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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   33678 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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I've long since lost the reference, but probably 6 years ago I saw some segment on The Hill about a study done by a trans advocacy group. And basically it was a policy document pointing out that putting penises in women only spaces, especially women only spaces with minors, is about the most unpopular policy you can possibly run on. So what needs to happen is that trans friendly politicians need to lie, and then quietly do it anyways. Don't worry, trans friendly advocates in media, and trust and safety teams on social media will cover for you.

No matter what mouth sounds Democrats make, I will never trust them on this subject ever again. And unfortunately for them, until all my children are over 18, it's literally my number one priority. We already live in a world where Democrats sanctioned the state taking kids away from parents, and putting them on a path towards mutilation and sterilization. You don't just get to walk away from that and hope nobody brings up all those children you sterilized.

putting penises in women only spaces ... is about the most unpopular policy....

What if one frames it as "Outside the bedroom or the doctor's office, other peoples' genitals are none of your business, and should not be taken as an input to whether $PERSON is allowed to $VERB_PHRASE."?

The problem with that, naturally, is that one’s genitals are an unusually effective predictor of certain undesirable behaviors when they introduce themselves into places where the opposite genitals congregate, especially when they insist upon a certain kind of obvious lie.

Now, of course the same argument naturally applies to racism too. But for racism we sacrifice that predictive knowledge on the pyre of “so that maybe advantaging the people of race X that don’t act as predicted eventually changes the circumstances”, and that’s very emphatically not what’s meant to happen in the genital cases (because it’s pushed with the intention of bullying everyone else by proxy).

That was the propaganda they lead with. A few obviously preventable rapes later, people started to see through it.

I think even if they “distance themselves” this one is going to be hard to get trust back on. They’ve already been caught several times outright lying on this issue, and worse, lying about exactly what they’re doing in schools. Millions of parents are not only aware, but angry. I know a person I’m working with who has a daughter who briefly decided she was queer. Her mother was absolutely terrified of this because she knew what would happen the minute a psychiatrist heard any sort of gender confusion from her daughter. At school, this stuff was encouraged. The girl seems to be growing out of it now, bullet dodged. But multiply that by all the parents out there knowing that the schools are teaching this and going behind their backs, who know that trans identified men can go into any locker room they want, and that books that are nearly pornographic are available to grade school kids. I don’t think you can slip one by here.

What books are you referring to?

At the time that Ron Desantis was running for president, there was a huge controversy about him banning books. Specifically many of these kids books were pro-LGBT. They also contained very graphic descriptions of sex acts. There was also a series of fantasy books written by Sarah J Maas that contained descriptions of sex acts.

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/roughly-300-books-were-removed-from-libraries-in-florida-last-school-year-heres-the-full-list/3113184/

Note this is school libraries, not public libraries.

So what needs to happen is that trans friendly politicians need to lie, and then quietly do it anyways. Don't worry, trans friendly advocates in media, and trust and safety teams on social media will cover for you.

I've noticed that trans advocacy seemed to be copying along with the successful gay marriage advocacy of the past, and this looks like another possible example. Back in 2008, when presidential candidate Barack Obama came out explicitly against gay marriage, it was considered just common knowledge among my peers that he was lying in order to help the good guys gain power. Obama's stance on gay marriage hasn't been relevant in a long time, but as of the last time I talked about it with friends, they seemed to still believe that Obama had been lying at the time, rather than that his position changed at some point while he was in office.

I have no idea how many people actually believed his lie, assuming that it was a lie, but certainly telling such lies in order to sneak in more "extreme" positions wasn't disapproved of and, by my perceptions, quite lauded. So it does seem reasonable to suspect similar things going on with trans advocacy. However, this doesn't seem to be working in this case for a variety of reasons, including the fundamental physical differences between what gay marriage and trans advocacy demand. There seems to be a sort of cruel cosmic joke here with trans advocates trying to follow in the successful footsteps of the gay marriage movement but as a cargo cult just copying along the superficial aspects.

Ezra Klein actually brought up Obama's lie to the Pod Save America guys who worked for him. No one contested that it was a lie btw.

He identified a different reason the trans stuff sunk Harris: both Harris and the ACLU are fucking stupid.

That sounds harsh but that was the tone. He was as angry as Klein gets, furious that the ACLU would even send out an exam (a paper trail!) on a policy that was almost designed to be maximally offensive and that Harris was dumb enough to say she supported and actioned it on tape instead of ignoring it or simply handing it in.

In essence, they didn't lie as good or as smart as Obama did.

I think the trans thing legitimately is a heavier lift but I think he has a point.

It's harder to get away with a lie the second time.

Obama had a somewhat similar paper trail https://time.com/3816952/obama-gay-lesbian-transgender-lgbt-rights/

In another questionnaire for Chicago LGBT newspaper Outlines, Obama says he supports same-sex marriage. In 2009, a copy of his typed responses was unearthed and printed in the Windy City Times. “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages,” reads the questionnaire bearing his signature at the bottom. Later, Obama aides will dispute that he actually filled out the questionnaire himself.

And unfortunately for them, until all my children are over 18, it's literally my number one priority.

Agreed. This is more than people with dicks dominating women's sports. And it's more than a few perverts stealing women's underwear or using women's locker rooms.

Those stories understandably get the most engagement, but they are relatively rare.

The bigger issue is how the spread of trans ideology has resulted in some pretty huge number of children getting placed onto the trans gender track which, if not quickly arrested, results in awful life outcomes. I think the best comparison is anorexia, which is similarly terrible for one's health and mostly the result of social contagion.

In my mind, Democrats are permanently tainted on this issue. We need more than a minor pullback in wokeness. We need investigations. We need groomers to get fired and potentially prosecuted. And we need clinics performing gender surgery on minors to be shut down, their owners sued into bankruptcy, and their practitioners delicensed.

Assuming that instead of trans advocates losing ground, it's shadow-speak, or fingers crossed in the background.

Seems like a particularly miserable way of viewing the world. It's a victory for your team. Take the W.

We already live in a world where Democrats sanctioned (...) putting them on a path towards mutilation and sterilization.

I really doubt you can find anything from a major politician that supports that claim. This isn't even "making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike", it's just plain making things up.

  • -22

This isn't even "making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike", it's just plain making things up.

This is not sufficiently charitable. Specifically,

we ask that responders address what was literally said, on the assumption that this was at least part of the intention. Nothing is more frustrating than making a clear point and having your conversation partner assume you're talking in circles. We don't require that you stop after addressing what was literally said, but try, at least, to start there.

It's fine to raise questions about source veracity, but if you're going to respond to others, you need to actually be responding to the substance of their posts--not ducking into your motte when they raise points you don't care to substantively address. Actually several of your comments in this thread do the "law of merited impossibility" and "Russell conjugation" thing, where you oscillate between "this isn't happening" and "it's good, actually" while rhetorically re-framing specific concerns. This kind of engagement creates frustration and lowers engagement quality, even though it basically keeps to the rules on tone. If done deliberately and repeatedly, it amounts to a kind of trolling. Please engage with what people are actually saying, rather than substituting your rhetoric for their substantive concerns.

I am responding to what was literally said. They picked the word "mutilation", not me. There is no actual mutilation happening.

If you want to discuss "children are transitioning", we can have a conversation about that. But that's a very different conversation from "children are being mutilated."

Would you really allow this sort of insulting language to fly in the other direction? Can I talk about how conservatives are routinely voting to kill women? Is it fair to say conservatives have once again elected a fascist rapist?

I am responding to what was literally said.

Your response was insufficiently charitable.

Would you really allow this sort of insulting language to fly in the other direction?

First, other people's bad behavior is irrelevant to your own. Second, I already banned WhiningCoil for comments in this thread. If that wasn't enough to stifle your whataboutism, then I don't know what else I could possibly do to assuage your persecution complex.

