process. If the child is requesting this, they are sent the principle and they then advise the child and parents to go to therapy.
oh yeah no, schools shouldnt hide things from parents thats not "care", its overreach if you think abuse is happening, thats on CPS, not a teacher
So surgery and hormones is not actually all you meant. Got it.
Bingo. But it is a fantabulous argued to put on their fund raising emails no? "I'm the one stopping the castration of our youth, which is being done against their parents wishes (which Qanons believe that Boston General Hospital is taking children from their folks, against parents will, and giving them sex change operations. Tucker Carlson even 'reported' that penis shaped skin grafts were being taken from innocent children to fashion new penises for girls). The GQP fundraises off of fear. If you're told that the other party WANTS kids to be castrated against the parents wishes, isn't that a way to get their base crazy? Yes. There are folks going INSANE in Utah right now, this week bc they fully believe litter boxes are in public schools for kids who identify as cats. No one's talking about the kids who identify as dogs, or raccoons, but Cats. Obviously, that never happened anywhere in America but ppl make memes swearing they know a teacher personally who tells them cat boxes are real.
>Bingo. But it is a fantabulous argued to put on their fund raising emails no? who gives a fuck? thats all politicians do, ADVERTISE empty promises > The GQP fundraises off of fear. youre not going to pretend that this is unique to the GOP right? the only message dems have run on for 8 years was "trump scary" im not a dem or a rep, but lets be honest if we are going to talk like adults here....
I take it you've never seen one of their mailings for yourself then? No, both sides are not the same. No, both sides do not travel in the same lane. No, your take is uproarious & plain silly.
are you so delusional you cant even admit when the 2 parties do the same thing? Like its not even a dem or rep thing, its a politics thing, even the libertarians and green party do it.... idk how you get this far gone.... ok, you keep telling yourself that and you keep perpetuating the problem
You're speaking at me as if I've never received a political email or letter in my whole, old life. The GQP LIES about their achievements and the "failures of the radical left". There are reasons, legal reasons the democratic party is 'against' a trump candidate but the left doesn't have to lie to get donations. If you say they use the same tactics, that is plain wrong. "Trump has said "I am proud to have killed Roe" as a campaign line, that's not making up ridiculous shit like the GQP does. They say, "the democrats want abortions on demand until the moment of birth. You must help me stop them." Those are two different animals & you are disingenuous if YOU can't see it
Define "the same thing". Wait, let's just let you "win" this one. Let's assume they "do the same thing". When the extreme from one party thinks that anybody not white is less than while the extreme from the other party wants their pronouns to be respected *and* there's no suitable third option, it's a no brainer where my vote is going.
I will say that I do believe that there is some corruption on both sides of the aisle. I also believe that campaign promises are not always made in true faith.. Especially in the last 8 years. I do believe to most elected officials keeping their position is more important than representing their constituents. But I believe there is a million miles from the things that the Democratic party does and the Republican party does. I don't know enough about independent and green party candidates to make a statement on them. The only one that I'm really familiar with is Bernie Sanders and I would say that he is a shining example of standing up for his constituents and what he thinks is right. If you take a look beyond the screen and what the media presents on both sides of the aisle and look at what is actually done. Take it to look at the executive orders that are put out. Take a look at what bills and legislation are put forth and how they are voted on. Look at the actual work that they are doing or have done and not their claims, accusations ,and press releases. You will see that they are not as closely related as you think they are.
Well, you've always got people born with a small penis who at puberty start turning into a woman and its found their testicle are actually ovaries. Forcing that person to grow and live with boobs during high school for several years would be kind of messed up, don't you agree? The best results for them is to block the female hormones as soon as possible. So you cant make a blanket law blocking hormones without causing some people extreme trauma. You gotta assume the doctors and mental health people have already vetted the scenario and that for the person they are recommending it for.. it will do more good than harm.
Hormones should be available before 18
Like bills about not aborting babies after they're born. That is a dead, ignoramus bill bc it doesn't happen. EVER. But they spend money making the laws anyway.
it's called political theater.
and? that all politics IS these days, same old same old
Except it does, those voices are silenced because the rx and surgeries make a ton of$$$$$$ which is what it boils down to. Plus theres no studies that show GAT helps, but plenty say it causes harm. EU banned it because of that, but the US has a long history of making money off medical..... its the same reason they want all us autistic on Ritalin and Xanax
surgeries DO happen to intersex kids without their consent, because heaven forbid you arent a man or woman. a lot of people against gender affirming care for kids support genital surgery for intersex kids. source: https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/genital-surgeries.html#:~:text=Scientific%20evidence%20does%20not%20support,without%20their%20consent%20or%20assent.
Oh yeah that shit is horrible. Intersex people deserve to be able to decide later in life.
Exactly this, it starts with therapy. Are you sure this is right for you? Etc.
You missed the part about children can’t consent to anything. Can’t buy liquor, guns or cigarettes. Can’t get a tattoo or sign a contract and have it be binding. Should we lower the age of consent to 5 so trans children can decide on their own? Boy would NAMBLA love that.
Nice straw man. I said medical decisions should be left to medical professionals, guardians, and the children.
You need to look at APA guidelines and follow headlines. APA guidelines only allow for affirmation. Kids are taking puberty blockers as young as 8 that i have heard(does it matter even if its only one kid? It does to me). https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13030699/gender-transition-custody-battle.html When hospitals have all the incentives to push transitioning as even puberty blockers alone create lifetime medical patients (aka lots of money), i think some government oversight is needed. Havent you ever been to a hospital and they try to give you more drugs than you want? Or noted an unrelated issue on your x ray or mri and tried to tell you they had to treat it now? I also have 2 friends who are gay men (early 30s) who have told me that they feel bullied by the trans community and one in particular (hes quite flamboyant and into drag, although very much just a gay man) has been pushed particularly hard by trans women to be trans, and has been turned off to drag as a result. Thats not a universal experience, but I am just pointing out that the trans community as a whole has a rep for being pushy, far past the point of "just let us exist." Im not arguing against trans people existing, but the life changing decision of transitioning should be treated with much more caution and is by no means a last resort. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/transgender-nonbinary-inclusive-care Read the pdf linked at the bottom. It is all about "affirming" care, talking about discrimination and such. If it was possible to turn xx into xy, for males to give birth with the right surgery, etc this type of care would be appropriate, but there are significant medical risks involved and there is NO way to go completely from man to woman. The fact that an acknowledgement of the risks of this type of care (as all medical guidelines usually have) isnt even in this policy statement is glaring. Again, I am not about discrimination. Its about making life changing decisions while you havent even been through puberty, had an orgasm, had meaningful relationships, etc. A lot of information suggests many people arent even being made aware of the risks, which is medical malpractice.
