ADDED: Here's a London Times article from 2020: "Giving puberty blocker to ‘trans’ children is a leap into the unknown/A landmark legal review will examine claims that confused young people are being subjected to a giant medical experiment, says Janice Turner."
An 11-year-old child is probably years from his or her first kiss. Yet the drug they are about to take will almost certainly lead to a medical pathway which will leave them sterile. Since their gametes will never be allowed to mature, doctors will not even be able to harvest their sperm or eggs. Can any 11-year-old understand the gravity of ruling out ever having children?
Moreover can this child, for whom sex is an unimaginable, probably rather revolting adult business, consent to a treatment which will depress their future libido to the extent they may never have an orgasm? (Imagine trying to explain the concept, let alone the desirability, of an orgasm to an 11-year-old.) These are the ethical issues which make puberty blockers the most controversial of medications....
Triptorelin is presented by gender clinics as a “pause button” which need not stop puberty for ever but can give a “breathing space” while a young person decides whether they wished to proceed to transition.... The problem is that almost everyone who takes puberty blockers goes on to transition. Frozen Peter Pan-like, they see classmates develop into adults. Many have already “socially transitioned”, assuming opposite sex names and clothing. Going back is scary, so inevitably they press forward into cross-sex hormones. But would they have transitioned anyway? Most likely not....
Doubts about puberty blockers have come from senior clinicians, from LGBT campaigners worried that gender clinics are performing “gay conversion therapy” on future homosexual kids, and from feminists appalled that girls who do not conform to sexist gender stereotypes feel they cannot be girls....
Posts
104 comments:
"it will become illegal to give your child what she needs to exist,"
She will exist after as she did before.
"'It’s not, like, other people’s decision who I am and what I’m not.'"
Illustrating the insanity the law is meant to address. It is other people's decision that kids deserve protection, including from their own worst tendencies.
but evidence suggests that denying the care to adolescents who need it raises the risk of depression and suicide.
John Hopkins, the hospital that pioneered transgender surgery, stopped doing such surgeries precisely because it did not improve the mental illness and suicide rates of those with gender dysmorphia.
In other news, there's a story going around about a substitute teacher who says she was canned for not “identifying” with all of her students, including a young boy who claims to be a cat.
Obviously young children know exactly what they're going to be when they grow up.
evidence suggests that denying the care to adolescents who need it raises the risk of depression and suicide
So there is evidence that "suggests" that these totally unnatural and potentially irreversible life-changing human experiments might help someone temporarily feel better? Is that the standard we want to use?
He may not need a mastectomy later. It shows that the correct rule is that the pronoun ought to refer to the biological sex. A startled reader does not make for good prose.
Puberty blockers and hormone therapy, the two treatments primarily given to minors, are most effective...
effective at causing sterility, you mean
evidence suggests that denying the care to adolescents who need it raises the risk of depression and suicide.
suggests? as in, does NOT state?
suicide rates are high for "denied care" gender dysphorics
suicide rates are high for "provided care" gender dysphorics
suicide rates are high for re-transitioned gender dysphorics
suicide rates are high for gender dysphorics
Yeah, there are risks. The number one risk is that changing genders is a giant irreversible mistake.
What about protecting children? Progressives gave us child labor laws 100 years ago and now this?
Since I believe in a just God, those ACLU fucks are going to burn in Hell for their wrong actions.
But applying cruel neutrality, this might be a tough case. If the parents agree to the medical procedures, I'm not sure the state can jump in and override the judgment of the whacked out liberal parents. The doctrine that the state can act as the parent for a minor is - I think - not very viable these days.
But think of this. A minor can't drive until age 17 and can't smoke or buy beer until age 21. So how is it okay to change genders if one is a minor?
The Left is completely evil. They hate children.
.
"Transexual" as I view it is a form of mental illness, and should be addressed as such. And the alleged depression, suicidal tendencies, etc are ample demonstration thereof. Those problems are already present in that person, and "transexual" desire is but a manifestation, leading to various attempts to alter that situation, of which "transexual" is but one.
Parents accommodating that desire in minors are both weak and abusive. Those pushing it on their children are very sick themselves, and should probably have their parental rights revoked. Unfortunately, these days that's more likely to happen to parents refusing to cooperate with the fad.