Can I talk about how conservatives are routinely voting to kill women? Is it fair to say conservatives have once again elected a fascist rapist?

There are ways to make substantive assertions along these lines, and people often do. But they have to do so within a context of following the rules, which you have failed to do here.

I already banned WhiningCoil

Okay, fair enough. My complaint was entirely that if "child mutilation" was considered acceptably charitable, I think I was more than matching that level of charity. If we're in agreement that "child mutilation" is an insulting and deeply uncharitable description, then my objection is pretty well resolved.

you oscillate between "this isn't happening" and "it's good, actually"

I do think I've been consistent in my stance: SRS is a surgery like any other, and calling it "mutilation" is ridiculous hyperbole. Calling it "child mutilation" is doubly ridiculous, since as far as I know, kids under 18 genuinely are not having surgery. I'm not saying kids don't transition, I'm saying they don't get surgery under 18, and that it's not mutilation.

If someone really has a source for SRS being common in kids, I'd love to see it. I've tried to find numbers, and basically every source has said "low enough to basically round off to zero."

If we're in agreement that "child mutilation" is an insulting and deeply uncharitable description, then my objection is pretty well resolved.

I agree that "mutilation" can be unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric. I would stop short of calling it inflammatory per se, however. Referring to the removal of healthy organs for aesthetic purposes as "mutilation" seems like a supportable framing, but context and charity matter.

I do think I've been consistent in my stance: SRS is a surgery like any other, and calling it "mutilation" is ridiculous hyperbole.

That can be your stance, but you aren't entitled to its adoption by others. Many humans object to cosmetic surgery generally, and those kinds of surgeries do not usually interfere with bodily functioning. Interfering with bodily function seems to raise the stakes. "Mutilation" may be ridiculous hyperbole in some contexts, but it does not seem per se to be so.

Calling it "child mutilation" is doubly ridiculous, since as far as I know, kids under 18 genuinely are not having surgery. I'm not saying kids don't transition, I'm saying they don't get surgery under 18, and that it's not mutilation.

The main reason I am replying to you again, here, is that you still don't seem to have grasped where you went wrong in the first place. WhiningCoil did not say "children are being mutilated," but rather that children were being put "on a path towards mutilation and sterilization." You cannot charitably read this to say "children are being mutilated," but rather "children are being channeled toward life outcomes that eventually include sterilization and the removal of healthy organs." Demanding evidence of children having functional tissue removed for aesthetic purposes is failing to address what WhiningCoil actually said, and hence a rules violation.

(For whatever it's worth, "gender affirming mastectomies" clearly involve the removal of healthy organs for aesthetic purposes, and do not appear to be terribly rare in adolescents aged 12-17. If someone were to call that "child mutilation" I would probably need to spend some time weighing whether I regarded the rest of the comment as inflammatory, "boo outgroup," or otherwise rules-violating, but that characterization of the data in isolation does not look like a per se rules violation to me.)

Referring to the removal of healthy organs for aesthetic purposes as "mutilation" seems like a supportable framing, but context and charity matter.

Referring to a major medical condition as "aesthetic purposes" also seems pretty uncharitable.

You cannot charitably read this to say "children are being mutilated,"

I disagree. A lot of posters here are in fact doubling down on "actual under 18 children ARE having surgeries". "Children are on the path to making a consenting decision, as a legal adult" really lacks the same oomph, but it would be a lot more honest if that's really what you meant to convey.

When people talk about tobacco companies putting kids on the path to a lifelong smoking addiction, I don't think they mean "kids might take up smoking when they turn 18." They're worried that actual kids are actually smoking cigarettes, right now, as kids.

do not appear to be terribly rare in adolescents aged 12-17

To quote the source: "A total of 209 patients underwent gender-affirming mastectomy between January 1, 2013 and July 31, 2020."

That's 30 people a year. Out of 150,000 trans adolescents, and, what, 25 million adolescents overall. So literally one in a million. I'll admit that's a lot more than I thought, but it's still incredibly, vanishingly rare. Those are exceptional cases, and I'd be extremely shocked to learn that a single one of those was done without parental consent.

I did say "low enough to basically round off to zero", in case you want to argue this is somehow moving the goalposts. I dare say 0.0001% rounds off to zero. Even 209 patients over 150k trans kids gives us 0.1%. So even given your kid is trans, this is still a vanishingly small subset of the discussion.

Referring to the removal of healthy organs for aesthetic purposes as "mutilation" seems like a supportable framing, but context and charity matter.

Referring to a major medical condition as "aesthetic purposes" also seems pretty uncharitable.

No--this would require your interlocutor to assume the conclusion under debate. Here you are treating a genuine disagreement as "uncharitable." That is not how charitable discussion works. You should be trying to read the best possible version of the argument being made, without actually departing from the substance of the argument.

You cannot charitably read this to say "children are being mutilated,"

I disagree.

Then you are wrong; I just gave you a more charitable reading which adheres to the substance (and literal wording!) of the line under discussion, and you have furnished no warrant for believing your less charitable reading to be true. This may be a problem with your perspective on "charity," since you don't seem to grasp what "charity" means in this context--maybe this is why you also have failed to read others charitably.

A lot of posters here are in fact doubling down on "actual under 18 children ARE having surgeries".

Indeed, several have provided you with evidence of this actually happening. You seem to have learned something from them about the world, though you do not seem interested in revising your beliefs accordingly. That's okay, you're under no obligation to do so. But you remain under obligation to read others charitably. I have done my best to explain what that requires; at this point I don't know how I can make it more clear what you did wrong. So hopefully you've figured it out and can avoid it, next time.

There is written record of the Secretary for Health demanding that the WPATH removes minimum age requirements from their Standards of Care so that the Biden administration can better pursue their goals related to trans issues. WPATH did comply, in violation of their own procedures of how the SOC is supposed to be determined.

Removing obstacles from a path is not "putting them on a path". Do you object to roads, because they put criminals on the path towards bank robbery?

Which "mutilations" had the minimum age requirements changed? What are the new requirements?

Do you object to roads, because they put criminals on the path towards bank robbery?

I'm sorry, but analogies are really not your strong suit.

That public roads can be used by bank robbers to escape from robberies is an unintended, unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of the existence of said roads.

Small children receiving "gender-affirming" surgeries is not an unintended consequence of Levine calling for the age limits on minor transition to be removed. That outcome is the sole purpose of Levine having done so. It is exactly the outcome Levine is trying to bring about.

Removing obstacles from a path is not "putting them on a path". Do you object to roads, because they put criminals on the path towards bank robbery?

It sounds like arguing semantics to me. If one hand the public health administration is removing obstacles, and on the other the education system is telling kids they might be "born in the wrong body" if they don't fit into a given mold, and than hide the information about the child's transition from parents, that sounds like it all adds up to putting children on a path to transition.

Which "mutilations" had the minimum age requirements changed? What are the new requirements?

Draft of SOC8:

The following recommendations are made regarding the requirements for gender affirming medical and surgical treatment:

(...)

F. The adolescent has reached Tanner 2 stage of puberty for pubertal suppression.

G. The adolescent is the following age for each treatment:

  • 14 years and above for hormone treatment (estrogens or androgens), unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame.
  • 15 years and above for chest masculinization; unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame.
  • 16 years and above for breast augmentation, facial surgery (including rhinoplasty, tracheal shave, and genioplasty) as part of gender affirming treatment; unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame.
  • 17 and above for metoidioplasty, orchidectomy, vaginoplasty, and hysterectomy and fronto-orbital remodeling as part of gender affirming treatment unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame.
  • 18 years or above for phalloplasty, unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame"

H. The adolescent had at least 12 months of gender affirming hormone therapy, or longer if required to achieve the desired surgical result for gender-affirming procedures including, Breast augmentation, Orchiectomy, Vaginoplasty, Hysterectomy, Phalloplasty metoidioplasty and facial surgery as part of gender affirming treatment unless hormone therapy is either not desired or is medically contraindicated.

vs. published SOC8

6.12.f- The adolescent has reached Tanner stage 2 of puberty for pubertal suppression to be initiated.

