5 ms·

It does sound like common sense to me though... I'm still completely astonished that doctors allow teenagers to undergo sex change surgery or chemical procedure

by bsaul 4y ago

It does sound like common sense to me though... I'm still completely astonished that doctors allow teenagers to undergo sex change surgery or chemical procedures before the age of sexual consent, or the right to vote. Either we consider kids to be kids, and thus not totally "settled" psychologically (for the lack of a better word), or we don't. PS: the issue of taking kids custody out of trans parents is an entirely different matter though..And i agree that states "kidnapping" them is highly problematic.

hairofadog 4y ago
Out of curiosity, how many minors do you believe undergo sex-reassignment surgery?
- bsaul 4y ago
  i do hope this isn't more than a couple per year, worldwide. I don't have the numbers, but my fear is the "trend" effect. The fact that this issue is becoming widely discussed can easily influence teenagers into believing this is the solution to their problem (that's what teenagers do : they get easily influenced).
  - plorkyeran 4y ago
    Worldwide numbers are obviously complicated, but in the united states the median number per year is zero if you exclude intersex babies. Sexual reassignment surgery on minors is an entirely made up concern. Even HRT is unusual, and typically teens only receive puberty blockers specifically to let them defer the decision until adulthood.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    Part of gender affirming healthcare - which also includes possibly affirming a gender congruent to their sex - is extensive therapy and investigations by psychiatrists. People are not handed HRT like candies, nor do they undergo such surgeries on a whim. By banning gender affirming healthcare you force kids and adults to seek HRT off the market, from possibly malicious and opportunistic actors. It’s no different to drug policies really. The war on drugs has failed in every state and country that has attempted it, whereas the humanitarian approach taken by Portugal has shown to actually solve the issue. If indeed there is a trend, doesn’t it make more sense to have the kids reviewed by certified and approved medical professionals and give them therapy and evaluation instead of making it harder and hoping that they don’t go to gray market? There is an enormous amount of research done on the topic, and is definitely not new either.
  - drivingmenuts 4y ago
    > i do hope this isn't more than a couple per year, worldwide. Why? Unless you are the person involved, or part of their family, why would you even have a concern about someone else’s gender choice? You’re not the one who has to live their life and there’s a pretty low chance you’ll have any knowing contact with them whatsoever.
    - bsaul 4y ago
      because having the biology of one genre and the psychology of another seems a condition bad enough that i hope very very few people on earth experience it.
  - xracy 4y ago
    Feels like a lot of hand-wringing over a statistic you could actually look up. Also, worrying about the "Trend" is dangerous given that there's just not that many trans people in society, and in recent years we've gone from "very few of them" transitioning to "some of them" transitioning. If what you're legitimately concerned about is the "trend of people talking about this", then you should consider that this bill and bills like it are more likely to force people into a rash decision because if it takes effect, then there's no telling when they'd be able to transition, so maybe they should rush their transition. Think of this as a version of the Streisand effect.
shrimp_emoji 4y ago
If doctors and psychologists do this, why do you assume they haven't determined that it's a net positive given the evidence and thus a rational thing to do?
- bsaul 4y ago
  If the US were a sane democracy with a proven ability to have pragmatic and purely scientific debate on hot topic, i'd be following you. However, the topic is being highly politicized, and so i'm very sure the doctor and psychologists opinions aren't purely medical on this topic anymore.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    > If the US were a sane democracy with a proven ability to have pragmatic and purely scientific debate on hot topic This topic is being weaponized by the far-right because it triggers primal fears on the "you will not replace us" crowd. I don't see anyone in the political left manufacturing outrage about this.
HeresTheT 4y ago
> I'm still completely astonished that doctors allow teenagers to undergo sex change surgery or chemical procedures before the age of sexual consent, or the right to vote. Thankfully, there is data here. First, sex change surgery and chemical procedures are not what you think they are. The care given to teenagers is typically "puberty blockers", which are temporary and reversible drugs that delay the onset of puberty. These are typically given explicitly so kids can age a bit and ensure they are aren't making difficult to reverse decisions either way. Puberty is irreversible, so temporarily delaying it gives people time to make evaluations without time pressure. You really don't want people making decisions about whether they are trans or not under the gun -- "Oh shit, if I don't make a decision now, I'm going to have puberty, so I better go go go!". After that, kids enter the care of mental health professionals and doctors, who observe and work with that kid's community and the kid themselves for years before undergoing any semi-permanent change like hormone therapy or surgery. These decisions are not taken lightly, and the regret rate for gender affirming care is about 1%. That regret rate is considerably smaller than regret rates for knee/hip replacements, marriage, having children, and many, many other things we widely consider to be normal healthy things to do.
- smeej 4y ago
  That regret rate stat is often-touted, but extremely out of date. It may have been accurate back when 0.3% of people, most of them adults, were the sample set of "people who had undergone gender-affirming medical treatment," but now approximately ten percent of children, a 30x increase, are identifying as some type of transgender, and we simply do not have current regret statistics. It would be great if the reality were as you described, that children were receiving years of dedicated psychotherapy to address and rule out other issues before being provided cross-sex hormones (which, if given after puberty blockers, permanently sterilize the recipient), but it's just not the case. There are many, many places kids can get needed "referrals" from one visit without their parents' knowledge or consent.
  - xracy 4y ago
    [Citation Needed]
locopati 4y ago
Here's the thing, if the right actually was honest, they would be supportive of social transitioning, because that is how a kid can figure out their transness. Maybe for some kids, it's an experiment and they're really cis, but for many (because honestly, socially transitioning is not exactly easy in many places), it is a life saving first step in understanding themselves and establishing evidence for medical professionals to warrant medical transitioning at some point. However, the right is also banning social transitioning. They are not interested in letting kids figure themselves out. They are determined to eliminate trans people. See the recent CPAC quote from Michael Knowles. This is a conference participant calling for the elimination of transgender people. Trans people are not a hypothetical for cis people to discuss. We exist and have existed throughout history. Many cultures have ways of recognizing multiple genders. The idea that we should be eliminated should be horrifying on its own terms, never mind, that historically people do not stop with the elimination of one group. Eventually they come for others.
- locustous 4y ago
  > Here's the thing, if the right actually was honest, they would be supportive of social transitioning, because that is how a kid can figure out their transness. Local story... Boy who claims to be female and goes into the girls locker room to watch them change. He doesn't actually change or participate. Just a spectator. The girls try to hide from him. It's pretty clear by the details that he's a peeping tom just there to ogle the girls. One of the girls speaks up about how uncomfortable he has made life and many girls no longer want to change their clothes for gym, even asking for private spaces but this girl is ostracized and vilified by the local media for not being supportive. It's pretty amazing how we went from being so protective of these spaces. Particularly from sexual predators. To one where we openly allow predatory behavior and tell the reporter of the incident that she is the bad one. Deny them privacy and security. Numerous reports of trans males dominating girls sports, and from information that is the primary reason for the 'change'. All these stories of particularly men going trans for transparently selfish reasons of advantage do not help the cause among people who really care about their daughters well being.
  - locopati 4y ago