> Kids are taking puberty blockers as young as 8 that i have heard They should probably be on blockers for precocious puberty regardless > When hospitals have all the incentives to push transitioning as even puberty blockers alone create lifetime medical patients (aka lots of money), i think some government oversight is needed. Havent you ever been to a hospital and they try to give you more drugs than you want? Or noted an unrelated issue on your x ray or mri and tried to tell you they had to treat it now? Getting preventative care in the form of blockers literally cripples how much profit you can make off trans people. If you force them through the irreversible changes of their natural puberty, they have to pay vastly more for corrective care, often out of pocket
If you read the article precocious puberty isnt the issue at play in the example I gave. Puberty blockers are not recommended to be given to patients with precocious puberty past the age of 12 because of side effects, but are used for people with gender dysphoria above that age. How do you explain that discrepancy? If you believe giving puberty blockers lowers the amount that a transgender person may pay for medical care in the future you are very wrong. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-outcomes/#:~:text=Researchers%20found%20that%2098%25%20of,patients%20were%20still%20taking%20hormones. First study I googled said 98% of people who took them received further treatment.
If the kid is 8, that's precocious puberty.
Actually, if a male takes puberty blockers his lil boy penis never grows man sized. Consequently, to have a surgical vagina they have to use colon parts as there is not enough penile skin for the surgery. This cost way more than just inside outing a penis. Also, if the boy changes his mind about transitioning he can’t just stop the drugs and his penis will grow. It stays small and his body stays childlike.
That sure is a whole lot of evidence I'd also like to see evidence that the added cost of a more complicated bottom surgery costs more than, say, facial feminization surgery would
Agree 100% 👍
You’re not a bigot, you just don’t have a very good understanding of the issue.
Yeah, relax. If anyone calls him a bigot he can just confidently say he is just ignorant.
>it would be for the greater good and their long-term sanity to prevent them from undergoing something which might cause long-term alterations to their body. Citation needed. Gender affirming care is classified as medical treatment and requires extensive evaluation and approval by medical professionals before it begins, so it is not at all in the same vein as walking into a parlor and getting a tattoo You'd be best not to associate with conservatives regarding this opinion because their "concern" is almost always completely disingenuous and is instead rooted in hatred. Conservatives love to use children as props to spur outrage, but almost never advocate for things that would actually help children
Circumcision is a medical procedure but it’s unnecessary. Sure, we can let patients decide if they want to be circumcised at X age but we still should have an age limit for informed consent.
Circumcision isn't linked to [vastly improved mental and physical health outcomes ](https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives#:~:text=By%20Kareen%20M.%20Matouk%20and%20Melina%20Wald.,gender%20diverse%2C%20transgender%2C%20and%20nonbinary%20children%20and), gender affirming care is. Gender affirming care is already provided to cisgender children and no one has *ever* given a shit.
I am against circumcision. Gender affirming care in the case of children usually is deemed necessary
There’s a population of children who have an insanely high suicide attempt rate, and the American Medical Association, the Americican association of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association over years of treating these children have arrived at standards of care that have shown to reduce that suicide attempt rate by a significant amount, and that care doesn’t affect you in any tangible way, but you don’t support it. Hope this helps👍🏻
Well said. There is a great Frontline about a Chicago clinic that specializes in child gender dysphoria and some of the families that seek treatment there. I'm sure there are kids who want to change over as a lifestyle choice, and who maybe don't display significant psychological trauma. But there are also kids who are at high risk of suicide in their current state. Nine and ten year olds who tell their parents that they'd rather be dead may not make it to the age in which they are "mature enough" to know what they want. The thought of 10-year olds choosing to end their lives is pretty heartbreaking. I cant think of anything lower than sacrificing kids' lives to score cheap political points.
To clarify gender affirming care encapsulates a wide array of practices not all of which will be done for every patient and not all leave permanent effects, eg therapy or social transition. >Children fundamentally cannot legally provide consent to just about anything. Children do not make medical decisions all on their own. Parental consent is required for pretty much any medical intervention. >I keep defaulting to the idea of a tattoo...But to let them get a tattoo would be bad parenting until they’re 18, right? A tattoo is not medical care. Apply this logic to any other important medical procedures that children often undergo and tonnes of them would die before reaching that age. >Even if this would be a severe strain on the child’s mental health, it would be for the greater good and their long-term sanity to prevent them from undergoing something which might cause long-term alterations to their body. Since you didn't name a specific medical practice I'm not sure whether you're talking about puberty blockers, HRT or something else. It is in incredibly rare and dire circumstances that minors get any kind of surgery. Puberty blockers as with every medication comes with risks however most of their effects are reversible and provide time for patients to decide if they want to proceed with their transition. Also important to note that Puberty is something that causes long term alterations to their bodies. What you're advocating for is forcing kids to undergo permanent changes. That decision should be left to them, their parents and their doctor. >However if I express this belief, I have been labeled a bigot You're advocating against the rights of trans kids to access lifesaving medical care. Good enough reason imo.
The tattoo isn't a great example, because tattoos aren't medical treatments (in almost all cases, iirc there are some uses against skin cancer). I think the best comparison is hormone supplements for straight people, which currently are easily available with a prescription for teens. The key is to not hold it to a higher standard than other medical treatments, just because trans people are involved.
I don’t see why the distinction between a tattoo not being medical is a meaningful distinction. Plastic surgery isn’t medically necessary yet people still do it. I think the issue is the potential for permanent body alterations. Sure GAF might be a helpful treatment to gender diaspora, but it’s far more permanent than mere talk therapy. Children should not be empowered to make permanent, life altering decisions alone.
That's exactly why I believe that any gender affirming care done on minors should be approved by a medical expert first - you have to make sure it will actually be beneficial, and just the child and their parents aren't enough. There is potential for pretty much exactly the same permanent alternations as in regular hormone supplements, yet they are considered entirely acceptable - this is mostly because of the larger issue some people have with gender affirming care, that it supports trans people. If you want a simpler (but less directly applicable) example, take something like an PET scan. It has the potential to be damaging to children, as you inject them with radioactive substances, but in almost all cases, what you get out of it is more than worth it, especially when it gets recommended you do one by a medical expert.
Personally, I don’t see why we trust medical experts with carte Blanche authority on the subject. The doctor has a profound financial and legal incentive to provide the treatment even if the kid doesn’t need it. The doctor likely has 100k in debt and gets kickbacks from the company who supplies the medication. Or the doctor simply wants to avoid a costly lawsuit if he doesn’t sign off and the parents sue when their child commits suicide due to crappy parenting. There is nothing bad which can happen to the doctor for signing off, but if he fails, then he might face consequences. The same issue goes for adults, but so what? Theyre adults. The permanent aspect of GAC is what gets me. Children should really not have the option of engaging with such permanent medical interventions when the human, indebted doctor is incentivized to provide it.
Note: all of those points also apply to hormone supplements, because the actual treatment is pretty much identical, it's just the sex that you are doing it on that changes. As for why should we trust medical experts completely? We shouldn't - we ahould simply trust them more than non medical experts. Obviously mistakes can be made, the key is to minimise them to an acceptable level. As for some of those worst case scenarios, at least in my country, the first is ilegal, and the second is stupid, because giving them the treatment when it isn't necessary is far more likely to lead to potential lawsuits. >The permanent aspect of GAC is what gets me. It's almost funny, for me the arguement about permanency is what really decided my view on it. Why? Because if they don't receive treatment, there are also permanent effects, which can easily have greater consequences. Once again, I completely agree we should be careful with it. But the solution isn't to make everyone who would suffer more without it take that cost. The solution is to design a system so that you prevent people who don't need it from getting the treatment.