Dr. Mengele, I presume!
"hawkeyedjb said...
In other news, there's a story going around about a substitute teacher who says she was canned for not “identifying” with all of her students, including a young boy who claims to be a cat.
Obviously young children know exactly what they're going to be when they grow up."
When I was very young (4-5) a cousin asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I responded I wanted to be parrot. She laughed at me saying I couldn't grow up to be an animal. Who knows what emotional issues I've suffered over the last 60 years because I've not accepted my true identity because of her mocking?
General George Marshall said it best: What if they are wrong?
Remember when anorexia and bulimia were terrible problems because 8 to 14 year-old girls were so uncomfortable with their developing bodies that they made terrible decisions that had lifelong consequences...
Just 5 more pounds
"It’s not, like, other people’s decision who I am and what I’m not."
Can *I* apply this reasoning to my drug use?
It's not other people's decision whether i am a heroin addict or not.
Speaking of which... WHY isn't my heroin covered by insurance like their hormones are?
The standard now seems to be having a small amount of evidence of negative results in order to begin experimenting/researching in real time- going forward. Do they record actual suicides or suicidal mutterings of frustrated tweens/teens who don’t get their own way? I do not make light of the muttering. It’s petrifying to hear ones child saying things like “I wish I were dead” or doing anything to self- harm, like cutting.
As professionals, as experts in the medical profession- there should be varying responses and abilities to treat- not the feelings or wants of the minor- but the actual symptoms and determined diagnosis. Abigail Schrier documents it very well in her book.
The patients are running the asylum, here. Why?
It’s pretty excruciating as a parent to be told by the state that it will become illegal to give your child what she needs to exist
That says it all, really. If you're not allowed to embrace your identity by being enabled by society, government and the medical profession to meet a set of conditions set by yourself, you will cease to exist. This is why even questioning these practices is killing trans kids.
I got a lengthy suspension on Facebook for typing the words "transgenders are mentally ill."
I got another one, in a comment on a thread about immigration, for typing the words "illegal entry is a crime."
In both cases those were my exact words verbatim, and the comment in its entirety.
If FB and Twitter were on fire tomorrow I'd park in front of the fire extinguisher and put the car up on blocks.
Dave Begley said...
The Left is completely evil. They hate children.
This all makes much more sense, if you take that as a starting point
They HATE children. They want to sterilize children so there aren't MORE children
What could go wrong? They are just giving a child what he/she wants. It’s like a nice Christmas for the kids when Mom and Pop have both been laid off.
There is going to be a high price paid for this. No transitions until the subject is in his/her twenties. Of course, then we’ll get stars like Chelsea Manning. No problems there at all.
This is a bait and switch.
You people and "Conservatives" are falling into this hook line and sinker.
You people are implicitly saying that the Government has the right to tell kids what medical treatments they are allowed to take or not take.
They will follow up everything you are doing now with more intrusive demands just like they did when you people decided the government had the power to define marriage.
You people are so predictable.
Stop being dupes.
farmgirl said: "The patients are running the asylum, here. Why?"
Because the parents are allowing 'the authorities' to tell them what the Brave New World norms should be, instead of deciding for themselves what they really are, and rightfully protecting their children's mental health and physical well-being. It's not a tough choice to make, it's just tough work to think for yourself and resolve to stand your ground defending your children as a priority.
Amadeus 48 said...
What could go wrong? They are just giving a child what he/she wants.
No.
You are giving the Aristocracy what it wants.
More government power.
Gilbar- give it 5yrs or switch to methadone. That’s definitely covered. I’d put a winkyface but it’s just too damned depressing to jest…
It’s strange to me- this giving in to the “pulling on the coat sleeve” so to speak, as if these addictions and psychosis’ are the longings of a 5yr old’s whim.
I do wonder- where are all the f/king smart people??
The right is completely evil. They hate children.
Give the kids the right to sue parents who push them into this choice. Make it easier for them to win these lawsuits.
Do Not give the Government the power to tell you what treatments you can give your kids.
For fucks sake people think about what you are doing and what you are demanding right now.
denying the care to adolescents who need it
Destroying a person's natural body, as if that body were itself a disease, is not "care" and no one has "need" of that kind of blatant child abuse.
