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That usually is the argument made- that medical transitioning is a form of mutilation that can’t be consented to, so it nullifies the parent’s rights to make medical decisions for their kids. Parents rights are more of an argument about social transitions.
Those things aren’t about parents or the trans kids; they are about all the other kids.
It is one thing to allow a boy to pretend to be a girl. It is another thing to allow a boy into a girl’s locker room with a swinging dick and naked girls.
Ditto with sports, specifically female sports.
I think if you are framing those issues in terms of how it affects the trans person you are missing the reason behind the red state bans; it is about the effect on the non-trans person (typically girls). I guess stopping social transition is icing on the cake.
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Because those decisions are seen as so intrinsically damaging to the child that the decision to proceed should not be allowed at all. We take the same approach (correctly, IMO) with respect to the question of whether the child should be permitted to have sex with adults. We can disagree at the object level (i.e. whether in fact social transitions are damaging to the child), but if one accepts those states' belief at the object level for the sake of argument, then there is nothing anomalous about their policymaking approach to the matter.
Some red states believe that social transition is a question that should be left to the parents. Others believe that it should be forbidden. Blue states seem to adopt the mirror image of the latter view, that it should be required (for children who demand it) without the parents' approval. The second and third groups of states would seem not to care much for parental rights on this topic. The first does. That seems to be the lay of the land. I'm not sure how it would improve one's understanding to insist that any particular argument is "complete bullshit," unless you believe that it is somehow illegitimate for different states to adopt different policies.
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Yes, it is bullshit. We are not in ancient Rome any more, parental rights have not been absolute for a long time.
Parents are, for example, not allowed to deny their children necessary health care.
Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves.
Court Says Ill Child's Interests Outweigh Religion
The debate is not about parental rights. If you make it about parental rights, you lose, because this cause - absolute power of parents over their children - was settled long ago.
The debate is about gender affirming health care.
Is it medically necessary lifesaving treatment, or not?
And if it is not necessary for children, is it necessary for adults?
We do not live in libertarian world where every adult is sovereign over his body, and will not in the foreseable future, and these decisions are political decisions.
Doctors will not replace your eye with glass one, your leg with wooden one and your hand with hook, not matter how how strongly you self identify as pirate, because pirate affirming health care is not recognized as legitimate medical procedure.
Why? Because transpiratical community is oppressed and persecuted, because transpiratism is not recognized as valid, because there is no respectable billionaire mafia family supporting transpirate rights. Sad.
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