Psaki Says "Gender Affirming Care" for Kids Is 'Best Practice'

And as stated the law doesn't say specifically about teaching sex acts either.

What the law is though is very vague. I will repeat again that there are proponents of the law that admit it will do very little.

 

I'm sorry you went through that. Believe it or not, I have actually attended at least 2 pride parades here in Houston. And it wasn't to protest them. I have a small circle of lifelong friends, some closer than others, but one of them came out a few years ago. Thing is, we always suspected he was gay. None of us ever cared. Now he has a new group of friends so we don't see him around much anymore, but he's always welcomed when he does.

We could guess, but really who knows what actually made you resent LGBT people and what made me not care at all about my friend being gay. I still approach LGBT people I associate with in that way. Neither of us heard stories of what LGBT people went through, but we reacted in different ways to them.

Not caring about anything related to these issues. Some people will not put up boundaries. That is a problem. They'll say all that's happening is X, not Y, then Y happens and they'll ask, what's wrong with Y? At least Z isn't happening. Like I said before, that attitude is irresponsible and spineless. I can't make you understand my point there and compartmentalize it away from the other point.

Yes, I do think K-3 are easy to confuse. Whatever answers to those questions you come up with have to be age appropriate. You're not going to talk about the details of Alheizmers when grandpa died or some geopolitical reasons why Ukraine and Russia are at war.

How do you know it is?

That's the problem.

From what I understand, there are LGBT people who would strongly disagree with there being a possibility that they were not born LGBT. That is the whole argument against people who say it is a choice.

No, the problem is you think the law is against acknowledgement and you simultaneously won't put the boundary at acknowledgement. Ultimately, we'll see what happens in regards to the law's enforcement, but I doubt anyone will be prosecuted for acknowledging LGBT people exist.

Telling a child it's okay to be LGBT, for example, actually goes beyond simple acknowledgement. (It's also something that is frankly weird to tell a K-3 kid that has not expressed their sexual orientation at all or demonstrated any gender identity conflicts.) In that framing, you are not just telling a kid there are LGBT people and that fact is okay, you are telling the kid that it is okay to be LGBT. A kid hears that and thinks it is okay if they are LGBT, which wouldn't necessarily be wrong in general, but it isn't simple acknowledgement either.

Again, that went beyond acknowledgement and into confusion. The kid you tell that to might not ever eat bacon again

 

"I am not bigoted... I have a xxxx friend even."

 

I know exactly why I had those beliefs. It was because I had little contact with LGBT people because as a younger child things like that weren’t talked about except that maybe that neighbor with the nice lawn was “different”. In that vacuum was t was easier to accept messages that homosexuality was bad and that Trans were freaks. At best these people deserved our pity and at worst they were to be hated and shunned.

Since you like to talk about grooming the absence of knowing about LGBT from an early age made it more likely to accept homophobic messages. In other words I was groomed to be a homophobe.

And again who is saying there is “no boundaries”? I and many other have gone explained that consent is important. That is a clear boundary and as minors can’t consent. Again you call for good faith arguments yet continue to ignore that key point to frame this as those you disagree with are for just anything.

So you wouldn’t tell a child that grandpa has a sickness they is affecting his brain which is why he can’t remember people and might die?

I understand we don’t want to upset children but we shouldn’t shield them from reality to try to help them understand that life can be painful and difficult sometime. Children are curious. They will want to know why grandpa is dying why people are dying in Ukraine. Acknowledging that Alzheimer’s exists and that sometime people cant resolve their differences without fighting is reality.

So why then go in about “organic” versus “inorganic” levels of LGBT? Why did you claim that was not their reality if you don’t know yourself?

Yet most or your argument is premised on the idea that more people might become LGBT without this law. That teachers would end up grooming children to be LGBT. If it’s really all biological then it won’t matter what teachers do and this law is completely useless.

You ask for good faith arguments yet you are here undermining your own premise.

We’re already seeing the problems with this law with a similar situation in TX were a teacher in a same sex relationship was fired just for showing a picture of her partner.

