Social Justice Transgender and gender identity discussion

[JessFR]

I dunno if there is a place for data that inevitably pigeonholeds people into treatments based on data from other individuals .

What is best for a person is basically up to that individual. Problem being that youngsters are reliant on parents and doctors , so I dunno hey.

I only know 2 and they both transitioned physically and came out as doing do as adults. Before that were pretty unhappy and didn't know exactly why.


If my child was giving signs of gender dysmorphia I honestly wouldn't know what to do except just let her be herself and thump any child or adult who bullied her.

Good to see grimez back, much love my brother

I completely agree that just saying that one approach is right for everyone is complete bullshit.

Even with all the evidence in the world it is never going to be the case that all children who state that they want to transition to a different sex should be allowed, or that all should be prevented.

This is very similar to one of my ongoing frustrations about most gun control policies. That is having rules enforced blindly on everybody.

What I want is guidelines based on evidence, and decisions made based on circumstances.

Blind all encompassing rules invariably wind up fucking people over and giving them no recourse. It's fucked.

And all this talk about children killing themselves. It's bullshit. If you care about children you don't come to a conclusion quickly that invariably winds up being the same one you had right from the start. Justifying it as "common sense". You exercise caution because as I said before...

These are the lives of real people you're fucking with.

 

[nuttynutskin]

So you think children that haven't even fully developed mentally should be able to have sex changes?

 

[JessFR]

So you think children that haven't even fully developed mentally should be able to have sex changes?

In some circumstances, yeah probably.
At the very least if a kid has been depressed for well over a year, consistently saying the reason is that they feel like they're the wrong sex. And has attempted suicide because of it or something. And other treatment options have failed.

Then at the least they should be offered hormone therapy at that point. With surgery then offered if it results in prolonged psychological improvement.

It has to be handled on a case by case basis informed but not dictated by the outcomes of previous cases.

Medicine isn't something you can just apply singular rules too in all cases regardless of the circumstances.

Many people opposed shit like methadone because it offended their sensibilities. Even more so when it involved teenagers with drug problems. They'd rather let people they've never met suffer for the sake of their personal hangups.

It's wrong.

Ultimately these are decisions to be worked out by the parents, the child, the doctors and perhaps the courts on a case by case basis. They're the ones who are there. These aren't decisions to be made on behalf of everyone by people who are entirely insulated from the situation and from the consequences, informing their decisions entirely based on their assumptions and prejudices.

 

[nuttynutskin]

What if they regret it later? I don't think making someone wait til they're at least 18 is too much to ask, then they can do whatever they want to their bodies.

 

[JessFR]

What if they regret it later? I don't think making someone wait til they're at least 18 is too much to ask, then they can do whatever they want to their bodies.

What if they don't make it to 18? You can't let fears of the what ifs paralyze you. You gotta make the tough calls based on what you know today, not based on endless second guessing of what might happen in the future.

Medicine has to do this all the time. Decisions have to be made about treatments. Someone might have a blood clot. You can operate now, but there's a chance they may die. Or you can wait and they might outlive the clot. You don't know. You just gotta weigh the risks based on the specific situation you're dealing with at the time. Then make a decision, and hope for the best.

And this is why you need data so you can evaluate and compare the risks.

 

[nuttynutskin]

You didn't answer my question... What if they regret it when they grow into an adult? Who's going to take up the blame then? You can't say I can't base it on what might happen in the future when you're doing the exact same thing by assuming they're going to kill themselves before they're 18 because they can't get a sex change. Regardless, I'll never be of the opinion that a doctor should be fucking with a child's hormones or doing sex changes on children ffs. Truly some sick shit.

 

[JessFR]

You didn't answer my question... What if they regret it when they grow into an adult? Who's going to take up the blame then? You can't say I can't base it on what might happen in the future when you're doing the exact same thing by assuming they're going to kill themselves before they're 18 because they can't get a sex change.

I'm not assuming. It's one possibility among several. They may commit suicide before 18, they may not. They may come to regret it or they may not.

Who's to blame if things go wrong? Nobody. Somebody's only to blame if you can show there was negligence.