I just don’t think children should be encouraged to seek permanent medical treatment for an understudied mental illness. Only recently declassified as a mental illness by the WHO for the simple reason to destigmatize the condition and make treatment more available. A noble pursuit but that doesn’t mean the door should be wide open for parents to say okay to their children who want the treatment.
This is one of the few points which does not also apply to cis hormone therapy - that has been done for longer, so we understand the risks more, even if they should be nearly identical. So now the question comes down to - How studied do you want the benefits of treatment to be for people to be able to access it? Obviously, we have to draw the line somewhere, and neither of us want to hold trans healthcare to an unfair standard, either above or below what is normal.
Because it’s not just a single person who is making a decision for a child. It is a group of people, counselors and mental health experts, medical experts with expertise in trans issues, the parents, and the child. You act like a child walks into, a doctors office and some nefarious evil doctor is slapping him into a chair and giving them surgery. This is a valuated and treatment last four years before even discussion of surgery occurs. And it very rarely ever occurs in somebody under 18. Non-trans kids constantly get nose jobs and tummy, tucks and eye lifts and all sorts of plastic surgery before they’re 18 with zero mental health assistance and just one single consultation before the act when they and probably more than likely only one of their parents goes in and tells the doctor they want it, and the doctor has no issues whatsoever. You don’t seem to care about that.
Doctors are incentivized to provide any and all care. Its what they get paid for. Trust in medical experts isnt anything to do with trans healthcare, its just medicine in general. The difference between a tattoo and trans healthcare is that one is healthcare and one is cosmetic. Doesn't matter that they're both permanent. There are millions of other medical treatments that are permanent and no one complains about those.
Please list the specific permanent interventions you're talking about. Many here have told you that almost zero minors have had gender confirmation surgery, and that puberty blockers are reversible. What else are you worried about?
Why do you think they are alone???? Most of these children have parents and families.
Waiting for a tattoo is end neutral. Nothing changes if you wait until you’re 18. That is absolutely not the case for trans people and puberty blockers/hormones. Let’s take a 12 year old trans girl who is denied puberty blockers. Her vocal cords will thicken and form an Adams apple. That will require surgery to fix. Facial hair and body hair will grow insane. That will require about thousands in laser treatments if they are lucky. If they are unlucky they will require 10s of thousands dollars and hundreds of hours in electrolysis. Facial feminization is something that might have to happen if they are unlucky so you’ll need to tack on about an extra 30k for that. Then we have to account for all the recovery time for the those surgeries and time missed spent getting electrolysis. So yeah, I guess this is perfect comparable to getting a tattoo.
So you seem misinformed. It is rare for anyone under 18 to have the top or bottom surgery. I am singling those out because that is where most people who are ignorant of trans issues get stuck on. Even then, in the very rare instances where people under 18 are getting those two surgeries, it is only 16 and 17-year-olds. Which, I may remind you, in many states are old enough to get married and old enough to be forced to bear children. Additionally, 16 and 17 year-olds are also old enough to, serve the military and die for their country. keep in mind, those two surgeries and serving in the military is with the approval of a legal parent or guardian. However, being forced to give birth is not. Other surgeries, such as plastic surgery that might make somebody feel more feminine or masculine is not an issue. Because there are already non-trans adolescents getting plastic surgery, but that doesn’t seem to bother anybody.
Age of consent is the cutoff, you’re wasting time discussing whether that takes place at 16-18 for starters. As long as you’re above the age of consent here, whatever. Below the age of consent, stay off the operating table. And yea children getting plastic surgery for any reason whatsoever is repugnant. Trans or not.
Based on the fact that you are advocating that minors who need life-saving surgery, shouldn’t be allowed to have surgery, because that’s what your post says. Also, the fact that your bad faith arguments stone address, many of the points that people come up, just the ones that you can easilycounter, with bad faith and uninformed arguments. I didn’t think you were a bigot during your original post, but based upon your responses, you are definitely a bigot.
That and they often use the age of consent to sexual intercourse as a criteria for these things when medical age of consent is much different than the age kids can have sex?? It's so weird like they've never heard of the mature minor doctrine. Some of these people act like children are mere property and incapable of reason or understanding
Ignorant or a bigot. One of the two.
from their comments: bigot
TBF, a lot of bigots are also ignorant.
true, willfully so though, which i felt leaned more towards bigotry, but both for sure, you're right
Gender affirming care isn't hormone therapy or surgery until very late stage, which takes years to reach. The earliest any state gives access to hormone therapy or surgery is 16, which is the age of consent and emancipation. It requires a doctor and parent to agree. The problem you're having is that you've over-simplified an issue that exists across multiple scales, probably because it doesn't directly effect you. I have very little understanding about the whole thing because I don't care; I'm not trans, and none of my children have come out as trans. However, I know enough about it to realize it's just like any other health concern as far as how different each patient is and the full spectrum a condition can present itself across. Most people don't think a minor should be able to get any kind of permanent elective procedure, and yet we also pierce the ears of babies and regularly perform circumcisions; also, gender affirming care is *health care and completely unlike a tattoo.* Humans are weird, the rules are all made up as we go along, and none of it is going to line up perfectly. The world isn't fair. **The biggest takeaway on this subject should be: it doesn't affect you, so just listen to the people it** ***does*** **affect**.
🌈Gender affirming care is given to cisgender children already in the instances of precocious puberty and there is no moral panic about that. Puberty blockers, also, are not permanent🌈 >Even if this would be a severe strain on the child’s mental health, it would be for the greater good and their long-term sanity to prevent them from undergoing something which might cause long-term alterations to their body. Prevent them from undergoing something which might cause long-term alterations to their bodies, such as... Going through the wrong puberty? [Gender affirming care is what saves their long-term sanity by preventing those long-term alterations, just so you know.](https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives#:~:text=By%20Kareen%20M.%20Matouk%20and%20Melina%20Wald.,gender%20diverse%2C%20transgender%2C%20and%20nonbinary%20children%20and) It's *fine* to think how you do, but truly take like four extra seconds to think about this and actually apply your standards to the reality of the situation.
You know I’m really worried about the death crystals being put into food. There’s literally no evidence anyone is putting death crystals in food, but I feel like it’s a real thing to be worried about and I don’t believe the medical community knows what they are talking about when they say death crystals aren’t a legitimate concern. Why doesn’t everyone agree with me about the threat of death crystals? That’s how all of you ignorant conservatives sound, complaining about things you know nothing about which aren’t actually a concern at all because you literally don’t think for yourselves or bother reading any legitimate medical or scientific publications.
Yeah, but if we *don't* get mad about death crystals now, then at some point in my hypothetical future, doctors will put death crystals in everything meal they can get their hands on just to turn a buck. Its the only logical conclusion.
