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Modal is like the peak of a distribution, or in a discrete sense the 'most common value' - it's plausible the modal age of a trans person is <18 because trans is becoming more popular, but the average or median i'm pretty sure is >18, just because the trans minors of 5 years ago aren't minors anymore, and many transition after 18. Citing a report on a report on studies is bad but The analysis, relying on government health surveys conducted from 2017 to 2020, estimated that 1.4 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were transgender, compared with about 0.5 percent of all adults., which points to >18.
When I said 'non-seething', I meant 'not as a part of a partisan argument'. I think a lot of trans activists aren't that invested in the specific topic of surgery for minors (as distinguished from hormones for minors, or surgery generally). Many of them continue to believe that underage kids aren't getting surgeries, and usually won't directly defend surgeries for minors, in my experience. General trans activists and the transgender medicine community are different - a part of the latter does some surgeries on minors, but much of the former still has the 'common sense' reaction to surgery on minors.
And ... if you believe the 'trans people have severe dysphoria and surgery alleviates that, so surgery on trans adults is good' (which I don't), I don't see why that doesn't apply to kids as well. Of course, in that frame, children are still very stupid and will often say they're trans when they aren't, so it should be gated behind years of 'are you sure' (which was part of the motivation for puberty blockers) - and it is at the moment, I think.
Here's something that could square the circle somewhat: most people, normal or otherwise, are not activists. Activists, people in power, etc, do not care about the opinion of the majority, as long as they can get away with it, which is almost always.
Though that only works until a point, because:
So when you tell them it is true, and show them the evidence, do they thank you for it, and adjust, or attack you as a transphobic rightoid?
Aren't activists usually trying to wield power by influencing majority opinion? A trans activist might have a 100k follower twitter account where they post about how republicans are trying to ban trans people, being anti-trans is conversion therapy, etc. They're making arguments to an audience that agrees with them, and trying to both push that group towards political action and get more people to agree. People with political power in democracies, similarly, care about majority opinion insofar as the issue at hand is a political issue that might affect elections - and trans stuff, including trans minor surgeries, are a big issue on the right, at the moment.
I don't think "surgeries for minors" are something that any activists are really pushing for. Both because it plays significantly less well than "banning hormones for minors" or "banning hormones" generally - but also because they think it's less important.
It depends on the context - if it's part of a confrontation that seems political, the latter often happens - but if you're a progressive or the conversation doesn't seen too partisan, what'll usually happen is they'll say something like "eh, that isn't great, but idk much about it and it's probably very rare". Which is a reasonable response - if i'm a christian and someone brings up sexual abuse in the catholic church - "that isn't great, but it's rare" is correct!
Not that I've noticed. Most of the time it seems they wield power in order to influence the the majority opinion. Even that isn't a must, they're happy to wield power and just censor their opponents if they can get away with it.
Forget about the the trans stuff then, this is much closer to the core topic of this thread. I don't believe this is how power works at all. I completely disagree with this. We've been taught this democratic model of power to give us the impression our opinions matter, and that we're participating in these big decisions. This wasn't done to teach us how the system actually works, it was done to pacify us. The WEF panel I discussed isn't talking about what arguments to best use in order to convince people in Singapore or Ghana that homosexuality is ok (it's actually quite remarkable how little time they spend on that no that I think about it. There's one part when the lady from the US talks how they won by switching the conversation from talking definitions of marriage to a 'love is love' approach). They talk about winning through influence in courts, corporations, media, and education, and using Quiet Diplomacy when public opposition starts to become overwhelming. The closest strategy to "getting more people to agree" is leveraging youth organizations, and that isn't persuasion as much as it's indoctrination.
But this is an argument the Catholics open with. They don't deny it to your face, and only later, when they're sure they're among themselves say "that isn't great, but it's rare". If they did, it would be completely valid to claim they're in favor of defending pedophiles. And even knowing there might be a "that isn't great, but it's rare" said when I'm not there to hear it, the implication of it being said only when I'm not around is that there's also "it's not great, but it's better than agreeing with a rightoid".
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