Continuation of Gender-affirming Hormones Among Transgender Adolescents and Adults

You missed the point

You acted as if he had implied it was a large percentage of all kids. He said no such thing, rendering your response as a strawman. It looks as if you are still pushing that strawman.

For the record, the number of kids murdered in school shootings is far less than hormone therapy, but to say that it is therefore meaningless is nonsense.

 

Number of kids murdered is four times higher than those taking blockers, but you'd rather obsess about the blockers because that's what your leaders want you to obsess about. Like I said, its an example of how effective political propaganda is.

As yourself if your priorities are in right order.

 

4 times higher than kids killed in school shootings? Even if that were true ( which I highly doubt) it still does not make the blockers irrelevant. Small numbers are highly relevant.

At any rate, can you provide me with a link to back up your 4 times claim?

This link says that there have been 783 kids killed in school shootings since 2000
The latest government data on school shootings (usafacts.org)

This link says there are approximately 5000 kids on puberty blockers.
Puberty blockers and side effects: How to think about the controversy. (slate.com)
"The best estimate of how many children are on puberty blockers, according to a recent Reuters investigation, is roughly 5,000. The percentage of U.S. children from 13 to 17 on puberty blockers for gender dysphoria, therefore, calculates to.02 percent.



I would say it is pretty clear that you are likely just pulling numbers out of your a**.

 

Where did I say anything about school shootings? I said number of kids murdered is four times higher than those taking blockers.

Child murder results in a dead child, while blockers postpone puberty. Which outcome is worse?

 

Fair enough, my intention was in school shootings which is such a big issue politically, but I did not make that clear.

At any rate, the small numbers involved in both does not render them meaningless by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, it seems that the left spends half its time talking about school shootings which is far smaller number.

For the record, my opinion on this issue has not one thing to do with what anyone else has to say about it. My position is based solely as a father and how I would react if this were my pre-pubescent child. The notion that I would allow them to halt their biological processes based on their belief at that age is as preposterous to me as it gets.

Maybe you blindly follow as you are told, but that is far from being my style.

 

Again, child murder results in a dead child, while blockers postpone puberty. Which outcome is more tragic, - a murdered kid, or one who wants to postpone puberty?

If it was your child I'm sure you'd rather see him postpone puberty than bury him. And of course you might be able to talk him out of talking the blockers, although if its something he really wants, he'd do it with or without your approval.

 

If this were a matter of which is more tragic, you would have a great point.

Since it is not, your point is irrelevant.

Without my approval? Can they do that as a minor? I would be shocked if that were the case. That seems like that would be a lawsuit just waiting to happen. When they are an adult they can do as they please and I may even support it once they are full grown adults and capable of making such decisions. To take the word of a 12 or 13-year-old child however is about as stupid as one could get.

Sometimes parenting is about saving children from themselves. They have a lot of errant thoughts that come and go.

 

No one in the US is getting gender affirming care without the consent of their legal guardian, their psychiatrist, and their physician. Are you honestly calming that all minors should be denied all medical care until they are 18?

 

Thank you. I thought that was the case.

 

All medical care? No. But most things in medicine have objective means of diagnosing. If you were talking about one of the rare diagnoses that is not objective such as depression, I do not see prescribing an antidepressant as being anywhere near the same level as halting their biological processes before they hit puberty. I also trust their gut that they are depressed FAR more than I trust that they think they are a woman in a man's body that likes men as opposed to just being a gay man. That calculation is infinitely more complex and understandably difficult waters to wade through when one is any age, but especially for a pre-pubescent.

Deep down, you too know this to be the case. That is some seriously weighty stuff for what amounts to just a child that knows nothing about changes to their body that are upcoming as we all were at that age.

 

So there are some instances of medical care that we should allow to be performed on minors? Why make an exception for this one? You do realize we give puberty blockers and hormones to kids all of the time, even apart from trans issues, right? And why are depressed guts more reliable than trans guts?

Deep down, you know you are being hypocritical and inconsistent.

 

I think I was fairly clear in my response. Yes, of course we give children medical care. If they have strep throat we give them antibiotics. If they have a tumor we treat it. If they break their arm we have it repaired. These things are not subjective.

What you are talking about is wholly subjective. That means we are going solely off of what the child thinks rather than what doctors can observe. That is an entirely different ballgame.

To imply otherwise is silly, and you are not helping this conversation by hiding behind such absurdities. You clearly are smart enough to understand the difference.

 

We are going off both what they say and what doctors can observe in the exact same way we do for all other psychiatric topics. You are clearly smart enough to stop pretending otherwise.

 

Of course it IS the matter, because people talk about the blockers like they were the worst tragedy in the world.

You could sue your kid, but I think its fairly rare.