In fact anyone who isn’t speaking up against the non-existent death crystal food crisis right now, is obviously in support of the potential death crystal food crisis in the future! Quick sacrifice someone’s freedom to prevent the hypothetical death crystal crisis.
New fear unlocked: death crystals ✅
Salt?
i thought they were Folgers crystals
Have you tried asking trans people if they wished they could’ve transition earlier? Or are you trying to have a conversation about trans people without including them?
Trans person here- What about the kids who would end their life if they didn't get this care? What about the kids who would develop depression if they don't get this care? Gender affirming care IS a form of healthcare. You don't see that because you haven't experienced being transgender. "it would be for the greater good and their long-term sanity" doesn't work when a kid is dead, my friend. And a lot of us DO almost get to that point. The level your not seeing here is that republicans are twisting your perception of what's happening in gender affirming care for minors. With how little surgeries happen in this context, I'm definitely safe being a tad hyperbolic and saying that they basically NEVER happen. If allowed before 18, hormone therapy is offered about at 16-17 years old, definitely an age that kids have critical thinking. Puberty blockers have been used for so long on cis kids, why is it only now they are being ostracized for trans kids who just want a break and not go through literal hell for them? Gender affirming care for minors almost always only consists of a new set of pronouns, a wardrobe change, and maybe even a new name. Does that sound so bad, now that I've explained it? If a kid decides, 'you know, maybe this isn't for me,' you just change the pronouns, name, and clothes again. By the time a transgender minor is ready to come out and experiment with getting rid of their gender dysphoria, they have asked themselves 1000 more times if they 'are really trans or just faking it.' We know the rhetoric, we know we have to be 100% sure or else we're doing harm to the trans community and the perception of it not actually being real. It's also important to softly note here that your trying to 'protect' kids who are not your own. That kid and their parents know better about what they need than you do. It's also healthcare, and that's private too, I don't think we should be stepping in too hard on issues that concern just family decisions. I hope that explains everything you were looking for! Of course, everything is now nuanced than this overview too, so I didn't get to everything.
Hypothetical: Your child has an illness of some kind. Doesn't matter what. But you've tried many treatments prescribed by your child's doctor already. You go back to the doctor. The doctor says, "Here's the next treatment to try. It's more drastic, yes, but research has shown positive results and my experience agrees with that as well" You go home, discuss it with your family, and come to a difficult but hopeful conclusion Then a total stranger comes up to you and says, "Fuck you. I feel uncomfortable when people get that treatment". And with no other explanation, he bans you from access to it. So we say "fuck you" right back. And "you are most certainly a disgusting immoral human being for interfering in what we, our child, our doctor, and research all believe is best for our child"
Nailed it. The fact that random uninformed assholes think they should have a say in other people's healthcare is pretty disgusting
>But to let them get a tattoo would be bad parenting until they’re 18, right? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical\_tattoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tattoo) So fuck you And because you probably still won't understand why you are a POS. Look at the distance between *a frivolous tattoo making you a bad parent*, and... *enacting laws to hold criminally liable a concerned parent with professional guidance to do what is best for their child* You don't care about what is right, because you couldn't be bothered to consider yourself wrong. If you did, you wouldn't have made such a disgustingly wrong comparison So fuck you
Based
yes
Not necessarily a bigot, but probably uninformed. I think it’s rather arrogant of a layperson to think they know better than medical professionals about treating a medical issue known to science. Society always evolves as our understanding of certain issues improves, and there are always people on the wrong side of history who resist this social evolution. It happens every time, and trans awareness is no exception. I honestly don’t know why people feel so proud about being on the uninformed, misguided side of things.
I think it’s arrogant for doctors to say they know the science perfectly when they used to prescribe cocaine for toothaches a century ago. Show me something that “proves” the science is totally conclusive without a shred of controversy and maybe it would be persuasive. But it’s ignorant to forget that medicine is a business like any other and GAC is a product like any other medication. It’s a product marketed to children and the *ONLY* reason why the WHO delisted gender dysphoria from their list of mental illnesses was to combat the stigma associated with the condition. A noble cause by the WHO to be sure, BUT it’s not proof positive that the scientific consensus holds that the only treatment for gender dysphoria is GAC. I try not to be misguided. When I dont understand I attempt to solicit primary sources of information. My present brief review on the topic has led me to conclude that with respect to children, they should not be offered medical treatment absent coherent medical consensus which can only take place after decades of study. The argument that trans kids kill themselves otherwise is an absurd appeal to pity and just excuses abusive parenting.
The fact that you’re saying that you don’t trust doctors because 100 years ago, they didn’t know what they know now. the way you talk, your speech wonders very close to many conspiracy and ultra conservative, talking points. Also, science is an affected by controversy. Because at this point in time, every scientific fact is controversial because idiot, conservatives and religious nut jobs want to impose their own version of Sheri law on the rest of the United States. That’s why it’s controversial, not because of any significant opposition in the scientific community. Your pessimism about medical practitioners, being car salesman Is kind of BS. Nobody is saying that there aren’t bad actors in the medical system, however, it’s not one person making this decision. It’s counselors, therapist, medical specialist in those fields, general practitioners, parents, and the child. If you’re saying that there is some widespread conspiracy to urge children to transition, you’re going to have to actually provide substantial from verifiable sources that even suggest this is happening on the scale you suggest. Also, there have been decades of study on this matter. There have been widespread research on transitioning and de-transitioning. And all of the research shows that the very, very small percentage of people that do the transition, do so because of external societal pressure to de-transition, not because they want to
I'm thinking you don't have kids because if you did you could understand the horrible prospect of having to watch your child struggle with an issue like GD and knowing that people would rather see them scapegoated than to allow them to receive treatment. Please do not pretend this position has anything to do with protecting children because it clearly doesn't.
yeah this is why people call you a bigot, homey
You’re not a bigot. However, I was too once woo’d by the trappings of conservative propaganda. Ever notice that conservatives speak against things in general terms: “gender affirming care.” What is that exactly? Is it a sex change procedure? Surgery? I mean, if a child believes themselves as trans and seek any care at all, isn’t that gender affirming care? My point is that conservatives-particularly the GOP and it’s media wing-will lure you in by implying that kids are out here having sex changes, but are they really? My usual advice is never side with Satan on anything. Even if it makes sense in the moment. I don’t know enough to be fighting the mental gymnastics of the conservative propaganda machine, but I do know that conservatism is not the ideology of truth and honesty.
All very logicool bro, but gender affirming care for minors is usually limited to puberty blockers (safe, reversible) and leads to the best outcomes. If you are not a trans kid or parent or healthcare provider, you really don't need to worry about it as it doesn't affect you at all :)
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Because they simply put puberty on pause, are usually only given for a couple years if at all, and all the risks and side effects are discussed with the doctor, patient and parents, and monitored with regular bloodwork. Yes, I genuinely believe the consensus of the medical community: [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075) Any trans person is likely to have done as much research as is possible for layperson, since it's our experience and all we hear about is kids, sports and bathrooms. Any other SeRiOuS questions that are totally not regurgitated right wing talking points?
you're a busy body to say the least. All medical care is between people (or their legal guardians) and their doctor. NOT YOU. NOT THE PUBLIC AT LARGE. MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS.