The mantra of the right -- "Parents and doctors should decide what medical treatment is best for their children, so long as we agree with their decision."
If the Left has taught me anything, it's that we should deny medical treatment in the future to anyone who pursues these drug therapies.
jim5301 said...
The right is completely evil. They hate children.
The posters on this thread are right about one thing.
The leftists pushing this transgender ideology on kids and permanently destroying their life are demented evil pieces of shit.
You are most certainly a terrible person and you know you can't defend what you are doing here in any rational way.
That is why you act the way you do.
Grandma always used to say, "There are enough little girls born into the world that every little boy can be one, and vice versa."
Granny wasn't making too much sense near the end.
Aggie- b/c they trust the powers that be or feel relief when someone “in charge” takes the responsibility of doing the hard thing off their shoulders?
I suppose- in a world where the “least of these”, the most vulnerable- are ripped from the womb even if still living; and harvested and sold for spare parts: in this world of hardened hearts: what’s a few trans lost lives?
It’s that dark-
Child abuse.
There is no other name for it.
They are called 'minors' for a reason.
This is insanity.
Performing the surgery could result in an irreversible error. Not performing the surgery could result in a reversible error.
Discuss.
“ Granny wasn't making too much sense near the end.”
Prescient lady…
A thousand years ago, a hundred years ago, twenty years ago, you did not have hordes of kids with suicidal ideation because they were unable to mutilate their bodies in a vain attempt to copy the opposite sex.
It is the trans radicals and their complicit collaborators and enablers who are causing this angst and distress and trauma in young people (and not-so-young people).
There should be more programs offered, pro Bono, that are tech free where kids could get away to and stop navel gazing.
Why can’t an R or D focus on something like that, for a change. The Dirty Jobs guy says more trade schools.
Who would be paying for this course of treatment?
I think we’re in the final chapter of Animal Farm- that’s why.
The child who is making the decision hasn't experienced the sexual feeling that is being sacrificed. The child can only be told, there's this very intense feeling that other people have and you'll be giving it up, okay? How is informed consent possible? To a child, sex might just seem scary or confusing or disgusting.
The right is completely evil. They hate children.
Which is why we spend so much of our time and resources trying to stop you ghouls on the Left from killing and mutilating them.
These kids and their parents ought to move to Canada. The Canadian Parliament has declared without opposition that biological gender is a “myth” and has outlawed everything resembling “conversion therapy.” Because, you know, conversion therapy is potentially more harmful than chemically or surgically altering the biological sex of a child, particularly at a time like this when the medical profession has demonstrated its trustworthiness. /sarc
OTOH, given time, the leftmediaswine, led by the NYT, may persuade Americans to ignore biology as well as epidemiology and human embryology. Certainly, Democrats will be an easy sell.
"In other news, there's a story going around about a substitute teacher who says she was canned for not “identifying” with all of her students, including a young boy who claims to be a cat."
Come on. That's a TikTok video. It's probably satire. Don't pass it around like it's a real news report.
The world is upside down. A young-adult friend of one of my daughter's was complaining how she constantly had to deal with guys leering at her while she wore sexy clothes. She claimed that male interest in the sexy form of the female was a social construct. This is bass ackwards. Restraint from the natural attraction to the physical form is the social construct, and she should be darn glad that it exists.
The human mind is amazingly inventive, so much so that it can conceive of all kinds of unnatural ideas and then decide that those ideas are the standard, and the natural is the aberration. Man is the only creature that seems to not understand that sex is biology. Only we can determine that our dissatisfaction with our life is rooted in us being born in the wrong body (directly, or in the case of kids, by proxy.) It is the (current) height of narcissism.
I used to scoff at adults who go to shrinks and blame all their ills on their parents. Now I think the "transgender" kids will have legitimate beefs.
evidence suggests that denying the care to adolescents who need it raises the risk of depression and suicide.