6.12.g- The adolescent had at least 12 months of gender-affirming hormone therapy or longer, if required, to achieve the desired surgical result for gender-affirming procedures, including breast augmentation, orchiectomy, vaginoplasty, hysterectomy, phalloplasty, metoidioplasty, and facial surgery as part of gender-affirming treatment unless hormone therapy is either not desired or is medically contraindicated.

There's also points A-E, but everything about minimum ages has been removed.

Edit: I think they mention the 18 years for phalloplasty when they elaborate on the chapter.

So, again, for starters: none of that is mutilation, just regular surgery.

Second, right there in the guidelines: this is the section for adolescents. Children is section 7. When your actual source makes the distinction between kids and teenagers, I feel like it's a bit disingenuous to keep calling them "kids"

Third, that's the section on "treatments requested by the patient". It's not putting someone on a path when they are already on that path and merely asking for help.

I don't see how this is different from anyone else trying to get medical treatment for their illness. Would you be horrified to learn that we also let children be treated for cancer and depression? Should there be a minimum age for those, too?

  • -15

none of that is mutilation, just regular surgery.

There is nothing "regular" about surgery to remove healthy organs and tissue with the ultimate goal of ameliorating psychic distress. You're welcome to defend this practice, but don't pretend it isn't a major departure from the common practice of surgery as generally understood.

So, again, for starters: none of that is mutilation, just regular surgery.

Unnecessary surgery that removes healthy body parts is mutilation, as are unnecessary hormonal treatments.

Second, right there in the guidelines: this is the section for adolescents. Children is section 7. When your actual source makes the distinction between kids and teenagers, I feel like it's a bit disingenuous to keep calling them "kids"

When people say "kids" they mean "minors", performing these treatments on even younger children is even worse, but a mastectomy performed on a 16 year old girl is still atrocious.

Third, that's the section on "treatments requested by the patient".

No one cares, the patient is a minor that doesn't know anything about what they're talking about.

I don't see how this is different from anyone else trying to get medical treatment for their illness.

There is no evidence that any illness is involved. The only criteria necessary to get a dysphoria diagnosis is:

  • Say you're trans

  • Don't change your mind for a few months

Even those loose criteria aren't always followed.

Would you be horrified to learn that we also let children be treated for cancer and depression?

Cancer has proper diagnostic criteria, so no on that, but if a doctor insisted I have to give drugs to 14 year old for "depression" (or "anxiety" or ADHD) I'd find it absurd.

Should there be a minimum age for those, too?

Probably. Psychology is very unrigorous, and we should not let these kind of doctors make decisions about children, that go against the wishes of parents.

Unnecessary surgery that removes healthy body parts is mutilation, as are unnecessary hormonal treatments.

I certainly didn't think it was unnecessary. What makes you the expert here?

No one cares, the patient is a minor that doesn't know anything about what they're talking about.

That might be believable if there was a huge number of people who regretted these decisions, but people actually seem pretty consistent. I challenge the idea that a 16 year old doesn't have any idea what they want - 16 is young enough to be tried as an adult or apply for emancipation. In most states, two 16 year olds can have sex, get pregnant, and have a child - a massively life changing decision that involves significantly more severe medical risks. We even allow kids to drive! Traffic accidents are one of the top ten leading causes of death, but we trust kids with it.

Are you saying that's all a mistake? We need to keep kids away from any sort of responsibility or freedom until they're a legal adult?

There is no evidence that any illness is involved.

There's plenty of evidence that this intervention results in positive outcomes. You're talking to one of the positive outcomes right now. I'm not sure what else to call it when you do a medical intervention and it fixes a problem?

I certainly didn't think it was unnecessary. What makes you the expert here?

I think the burden of proof is on the person arguing for the removal of healthy body parts, and the arguments haven't been convincing.

That might be believable if there was a huge number of people who regretted these decisions, but people actually seem pretty consistent.

There is a decent amount of people loudly regretting these surgeries, and there are obvious reasons for why others might not want to do it so loudly - the ones that did come out have been rather ruthlessly attacked. I don't know how you determine that people seem consistent, there isn't good long-term data on the outcomes of these interventions, particularly on the new cohort of patients that showed up around 2015.

I challenge the idea that a 16 year old doesn't have any idea what they want - 16 is young enough to be tried as an adult or apply for emancipation

All of these require extraordinary circumstances that need to be argued in front of a judge. 16 is not enough to vote, not enough to drink a beer, and not enough to sign a contract without the parents' consent, not even enough to get a tattoo. All of these things are far less risky than any part of gender-affirming care, except social transition.

At 16 you're either still going through puberty, or barely out of it. You're still figuring out basic things about your place in the world.

In most states, two 16 year olds can have sex, get pregnant, and have a child - a massively life changing decision that involves significantly more severe medical risks.

The long-term consequences of pregnancy is precisely why this behavior is discouraged in teenagers. People with my worldview even discourage sex outside of marriage, even if it can be reasonably assured it will not result in pregnancy, and that's regardless of whether we're talking about teenagers or adults.

That said, the big differences is that sex resulting in reproduction is part of the healthy life-cycle of any sexually reproducing species on this planet, not a medical intervention. A better analogy here would be a 16 year old going through IVF, and in that case I'd say it's absurd, and any doctor encouraging it has no business in medicine or psychology.

We even allow kids to drive! Traffic accidents are one of the top ten leading causes of death, but we trust kids with it.

You need to pass a test proving you're competent, and that you understand the rules of the road, in order to be allowed to drive. The high amount of deaths is a result of the raw number and frequency of people driving, rather than the risk to the person once they make a decision to drive with a car.

Are you saying that's all a mistake? We need to keep kids away from any sort of responsibility or freedom until they're a legal adult?

No, like you see, I think most of these are bad analogies. These examples also conveniently ignore the far less consequential things we do legally forbid teenagers from doing.

There's plenty of evidence that this intervention results in positive outcomes.

There actually isn't. The evidence for positive outcomes if often inconclusive, where it's positive it's low-confidence. The lack of long-term follow up is endemic in the literature.

You're talking to one of the positive outcomes right now. I'm not sure what else to call it when you do a medical intervention and it fixes a problem?

People also swear on the effectiveness of homeopathy, crystal healing or reiki, but that is not enough to declare these therapies as effective. There are people who seek out exorcists, and likewise swear that it helped them, but we don't usually take that as evidence of demonic posessions.

When it comes to physical illnesses we have developed a robust protocol to assess effectiveness. The fact that physical ailments are externally verifiable - so we can tell that the patient has it and isn't just imagining things, or is free of it and the treatment actually worked - is of great help. None of that is available for psychological issues, and so the evidence tends be pretty poor. Even for non-political issues like depression you often end up with stuff like "oops, our miracle drug turns out to be no better than placebo".

Things get even worse when body image issues are involved. An anorexic is going to report satisfaction from losing weight, but we tend to not accept that as a valid reason for going along with their decision.

we should not let these kind of doctors make decisions about children, that go against the wishes of parents.

What if the parents are wrong?

Not much.

Even in cases involving rigorous medicine, where we can be near-certain that a doctor is correct and the parents are wrong, informed consent and parental authority are recognized as necessary. Psychology is nowhere near that level of rigor and certainty, so I don't know on what grounds you wish to overrule parental authority or ignore the lack of informed consent from the child.

More comments

Washington State literally passed this fucking law last year, please just stop lying to our faces that it's not happening (and also it's good), if only to prove you can notice it doesn't work and try some other tactic.

