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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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Then why are those states also trying to ban minors from social transitions with parental consent?

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.

OK, so then my initial point that a parental rights argument is complete bullshit here is correct then?

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.

OK, so then my initial point that a parental rights argument is complete bullshit here is correct then?

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?

I ask again then, what then is the discretion you would leave out of the state's hands? What are the choices that individuals and families are allowed to make?

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.