I am strongly skeptical of this, not because I think there is no such evidence, but because the way institutions have responded to pressure from transgender activists leads me to suspect that countervailing evidence has been suppressed or improperly discounted. Certainly there is evidence of efforts to suppress studies on de-transitioning, and suppress commentary skeptical of transgender ideology. My impression is that after public outcry, discussion of the problems with surgical and chemical alteration of minors who want to present as the opposite sex has become more open in Britain, but that in the US, institutions remain more beholden to transgender activists (though fortunately, not completely). Anyhow, given that gatekeeping institutions, whether academic journals or bookstores, seem to have their finger on the scales, I am left highly skeptical of expert pronouncements on this subject.
Not surprising the ghouls in the medical community would give these mind and body altering drugs to children. The beta dominant executive function cunts have been feeding alpha males Ritalin since 1944 by labeling us as ADHD or whatever the fuck.
“… from the womb even if still living…”
I should define: they are all living.
In the above, I was specifically referring to those who are delivered and continue, once removed from their Haven beneath the heart of their mothers- to persist in living.
Human guinea pigs. Leave the children alone. IF they decide to mangle their body when they are of age...then it is on them. Let them PAY for it too. It shouldn't be forced on taxpayers
Come on. That's a TikTok video. It's probably satire. Don't pass it around like it's a real news report.
This is pretty funny coming from someone who regularly quotes the NYT and the Washington Post.
Do you hate yourself because your skin is white?
If you're a boy, do you think you're a girl?
Are you completely obviously of the world you live in?
Can marxist teachings actually change human nature?
There are rare cases of premature sexual maturity in children, where puberty blocking hormones can prevent serious problems with nonsexual body operation, like bone growth. My pediatrician wife met such a child just a few years ago, after his parents became concerned that their two year old boy had a large schwanz - just like daddy, but disconcerting on a toddler, according to mom. Hormone treatment will allow the child to grow up with normal sized bones in his arms and legs. He'll still be an object of curiosity for his elementary school classmates, but hey, that's life.
"to give your child what she needs to exist".
There's an exaggeration.
Ann Althouse said...
"In other news, there's a story going around about a substitute teacher who says she was canned for not “identifying” with all of her students, including a young boy who claims to be a cat."
Come on. That's a TikTok video. It's probably satire. Don't pass it around like it's a real news report.
A random tik tok is more likely to be honest than a "real news report" out of the WaPo or NYT though.
"We're Coming For Your Children" was not just a song by the SF Gay Men's Chorus but a threat and a promise.
",We’ll convert your children – Yes we will!
Reaching one and all,'
"It’s pretty excruciating as a parent to be told by the state that it will become illegal to give your child what she needs to exist." Needs [in order to] exist? As in, the child would die or suffer irreparable, grievous bodily injury if not so treated? For human beings, who, not having attained puberty, probably don't have any meaningful concept of sexual desire and how that relates to personality. At what point are we as a society going to stomp these monsters into dust, because that is what one is who performs unnecessary medical experiments on children.
Ann Althouse said...
The child who is making the decision hasn't experienced the sexual feeling that is being sacrificed. The child can only be told, there's this very intense feeling that other people have and you'll be giving it up, okay? How is informed consent possible? To a child, sex might just seem scary or confusing or disgusting.
The problem is a bunch of disgusting shitheads pushing kids to mutilate themselves.
Giving the Government the power to stop these disgusting shitheads from mutilating kids also gives the Government the power to meddle in all medical decisions with kids involved.
Compounding this mistake is the fact that the Government you are giving this power is infested by these disgusting shitheads and is a magnet for disgusting shitheads.
The problem is the disgusting shitheads.
They are incompatible with a free society and need to be suppressed.
Giving the government power to stop them is the wrong answer. Shipping them to China where they belong is the right answer.
Here's another fun thing that puberty blockers do to young boys: leaves them with a micro-penis. If they want to fully transition with bottom surgery, there's not likely to be enough tissue to split the penis, invert it, and create a large enough "vagina." So surgeons have to either take a section of the colon or a large patch of skin from the thigh to construct the fauxgina.
I'm sure that 11 year old boys have a deep understanding of all of these consequences. That's why we make them wait until they are 21 years old to drink alcohol.