Funny how you can't actually quote the law or provide any reference to it. I bet the word mutilation isn't in there even once.

  • -15

Of course the Washington Democrats aren't going to use the word mutilate, they'll call it gender-affirming, and you will fall for the parallax.

Castration is mutilation. It's always been mutilation. It will always be mutilation. Calling it gender-affirming care doesn't change the thing one whit.

And the laws in WA are abominable and should be changed.

Are you opposed to all surgeries, then? Cutting out someone's heart is mutilation. It's always been mutilation. It will always be mutilation. Calling it a "pacemaker installation" doesn't change the thing one whit. We are creating heartless cyborgs out there! Why aren't you concerned about that too?

  • -12

I bet the word mutilation isn't in there even once.

What on earth is this meant to prove? "In their official communications, the IDF have never referred to their military operation in Gaza as a 'genocide': ergo, it can't possibly be one". Would you expect anyone in the world to be persuaded by such a facile argument?

Some schools secretly socially transition children. Some locales will take children out of parents' custody if they fail to support transition. This is not all right wing paranoia.

Some schools secretly socially transition children.

Can you provide a source for the claim that schools are forcing uninterested, non-consenting children into transition? Or are you just searching for the maximally inflammatory way to say "some kids don't trust their parents not to disown them"?

Some locales will take children out of parents' custody if they fail to support transition.

Really? "Fail to support" transition, or "try to block their kid from accessing the relevant medical treatments"?

This is not all right wing paranoia.

Neither of those is an example of "mutilation"

  • -21

Really? "Fail to support" transition, or "try to block their kid from accessing the relevant medical treatments"?

In the state of California there was a bill governing custody disputes between divorced parents, which would make a parent's decision to affirm the child's stated gender identity (or not) a factor to take into consideration in said disputes. Essentially, if a married couple gets divorced and their child has announced that they are trans, if one parent affirms the child's stated gender identity uncritically and the other parent is more sceptical and prefers a watchful waiting approach - all things being equal, the judge is meant to rule in favour of the former parent.

What do they mean by "affirmation"? "Affirmation includes a range of actions and will be unique for each child, but in every case must promote the child’s overall health and well-being." - so this isn't as simple as providing a child with medical treatment which has been recommended by a qualified professional.

This bill was voted on and passed in both houses, before being vetoed by Governor Newsom. Elected representatives in the state of California believe that if a child announces that they are trans, the correct position for the child's parents to adopt is to uncritically affirm the child's gender identity without question.

Really? "Fail to support" transition, or "try to block their kid from accessing the relevant medical treatments"?

Without doubt, the former. There's a high profile case of a sex-trafficked teenager that the authorities refused to release to her grandparents, because they used her birth name, which resulted in her being sex-trafficked again.

This is without going into the question of whether there are any relevant medical treatments to begin with, or if it's just glorified cosmetic surgery/intervention.

If you can only provide one example, that's hardly supporting your case. If anything, that suggests the opposite: this is so incredibly rare that it made the news.

The medical community, the scientific community, and the community of people who have actually undergone the process all recommend it, so I'm not sure on what grounds you would claim that it's not a valid medical treatment.

  • -13

If you can only provide one example, that's hardly supporting your case. If anything, that suggests the opposite: this is so incredibly rare that it made the news.

Originally you said it doesn't happen, and the reason why authorities do it, is because the child is denied medical care. At the very least I'd expect you acknowledge that it happens sometimes given the evidence. The reason this was such a big story was it's particularly egregious nature (the double sex-trafficking part), but there were other stories of custody disputes based on nothing more than pronouns / identity affirmation. It was almost enshrined in law in California but for a veto.

The medical community, the scientific community, and the community of people who have actually undergone the process all recommend it, so I'm not sure on what grounds you would claim that it's not a valid medical treatment.

This is false. Anybody that made a comprehensive review of evidence came to the conclusion that the evidence is of poor quality. This includes WPATH, which commissioned several systematic reviews, and refused to publish them when the evidence didn't say what they wanted to say it.

Originally you said it doesn't happen

No, I said no one is getting mutilated. That has nothing to do with custody. I expressed skepticism about the idea that the majority of these cases, or even a significant minority of them, are really just "failing to support".

The California law said that pronouns could be a factor, not that they were the only factor. That seems reasonable to me. If I kept misgendering you, I'm sure you'd consider it insulting. I'm not sure why insulting your kid and being generally hostile to their medical needs wouldn't be a factor in such a decision.

A custody case also isn't a locale "taking a kid", it's a court deciding which parent provides the better environment for the kid. The whole process is initiated by the other parent, not the courts. If courts were just swooping up and fostering kids because a teacher reported a pronoun violation, we'd be having a very different conversation.

There's a recurring theme here, where responsibility is out-sourced from the people actually initiating things. "Schools" don't transition kids; kids transition. "Courts" don't take away kids, the other parent is bothered enough to demand a divorce and argue for full custody. The courts aren't responsible for someone's wife thinking they're a shitty husband. This doesn't just happen out of the blue. Another adult, one deeply involved in the situation, looked at it and said "I need to protect my child from this person".

  • -11

There's a recurring theme here, where responsibility is out-sourced from the people actually initiating things. "Schools" don't transition kids; kids transition.

No one thinks of children this way. Adults are responsible for what happens to children under their care. A school can say they didn't "drug kids" when some students start smuggling weed into school, but that works only as long as they can plead ignorance. If they have designated smoking rooms covered with weed-themed flags and slogans, and teachers keep track of who smokes and when, but hide that information from the parents, that means the school is actively participating in the child's drug consumption, and therefore "schools are drugging children". Same applies to transition.

"Courts" don't take away kids, the other parent is bothered enough to demand a divorce and argue for full custody.

And the law in question explicitly demand that the courts weigh favorably the parent that affirms a child's gender and negatively against the one that doesn't. And I gave you an example where a court did take away a kid, any way you slice it.

schools are forcing uninterested, non-consenting children into transition

I certainly never claimed that, so I won't be championing it. You may not take my statements, make an exaggerated looney version of them and then foist that wild view onto me.

Whether these are valid medical treatments for minors or horrific butchery that we will look back on like elective lobotomies for strange children is the matter under dispute.

You're the one that said the schools are "secretly transitioning" kids, like the kid wasn't involved in the process.

You haven't made any argument for butchery - it's not like kids are getting surgery. The usual treatment for under 18 is hormone blockers at most, and often just a safe space. My understanding is that it's still illegal to prescribe actual HRT without parental consent. All of this ignoring that people on HRT generally stay on it, and prefer their new life.

  • -13

Secretly transitioning as in a secret from the parents. How could a socially transitioned child not be aware of their new name and gender presentation?

it's not like kids are getting surgery

Some minors get sex reassignment surgery. We've moved past "that never happens" to "its not that common". Next stage is "of course that happens and its a good thing". And of course there are advocates for more minor sex reassignment surgery. Such as the leaked documents from Biden's Department of Health and Human Services.

Or much more commonly these kids get irreversible and badly harmful puberty blockers. A parent failing to support this harm of their child can lose custody in some locales.

There are laws that require public employees lie to parents about what their children are doing at state institutions.

it's not like kids are getting surgery

Yes, they are. They literally are, hundreds if not thousands a year.

The usual treatment for under 18 is hormone blockers at most

These drugs are abhorrent, and only made less so by comparison to the absolutely insane cosmetic surgeries that are more extreme. You can't pause puberty, and disrupting it because children don't like the changes is malpractice.

My understanding is that it's still illegal to prescribe actual HRT without parental consent

You are wrong. This is not the case.

Yes, they are. They literally are, hundreds if not thousands a year.

You are wrong. This is not the case.

As always: citation needed? What jurisdiction are you in that allows this? Do you have any actual articles speaking to that? The world is a big place, and I'll admit I don't know every region of it.