by bsaul 4y ago

hairofadog 4y ago

Out of curiosity, how many minors do you believe undergo sex-reassignment surgery?

bsaul 4y ago
i do hope this isn't more than a couple per year, worldwide. I don't have the numbers, but my fear is the "trend" effect. The fact that this issue is becoming widely discussed can easily influence teenagers into believing this is the solution to their problem (that's what teenagers do : they get easily influenced).
- plorkyeran 4y ago
  Worldwide numbers are obviously complicated, but in the united states the median number per year is zero if you exclude intersex babies. Sexual reassignment surgery on minors is an entirely made up concern. Even HRT is unusual, and typically teens only receive puberty blockers specifically to let them defer the decision until adulthood.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  Part of gender affirming healthcare - which also includes possibly affirming a gender congruent to their sex - is extensive therapy and investigations by psychiatrists. People are not handed HRT like candies, nor do they undergo such surgeries on a whim. By banning gender affirming healthcare you force kids and adults to seek HRT off the market, from possibly malicious and opportunistic actors. It’s no different to drug policies really. The war on drugs has failed in every state and country that has attempted it, whereas the humanitarian approach taken by Portugal has shown to actually solve the issue. If indeed there is a trend, doesn’t it make more sense to have the kids reviewed by certified and approved medical professionals and give them therapy and evaluation instead of making it harder and hoping that they don’t go to gray market? There is an enormous amount of research done on the topic, and is definitely not new either.
- drivingmenuts 4y ago
  > i do hope this isn't more than a couple per year, worldwide. Why? Unless you are the person involved, or part of their family, why would you even have a concern about someone else’s gender choice? You’re not the one who has to live their life and there’s a pretty low chance you’ll have any knowing contact with them whatsoever.
  - bsaul 4y ago
    because having the biology of one genre and the psychology of another seems a condition bad enough that i hope very very few people on earth experience it.
- xracy 4y ago
  Feels like a lot of hand-wringing over a statistic you could actually look up. Also, worrying about the "Trend" is dangerous given that there's just not that many trans people in society, and in recent years we've gone from "very few of them" transitioning to "some of them" transitioning. If what you're legitimately concerned about is the "trend of people talking about this", then you should consider that this bill and bills like it are more likely to force people into a rash decision because if it takes effect, then there's no telling when they'd be able to transition, so maybe they should rush their transition. Think of this as a version of the Streisand effect.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

