What is a commonly done surgical procedure on children that is permanent and without any input from the children? Should the government take that medical option away from parents?
What is stupid about comparing gender affirming surgeries to any other surgery is that gender affirming surgeries take away a person's humanity. It makes them unhuman. You add the aspect of performing these surgeries on children and it gets downright grotesque. You literally condemn a child to a life in which they will not only never be truly male or female, but most importantly, they will never reproduce. The same people who once were against these surgeries on children are now forced to accept them because they are faced with the reality that they are occuring. Yes, the number of surgeries aren't great, but we all know that number will increase. We all know that eventually all of these laws put in place to prevent these surgeries will fall. So, it makes sense that people will find acceptable surgeries to compare them to because it is too difficult for them to swallow the reality of the situation children are put in. @LondonCalling It's not about genitals. Stop being weird. It's about the humanity of people. I haven't done any digging on Twitter. I don't even have an account. This also isn't about bodily autonomy either. This is about allowing people to end their own humanity, in the case of adults, and allowing adults to end the humanity of children. But I get it, it makes you feel better to compare PEDs to puberty blockers and cosmetic surgeries to gender affirming surgeries. Don't act like you don't care, though. The people who truly don't have an opinion, would never post here or even read this thread. If you agree with them, fine, but agree with them in their totality. Don't sugarcoat them or attempt to liken them to generally acceptable surgeries.
The thing that is grotesque here is your notion that transgender people are “unhuman”. What does it mean to be “truly male” or “truly female”? Are you saying that someone who can’t reproduce or chooses not to reproduce isn’t truly one or the other? I fully support a doctor’s choice not to provide procedures that creates significant risk for infertility in the patient. I also support access to such procedures in exceptional circumstances determined by a family and their health care team, where the well-being of the patient would otherwise be at great risk. Codifying the standards that must be met to administer such procedures into law, as determined by medical professional bodies, seems sensible.
There's a difference between a transgender person that hasn't gone under the knife, and one who has. If you can look at the latter and say, yes, that person is as human as me, then you aren't being honest with yourself. And I'm talking about looking at them in their fullness, their nakedness, not some dude in dress like Kaitlyn Jenner or lady in a pantsuit like Elliot Page. And I don’t know if they've gone under the knife or not, but I'm guessing they have. There's a difference between being born incapable of reproducing or choosing not to reproduce and having that option taken from you. You know these things, why do you ask? We are strangers, but not really. I think you can predict my answer to simple-minded questions like those. I'm more menso than MENSA, but those are still easy. Those people that are codifying the standards and laws are not looking out for the best interest of the patient. They have financial, political, societal, moral, and cultural concerns first and foremost on their minds.
This doesn’t make your position any better. What they choose to do with their bodies is their business, and they are still fully “human” in any sensible meaning of the word. For you to say they are somehow less than human is pretty grotesque, as I said. And I'm being fully honest. Don't project your own issues onto others. Of course there's a difference. But that difference isn't relevant to the question of whether they are "truly male" or "truly female". If being born without the ability to reproduce doesn't affect whether they are male or female, it makes no sense for you to argue that a person who had the capability to reproduce and then subsequently lost that ability is now neither male or female. Who is "they" here? Who are the people who should be codifying the laws that you believe put the interest of patients over financial, political, societal, moral, and cultural concerns? The same people who want to ban all abortions -- those people?
Gender-affirming surgeries are not recommended for kids. A red herring. Republicans are pushing laws to ban all gender-affirming care for kids and making it more difficult for this group to live by further stigmatizing them. The result is likely more mental illness and suicides for this group. Gender-Affirming Care and Young People (hhs.gov) Gender-affirming care improves mental health for transgender youth | Science News Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy Lowers Suicide Risk: Study | Time The use of gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) is significantly related to lower rates of depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth, according to a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health on Tuesday. The peer-reviewed study comes from researchers at The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth, and is the first large-scale study to examine GAHT’s impact on trans and nonbinary young people. The study examines data collected in a Trevor Project survey of over 34,000 LGBTQ youth between the ages of 13 and 24 across the U.S. from October to December 2020. Of the respondents, 12,000 identified as transgender or nonbinary.
What they have done to them makes them unhuman in the same sense that people who sharpen their teeth or split their tongue to appear reptilian is unhuman. It's not really what they choose either. They aren't well. Really, the people doing this to them aren't well either. If the transgenders were well, they wouldn't believe that making their bodies appear to be male or female makes them male or female. If the surgeons and others who allow this to happen were well, they wouldn't do what they do to people who aren't well. You're going to get to the point, if you're not there already, where you don't have a set definition for anything in regards to this issue. It's all going to be an issue left to intellectualization just as it is for those who are going through this conflict. Personally, I won't give up the ability to discern the difference between what it means to be a male or female. It's a quality you are unequivocally born with, not one you modify. Lost isn't the right word. That capability was taken from them. The same people you brought up above are the they. As far as who should, the same people that do and will codify laws are those that should. It won't mean that they are doing what they are doing with the best interests of the patient in mind and it won't mean that it is what is right or correct. I'm just giving my perspective, not my prescription on this matter.
This is getting off track from the point I think you were originally making. You are concerned about adolescents receiving treatments that will doom them to a life in which they are not truly male or female, but rather in some in-between, unhuman state. I don't know what you mean by "truly male" or "truly female", given that now you are saying that male/female are immutable qualities one is born with. Apparently, they can change their gender, in your mind, if it's possible for them to be neither "truly male" or "truly female" via some treatment.
Honestly, the people all hysterical over this don't care if more of these teens commit suicide without having treatment or surgery. That's pretty obvious.
What does it mean to be male or female to you? Not sure if it matters either way. The reason I say truly is because one believing you are this or that and others affirming that belief does not make one what one believes. If it did then a nobody disagreeing would not threaten that belief. Not even disagreement from a family member would. What made you think that I believe one could change?
Male/female can be used to describe a binary sexual characteristic. A person can have male or female gonads, male or female sex chromosomes, etc.. And it's usually fair to use it to describe a full person, since people overwhelmingly either express male or female sex characteristics and identify as "male" or "female", consistent with those characteristics, when interacting with others. One can also use it to describe gender identity, which is probably some product of brain chemistry that we don't yet fully understand. Some people have a strong sensation that they are male or female even when their sex chromosomes or reproductive organs indicate otherwise. Whether we refer to them, as persons, as "male" or "female" is a matter of social convention. Some people think it's more important to forefront a person's reproductive organs as defining whether they are male or female, and consequentially how they fit into society, while others think that how a person sees themselves and wishes to interact in the world with others should be what matters. The dispute isn't really over biological reality. No one is disputing that a transwoman who still has a penis doesn't actually have a penis, or doesn't actually have XY sex chromosomes. The dispute is over what we should use to gender-categorize others. "You literally condemn a child to a life in which they will not only never be truly male or female," I think I just misunderstand what you meant. I read the above as that they would neither be truly male or truly female. But I think you meant that they will never "truly" be the gender they identify as (whether that is male, female, or something else).