You're the one that said the schools are "secretly transitioning" kids, like the kid wasn't involved in the process.

Surely it's obvious to you that he meant secret from the parents? It's clearly logically impossible to transition someone secretly from them themselves.

Again, it's not the school doing this. The school is not "secretly transitioning" anyone. The kid is secretly transitioning, and the school is merely respecting their privacy.

The alternative is that the kid doesn't tell the school because they know their privacy won't be respected, and has absolutely no adult support. That seems way worse to me.

and the school is merely respecting their privacy.

Kids don’t have privacy from their parents, especially not at the behest of a third party institution.

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Neither of those is an example of "mutilation"

To be fair, the parent poster only talked about a "path towards mutilation". I assume that the "mutilation" in question is gender reassignment surgery, which typically involves cutting off external sexual characteristics. Is it not fair to say that this is a typical or at least commonly desired endpoint of transitioning, so actions that make it more likely that someone will reach this endpoint in the future could be fairly described as putting them on a "path towards mutilation"?

Can you provide a source for the claim that schools are forcing uninterested, non-consenting children into transition?

I figure the assumption of the anti-trans side is that children can't meaningfully consent, nor be held accountable for their interest or lack thereof in the context of a managed social environment like school that may encourage or discourage said interest. Either way, the poster you are responding to didn't claim anything about interest or consent, did they? They are only talking about secrecy, presumably from the parents.

Mind you, it also seems strange to first claim that the driving concern is parents disowning the kid, but then to also defend a forced disowning if they refuse to let the kid access transition-affirming medical interventions. In a scenario where the parents find out anyway and are not willing to "own"/support a transitioning kid, your preference is evidently for the kid to be separated from the parents anyway. If you are willing to use deception to make the parents make a sacrifice (of money? time? support?) that they would not make willingly, why can't you instead support a policy that at least respects them as adult citizens and simply says that they will lose visitation/influence rights if they interfere with the transition but will still be compelled to provide financial support for the kid?

actions that make it more likely that someone will reach this endpoint in the future could be fairly described as putting them on a "path towards mutilation"?

In the sense that it's fair to describe doctors as "horrific butchers who have somehow gotten away with a brazen series of stabbings and mutilations", sure. Which is to say, no, that's not a fair way of phrasing things at all. That's an incredibly insulting way of phrasing it, and I can't imagine anyone who says that actually has a good opinion of trans people / doctors.

the poster you are responding to didn't claim anything about interest or consent, did they?

They said the school was transitioning them. The school is not the active party in this. The kid is. The kid is transitioning. The school is merely keeping that secret. That is a fairly important distinction.

If you are willing to use deception to make the parents make a sacrifice (of money? time? support?) that they would not make willingly

I don't really have any sympathy for the parent's "unwilling" sacrifice here. I expect adults to handle their obligations responsibly. Where I come from, becoming a parent means you're signing up to support the kid until they're 18. Sometimes that means dealing with twins. Sometimes that means dealing with a disability. That's what you signed up for when you became a parent. Six months of supporting your kid isn't likely to be anywhere near as bad as what you're putting the kid through.

I also think kids deserve a space where they can safely explore the idea without committing. I'd much rather a kid try on dresses for 6 months and work it out of their system, then go back to being a proper upright conservative. It would be awful if instead, that same kid get disowned and lost their family over what turned out to be a pretty typical childhood phase.

And, in the end, I'd absolutely support a process where kids could get placed in a safe alternate environment as needed, but sadly we do not have such a system yet. Foster care sucks. I can't blame a kid for trying to sneak by until they turn 18, get a job, and can move out safely. Even if you only expect to get a few months before you're caught, that's still time to try and line up someplace safer to go.

They said the school was transitioning them. The school is not the active party in this. The kid is. The kid is transitioning. The school is merely keeping that secret. That is a fairly important distinction.

The kid's decision doesn't mean the school isn't active, because the kid is a minor and the school is responsible for him at school.

I mean, if we follow that line of reasoning, I still don't see the problem. You've abandoned your parental responsibility and put it on the school while he's there. Fair enough. I don't see how you get to object when the school then acts in a responsible manner? The school agrees with him that he has a medical condition, and followed normal channels for helping him get help with it. The school has reason to believe you might endanger the kid if you find out, so they're doing the responsible thing and keeping him safe.

If the school runs a cancer awareness program, are you outraged when it turns out one kid does have cancer and gets treatment? What if the kid's parents are big believer in New Age healing crystals, and didn't want their kid to undergo chemo?

You're moving the goalposts. The question was whether the school was making an active decision, not if the decision was good. I would agree that if the school "helps the kid" get chemo, the school is making an active decision there.

I was thinking, gun to my head, I'd rather my daughter was molested by a catholic priest (unlikely as that is, being a girl and all) than fall in with your ilk. But that got me thinking... what if the Catholic Church leaned into LGBTQ+ shit 30 years earlier than they did?

What if, instead of covering up the priest abuse scandals, they leaned into it. Claimed they were just protecting young gay boys. In fact they had a moral duty to keep these young boys sexual behavior a secret from their parents. They might not accept them after all. Furthermore, the Catholic Church should probably just take custody of them from those bigoted parents.

It's preposterous and totally insane. But that's what you sound like.

I was thinking, gun to my head, I'd rather my daughter was molested by a catholic priest (unlikely as that is, being a girl and all) than fall in with your ilk.

Your first comment got a lot of reports, which opened a mod conversation about whether to ding you for it. One mod said "not bannable, but warnable," another said "not even warnable." I tended to agree that it was not a great comment, but that it ultimately fell on the permissible side. The meta-moderation system agreed with me on this. However the low-quality responses you've generated certainly lend credence to the inclination toward moderation there.

This comment, though, fails the test of "write like everyone is reading, and you want to include them in the conversation." In particular, "your ilk" is a quintessentially antagonistic framing; we're here to engage with ideas above people, and watch our tone in preservation of content.

It's preposterous and totally insane. But that's what you sound like.

And this, of course, is worth moderating all on its own.

You do your substantive position no favors by cranking the rhetoric to 11. Your occasional AAQCs only get you so much lenience. It has been a while since your last ban, after which you became a quality-content machine for a bit! But recently your warnings have been arriving with increasing frequency. Let's try another week-long ban.

the low-quality responses you've generated

Were literally the product of a troll single-purpose-account, and you know it. But you can't let the place stray too far from leftist Orthodoxy, can you?

But you can't let the place stray too far from leftist Orthodoxy, can you?

I appreciate you.

It honestly warms my heart to know that I can still generate responses like this in the same thread where I'm getting responses like this:

Would you really allow this sort of insulting language to fly in the other direction? Can I talk about how conservatives are routinely voting to kill women? Is it fair to say conservatives have once again elected a fascist rapist?

You're getting responses like that because you're talking to a group that is notorious for screaming at people who are driving the direction they want, but at the speed limit rather than smashing the accelerator. See the current redditrage blaming Harris' loss on not Centering trans persxns in her campaign.
Eventually it always converges on the rationalist "well they won 70% of this fight by calling us cis-demons enough times, you need to follow their rules now"

I'd actually be curious if you'd ban gwern for his 2012 comments linked in that thread, btw. It'd be a good demonstration of how far the Overton window has shifted left even in a place dedicated to resisting forcible shifts.

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I'd rather my daughter was molested by a catholic priest (unlikely as that is, being a girl and all) than fall in with your ilk

Would you dare say that to your daughter?

You'd really rather her undergo a horrific, traumatizing experience that basically no one recommends... rather than do a relatively safe medical process that has numerous positive recommendations?

And you think this is a rational decision based on the facts, that your daughter should suffer horribly rather than grow a beard? What would you have done if the poor kid had PCOS or something?