Also again the text of this law is vague. You argue about boundaries yet this law very wel, and likely, will lead to the firing of teachers for merely acknowledging that they are in a same sex relationship, that students have parents who are same sex.

Regarding boundaries like teaching sex acts to children that already is dealt with in existing policy. So that boundary existed even without the law.

The scenario was framed as a question If a student asks and given that we live in a diverse society it’s a very likely question to be asked.

Also for a general note, many of the proponents of this law like to use the term “weird” to describe those who disagree. What seems weird to me is that anytime anyone discusses LGBT issues those who oppose it jump immediately to sex acts and that taking about LGBT has to involve talking about physical sex. I mean we don’t talk about heterosexual relationship primRily in terms of the Missionary position.

And again so what if telling a kid it is OK to be LGBT? Would it be appropriate then to say it’s not Ok to be LGBT? How is that teaching acceptance or being “loving”?

and so what if a kid doesn’t eat bacon.. First off that doesn’t mean they are going to become Jewish or Vegan and if they do there is nothing wrong with that.

 

In the other thread about the Situation in Irving I am stating there might be valid reasons for a school to discipline a teacher for a rainbow flag sticker. There is a fine line to these issues and I think there is are gray area of distinction between what is acceptance, acknowledgement, and encouragement.

The problems with the FL law is that it’s vagueness and wording is a blunt approach to a problem that by nature there is nuance. Under this approach an LGBT teacher that merely mentions they have a same sex partner could be sued and fired. In other owed a it’s exactly the kind of zero tolerance situations that Conservatives rail against.

 

You're blaming everyone else for your resentment of LGBT people. You're saying, had my parents explained things better, had my teachers made up for my parents not explaining things better, I would never have been such a huge ******* to LGBT people.

You could be right, but if someone has an itch to punch a wall, and no wall is available, then maybe they punch a door or a window or themselves.

Can you state the boundaries you would put on educators in a K-3 setting, please?

That is exactly what I would tell a child about his grandpa dying of Alzheimer's.

Things they don't need to know are things like the fact that it runs in families or the details of the process of dying of it.

That is also how I would explain war to a child. No geopolitics is necessary.

Not sure what you mean here. I think it's important to know that the increasing number of youth identifying as LGBT are in fact LGBT. Do you?

Just to clarify, I think that without this law there will be more young IDENTIFYING as LGBT. Pretty sure I've done that before, but just in case I haven't.

It is my argument that due to the difference in the expected LGBT population (≈ 10%) and the numbers of youth IDENTIFYING as LGBT (≈ 20-40%) we must consider the possibility that the increase is not natural and that one of the causes of the increase is exposing children to or teaching children LGBT concepts at an inappropriate stage of their development.

Fired? Just for showing a picture of her partner? You're not being honest. We don't KNOW anything beyond what has been reported publically. And you're not even being honest based on what has been reported.

I mean, if she was fired just for the picture, then she'd have a hella strong case for unlawful termination. But we both know that isn't the case based on what's been reported and that it is very likely that there is much more to the story that we don't know.

IF that happens, then I'm sure we'll all know about it.

Are you setting your boundary at sex acts? Everything else is fine, just no talk of sex acts to K-3 students?

I might have mentioned sex acts, but I really doubt it because it goes without saying.

Is that where you would draw a line? Sex acts?

So what if a kid decides to not eat bacon after you talked to them about people who don't eat bacon and their reasons for not eating bacon?

They will miss out on eating delicious bacon just because someone needlessly talked to them in-depth about people who don't.

I would be pissed if my kids stopped finishing their breakfast just because their teacher told them that religion says you shouldn't or that it's not healthy for you or that they don't want to eat animals anymore. You might say, the teacher didn't tell them not to eat bacon, but kids' brains don't work like that, they will hear that God doesn't like it when people it bacon or that bacon could make them sick or that they will be hurting pigs if they do. I'd rather them not like it, simply because they don't.

This is what I'm talking about, you basically said, so what if they do X (decide not to eat bacon), at least they're not doing Y (converting to Judaism or becoming vegan).

 

Very scientific. A man of science and statistics I see.