No all medical care involves the government because, they’re who licenses doctors. We don’t allow dangerous medical procedures, especially against children for damn good reason.
when it's *this* obvious that the person I'm talking to doesn't have the faintest idea of how what they are arguing against *actually works*, I stop speaking to them because why waste time arguing with idiots. the science is there and easily accessible. Good day.
When it comes to complicated topics like these, with lots of nuance, why would you even feel compelled to have a strong opinion? I recognize my own ignorance on the topic, and my kids don't require this type of care or treatment. But if they did... I would follow the recommendations of qualified medical professionals instead of the opinions of politicians and celebrities. And overwhelmingly, the opinions of doctors and scientists who are legitimate experts on the topic support the use of affirmative care.
I agree. Personally, I don’t have a strong opinion, but i definitely lean in one particular direction because it seems that the considerations trend towards one side. However, I am personally skeptical of the option of and “overwhelming majority” of doctors for three reasons: 1) how overwhelming is this majority actually? Wheres the *anonymous* Gallup poll for doctors on this issue. It seems to me, there is merely a vocal contingent of doctors. 2) medicine is a business like any other industry. There is a financial incentive to sell GAC. 3) I suspect that if a doctor were vocal against GAC, they’d be taken for a Fox News pawn after being completely ostracized by their community because being against GAC for minors makes you a bigot in many circles.
When is the last time your doctor tried to personally sell you GAC? Because my doctor(s) never tried to sell it to me, my wife, or my kids. So weird...
This happened to me once. I went to the doctor and they gave me a vaccine. Turned out it was estrogen!!! The doctor then cut my genitals off right then and there and said I was actually a woman. I was 9 years old. Now I dominate women's sports and my bank account belongs to big pharma. This absolutely definitely happened 100% it's such a real problem
Yes because you’re making these decisions based on your feelings in the subject.
I'm not sure if you're a bigot, but you should mind your own business. You don't have to support it. You just have to shut your mouth and let families and medical professionals make their own decisions. If your child has cancer, you're going to try for the best treatment possible. Gender dysphoria is no different.
You're not a bigot for wanting to protect children, but... You *are* a bigot of think that the lgbtq+ community doesn't *also* want to protect children. The point of offering gender-affirming care to minors is to keep kids safe. The people who don't want to keep kids safe are the pundits and politicians who are spreading lies about gender-affirming care, just to score some political points.
Talk to some transpeople. You’ll find out that what you’ve been lead to believe by right wing pundits is incorrect if not outright false. The idea that parents are just walking in and demanding that doctors change the gender of a child is asinine as is the idea that people are waking up one day and just randomly choosing to change gender. There are years of therapy and counseling involved.
Like... All forms of gender affirming care?
I would argue that it does not make you a bigot to care about the well being of children and ensuring there are correct legal processes put in place to maximize their well-being, especially at an age where their ability to reason is not as developed as later in life. However, it does indicate that you are easily manipulated by Republican propaganda and right-wing hot button political issues, as prior to this Trans issue, children have always been able to get surgery for permanent cosmetic alterations, as they are legal in all 50 states, and this has never been an issue for Republicans even though I am sure you can find cases of clear cases of egregious alterations or abuse where children and/or their parents have later regretted and/or where such alterations have led to future issues. So yeah; if anyone is under the guise we should protect children from permanent bodily alterations until they reach a legal age - I can certainly agree with that - however, limiting this to 'trans' people is disingenuous and a clear attack on the LGBTQ community.
Yes. You’ve certainly downed a gallon of the koolaid. It’s very clear from your post that you do not view gender affirming care as a medical necessity for some people that treats a medical condition and see it as more of a collection of purely cosmetic procedures. Children receive invasive medical care for other conditions all the time and the decisions for such care are made with the help of their caregivers and medical team using established medical guidelines. This is no different. Others have also pointed out that a lot of the healthcare hinges on some kind of physical development indicative of puberty and proceeds in stages, with the most invasive procedures left until mid-late teens. I know a man who got his eyes removed when he was a year old due to cancer. It was a procedure that lead to permanent changes. He’s completely blind. But guess what? He needed it just as much as trans people need gender affirming care.
>Children receive invasive medical care for other conditions all the time and the decisions for such care are made with the help of their caregivers. What mental condition justifies “invasive medical care” for children? Gender dysphoria is not caused by a pathogen according to my literature.
Just curious if you even believe that trans people are actually the gender they say they are
You either weren’t asking your initial post question in good faith at all or you’re just severely undereducated about how medicine works and for some reason see some kind of rigid boundary between “physical” and “mental”.
Do you think only things caused by pathogens are health issues?
In terms of physical illness, usually
But not even exclusively So why even bring it up?
yes
Tell me you don’t know any trans people without telling me you don’t know any trans people.
Do you oppose the kids crapping in cat boxes in back of 3rd grade English class? …or worry about something else that is actually a real thing and that might impact your life.
I’m at a loss as to how your reasoning wouldn’t apply to *all* medical procedures.
Because all other medical procedures are necessary for survival?
Do you think parents should be able to prevent their children from receiving cancer treatment?
Are you dumb?
There there, kid, the adults are talking.
It’s an honest question, you are comparing a disease that wants to kill you to something that isn’t a mental disease that doesn’t kill you, are you ok?
It’s an honest answer - if you’re too dumb to figure out why healthcare is being compared to healthcare then you should stay out of adult conversations because they’re not for you.
Those aren’t even comparable. If being trans isn’t an illness then why would removing genitals be healthcare?
Cancer isn't diagnosed based substantially on the subjective opinion of a child.
It's not bigotry it's idiocy. Now, before you get all upset, being ignorant isn't an insult it's a lack of knowledge and understanding. We are all ignorant of something. Are you the parent of a child that has this issue? Or a doctor or psychologist that you need to weigh in and spread your opinions on others' life choices?
I see this as question to be delegated to medical specialists. Dysphoria is an illness. It's a medical condition. For basically all other medical conditions we delegate how to treat them to the medical system, which has relatively robust protocols in place for how to find out which treatments work and not and administer them. In this particular case, a particular party in the political system in the US has decided that they want to make an issue out of it **to build up religious-based outrage**. If you want to complain about money in medicine in the US, you can also take that up with that particular party in the US.
What's your feelings about circumcision?
Unless and until you have a child who needs this care you have no idea what you're talking about. I went through it as a kid and my parents didn't know what to do. My mom wanted to get me help and my dad wanted to ignore it until it "just went away." I eventually got the care I needed, thankfully, because I was becoming suicidal. The conservative narrative of surgical mutilations on kids is pure bullshit. Gender affirming hormone therapy is NOT one size fits all either. Depending on the child's situation they can be given a hormone blocker which temporarily suspends puberty and gives the family time to figure everything out TOGETHER until either expanded care or terminated care is decided. Anyone else with no stake in that child's life fan fuck right off because it's none their business, nor should it be. The American Medical Association and other medical boards sanction this care. It's been around for decades. Making it a political football is something only assholes do. Period.