Say you operate on someone with a brain tumor and they die in the table. Is the surgeon at fault? The patient? No. Unless there was serious malpractice, neither is at fault. Sometimes you can do everything right and still have things go bad. That's life sadly.

My point is that you can't be afraid to make decisions because there's a chance of a bad outcome. Taking no action is still a choice. One that also can result in a bad outcome.

Which is why you just gotta go with the knowledge you have and make the best decision you can based on the patient, data of prior cases, etc.

What people who want to outlaw it entirely are doing is taking the decision away from the people most in a position to make it wisely, and making it for them not knowing any of the people who's lives they're affecting. And in doing so they are not held responsible at all if people die as a result.

That's not right.

It's terrible when doctors, patients, parents, etc all do their very best and things still go wrong. But that's still much better than having the decisions made on their behalf by people who are not accountable no matter what the outcome is and have the least information to go on making it.

The doctors can be sued, parents will lose their child. The child themselves has their whole life riding on it. But the voters and politicians are not accountable for the lives they're screwing with. They don't see the results of their mistakes.

So why should they get to make the decisions? How is that right?

 

[Yourbaker]

At the end of the day, it's certainly not the decision of the under-informed public. We need to stop trying to take authority over others where the decision is clearly theirs to make.

Children, guardians/parents, doctor and those the family choose to include in their decision are the only people necessary. I sympathize for those children who are born in families where all opinions are final and decisions are already decided before their birth.

 

[nuttynutskin]

So why should they get to make the decisions? How is that right?

Because children who haven't developed don't have total self autonomy yet, and have to be guided by adults. Those adults need to act in the best interest to protect them, not use them for their own agenda. I don't think and will never think that allowing a child to make a major decision that will alter the rest of their lives is in their best interest or protecting them. There's a lot of things that you're not allowed to do until you're legally an adult and am fine with gender reassignment being one of them.

 

[JessFR]

I find it very hard to believe that you interpreted my post to be suggesting that the decision be entirely the child's or entirely the parents.

Suggesting I did is a strawman.

 

[nuttynutskin]

I thought you were asking why other people could decide whether or not it was ok for children to have sex changes? Whatever,that's fine, I gave my opinion on the matter. Hopefully I don't keep getting sucked back into this nonsense.

 

[JessFR]

I thought you were asking why other people could decide whether or not it was ok for children to have sex changes? Whatever,that's fine, I gave my opinion on the matter. Hopefully I don't keep getting sucked back into this nonsense.

I was asking how is it OK to take the decision out of the hands of the parents and doctors, the people who are close to the child and in a position to evaluate the risks with first hand knowledge. The people who can be held accountable if they act negligently.

And instead give the decision to people who aren't the doctors, aren't the parents, aren't the judges. Who don't know anything about the people their choices affect. And who won't be held accountable for the outcomes at all?

The problem isn't that other people are involved in a minors major life decisions. The problem is choosing voters and politicians, people least informed and least accountable to be the ones involved.

 

[MJ420]

What if they don't make it to 18? You can't let fears of the what ifs paralyze you. You gotta make the tough calls based on what you know today, not based on endless second guessing of what might happen in the future.

Medicine has to do this all the time. Decisions have to be made about treatments. Someone might have a blood clot. You can operate now, but there's a chance they may die. Or you can wait and they might outlive the clot. You don't know. You just gotta weigh the risks based on the specific situation you're dealing with at the time. Then make a decision, and hope for the best.

And this is why you need data so you can evaluate and compare the risks.

There is an alarming rate of kids changing their minds. No child should be given hormone blockers . That's child abuse and usually woke parents are using their kids and damaging them for life
Watch the documentary on kids whose parents blew up playing with dolls to stopping Male hormones. If it saves 1 kid that life waiting until 18 and they can legally ask for it isn't much to ask
Can you imagine being a girl but your folks make you be a boy onky to change your mind at 16? There goes your female body unless you got money for surgery
I wanted to be a boy, glad my parents are not abusive because I would have regretted it
Its child abuse

 

[Xorkoth]

I tend to agree that we should not be giving children hormones or performing reassignment surgery on them. I just don't know if children are really able to make that decision, and there are bound to be cases where parents or other adults have implanted an idea.