Excuse me for being a heartless meanie but I try to worry about stuff based on its overall potential for positive or negative effect on society. Sort of (a) frequency/prevalence x (b) benefit/cost. So I look at trans-nonbinary-fluid-gender stuff and I ask "Why are we talking about this? This issue is largely imaginary (i.e. self-created, mental state or attitude: no physical correlate in a damaged or nonfunctional body). And it is very rare: I'm guessing one in a thousand even has a whiff of it, one in ten thousand might go through a phase, one in a hundred thousand has a lifelong/deep problem. I'm sorry for those folks but I can't do anything for them, so I will just have to leave them to work out their salvation with diligence."
So why are we getting inundated with these Tragic Stories wrapped around Dilemmas From Hell, where no answer will satisfy?
Because the Progs need something to talk about; to make us talk about. We're dancing to their tune.
Screw it. Drive on.
Blogger jim5301 said...
The right is completely evil. They hate children.
That must be why we have so many of them. Lefties like you are abortion/vasectomy enthusiasts. No kids.
And, if you accidentally have some, you abuse them with irreversible treatment.
Homosexual, bisexual, neogender. Transgender conversion therapy through surgical, medical, and/or psychiatric treatments. Transhumane conversion therapy (e.g. planned parent/hood, wicked solution) to relieve "burdens", or human sacrificial rites, too. The model of Pro-Choice religious convictions and exclusion. A progressive path and grade with precedents.
I can't speak as a parent of a kid tormented by being in what they perceive to be the wrong body. I can well imagine searching high and low for a solution to this, and how telling the child to be patient would be a frightful experience, given that the kid is struggling mightily.
I hope if I had been in that position, that I'd be having my kid talk to someone about this (a therapist), and not necessarily relying on a surgical/chemical fix, which seems to fall under the "See? I'm doing something to help my child" category to me.
It's hard for a kid to hear "You'll have to wait" but sometimes that is the best thing to say.
Children are our future so let’s experiment on them and see what happens in a generation or so!
This is a great illustration of how woke people speak a different language than normal people.
. . . for example, a transgender boy who took puberty blockers might not need a mastectomy later.
In normal-speak, this means that the puberty blockers will change the course of the body's natural development, and this change will be permanent.
"It’s not, like, other people’s decision who I am and what I’m not."
It is part of being a human being to determine who people are and what people are not.
It would be inhuman to deny this ability to others.
"Lefties like you are abortion/vasectomy enthusiasts. No kids"
How untrue Michael K. Of course we have lots of kids so we can try to quench our endless thirst for torture. Some of my leftist neighbors even eat their kids after roasting them alive. The privates takes best they tell me - if properly seasoned.
Achilles said...
saying that the Government has the right to tell kids what medical treatments they are allowed to take
ummm, NO
Schools (public schools) are the Government.... You DO know that, don't you? (don't you?)
we're saying (*I'M* saying, that i do NOT want the Government (read Schoolteachers) telling kids to take chemical castration pills (which Sterilize) and to cut off their tits
IF a person (an Adult person), want's to spend THEIR money on mutilation... that's One Thing
If a parent wants gentile mutilation on their daughters; that's another thing
If Schools have special months teaching how Wonderful mutilation is; That's ANOTHER THING
Trans Positive Education for Primary Schools
Building on the success of our book Alien Nation, Trans Positive Education for Primary Schools is supplied as a five-lesson pack for KS2, along with the Alien Nation book (and other resources), and is a fun exploration of different kinds of people and identities, and:
* Can be delivered as a half-term block as part of your PSHE programme;
* Can be linked to the Relationships Education and National Curriculum in these ways
* Helps you meet your statutory requirements to deliver LGBT+ inclusive RSE;
I don't understand how "loss of fertility" fits in as an adverse effect of puberty blockers. Surely, a young male in the process of taking on the female role cannot expect to father a child? -- or to bear one, being still lacking a womb? And likewise of course: a young female taking on a male identity doesn't expect to bear children afterwards; and will be unable to impregnate a biological female partner?
farmgirl about heroin...
it’s just too damned depressing to jest…
you're right farmgirl, and i apologize for my jesting; sorry
I spoke to the mom of an 11yo girl recently.
She said that about 40% of the girls in her daughters class identified as non-binary, bisexual, or lesbian.
11 year olds.
Marxism is evil.
Our nation is being destroyed from within...