It's preposterous and totally insane sounding because you analogized a situation where a child is raped without consent to one where the child willingly undergoes a medical procedure (regardless of whether you think it's warranted or not). That is a preposterous and insane analogy to make so it's no wonder that's what your conclusion is.

  • -13

Hello, and welcome to the Motte!

This response is not sufficiently charitable. You may note that I have banned the user to whom you were responding; one big problem with rule-breaking comments is that they tend to proliferate by encouraging further rule-breaking responses. But responding to a rule-breaking comment in a rule-breaking way does not excuse you!

...actually, looking through your rather fresh comment history, you seem to have a remarkable knack for sussing out problematic posts and making the discussion even worse by responding, not to the substance of the post, but to its rhetoric. Somehow that is, actually, most of your posts! The odds of this are so low as to not be worth contemplating.

Still, in the interest of charity, I will hold off perma-banning you as a suspected alt until the next time I notice this peculiar pattern. Once, after all, may be happenstance.

Hello, thanks for the welcome.

I won't deny I have a habit of responding to the posts that seem egregious to me with rhetoric in kind. This is true. I can work on my charitability.

I don't want to come across as if I'm complaining about the moderation (I think it's fine) but I am a bit confused about the rules of engagement here and would like some clarification before posting further so that I don't get unceremoniously permabanned. If this comment is unacceptable on the forum please feel free to delete and continue the convo in messages, but I am actually asking for clarification in good faith.

First of all, am I being moderated for the tone/content of my posts or for ban evasion as a suspected alt? I'm assuming from your comment that there was a previous user on this forum who used to engage similarly to me and was banned for it. If that's the case and you think this person is me, then what can I actually do to make you believe otherwise? I recognize as a moderator the need to restrict ban evasion from problem users, but from my perspective I am unaware of previous users having similar rhetoric (and it seems onerous to expect me to write deliberately in a different tone or avoid certain topics) so what is my recourse to avoid a permanent ban for this reason?

Secondly, my understanding was that as a new user all my comments have to be approved by moderators before becoming public. Until this comment I had not received any mod feedback. If it is not just ban evasion I'm being modded for, is it only this most recent comment that goes over the line into being problematic? If not, does this comment act as a warning that all of my previous posts were unacceptable?

I'm not trying to be deliberately difficult here, I actually don't understand or know the answers to these questions. I'd like to retain the ability to post here, and in order to do that I need to know where the line is.

First of all, am I being moderated for the tone/content of my posts or for ban evasion as a suspected alt?

We moderate on tone, not content. Your post was uncharitable and antagonistic.

I'm assuming from your comment that there was a previous user on this forum who used to engage similarly to me

More like "a never ending stream of users," actually. Bad faith posters who use "just asking questions" rhetoric to troll the forum are a dime a dozen; in the parlance of the age, "ya basic," sorry. "New" users who jump in on election day and seem immediately comfortable navigating various community norms are suspicious enough. Following up by "just asking questions" rules lawyering in response to moderation dramatically increases my suspicion that you are a repeat customer. We've had hundreds of new users over the years, and to put it mildly--you do not fit the profile.

But it's not impossible, so... here we are.

Until this comment I had not received any mod feedback.

We can't moderate every comment, and queue approval should not be taken as a sign of endorsement, beyond perhaps "this isn't obviously spam." Moderation is qualitative and adaptive; we usually mod comments directly, but sometimes we have to take into account a pattern of commenting instead. This is a reputation economy; post lots of good stuff that isn't rage bait, then occasional rage bait will get a shrug.

If not, does this comment act as a warning that all of my previous posts were unacceptable?

Many of your previous posts are bad. But the goal is not to try to get away with being just enough of an asshole that you are allowed to continue being an asshole. Rhetorical brinkmanship is bad. At a glance, your comments with negative karma scores should probably be taken as a sign, to you, that you did something wrong. (This isn't always the case--some substantive positions just get downvoted, which is annoying--but if you can't spot the difference, I don't know what to tell you.)

For some examples, this comment, if I had seen it when you posted it, would probably have gotten you a short ban. This comment's "citation needed" snark honestly tempts me to ban you now.

Be charitable. Be kind. If someone else is breaking the rules, report that instead of breaking the rules in response. The more closely I look at your profile, the more I am inclined to permaban you rather than go through the motions with what appears to be a (so far) consistently garbage level of engagement. If you really would like to continue posting under this account, knock it off.

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Is it not charitable anymore to honestly state your opinion on the analogy a user made (as opposed to their beliefs or character)?

The charity failure in cartman's comment was that WhiningCoil argues that children consenting to sex acts is analogous to children consenting to treatment for reasons of sex or gender preferences, i.e. "if children can't consent to sex acts then children can't consent to puberty blockers, hormone treatments, or sex-altering surgeries, and if parental authority does not extend to vicarious consent for sex acts then it also does not extend to vicarious consent for puberty blockers, hormone treatments, or sex-altering surgeries."

People can argue about whether that analogy is a good one. But if one person builds their argument on the validity of the analogy and another person builds their response on the invalidity of the analogy, then they are not really talking to each other, they are just competing for who can make their take on the analogy into the consensus by being loud and insistent about it.

This is a complicated thing to moderate because we moderate on tone rather than substance, but like most informal fallacies, it's hard to recognize this one without some grasp of the substance of the argument.

Is it not charitable anymore to honestly state your opinion on the analogy a user made

Never has been?

I might honestly think a lot of things people post here are absolutely retarded, but I am not allowed to say that. Also note that the ban went to the parent comment, and this is just a warning to not make the conversation worse.

That is a preposterous and insane analogy to make so it's no wonder that's what your conclusion is.

Frankly I find it more preposterious and insane that you don't see removing parental authority as the salient category.

What's your position on castrati? Willing undertaking of medical procedure or abduction of minors for sinister purposes?

Can you elaborate on what you want me to respond to? Are you referring to singers who in the past were castrated for their singing voices? I don't think that was a morally good practice.

I obviously would agree that 'abduction of minors for sinister purposes' is bad, you literally put sinister in the description. I suspect we disagree on what sinister purposes refers to, so you need to describe something more specific if you want to prompt my thoughts to see our differences of opinion.

Comment on the obvious parallels between castrati and trans children. The glaring, obvious parallels, and why one would be not morally good while the other is somehow more morally good.

suspect we disagree on what sinister purposes refers to

Castrating boys is what we're referring to, and what is being called sinister.

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Your right, i forgot to include the priest telling some wild yarn about how the kids actually want it. Despite everything we know about kids not being able to consent to that. Good call. Now its perfect.

Do you actually not understand the difference or did you just want to get a cheap dig in?

Do you see all medical interventions in under-18's as 'grooming'? No? Just the one you already have a prior about not liking?

If I'm wrong please tell me how. There's a huge host of reasons why they are different, but I'm only going to bother explaining them if you're not going to respond with another sarcastic one liner that is indistinguishable from an inflamed partisan spouting nonsense about 'the transgenders grooming my kids to want to be raped'.

You are correct, I perceive no difference between children "consenting" to sex or "consenting" to sterilization.

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Do you think parents who love their children and will not disown them, but refuse to go along with either social or medical transitioning, should lose their parental rights? Do you think they should not be allowed to veto the school facilitating transition, without their knowledge or approval?

If a kid is in horrible pain, and their parent refuses to do anything about it, and the kid is actively looking to escape? Yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable to remove the kid. Would you tolerate a parent neglecting a broken leg because they think all surgical intervention is blasphemous butchery? Are you okay just watching a kid die from cancer, a totally preventable cancer, just because surgeries carry a bit of risk?

Heck, let's go mental illness specifically. A kid is starting to develop schizophrenia. We just invented a magic pill that can prevent it from getting any worse. The parents refuse to medicate them. You're cool with this? You don't think, at some point, somebody should step in and help the poor kid?