 

fchowd makes fun of this idea:

but there is some evidence of what some therapists are labeling a type of "late onset" gender questioning that they attribute at least in part to social conditions, peer behaviors, and widely available sources of information on the internet and social media

Erica Anderson is a transgender therapist who believes some kids are coming out as trans due to social influences:

The parents come to Anderson, 71, in part because she herself is transgender. Anderson also stands out because she is one of the few clinical psychologists specializing in transgender youth to publicly question the sharp rise in adolescents coming out as trans or nonbinary.

She has helped hundreds of teens transition. But she has also come to believe that some children identifying as trans are falling under the influence of their peers and social media and that some clinicians are failing to subject minors to rigorous mental health evaluations before recommending hormones or surgeries.

“I think it’s gone too far,” said Anderson, who until recently led the U.S. professional society at the forefront of transgender care. “For a while, we were all happy that society was becoming more accepting and more families than ever were embracing children that were gender variant. Now it’s got to the point where there are kids presenting at clinics whose parents say, ‘This just doesn’t make sense.’ ”

***
In 2017, federal health researchers surveyed high school students in 19 school districts and found that 1.8% identified as transgender — 2½ times the best estimatemade five years earlier.

Clearly, the decline in social stigma has allowed more teens to come out.

Anderson, though, began to wonder whether that was the full story. About 2016, when she began working with the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital, she noticed a growing group of transgender youth: adolescents who had not appeared to question their gender much, or at all, before puberty.

Some drifted from one identity to the other: gender-questioning, trans, nonbinary, gay. And many of their cases were complicated by anxiety, depression, autism, bipolar disorder or other mental health conditions that predated their desire to transition.

“A fair number of kids are getting into it because it’s trendy,” she told the Washington Post in 2018. “I think in our haste to be supportive, we’re missing that element.”

At the same time, she was careful not to overstate her point.

“I can assure you, transgender identity is not something one catches,” she said in an interview the following year after being elected the first transgender president of the U.S. arm of the World Professional Assn. for Transgender Health, or WPATH.

As millions of teenagers across the U.S. went into quarantine in 2020, Anderson found herself meeting more and more parents who were startled when their children came out as trans. The UC San Francisco adolescent gender center where she worked saw a total of 373 new patients last year — up from 162 in 2019.

The teens tended to tell similar stories: They were in online school, had a lot of time on their hands and were spending more time on social media. TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, and even video games, allowed teens to craft virtual identities that they could then try out in the real world.

Online, a stream of transgender influencers and activists told teens that if they felt uncomfortable with their bodies, or didn’t fit in, maybe they were trans. Some coached kids on how to bind their breasts, how to change their name and pronouns at school, how to push their parents for testosterone.

“To flatly say there couldn’t be any social influence in formation of gender identity flies in the face of reality,” Anderson said. “Teenagers influence each other.”

In four decades as a psychologist, Anderson had witnessed waves of adolescents develop eating disorders and repressed memory syndrome. Research suggests that peer influence and social trends played a key role. Was gender identity really the only sphere of adolescent development immune from social influence?

“What happens when the perfect storm — of social isolation, exponentially increased consumption of social media, the popularity of alternative identities — affects the actual development of individual kids?” Anderson said. “We’re sailing in uncharted seas.”

​

https://archive.ph/YnHtl archived article from the LA Times at
https://www.latimes.com/world-natio...ow-to-support-a-new-generation-of-trans-teens

 

and for what it's worth there has been a fair amount of discussion and controversy about these ideas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid-onset_gender_dysphoria_controversy

 

So I'm just trying to find where 40% of children in America are identifying as LGBTQ dude.

 

This is a good question. I could have kept track of where I found that number. I know the 20% number came from an actual government agency. The numbers I found in the 20s, 30s approaching 40 came from other surveys and polls. When I did a search of 40% just now, the major match was 40% of homeless youth are LGBT. I'll link the data as I find it.

https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-40-...-christians-identify-lgbtq-poll-shows-1641085

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...oolers-identify-as-not-heterosexual-cdc-study

Here is an article that finds problems in the Newsweek article: https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/...ans-identify-as-lgbtq-has-some-real-problems/

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-...-rise-in-us-teens-identifying-as-gay-bisexual

Edit: Is there an increase in youth identifying as LGBT? Yes. Is the increase significant? Yes. Double or more expected. Is there discussion as to why among people who discuss these types of things for a living? Yes. Does the number approach 40%? That number is sus. Best to stick with an increase up to 20%.