On the other hand, there are many situations where the parents/adults in a child's life have not in any way tried to push any sort of agenda, who in fact truly wish their child did not feel that they were born the wrong gender, where the child consistently and persistently feels that way. In such cases, perhaps the outcome for the child for the rest of their life would be better if they were taking hormones from a relatively early age.

It's a complex issue. I tend to agree with what Yourbaker said, but abuse is a concern I have with that, and subjectivity.

 

[JessFR]

There is an alarming rate of kids changing their minds. No child should be given hormone blockers . That's child abuse and usually woke parents are using their kids and damaging them for life
Watch the documentary on kids whose parents blew up playing with dolls to stopping Male hormones. If it saves 1 kid that life waiting until 18 and they can legally ask for it isn't much to ask
Can you imagine being a girl but your folks make you be a boy onky to change your mind at 16? There goes your female body unless you got money for surgery
I wanted to be a boy, glad my parents are not abusive because I would have regretted it
Its child abuse

What if it saves 1 life by not blanket prohibiting it?

The saves 1 life argument is very poor.

Frankly I'm not sure I understand your argument. Puberty blockers delay puberty. In your hypothetical the girl would still be able to resume puberty. Also all the arguments can be totally flipped around leaving me to think siding with one over the other is just prejudice.

Seems to me people can't bare to risk even one child potentially regretting it..
But somehow have absolutely no concern at all for children who suffer or die from being stopped...

Do they just think such kids don't exist? Or could it be they know they exist but just don't care about them?

 

[cduggles]

I’m not sure who should decide what and when, but politicians should not be part of the equation, imo.

 

[JessFR]

I’m not sure who should decide what and when, but politicians should not be part of the equation, imo.

There is no perfect answer here. There's no option where everybody gets an ideal outcome.

There will be people who slip through the cracks. That's the sad truth. The important thing is to minimize that number.

Simply saying "taking action could go wrong therefore no action should be allowed to be taken" however is total bs.

Everything's a choice. Including making a choice to do nothing or making a choice not to make a choice. It's just that people have a predisposition towards doing nothing because they feel less responsible for when doing nothing goes wrong.

 

[Asclepius]

. They do not want to mistakenly say anything that could be taken or later claimed and twisted to be transphobic.

I think in the cultural context, of this discussion, it was less about lawsuits ( as it was off the record) and more about the pressure to diagnose ( although I agree there is always the discrimination factor looming).
The point I was making was this psych is an okay guy but seemed to me, to lack any reasoned criticism of his profession ( surprise surprise) - granted he did allude to the fact that he found it stifling but just to him. Its always interesting to know how just by the nature of a profession and the system that it is working within, a clinician can be coerced to assess and diagnose based on limited and rigid principles, nothing outside of that - a more holistic and clinical reasoning has become less valued in favour of diagnostics ( in most health care systems that are underresourced and overburdened by red-tape) and yet the diagnostic methods are not necessarily accurate and only take into account a limited scope of a clients profile. The point I was making is how fickle the system is and how it profits from service users, lack of awareness of themselves or, the specific services they consent to.
i.e. it profits from dependency.

 

[Asclepius]

I’m not sure who should decide what and when, but politicians should not be part of the equation, imo.

Agreed. Unfortunately, with financial leverage- they will always, surface and insert themselves into the idealistic mix. I don't think we can excise them but we can keep them on a short leash by constantly, highlighting their incompetence and challenging this.

 

[Asclepius]

Everything's a choice. Including making a choice to do nothing or making a choice not to make a choice. It's just that people have a predisposition towards doing nothing because they feel less responsible for when doing nothing goes wrong.

True but I wonder how much of this is actually feeling powerless and not seeing the value on the small but incremental change that takes time. Progress takes time and patience, small changes are easily eschewed in favour of immediate gratification but obviously this is the most stupid route, long term.