If a kid is terrified their parents will find out about them getting a tooth fixed, wouldn't you be a bit concerned about how the parents are treating that kid? Would you really feel guilty for sneaking your son's best friend to the dentist to help him deal with a cavity that's been getting worse for years?

I'm not saying every kid is right, but you don't get that sort of fear of your parents from nowhere. I was a horrible gremlin of a kid and I never went anywhere near that far to cover something up.

If you can point me to an epidemic of kids getting abducted against their will, I'd probably change my tune. But I get the sense that most of the kids in question are quite happy with the decision. I haven't seen anything that suggests they're particularly prone to regretting it later, either.

  • -13

But I get the sense that most of the kids in question are quite happy with the decision. I haven't seen anything that suggests they're particularly prone to regretting it later, either.

There are a few issues with convenience-sampling transfolk in trans-friendly spaces and claiming this to demonstrate effectiveness of the treatment.

  1. It is not clear that those kids have a correct picture of what the counterfactual actually looks like. If you have a mistaken impression of what the "no transition" picture looks like in the long run, you might be happy with the decision in spite of it being the wrong one from a god's-eye view. To quote Aslan, "no-one is ever told what would have happened".
  2. Selection bias: trans-friendly spaces tend to expel or repel ex-trans like myself (usually not as a deliberate choice, but as a consequence of these people usually wanting to avoid others following in their footsteps which trips the "transphobic" response); you'll tend to find them only in places like here that don't purge transphobes.
  3. Survivorship bias: remember that transsexuals who do transition still have a very high suicide rate; a decent chunk of the regretters just kill themselves and will be missed by even accurately sampling survivors, despite their large contributions to the utility calculation.

Oh, woah, I hadn't realized that you were ex-trans. Have you given a description of what things were like for you somewhere? Your life history? (If so, where? If not, I'd be interested.)

Fairly-boring story TBH (which I have told elsewhere, but not IIRC anywhere that's not login-gated).

My mum's a misandrist (as in, she literally taught me the Y chromosome is a defect), she divorced my dad when I was 3 and got custody, and I'm effeminate in some ways. Fast-forward to puberty and she's accusing me of sexist abuse every time I turn around because now I start registering to her as "man" rather than "child". I developed dysphoria, wanted to transition.

Around this point, I ran away from Mum (who was not supportive of me transitioning; she was at the time a TERF although she's objected to transphobia since so I don't think she still is), because she confiscated my computer for a month and semi-starved me for a week, I ran amok and manhandled her (for the first and only time), and she called the police on me. Went on finasteride, got permission from a psychiatrist for cross-sex hormones, but procrastinated over the fertility problem long enough for the dysphoria to dissipate (and stopped taking the finasteride). Still probably qualify as "genderqueer" - I'm not exactly upset at having moobs from the finasteride - but the intense dysphoria, with phantom-limb and disgust at my penis, is gone. Hence, I qualify as ex-trans although not really a detransitioner.

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I mean, you can say #1 about everything. We can never know the counterfactual of any decision we make. We still have to make decisions. And it's not like there aren't TONS of decisions out there that people DO regret.

#2 doesn't explain the general absence of ex-trans spaces. Keep in mind I'm the sort of person who does look in places like this.

#3: If the suicide rate goes down post-transition, then we have clear evidence that transition helps even if it isn't a perfect cure-all. We have no evidence that "alternate" treatments work. From my own biased standpoint, I'd say we actually have plenty of evidence against alternate treatments. Can you pull up a study from any sort of vaguely-neutral (or positive) organization that suggests a specific alternate treatment actually has anywhere near the success rate in reducing suicide rates?

I'll throw out #4: There are scientific studies on regret rates, and they suggest remarkably low numbers: https://theconversation.com/transgender-regret-research-challenges-narratives-about-gender-affirming-surgeries-220642

I will admit, I have not checked the methodology, but I also haven't seen any studies that suggest a concern here. I'll also say that number is low enough to make me a bit suspicious. I think the real number is probably higher than 1%. But I do think this is pretty solid evidence that, in general, transition results in good outcomes and that if anything, we're being overly cautious.

Everyone who brings up the suicide discourse to score a point is contributing to the problem. We know that suicide, like many other things, spreads socially; that's why newspapers try not to cover suicides too much. But for some reason, we decide to convince teenagers that the proper way to spite people who won't give them the gender treatment that they want is by suicide. No wonder suicide rates are astronomical.

I mean, you can say #1 about everything. We can never know the counterfactual of any decision we make. We still have to make decisions. And it's not like there aren't TONS of decisions out there that people DO regret.

The issue here is that one side of the trans debate controls the education system, which means that if they're right there's no systematic error here but if they're partially or wholly wrong there's a systematic error of kids underestimating desistance rates.

I'm not going to engage you on the studies; that's not really my area of expertise. I think @ArjinFerman and maybe @gattsuru might be more interesting to talk to on that one.

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If a kid is in horrible pain, and their parent refuses to do anything about it, and the kid is actively looking to escape? Yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable to remove the kid.

Here's the problem - it's very much debatable whether this "horrible pain" is actually something requiring medical treatment. I know you think it does. We are all familiar with the rhetoric that gender dysphoria is so real and urgent and painful that not allowing the child to transition is likely to lead to suicide, and akin to refusing to let a child receive treatment for schizophrenia. So you frame it as, essentially, parents letting their children die because of their bigoted religious beliefs. But this is almost never the case. Parents almost always treat a child being "trans" as a psychological issue, a child in distress who needs help - but you will not accept that "help" could be anything other than affirming their entity and even allowing them to begin medically transitioning, when there is good reason to think help should actually be helping them work through their gender dysphoria (if it is really gender dysphoria), becoming comfortable in their bodies, and perhaps choose to transition when they are an adult if they still feel that's what they need. Can you at least acknowledge that this is a reasonable, loving, and non-abusive response, even if you think it's not the correct one?

If a kid is terrified their parents will find out about them getting a tooth fixed, wouldn't you be a bit concerned about how the parents are treating that kid? Would you really feel guilty for sneaking your son's best friend to the dentist to help him deal with a cavity that's been getting worse for years?

Again with the "terrified." I'm sure there are children in abusive households who still face abuse, or being thrown out on the streets, if they are revealed to be gay or trans. This happens and those are extreme cases that may require state intervention, as with any other abuse. But almost all the cases I have seen are not of trans kids with parents who will reject and abandon them for being trans, but parents who simply don't agree with putting their kids on hormones, wearing binders, planning to get surgery, etc. Refusing to change the pronouns they use for their son or daughter might upset the child, but it's not abuse!

If you can point me to an epidemic of kids getting abducted against their will, I'd probably change my tune.

I don't agree with @WhiningCoil's framing of hordes of children being abducted by the state, but I would ask you in return, do you have any numbers regarding parents who are actually abusive and neglectful of their trans children, such that state intervention is required? Do you think schools should socially transition children secretly if the child says their parents won't go along?

But I get the sense that most of the kids in question are quite happy with the decision. I haven't seen anything that suggests they're particularly prone to regretting it later, either.

You "get the sense" that most of the kids are quite happy with the decision, but this seems to be vibes and personal bias. I think the actual level of regret is very hard to evaluate. I'm sure you hate Jesse Singhal, but I have yet to see a trans activist who can actually dispute his numbers and his deep dives into studies on the subject.

helping them work through their gender dysphoria (if it is really gender dysphoria), becoming comfortable in their bodies, and perhaps choose to transition when they are an adult if they still feel that's what they need.

That's... basically exactly what the actual standards of care say to do? You start with therapy and just discussing the issue to get a feel for where the kid really is. You don't just drop them on HRT instantly. There's puberty blockers, so that they can make an informed choice as an adult in either direction, rather than make any permanent changes. For the kids who have a really clear sense of who they are, AND whose parents support it, you might see HRT before 18, but again, the parent IS actually involved in that decision. Basically no one is getting surgery before 18. Getting surgery usually takes YEARS of waiting, even as an adult who knows exactly what they want.

