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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33466 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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There are 17 states that have passed anti-trans healthcare laws for minors. You could consider moving to one of those places, if this is really a big concern for you.

That said, I think this kind of worrying and paranoia is a bit overblown. Even with a double-digit percentage of Gen Z fashionably adopting non-binary identities, the number of minors actually receiving HRT, puberty blockers and surgeries is still pretty small. This Reuter's article says that there were 42,000 gender dysphoria diagnoses in 2021, and a quick search shows there were 26.2 million children in the US in the same year. Even if you assume that every child diagnosed with gender dysphoria gets the full suite of trans healthcare including surgery and sterilizing hormones, that's a 0.1% chance you kid will actually end up medically transitioning.

The odds of your kid dying in a car crash in their lifetime is ~1%. The odds of someone in the US dying of an opioid overdose is 1.5%. The odds of dying of cancer are about 14%.

I'm sure as a father, you've thought a lot about the many possible risks your child may face. But my overall advice is worry more about other more likely risks your child may face, and don't spend so much time on something that is exceedingly unlikely. I'm not even sure that trans ideology is the most likely way that your son will end up "sterilized" - environmentalist doomerism, feminism, etc. all seem like much more likely ideologies to capture a young mind, and even if you try to raise your son in a socially conservative environment, you'll never be able to keep the world entirely out.

You're comparing diagnoses per year for those 6-17 to number of children. You have to multiply the yearly figure by 12 for the whole time period. The U.S. population 6-17 is apparently 49,466,485, which would put the percentage who end up with gender-dysphoria diagnoses before the age of 18 at 1.02%.

(To viewer) "Do you buckle your child up when you put them in the car? Of course you do. You care about them, and car accidents are all too common. But did you know that your 6 - 17 year old is more likely to be 'diagnosed' trans than to die in a fatal car accident? Don't you think you might wanna do something about that, too?"

Not sure who would pay for this ad or even who the target audience would be but it was a funny thought.

If I won the powerball…

Fair enough, but even that 1.02% is just measuring the likelihood of a gender dysphoria diagnosis. I doubt that all 1.02% of people in that group are getting the full suite of medical transition. Unfortunately, we don't have good numbers on minors getting surgeries, HRT or puberty blockers.

I still stand by my original statement. 1.5% of an opioid overdose death is a much scarier possibility than the apparently 1.02% chance your child gets a gender dysphoria diagnosis. Especially with how many gender-non-conforming children desist by the end of puberty, I actually find it fairly likely that the 1.02% is still something you should weigh less than other ways your child's life might end up being screwed up.

I still stand by my original statement. 1.5% of an opioid overdose death is a much scarier possibility than the apparently 1.02% chance your child gets a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

That's still a 1.5% lifetime chance of opioid overdose death versus the dysphoria diagnosis in a 12 year period. I don't know how one would convert the 2, but they're still not like-for-like. Also, is getting a gender dysphoria diagnosis a prerequisite for getting HRT or puberty blockers?

Eh, it depends on your social class. You can disregard the worry of opioid death is your children are middle class upwards (I'm sure the lifetime risk of this is less than 0.5% for children who's parents earned more than $100,000) while if anything the risk of a gender dysphoria diagnosis goes up with household income. So it's perfectly sensible for well off people to worry about gender dysphoria rather than opioid overdose (and the opposite for low income people).

Especially with how many gender-non-conforming children desist by the end of puberty,

That would be encouraging if it weren't for the medical establishment's push for puberty blockers, and the law that will take your kids away if you don't give them to them...

If there’s a serious concern about that, you can always leave Minnesota.

The issue is that if you kid runs away and goes, that state will assume jurisdiction over them.

No, if your kid runs away and goes to Minnesota and claims to be trans, the state will assume jurisdiction to determine child custody. There is a difference.

Yeah it doesn't add up -- I am in about the least queer environment possible, and do have a close colleague going through this with his kid. Also one other little stepkid of a fairly close old friend. This is just the teens (younger in one case actually) I know that are being sucked into this -- there are plenty of adults I'm aware of in this orbit -- I don't know one damn kid that's died in a car accident anymore. (there were a couple at my high school, but driving seems a lot safer now.)

The damnable thing is the celebration of it -- if a kid dies in a car accident people cry and hug you and say how tragic it is. If your kid transitions, it's stunning and brave and you will bloody well like it or else. Fuck this gay earth.

Yes, the gaslighting of parents in this is another real cost.

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