'daughter's'
gilbar said...
ummm, NO
Schools (public schools) are the Government.... You DO know that, don't you? (don't you?)
we're saying (*I'M* saying, that i do NOT want the Government (read Schoolteachers) telling kids to take chemical castration pills (which Sterilize) and to cut off their tits
Um, yes.
The goal should not be to limit access to a thing.
It should be to dissuade desire for the thing.
If the government makes it illegal they can still find a way to mutilate their kid.
We should make it clear to people who advocate for this sort of garbage that we don't want them here and we will ship them one way to China if they mutilate their children or try to convince any child it is a good idea.
there is just so much abomination being pushed and promoted, there will be a harsh judgement upon those who should know better, but as in Romans have chosen to deny the truth
PeterJ said...
Surely... a young female taking on a male identity doesn't expect to bear children afterwards;
many (MOST) girls (XX) that transition do NOT do bottom surgery**, just hormones, and (maybe) top surgery*. Same with boys (XY)
Surely, you've heard that "men can have periods"? an "men can get pregnant"?
The Big Concern is: an eleven year old girl (XX) decides she Wants To Be a Boy!
so, puberty blockers an testosterone (which means almost certain sterility)
THEN, when she's eighteen or twenty, she realizes that she was just a tomboy; and NOW she wants to be a woman. TOO FUCKING BAD , 'cause the chemical castration pills have permanently messed up her body.
Top surgery* mastectomy (possibly including nipple removal)
Bottom surgery** surgical removal for sex organs (possibly including making new parts)
Achilles, I'm perfectly comfortable allowing the government to criminalize:
murder
assault
sexual abuse
the mutilation of minors, no matter who is doing the mutilation
just to name a few.
gilbar @ 11 AM: I clicked on that link you gave. Horrifying. These people aren't just sick; they want to recruit and convert everyone else's children to a similar sickness.
I really do give up trying to find a redemptive aspect to this; a reason not to call it evil.
Owen,
I'd say it's about 1% to 2% of school age children identifying as trans. But I think that number is trending upwards.
Puberty blockers for all children.
They can sort it out when they are eighteen.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice a generation to get the point across.
-Loren
Initially, I didn't plan to comment on this, because I don't really feel like I have a dog is this fight. If some teenager wants to get rid of uncertainty and set on a path of certain destruction of their body, they wouldn't be the first.
But then there is the sub-headline about the medical community. In Maine, a doctor that wanted to treat their willing patient with ivermectin had their license suspended and forced to undergo psych evaluation. Even if you believe ivermectin is completely ineffectual in fighting Covid, the fact is ivermectin does not cause lasting effects to the patient. In this NYT story, a doctor wants to give an adolescent life altering medication simply because the patient requests it.
Do you know what the stories have in common? A medical community run by government officials trying to determine the best regulations rather than doctors making the best decisions for the patient in their care. Because Democrats made the government in charge of making these decisions, we all now have to discuss it. Take the government out of the equation and this story is relegated to the National Inquirer.
"Blogger Joe Smith said...
I spoke to the mom of an 11yo girl recently.
She said that about 40% of the girls in her daughters class identified as non-binary, bisexual, or lesbian."
So, this is what happens when the whole society is infected by Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
The ACU has outlived its usefulness, time for them to declare victory and go home.
"Mo is a queer gender non-binary person and Jasmine is a queer cisgender person. Together they raise their blended family in Arkansas where things are always political."
Mo and Jasmine appear to be the parents of the child featured in the Times.
https://www.parentingispolitical.org/about
There is a difference between being born with genetic mutations and being born without genetic mutations but inspired by the outside world to question your gender.
Why can't these kids just worry about acne and procuring rubbers?
Achilles said...You people are implicitly saying that the Government has the right to tell kids what medical treatments they are allowed to take or not take.
Implicitly? Then we're not being clear enough. Of course the government has a say in what surgical procedures children can undergo. That's neither new nor controversial. Did you think it was?
“The child who is making the decision hasn't experienced the sexual feeling that is being sacrificed. The child can only be told, there's this very intense feeling that other people have and you'll be giving it up, okay? How is informed consent possible? To a child, sex might just seem scary or confusing or disgusting.”
Good point. Some might work, if the nerves are properly rerouted, in gender reassignment surgery. But even then, do they work properly? Male and female sexual arrousal is typically fairly different. Some is probably from in utero brain development, while some locks in through puberty. Regardless, suppressing puberty is going to suppress sexual feelings.