 

As I said, in the highly rare wholly subjective diagnoses which to my knowledge is only in the psychiatric realm, there is a big difference between giving someone an anti depressant versus literally halting their biological processes.


You understand the difference in risk there do you not?

 

I suppose this obvious misunderstanding on your part is a microcosm of your entire position.

 

Anti-depressants have a literally biological effect. Why do you think this decision should be left up to patrisan politicians instead of actual psychiatrists? How is that less risky? You understand that psychiatrists know more about psychiatry than random politicians do, do you not?

 

Partisan politicians? Who said that?

No, it should be left to the parents, and this parent says HELL NO, you are not capable of making that decision at this point in your life!

The problem here is not the belief that the child is lying. The problem is that this is a highly complex topic that they are not at a point that is anywhere close to comprehending. A child can reliably say they are depressed. A child can show symptoms of social withdrawal, anhedonia etc that back up that diagnosis. These things can be observed. What you are talking about, instead of saying they are depressed, a 12 year old needs to be able to say that "after my body goes through puberty changes, I am going to end up being a woman, currently in a mans body, that is a heterosexual woman that likes men, rather than "I will grow into a run of the mill gay male"

Clearly you must see the chasm of difference in complexity from what you are expecting from a child versus them communicating their depression. Do you not?

 

The people advocating for government intervention in gender affirming care for children. I'm happy to hear you aren't among them.

Who is claiming that this right should be taken away from all parents? This is the first I've heard anyone make that claim.

Clearly you agree that, if the guardians, the patient, the psychiatrist, and the physician agree that gender affirming care is appropriate, then it's okay to move forward with said care . . . which is all anyone seems to be advocating for.

 

-Who is suggesting that you are claiming that the right should be taken away from parents? I am merely stating my position as a parent. There are people on the pro trans side that are suggesting that right should be taken from parents, but I have not accused you of holding that position.

-My argument is and has been why I oppose this as a parent. If other parents want to do this I could not care less, but I wholly disagree with their decision unless there is something concrete like chromosomal differences or being a hermaphrodite etc. At that point it is a different discussion that I would be willing to hear.

-You did not answer.....do you see the chasm of difference in complexity of what you are expecting from a child between beliving that they are depressed rather than believing they are a woman in a mans body? I know that you must.

 

Who, aside from actual cases of abuse, is advocating for that?

Then you are on the side of all of the pro-trans people when it comes to the politics of it and against folks like DeSantis and Trump, who want to ban (or, in the case of DeSantis, has ALREADY banned) this parental right.

Sounds like we already agree on the pro-trans "agenda." We don't seem to differ at all on the politics here and both stand against the DeSantis/Trump anti-trans agenda.

 

I have heard this argument made by leftists before. Without spending a great deal of time, here is an example of such...
Should Parents Be Required To Let Their Kid Gender Transition? - Bing video

I would be lying if I were to say that I am not skeptical of the decision in 2010 to change this from a mental illness (Body Dysmorphic disorder I believe) to gender dysphoria which is not a mental condition in the DSM. The source of my skepticism is that it is not as if some new medical breakthrough drove this decision. It just so happened to coincide with the increasing power of the LGBTQ movement, that oh by the way, happens to also be at the same time that President Obama just happened to switch from opposing gay marriage to supporting it. This reeks of politics rather than science. It would have been illegal prior to that change, or certainly would have opened up a physician to a major lawsuit that none would likely be willing to risk. I sold an atypical antipsychotic to psychiatrists for many years, and at that time, this was treated as and considered a mental disorder. While I cannot say this was a common topic, the few times it was discussed, I personally did not hear any of them arguing for this being anything other than a mental disorder.

With that being the case, I am not offended if this switched back to requiring that a person be an adult. Such a declaration in my mind is not all that different from saying that a child cannot legally consent to sex because they are incapable. It is the exact same logic and that is pretty well established law. With that being said, I am not a crusader for that law and it is not what I have been advocating in this thread. In this thread, I have very clearly approached this solely as a father and why I would not allow my child to do so while still a child.

Being a parent supersedes politics in my book.


-You did not answer.....do you see the chasm of difference in complexity of what you are expecting from a child between beliving that they are depressed rather than believing they are a woman in a mans body? I know that you must.

 

Or did society adapt to make use of innate differences?

 

That is a fair statement, however, not what we are discussing here. We know that removing ones snausage does not turn a male into a female. It is cosmetic and only changes the outer image that was created for them. It is learned.

That doesn't mean that people don't feel and identify as the opposite gender; it just means the image they are chasing was taught.

 

A dishonorable man at that. I don't get why anybody is putting up with this nonsense. It seems like the nation has slipped into a game of, how asinine can we be.