 

And I do take responsibility for hurtful things I’ve said in done. I wouldn’t discuss bring it up if it wasn’t something that I owned up to.

That said if you’re saying that what I was taught, or not taught, as a child has no bearing on later actions that further undermines your argument that whatever teachers might be teaching will have any bearing and back to the central premise this law is unnecessary.

Certainly. As said consent is the key and as much as would encourage kids to share I would draw the line at teaching them to do things without consent just like taking another kids cookies without their consent. In that regard I would emphasize that you might like someone but they might not like you back.

I too agree that discussing sex acts is inappropriate and wouldn’t discuss thing like sex positions or masturbation with young children. As I said way back regarding grooming I wouldn’t do things like tell children they shouldn’t tell their parents or to keep things secret in class. To me that would be the path to negative grooming.

And neither is telling children that it’s Ok if two people of the same gender can love each other or that someone who might look like a boy might really deal there is a girl is anymore different than going into the process of how they physically express that or gender reassignment surgery.

At the risk of detail what would you define geopolitics? Would you not tell them that Putin is the President of Russia and he is the one who ordered the invasion of Ukraine?

I don’t but my argument isn’t that there is an “organic” level of LGBT. My premise is that it doesn’t matter really how many LGBT there are.

Again you’ve already admitted you don’t know what is the “organic” level of LGBT. Yet you’re arguing there shouldn’t be more.

What if the number actually is 40% but identified are far less out of fear of stigmatization.

My own opinion is it’s an interesting intellectual question of what causes sexual preference and identity. For practical purposes though it doesn’t matter. If we believe in things like “love is live” and LGBT should be loved it shouldn’t matter how or why they are the way they are.

That is fair and was relating what was reported in the other thread. If there is more evidence in that case would certainly be open to hearing it.

I will state again though that the FL law is overly vague and a solution in search of a problem. If it isn’t as bad as it might be will be more evidence it was unnecessary in the first place.

as stated before would also draw the line on actions that go against consent and openess.

And again so what?

are you really going today it’s a bad thing to acknowledge to young children that some others might not eat bacon because they are Jewish and or Vegan? Should it now be “Don’t say Kosher”

 

What's the state of this thread? I need a tl;dr for why this went 31 pages.

 

My point here is that if you had something within you that caused you to resent LGBT people, then you would have resented someone else if you were taught that hating LGBT was wrong. And, if I didn't get those lessons either, why did I react differently. I did not care. But, I get what you mean. That is a good point.

I wouldn't be against teaching that hating anyone for being different in any way is wrong. We would have to consider what is taught at what ages and all of that, but I never was against the types of teachings that would have possibly helped you.

Consent is tough for K-3, though. Really for any group of youth as they can't consent to adults. I guess I'm confused as to how consent would work for K-3. I've read about trigger warnings being offered to college students before certain lectures, is that a form of consent? Would it be the parents that have to consent for them?

I don't remember specifics, but there have been lessons over the years that students had to receive permission to receive. Is that what you mean?

Honestly, I don't know what the hell is going on in Ukraine. I believe that Putin is not 100% evil, that Ukraine is not 100% good, and that both sides believe they are doing what is best for their people. I don't think a child needs to know who Putin is or what he did. Just like you said, there are differences that countries may have that they cannot settle without fighting.

Nope, I don't know what the organic level is, but nobody knows. I needed to do much deeper dives on things like this, but the range I found on quick Google searches was between 4-10%. 10% is probably the more well-known and embraced figure, but there are studies that go down into the 3 to 4% range. Nobody knows. The point was that whatever number I found was less than the increasing number of youth identifying as LGBT. (Also, lower than the number of young adults identifying as LGBT.)