Just watched the youngest daughter of a good friend of mine go through a classic transformation from Thom Boy to young woman, from showering once a week, to making herself attractive for her boyfriend every day. Etc. Happens all the time - both the women I married had times growing up when they thought that being a guy would have been great because what they couldn’t do as girls, that their brothers could. A lot of that seems to involve spending more time with their dads. Joke from my former marriage - for birthdays and Christmas, kitchen tools were out, but power tools were welcome. But then puberty strikes, consumes you, and at the other end of it, for most, these issues are clarified. (Or we think they are, until menopause, or the male equivalent, when the hormone driven view of life mellows out). And then, becoming sexually experienced, and discovering the Yin and Yang of our two sexes brought it into sharp focus, at least for me.
No. You can’t give informed consent before puberty about gender reassignment, puberty blocking, etc, because you don’t have a valid point of reference. For many, I view it as a little stream meandering around, then the hormone flood of puberty blasting the proper passage through. With puberty blockers, you never really get to experience what you were meant to be.
Of course, mentioning informed consent brings up another issue - brain maturity. Females don’t complete brain maturation until their early 20s, and males a couple years later. Judgement is one of the last things to complete. When Bruce Jenner wanted to become Kaitlin, I thought fine. Fully mature decision making brain. We all know this, which is why we don’t let kids get married, buy booze, vote, make contracts, etc before their brains have at least some maturity. Prepubescent in humans means that they are maybe only halfway along in age to the judgment of full brain maturity. Probably less. You don’t trust them at that age (entering puberty) on what to eat for breakfast, or whether to go to school or not, so why trust them to decide whether or not they ever want to be able to have kids?
Advocates for transgenderism argue for individual autonomy in making the decision but demand society pay for it by covering costs under health insurance. Take away the health insurance coverage and the number of transitioning kids would crater.
A different operation with some parallels to pediatric 'top' and 'bottom' surgery was widely performed until around 200 years ago, when the civilized world decided it was barbaric and cruel. Exceptionally talented boy sopranos from poor families would be offered a choice (if they were lucky - the less fortunate had no choice): give up any chance of a normal sex life for ever in return for a chance at a career of wealth and glory touring Europe performing as a 'castrato' in works written for the male soprano voice by Monteverdi, Hændel, and others, or stay poor and fully-functional and (if you want) marry and have children. They had to decide before they even knew how pleasurable normal sex can be.
Kingsley Amis wrote a novel about this very dilemma: The Alteration. I haven't read it yet, so I can't tell you how it ends: I suspect, being Amis, he had the boy-hero choose sex over glory. If you're wondering how a 'castrato' sounds compared to a woman's voice, one of the last 'castrati' was recorded in (I think) 1904, though he was of course very old and shaky by then. (I think I heard about this recording from YoungHegelian many years ago: if so, he can tell you more about where to find it.) The thing about boy sopranos is that they have the right kind of voice, 'purer', so they say, than a woman's, but they can't be trained into true operatic superstar excellence because that takes many years, and their voices always change before they can reach a very high level. Unless of course they're 'altered' to keep the voice from ever changing.
Will future generations look back in horror and disgust at pediatric 'top' and 'bottom' surgery, as we look back the creation of 'castrati'? Seems likely.
New profile who dis? said...
Achilles, I'm perfectly comfortable allowing the government to criminalize:
murder
assault
sexual abuse
the mutilation of minors, no matter who is doing the mutilation
just to name a few.
Exactly.
If you limit the procedure it will do nothing to stop it and it will signal that the government can restrict or force and procedure creating a new class of criminals.
The alternative is to remove people from our society who promote and participate in the mutilation of children using one of a variety of methods. My preferred method is choice of exile or death.
Reduce the desire to commit the atrocity.
Do not give the government control over the atrocity.
And the people pushing this garbage have proven to just be generally incompatible with a free society.
How untrue Michael K. Of course we have lots of kids so we can try to quench our endless thirst for torture. Some of my leftist neighbors even eat their kids after roasting them alive. The privates takes best they tell me - if properly seasoned.
Hard to tell satire from you people.