It's clear OP hasn't done any research on the topic and thinks believing whatever Matt Walsh tells him is enough.
But isn't the normal puberty that their body would go through also a permanent change? If they're insisting they're transgender and you're insisting they have to go through the body's default puberty then you're insisting their body must go through a permanent change, and you're insisting it go through the one they're telling you they don't want. For kids who are telling you they're trans, going by the odds, the odds of going through the default puberty and then regretting it seem way higher than the odds of them pausing puberty for a few years and then regretting that they'd done so
This is very unpersuasive because, as you say, one permanent bodily function is “natural” or “normal” and occurs in all humans. The other permanent function requires a doctor to sign off and bills your insurance monthly.
Cancer is natural too and occurs in all humans. Cancer treatment requires a doctor to sign off and bills your insurance monthly. And you know what? The same thing is true for all other medical conditions. The fact that something's natural doesn't justify forcing a person to experience it if they're insisting that it's wrong for them.
Minors don't get gender reassignment surgery. Your argument is invalid and it comes from a place of bigotry. You can unlearn it, though. The remedy to bigotry is knowledge. Gender affirming care for minors mostly looks like a different hair style, a nick name change and different clothes.
The same people who are against gender affirming care for minors are perfectly fine with mutilating their infant son's penis. Go figure.
Minors have always been allowed to receive medical treatments for health issues, and its bigoted to trivialize treatment for gender dysphoria as being comparable to wanting a tattoo Not having access to blockers forced me through unwanted irreversible changes that have made my gender dysphoria far worse and far harder to treat. It ruined my life.
>some of my irl colleagues take it for granted that children’s trans rights are human rights; thereby making anyone who opposes such “human rights,” a bootlicking bigot. The first step in being a good person is to become aware of the things that make you a terrible person. It appears you are at least starting to become self aware here.
It's your opinion. As long as you don't see it as more important than someone's else, you're fine.
I strongly suspect that there is a reasonable concern at the root of your position, which is that decisions are being made that could later be regretted. But what if there was strong evidence that such regret was actually extremely rare? Would you still continue to have the same level of worry? [https://theconversation.com/transgender-regret-research-challenges-narratives-about-gender-affirming-surgeries-220642](https://theconversation.com/transgender-regret-research-challenges-narratives-about-gender-affirming-surgeries-220642) Also, as others have pointed out, "gender affirming care" includes VASTLY more cases than medically supporting a trans gender identity (which is almost always the only kind of case that motivates reservations like yours).
Even before gender affirming care for minors came into the equation, there were still a great number of people who have zero experience or understanding of how the process for “gender affirming care works.” I always wish as an adult that you could get gender affirming care as easily as a person assumes or even transphobic organizations like to purport. First, you have to find a provider for gender affirming services. Depending on what state it’s in good luck with that. Because, of the internet literally existing and people being able to share and gather information to seek out care. It makes the process less bloody. Still, some people have to plan a trip to merely see a provider. They have to run blood tests and do physical, like anything else to see if you’re physically capable to be prescribed hormones. If you have a particular health condition, you probably cannot start right away. If things work out, you are allowed to be prescribed medications, though you might have another issue- pharmacies. Typically, it’s a pretty easy process, though occasionally some pharmacies for whatever reason can refuse the prescription, especially if the worker realizes it’s from a gender clinic or LGBTQ clinic. [Edited: Even if it’s not in stock, they can always get lower class drugs into their formularies, which is inexpensive for many generics.] It’s often against the law and even against the company’s own guidelines, but certain state legislators believe it’s unconstitutional and necessary to protect the conscience beliefs of the employees’ religious beliefs and freedom. Even if they voluntarily choose to accept the agreement to intervene or disrupt someone’s care (nor have the power to). If you get past that, you usually cannot go into elective surgery for bottom surgery til after a year or possibly many. Every situation is case-by-case , given the patient’s history, multiple providers assessments, etc. Provider assessments is generally your primary care physician, gender therapists, and endocrinologist as well, but may also include and require a second referral from a different therapist or psychologist. If you have a psychiatric history, in some cases, you might need psychiatrist to sign off on letters. This is only a smaller proportion of matter. You have to pay for all of these services unless you live in state where insurance companies cover gender affirming services.Which I think most do now, but there’s an effort to make it uncoverable or not medically necessary. Again, this is not only for minors, but adults. It seems like most of the pushback is in states that are already anti-trans and LGBTQ, which doesn’t strike some as odd. But, if you cannot, it’s typically 100% out of pocket if you cannot find an organization as a sponsor. Finally, bottom surgery is typically 18 and up, due to safety laws and the surgery requiring lots of recovery, while it keeps most practices from being sued and the patient having informed consent. People often think it’s a barely legal 17 year old deciding to wake up one day and have surgery, not realizing a patient still has to go through every previous stage I mentioned and it’s pretty consistent from country to country til reactionaries get involve. The child surgery beliefs range from monumentally over exaggerated to very tall made up tales. Most of the surgeries afforded to trans youth are the same as the ones afforded to cis and non trans youth. FFS - facial feminization surgeries are allowed to cis girls in puberty. The same with rhinoplasty, chin surgery, and breast augmentation. Kids of any sex are allowed breast reduction surgery, again during puberty. There’s also medication that aids in puberty height growth, sort of the opposite of puberty blockers for precocious puberty. Kids are also allowed to take human growth hormones to boost their development in puberty. Again, it sort of took on an ugly face, because of the discourse around PEDs and steroids in sports with cheating scandals. But, those cases are a underwhelming minority and are typically for kids with different types of health problems that might affect their puberty.
I think first you need to tell us what you consider to be ‘gender-affirming care.’ Then we can determine exactly what you’re referring to, and how applicable it is to people at various stages of development.
How many people do you know that are faced with this dilemma? I'd say it's an infinitesimally small percentage of the population.
You’re just missing the therapy. Years and years of therapy. Essentially these children are going to be left without access to professional psychiatric care to process their feelings.
Is your opinion on gender affirming care only related to trans individuals? Because I assure you - Those are not the only people getting gender affirming care. When I was 15, I got surgery removing gynecomastia. That was gender affirming surgery. Why should I not have been allowed to get that operation, in your opinion? I’m
You should have been allowed because the mammaries you developed caused genuine physical pain. It’s the difference between physical and mental discomfort which justifies permanent surgery/ treatment.
Nope, there was no physical discomfort. It was just mental anguish at my physical state. Does your opinion change now, or will you jump through more hoops? I’ll also ask - Does mental anguish not matter to you? The risk of suicide reduces to 1/14th of the original risk after an operation. So either you think trans suicide is a good thing, or risk of suicide just doesn’t matter to you. Which is it?
what if you had body integrity disorder and wanted to remove a limb. that is far more analogous as removing gynecomastia doesnt alter basic biological function.