If doctors and psychologists do this, why do you assume they haven't determined that it's a net positive given the evidence and thus a rational thing to do?

bsaul 4y ago
If the US were a sane democracy with a proven ability to have pragmatic and purely scientific debate on hot topic, i'd be following you. However, the topic is being highly politicized, and so i'm very sure the doctor and psychologists opinions aren't purely medical on this topic anymore.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  > If the US were a sane democracy with a proven ability to have pragmatic and purely scientific debate on hot topic This topic is being weaponized by the far-right because it triggers primal fears on the "you will not replace us" crowd. I don't see anyone in the political left manufacturing outrage about this.

HeresTheT 4y ago

> I'm still completely astonished that doctors allow teenagers to undergo sex change surgery or chemical procedures before the age of sexual consent, or the right to vote. Thankfully, there is data here. First, sex change surgery and chemical procedures are not what you think they are. The care given to teenagers is typically "puberty blockers", which are temporary and reversible drugs that delay the onset of puberty. These are typically given explicitly so kids can age a bit and ensure they are aren't making difficult to reverse decisions either way. Puberty is irreversible, so temporarily delaying it gives people time to make evaluations without time pressure. You really don't want people making decisions about whether they are trans or not under the gun -- "Oh shit, if I don't make a decision now, I'm going to have puberty, so I better go go go!". After that, kids enter the care of mental health professionals and doctors, who observe and work with that kid's community and the kid themselves for years before undergoing any semi-permanent change like hormone therapy or surgery. These decisions are not taken lightly, and the regret rate for gender affirming care is about 1%. That regret rate is considerably smaller than regret rates for knee/hip replacements, marriage, having children, and many, many other things we widely consider to be normal healthy things to do.

smeej 4y ago
That regret rate stat is often-touted, but extremely out of date. It may have been accurate back when 0.3% of people, most of them adults, were the sample set of "people who had undergone gender-affirming medical treatment," but now approximately ten percent of children, a 30x increase, are identifying as some type of transgender, and we simply do not have current regret statistics. It would be great if the reality were as you described, that children were receiving years of dedicated psychotherapy to address and rule out other issues before being provided cross-sex hormones (which, if given after puberty blockers, permanently sterilize the recipient), but it's just not the case. There are many, many places kids can get needed "referrals" from one visit without their parents' knowledge or consent.
- xracy 4y ago
  [Citation Needed]

locopati 4y ago

Here's the thing, if the right actually was honest, they would be supportive of social transitioning, because that is how a kid can figure out their transness. Maybe for some kids, it's an experiment and they're really cis, but for many (because honestly, socially transitioning is not exactly easy in many places), it is a life saving first step in understanding themselves and establishing evidence for medical professionals to warrant medical transitioning at some point. However, the right is also banning social transitioning. They are not interested in letting kids figure themselves out. They are determined to eliminate trans people. See the recent CPAC quote from Michael Knowles. This is a conference participant calling for the elimination of transgender people. Trans people are not a hypothetical for cis people to discuss. We exist and have existed throughout history. Many cultures have ways of recognizing multiple genders. The idea that we should be eliminated should be horrifying on its own terms, never mind, that historically people do not stop with the elimination of one group. Eventually they come for others.

locustous 4y ago
> Here's the thing, if the right actually was honest, they would be supportive of social transitioning, because that is how a kid can figure out their transness. Local story... Boy who claims to be female and goes into the girls locker room to watch them change. He doesn't actually change or participate. Just a spectator. The girls try to hide from him. It's pretty clear by the details that he's a peeping tom just there to ogle the girls. One of the girls speaks up about how uncomfortable he has made life and many girls no longer want to change their clothes for gym, even asking for private spaces but this girl is ostracized and vilified by the local media for not being supportive. It's pretty amazing how we went from being so protective of these spaces. Particularly from sexual predators. To one where we openly allow predatory behavior and tell the reporter of the incident that she is the bad one. Deny them privacy and security. Numerous reports of trans males dominating girls sports, and from information that is the primary reason for the 'change'. All these stories of particularly men going trans for transparently selfish reasons of advantage do not help the cause among people who really care about their daughters well being.
- locopati 4y ago