Quick point on the number of youth identifying as LGBT, it is apparently taboo to ask the youth about LGBT identities, surveys vary and there are suspicions on all sides as to the validity of the results (the 40% number was strongly contested). What most agree on is that there is a significant increase and the increase merits further discussion and studies.

You don't think it is important whether it is a natural or an unnatural increase, I do. For one, it makes it pretty much not a choice. That is a very big deal. And two, it is a hard life for one to be "fooled" into.

Even if the whole world was as accepting as the most accepting person there is, an LGBT person would still be faced with undeniable facts of their existence that will make them different than the rest. If they judge those differences as something that makes them less or even more than others, then they will have problems.

We'll see what happens with the law.

That's funny. I just think we need to keep things as simple as possible with young children.



I'm going to exit this discussion now. I think I shared my perspective and understood others. But I engendered a lot of bad feelings and I already made two mistakes in this discussion that I wouldn't have made if I had more time to regulate and check myself.

 

What do you think is the reason a disproportionate amount of homeless youth are LGBTQ?

I think the answer to that question is a reason why teaching empathy about people who might be different than the norm to young kids might be a good thing.

I don't know if you have kids or not but I hope you aren't the type that would abandon your child if they admit they are gay or transgender but a lot of those type of parents do exist or at the very least they will try to "deconvert" their LGBTQ child that could traumatize them and force them to run away.

 

‘It’s Life or Death’: The Mental Health Crisis Among U.S. Teens
Depression, self-harm and suicide are rising among American adolescents. For M, a 13-year-old in Minnesota, the despair was almost too much to take.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/health/mental-health-crisis-teens.html

 

I will repeat my emphasis that this law is vague and the enforcement mechanism is basically what any particular parent might find disagreeable along with a state bureaucrat. You certainly might think that teachings that acknowledge the existence of LGBT and non-discrimination should be taught. Under this law just mentioning those might be grounds for action.

It's pretty simple and as a coach teaching young children sports have done this. There are kids who like to hug everyone. Not everyone including other kids like to be hugged. Simply explain to them that some people don't like hugs but even if they do you should ask someone first if they want to be hugged and if they say no then don't hug them. Also if they say they don't want to be hugged that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or them just that some people don't like to be hugged.

I'm not going to derail the thread as we already have Ukraine threads but I think it can be explained in simple terms. That Putin wants to take Ukraine because he thought Ukraine was too friendly to other countries. It's like when one kid might be upset with another kid because that kid isn't playing with them but with other kids.

That said there are a lot of unsettling things that happen. When things like 911 happen, or COVID I think it's better to find some way to at least give a basic understanding to children than just not talk about it. I think children get more confused when something big is happening but parents, teachers, and other adult figures in their lives don't tell them what is going on.

This is the central premise here. We don't know what the "organic, natural" level of LGBT is yet many pushing this law are troubled by that there are more LGBT. To reemphasize if we don't know what the organic level is how do we know it's not much higher than we think and it's only because as you say fear of "differences" why more people don't identify as LGBT. What if the increase we are seeing is more of a reflection of what the organic level of LGBT is?

My own view is that doesn't matter. If we accept LGBT then it shouldn't matter why they are LGBT.

Yes they are different than those of us who are heterosexual but this is pluralistic society where there are a lot of differences. Many of us have different religious beliefs. Different dietary beliefs. And of course different political beliefs. TO be able to function in this society we put up with people who are different from us all the time. In fact we're doing it right now.

Speaking personally you have not engendered bad feelings on my part. We're having an involved and yes heated discussion because this is an important issue. I don't think you're a bad person because you disagree with me and appreciate your willingness to have the debate and engage substantially.

These are exactly the type of debates we should be having with each other.

 

That's very troubling but the FL law will do nothing to help that and could make that situation much worse.

 

I want to teach children that there are people who don't conveniently fit in to the diametric model of "boy" vs "girl" and those people should be accepted by society and that they endure many struggles that we don't experience.

I want to teach that to young children so they don't end up like people like you.

This whole "I'll accept you for who you are as long as the discussion about it never happens" is the same **** that was used about things like race integration and interracial marriage. "do it but don't discuss about it and just keep it away from my face".