What part of that process are you objecting to?

Refusing to change the pronouns they use for their son or daughter might upset the child, but it's not abuse!

Would you be okay if I consistently misgendered people on this forum? You're an adult who can walk away from the conversation, so presumably this is a thousand times less bad than having it come from your own parents. I think most people here would get pretty reasonably upset with me if I leaned into trolling like that.

And if you won't tolerate it here, why in the world should we expect kids to tolerate it?

wearing binders

I mean, c'mon, you're objecting to an article of clothing? Teach the kid how to do it safely rather than forcing them to risk it with ace bandages and overly tight compressions.

planning to get surgery

What happened to "perhaps choose to transition when they are an adult if they still feel that's what they need"?

You "get the sense" that most of the kids are quite happy with the decision, but this seems to be vibes and personal bias.

I read scientific studies, hang out in trans communities, keep my ear out for about news, and so forth. I mean, if nothing else, I'm involved in numerous trans communities, have numerous trans friends, and presumably have a much better vantage point into the community than you do. I'm the sort of person that shows up here, looking for people who disagree with me, so I'm clearly not cherry-picking my sources. Short of being a credentialed expert, I'm not sure how you get a better perspective than mine?

If people really regret it so much, it should not be nearly this difficult for me to find those people.

I have yet to see a trans activist who can actually dispute his numbers and his deep dives into studies on the subject.

Is there some specific source here, or am I just supposed to spend a week deep-diving him? I'm happy to take a peek, but I will absolutely admit that I don't think he's a source worth investing a lot of time in, right now.

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Basically no one is getting surgery before 18.

Depends what you mean by that. There've been about 5,700 gender affirming surgeries performed on minors between 2017 2019 and 2023. Some might call ~1K per year it "basically no one", but I've heard claims from pro-trans people claiming it's single digits annually, so I want to make it clear that if this is what you meant to imply, you're off by 3 orders of magnitude.

Also, @Amadan - in case you wanted a source.

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That's... basically exactly what the actual standards of care say to do? You start with therapy and just discussing the issue to get a feel for where the kid really is. You don't just drop them on HRT instantly.

In practice, the motte has- numerous times- provided sources showing that this is not what actually happens.

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That's... basically exactly what the actual standards of care say to do? You start with therapy and just discussing the issue to get a feel for where the kid really is. You don't just drop them on HRT instantly.

So here's the problem - I hear that this is how it works. This is how it is supposed to work. A child with gender dysphoria will receive multiple, comprehensive counseling sessions and only after a long and deliberate, informed process will the child and his/her parents elect to move forward with transition. That seems reasonable.

What I have actually seen, in multiple cases, is schools and counselors alike uncritically jumping on board the transition bandwagon with very little intake process or evaluation beyond the child's self-evaluation and expressed desires. Usually expressed as you do, that it's such an urgent and immediate need that you risk the child committing suicide if you don't immediately affirm and validate them and let them do what they want.

I would like to believe that the first case is the usual and standard procedure and these latter cases are exceptions, but that does not appear to be the case in the US. It did not appear to be the case in the UK and Sweden and several other countries until recently, when a plague of scandals forced lawmakers to reevaluate the agencies they had given responsibility for these decisions.

Basically no one is getting surgery before 18.

This is one of those claims where each side claims "Yes it's happening" or "No it's not," and I am not well-informed enough to say who's right, but there seems to at least be enough anecdotal evidence that it has happened that I am skeptical of your blanket denial that it ever happens.

Would you be okay if I consistently misgendered people on this forum?

No one here is a minor (at least to our knowledge) and no one here has parental authority. People are not allowed to be rude to you; they are allowed to say they don't believe someone born with a penis is a woman. You might perceive that to be rude, and a child might perceive that to be emotionally distressing.

You're an adult who can walk away from the conversation, so presumably this is a thousand times less bad than having it come from your own parents. I think most people here would get pretty reasonably upset with me if I leaned into trolling like that.

So your answer is yes, parents who refuse to go along with a child's self-identification as the opposite sex should risk having the child taken away from them for abuse?

I mean, c'mon, you're objecting to an article of clothing? Teach the kid how to do it safely rather than forcing them to risk it with ace bandages and overly tight compressions.

I mean, c'mon, you're pretending this is about objecting to an article of clothing? But yes, sure - parents are allowed to make decisions for their children, including controlling what they wear. By the time they are teenagers it's usually counterproductive to try tell them what they can and can't wear, but parents do still exercise this authority ("You may not wear that in public!") And binders specifically have a lot more significance than merely stylistic expression, and they do pose a risk. So yes, I think parents are entitled to expect that schools will not secretly encourage their children to wear binders without their knowledge or approval.

What happened to "perhaps choose to transition when they are an adult if they still feel that's what they need"?

Honestly, I am allowing for the possibility that it might make medical sense to allow a minor to transition in some rare cases. My actual belief is that this is a terrible idea in pretty much all cases and I think it shouldn't happen, but with sufficient evidence I'd be willing to defer to medical authorities on this. I would not be willing to allow them to supersede parental approval on this, however.

I read scientific studies, hang out in trans communities, keep my ear out for about news, and so forth. I mean, if nothing else, I'm involved in numerous trans communities, have numerous trans friends, and presumably have a much better vantage point into the community than you do.

Sure, and I'm sure they all think being trans is wonderful and they should all be validated. If you hung out in Christian communities I'm sure you'd be very aware of what Christians think and how wonderful Jesus is and how God truly manifests in people's lives. If that sounds a little bit snide, it's because I do actually think that trans ideology has much in common with religious belief (including a vibes-based conviction in things that make you feel good without any rational evidence).

If people really regret it so much, it should not be nearly this difficult for me to find those people.

There's a whole subreddit about detransitioners. Multiple detransitioners and regretters have YouTube channels. They may be a minority, but they certainly exist. And a common story from them is how they essentially got shunned by the trans community when they detransitioned because they are seen as having betrayed trans people, or are potentially giving ammo to their enemies. If you are a trans person who has doubts but know that if you detransition you will lose essentially your entire social network, and you are already a psychologically vulnerable person (as most trans people are), it's not hard to see how the actual numbers are probably greater than what might show up in the surveys that allege regret is something ridiculously low like <2%.

I am not arguing that most trans people regret their transition. I am arguing that enough do that children shouldn't be allowed to make permanent decisions about their bodies, and that parents shouldn't be judged unfit for refusing to agree with their decisions.

Is there some specific source here, or am I just supposed to spend a week deep-diving him? I'm happy to take a peek, but I will absolutely admit that I don't think he's a source worth investing a lot of time in, right now.

I mean, he's got a Twitter account, he's got a Substack, he's published dozens of articles over the years. No, I don't expect you to do a deep dive on him, but since you're clearly familiar with him, I'd like just once for someone to pick apart one of his studies (or his picking apart of studies) with more than just ad hominems and bad faith impugning of his motives. Because from my perspective, he goes into the numbers and the research methodology in detail, in every case finds serious, objective flaws in the studies, often finding that they literally say the opposite of what activists say they do, and the response is never "Here's why you're wrong and here's what you missed, you misunderstood these numbers, you made an error here," etc., but essentially "You are bad person for asking these questions and we don't need you to tell us about trans lived experiences." Jesse Singhal isn't a perfect person (he cares too much what people think of him, he's argumentative, and he probably is obsessed on certain topics), but I haven't found him to actually be in error on this topic. Not only that, he's clearly not anti-trans, and yet he gets the JK Rowling treatment for questioning the narrative.

They almost certainly know that. It's just mouth sounds.

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