Joe Smith:
What state do you live in?
I'm friends with a mom who has a daughter in an Omaha grade school. Not 40%, but still a high number. I was astounded.
"Hard to tell satire from you people."
It sounds like satire, but that's what the communists did in China after fucking up their country with the "Great Leap Forward." Though generally the starving families swapped kids so that the didn't have to eat their own child. It's almost impossible to imagine something so sick that a socialist, either national socialist, or international socialist hasn't caused it or tried it.
Remember what Stalin did the Ukraine? No wonder Ukrainians viewed Hitler as a liberator. Can you imagine suffering so much under the communists that you welcomed Hitler? Well, it's right there in the history books for our lefty friends to ignore.
Fun fact: No puberty blockers are approved by the FDA for use in treating gender dysphoria. All puberty blockers for transitioning are prescribed off label.
But, according to the FDA and CDC, you really, really, really shouldn't prescribe ivermectin for treatment of the Wu Flu. It's "not approved" for that purpose.
“I hope if I had been in that position, that I'd be having my kid talk to someone about this (a therapist),…”
That’s a huge part of the problem, these schools have counselors that promote and encourage kids to do what feels best for them.
I’m telling you, once God left the building, so to speak, common sense decided to slip away, as well. I’ve heard it said- one doesn’t have to be religious to be moral. Is morality a human construct, then? If God isn’t in the boundaries of right and wrong- not just legal vs illegal- than who defines these moralistic fences? Oh, wait!! I think I know the answer: the smart people do!!!
Relativism- it’s not just for breakfast, anymore.
ps to gilbar: I knew it was hyperbole, I just didn’t want to make it seem normal
Where I live we have a prison. 1/2 the inmates are on some sort of drug: methadone, subuxone and who knows what else…
Primum non nocere
'What state do you live in?'
The mom lives in a very liberal and very wealthy part of a very liberal West Cost state...
As an eleven-year-old boy, I had indeed made a certain discovery that apparently is not universal by that age. Certainly, if anyone had suggested that I embark on a course of medical treatment that would have required me to stop doing what I was then doing three times a day, I would have run off and hidden under my bed. And I probably would have done that thing once more while hiding.
Tom, as an eleven-year-old girl I mentally characterized that apparently non-universal thing as "something I can't live without."
Raised suicide a depression rates to WHAT? Is it like the possibility of a 20 year old dying from covid? .08 percent. Doubt it’s that high.
My phone gives me a story about an Englishwoman, a large and muscular athlete, saying something like, "I am a woman. Stop mistaking me for a man."
It reads very differently now than it would have a few years back. There are so many questions now that wouldn't have occurred to one earlier.
We are well aware that studies of transgendered persons, not to mention homosexuals, have been compromised severely by political correctness. Any recent claims are useless as the studies are typically complete garbage and anything that would be useful is either suppressed or never even started. Our expert class is useless, the large majority of them either being unqualified, overtly biased fanatics or cowards. Yet, here we are, once again, told to trust the untrustworthy and believe the unbelievable.
Some will declare this to be anti-intellectualism. This may have been an accurate assessment even a decade ago, but now I am at a loss to find any intellectuals to be anti.
What's gonna happen when medical "science" finds a way to transition a child to a different race?
Anyone who proposes to give their kid puberty blockers for any such reason as this should have their kid taken away from them for the kid's safety.
Ann, I am not so sure that the "substitute teacher fired for not identifying with the student who thought he was a cat" is satire. Stranger things have happened.
Owen,
And it is very rare: I'm guessing one in a thousand even has a whiff of it, one in ten thousand might go through a phase, one in a hundred thousand has a lifelong/deep problem.
I think you are mistaken. My husband teaches in a public high school here in Salem, and he currently has three transgender students among perhaps a hundred total. This isn't at all rare.
Dr. Weevil, thanks very much for bringing up the castrati; I was hoping someone would do that. Farinelli et al. had fantastic fame and Europe-wide reputations, but they were a very small percentage of the boys that got "cut." The general idea was just like NBA or NFL hopefuls: If you won the big prize, you really did win big; otherwise, you were on the skids, infertile and with no voice to show for it.
And the mental consequences, suicides after realizing surgery was a mistake?
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