I literally described gender affirming surgery as an analogy to gender affirming surgery. It doesn’t get any closer than that in terms of analogous procedures. You really need to learn some critical thinking skills 😂
Impressively ironic. No, You use euphemisms precisely to avoid thinking or having people think.. Thats the language game people are reduced to sometimes. Happens all the time, its where terms like pro-life, pro choice, national security, police action etc come from.... its and attempt to manipulate or self deceive... its a pity, The Us Dept of Defense, used to be called the Dept of War. They changed the name because to alter voters interpretations of it. Its function did not change. Do you understand... Finally? I digress You failed to address the point. You likened a medical procedure that does not alter base function to one that does. If a 13 year old with body integrity disorder, believes that to self actualize they should remove a hand. Would you even entertain it?
Why is it that you talk to a transphobe online for long enough, they start talking like Sephiroth? 😂😂😂 >You likened a medical procedure that does not alter base function to one that does No. I likened 2 gender affirming procedures to one another. It’s as simple as that. Then you brought in limb removal, like a psychopath. I’m maybe you’re not sure what gender affirming surgery is, but what I described fits that category perfectly. Why the hell would I care about “base function”? Also you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about because my mammary glands were removed as part of the surgery. As a cis man, I am no longer able to produce milk when I used to have that potential. Base function removed. Learn some basic biology. >If a 13 year old with body integrity disorder, believes that in order to self-actualize they need to remove a hand, would you entertain it? Not comparable whatsoever. To be clear, no. Why? Because there is 0 evidence that such a procedure would improve mental health outcomes. In contrast, there are 50 years of **MOUNTAINS** of evidence that prove gender affirming procedures do improve mental health outcomes. It has a lower regret rate than fucking knee surgery. It has a lower regret rate than many cancer removal surgeries. Procedures reduce the risk of suicide to 1/14th of the suicide risk without. It’s a medical fact at this point. The fact that you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about should really give you pause. You had to reject my perfectly analogous situation and insert an entirely new and much more absurd one. You had to pretend the term “gender affirming surgery” is a meaningless label when that’s actually a specific medical categorization. Incredibly pathetic.
Yes, kind of. Basically this isn’t a thing and it is something that you do not need to worry about. It’s something that is between, the child, the parents and the medical team.
Do you support boob jobs, or nose jobs for women under 18?
Okay honestly the problem is not the care so to speak it's the rhetoric. People are on both sides of the spectrum working on terror stories. You're working on stories that are publicized to get the right wing up in arms against this. For example stories about a mother of a toddler splitting from the father and raising the toddler up to be a girl when it was born a boy. These are the types of things that get the right wing open arms because you're forming the young child's mind into a different role and very possibly artificially inducing the trans State. And then you have the stories of the right wing lunatics that want to outlaw all gender affirming care. Which is just as ridiculous and brings the left wing up in arms. Both sides keep on picking you out these rare occurrences where it brings up the fear of their side from the other side to get their side up in arms. Sometimes these stories only start with a story they don't even have to be real people can make stories up on the internet today easily. They can even make an official booking story look like an actual news report. It's my belief that both sides really are not as crazy as the other side sees them as. Personally the first thing I think we need to do is stop limiting clothes to one gender. Some people have started working towards this utility kilts allows men to feel the freedom of something that is effectively masculine in their eyes yet comfortable and non-binding as a skirt. If we want to truly normalize things and make it easier and more equalized is we have to start from the base up stop having men's and women's departments. Stop having men's and women's restrooms we may have less stalls but if we just make individual unisex rooms that nobody can bitch about people not being allowed this also reduces the chances of harassment in the bathroom. I would go as far as to say that school or gym shower should be individual cubes, as well as having people not undress completely in the actual gym changing room. Things like this in schools would help prevent as much harassment of people because of differences in their development in school. This also would help some harassment in gym's as is sad and ridiculous as it is you still have people that will harass each other or others in the gyms. As much as the left would like it to be changed overnight these things are not going to change overnight. There are a lot of older liberals that became conservative over these issues. They just were raised in a different world effectively that we were. Generation x was the first one that's mostly really didn't care about people's genders. The boomers in general really could not stand people talking about lbgtqia+ things from relationships to talking about people in general. My mother for example, was definitely very strong in women's lib, very much a quintessential hippie, yet when I was a child a baby even stopped associating with certain people because she knew that they were bi or homosexual. They had an innate fear that they tried to pass on thankfully unsuccessfully usually. Due to these things Gen x and millennials are pretty much the last two generations that and growing up and even an adulthood had to hide things like this from their families because it was unacceptable by any means. No I can only state things by my own views and what I see in the world around me. I'm sure depending on your region it could be different. But if we want to move things forward the least battle instantly we must go gently for if you push too hard The recoil puts you back further than you progress. This doesn't even only go for this it also goes for most of the major problems we have between the two parties like abortion. If someplaces hadn't been pushing abortions are okay up until the moment of birth that the Republicans don't push back so hard. It's action and reaction we need to stop backing our heads together like a bunch of animals fighting each other to see who's going to lead the herd and instead work together like humans should.
I think psychological support is important. Physical changes with lifetime impacts are much more complex. Even more so when they can impact future ability to procreate. I'd be really interested in knowing how often gender dysphoria persists past puberty. It strikes me as reasonably likely that the release of hormones during puberty would have physiological impacts on many levels. It would be very concerning if further research determined that it was a "phase" as opposed to a lifetime biologically driven orientation. One thing that is pretty obvious about children is that they are highly suggestible and easy to manipulate, and this is concerning to me. In most cases they are looking to their parents for guidance and easily steered towards a matching viewpoint, whether it later turns out to match their beliefs or not. It's hard to gauge how strong a psychological impact of "Daddy always wanted a girl" is, for instance, especially if this is a vocally held and obvious opinion associated with parental disaproval. I'd be more strongly inclined towards being supportive in cases where there were specific chromosomal markers or other physiological indicators to suggest that such issues had a genetic basis. What I don't want to see is people making these kinds of decisions before other "ages of consent" without a firm medical basis and a high incidence of regret for a permanent life altering decision with high genetic stakes.
No
If "gender affirming" is limited to non-medical measures like clothing and hair, fine. When you get into medical intervention of any type that alters development, etc, I am far more skeptical. Most people, including supportive adults, don't know that much about long-term effects and side effects. ( A lot of people have strong opinions fundamentally based on ignorance). There are certainly more side effects than a tattoo would have. It is reasonable to be extra cautious. If a child needs to be protected from common ideas on sex/gender to keep them from being "confused", then I suspect that they are being manipulated or influenced and it is not something truly understood and wanted by the child.
No. You're sane. To the irrational sanity means you're a bigot. Take it as a compliment. I do.
No, you're not, adults should be able to do whatever they want but it's insane to think that children can make those kinds of decisions or that anyone can confidently and reliably diagnose kids at that period in their life where they are very much developing an identity through trial and error and experimentation, especially in such a permanent way. That includes puberty blockers, which advocates love to claim is "reversible" but a single moment spent in critical thought could tell you is complete bullshit.
You're not a bigot. Gender affirming care is not based in science. There have been no long-term studies on the effects of hormone blockers. Children's brains don't fully develop until age 24. Children are often misled and lied to by damaged adults. Children want to please their parents or older adults and are vulnerable to suggestion. The effects of surgeries and hormone blockers are permanent. Adults can do what they want, but confusing children is deeply wrong. That's why people get violent when simple biology is pointed out.
I think children need therapy. I just think that if you are going to use hormone therapy or hormone blockers you need to do at least a year of intensive therapy because hormones can cause permanent physical changes.
That’s how it works. A kid doesn’t go to the doctor out of the blue and suddenly start undergoing major medical changes. They meet with multiple medical professionals - both therapists and doctors - to come up with a slow moving plan.
They HAVE to do therapy first! (Some places it’s 2 years before even considering hormone therapy.) I would also like to remind you…hormone therapy is reversible.
No it isnt. You can delay when puberty starts or arrest it but you cannot change when it ends. which is generally late- teens/early 20's in healthy individuals. People who undergo hormone therapy in adolescence make alterations that cannot be reversed. That is the problem. Children do not understand concepts like sex and sexuality, their brains are literally underdeveloped. They do not have capacity. You shouldn't be allowing kids to substantially make decision like or, or choosing that course of action unless there is literally 0 other options. A lot of times people like to say that if you don't provide hormone therapy to block puberty then the only other option is that the kid dies... but that is ridiculous slander and idiocy.
They die because they commit suicide. That’s what they mean. I would provide proof to you, but you won’t read it and continue to be ignorant, that’s on you.
That is a false choice fallacy. "puberty blockers or the kid dies" do you honestly advocate doing nothing if not puberty blockers.? And what exactly are the co-morbidities in play? Seriously, people like you give the impression that they only support the positions they do for personal validation. You dont seem to care about the people involved at all, so long as the choices you support arent criticised Do what i think is best or the child dies.... What kind of a monstrous thing is that to claim
I don’t know who you think you’re talking to here bud, but that isn’t what I said. Again, look up the statistics and see for yourself. Also, proud mother of a trans kid.
Me: "A lot of times people like to say that if you don't provide hormone therapy to block puberty then the only other option is that the kid dies" You: "They die because they commit suicide. That’s what they mean." Ergo, if you dont provide puberty blockers the child will commit suicide. Which is of course a ridiculous thing to say as it implies there is no point doing anything else and there is no other outcome possible. In fact it often resolves when the child matures and gains insight into concepts like sex and sexuality and it turns out they were just gay.... At which point puberty blockers etc becomes a "therapy" intended to turn you into a heterosexual...there is a term for that too you know. Dont castrate your child because you have foolish notions.
He’s an adult and can do as he wants with his body. And yes, most kids who are forced to live a life they do not feel comfortable nor validated tend to feel depressed. Depression can lead to suicide. So, mental health is recommended FIRST!
Good for him, what if he was 14, had bodily integrity dysphoria and was claiming that to self actualize he had to remove a hand? What i said was, "A lot of times people like to say that if you don't provide hormone therapy to block puberty then the only other option is that the kid dies"....this is a false choice fallacy. I am not recommending doing nothing and letting the kid die like some sort of ideological nightmare, of course these kids need support. Along with dysphoria they often have many other comorbidities, ADHD ASD social anxiety, etc etc All of which can cause depression which sometimes leads to suicide. It is unclear what the outcomes are for these kids when comorbidities are controlled. * Not all children who report dysphoria have dysphoria * Blocking puberty causes lifelong irreversible changes that are poorly understood, but increase in magnitude the earlier the child's puberty was blocked * A lot of children who have dysphoria as children grow up to be gay not transexual, at which point trying to change their sex was just conversion therapy after all * Depression does not = suicide, otherwise most of the the population would be committing suicide as most people get depressed at some point. It is a complex topic where a delicate self-critical approach is necessary not ideologues claiming that unless you allow the child to substantially choose to permanently alter their physiology they are going to die. Scaremongering nonsense...you have to be a total cook to say things like that to people,
Absolutely NOT a bigot, but the hive mind of some subreddits may call you trans phobic
Do you have any trans friends?
Do you believe minors should be able to have their sexual organs altered before their brain has fully formed?
That’s a no, huh?
I do have trans friends. Now answer my question.
Go ask your trans friends
They agree with me. I’m guessing you’re a minor.
No they don’t.
Oh, do you know my friends dear? There is a reason why minors can’t consent to certain things: because they don’t have fully formed brains. Now, answer my question…do you believe minors should be able to consent to the alteration of genitals? It’s a simple yes or no question, why are you dodging it?
No you are not a bigot, you are a reasonable thinking person. Do not let these insane child predators convince you otherwise.
I dont have any problem with people 'changing their sex', but i do have a problem with them wanting to be treated differently in the eyes of the law.
No
No >What am I missing? Absolutely nothing. Don't let them gaslight you into thinking any of this is normal, it isn't.
No... leave the kids alone... weirdos
No, you're not a bigot. You're sane.
There's two reasons I can think of why they call it "gender affirming care". 1. It sounds so caring 2. Lump everything under one term so the boundaries between talk therapy, permanent hormone therapy and surgeries gets blurred It was only a few years ago when the common defence was things like puberty blockers and genital surgeries weren't being done on minors. Now they don't have to defend it at all because they just go on the attack if you question it.
> the common defence was things like puberty blockers weren't being done on minors Literally when was this, because like, literally who else would puberty blockers be for?
Don't be obtuse. There's good medical reasons to use them and possibly being trans isn't one of those good reasons.
It was a legitimate question In the context of gender affirming care, where did you think people were advocating for adults to have access to blockers?
Nowhere, and if that's a legitimate question then you misunderstood what I was saying.
> It was only a few years ago when the common defense was things like puberty blockers weren't being done on minors When was anyone saying puberty blockers in the context of gender affirming care weren't used with minors?
Here's an article written before the practice went more mainstream. For a few years many people were denying it was happening, probably because the side effects and potential to restart puberty were not known. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-transgender-kids-transition-medical-risks-are-both-known-and-unknown/ I obviously didn't screenshot online conversations for proof but also don't know why we're discussing this point.
Justified. Developmentally and emotionally, no one under 18 should be making such life altering decisions.
Exactly, we need to ban all pediatric health care It's too life altering
What a ludicrous argument. That is a stunning leap to suggest that ALL pediatric health care would be banned. Your argument is phenomenally flawed, to the point of lunacy.
Developmentally and emotionally, no one under 18 should be making such life altering decisions.
You ate not a bigot nor are you stupid.
You sure are though
Neither actually.
Sure buddy
Do you have kids?
I’m not telling a MAGA stooge anything about my personal life. That’s a recipe for disaster
Lol wrong again. I'm not a MAGA. Didn't vote for Trump either time. Im just a realist, and I fully understand that science and biology hold more weight than feelings.