Transitioning, should kids be allowed?

[BruceVC]

https://www.wsmv.com/2022/07/15/youth-transgender-shows-persistence-identity-after-social-transition/

So this an interesting debate. The article makes a point 

"Once a person takes the step to come out as gender diverse, whether that is transgender or non-binary, they may take the first step of making a social transition. Then they can go on further to make a medical transition. That could involve puberty blockers which would prevent development in the puberty they were assigned at birth or going on to receive gender affirming hormones like testosterone or estrogen in their affirmed gender. That is a process that involves a lot of work with a medical team and a mental health professional " 

I dont believe any kid should be allowed to take medication until they 18 or 21 and before that the parents have to agree. If parents are fine with there kids dressing up like a girl and going to school  thats  fine but they shouldnt be allowed to use girls  changerooms because they still boys

I have no issue with young people experimenting with cross dressing but the idea of taking medication to block puberty  I think is dangerous 

What do you guys think? Should kids be allowed to take hormone treatment before 18 and do you think the parents views matter?

 

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by BruceVC

[Guard Dog]

Let's see. We don't allow kids to own or carry firearms, drive cars, enter into legally binding contracts, or give consent for sex or other things because they are not emotionally or educationally mature enough to understand all the implications. But, there is a group of people who think we SHOULD let them have life altering surgeries? Surgeries that will eliminate the possibility of having biological children. That will make them susceptible to future health difficulties and complications particularly since their bodies are still growing? Anyone see a problem here?

Being transgender is a hard thing to deal with and if transition brings relief then more power to them. Nut it is not at all unreasonable to insist the individual be a consenting adult capable of making an informed decision. 

[BruceVC]

42 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Let's see. We don't allow kids to own or carry firearms, drive cars, enter into legally binding contracts, or give consent for sex or other things because they are not emotionally or educationally mature enough to understand all the implications. But, there is a group of people who think we SHOULD let them have life altering surgeries? Surgeries that will eliminate the possibility of having biological children. That will make them susceptible to future health difficulties and complications particularly since their bodies are still growing? Anyone see a problem here?

Being transgender is a hard thing to deal with and if transition brings relief then more power to them. Nut it is not at all unreasonable to insist the individual be a consenting adult capable of making an informed decision. 

But even if its not surgery, taking hormone medication at the age of 13-16 is not a good idea

And more concerning to me is allowing kids to decide outside of parents wishes seems egregious 

 

[Hawke64]

If a child can access cancer treatment should they have cancer, they must be able to access puberty blockers if they have gender dysphoria.
For the reference, 12 year olds get neither surgeries nor HRT. Blockers only prevent the default hormones, which trigger the default puberty when the person stops taking the blockers. For younger kids only social transition, i.e. clothes, hairstyle, pronouns, is available, which obviously have 0 physical consequences. Thus, the only people threatened by trans youth having access to healthcare are transphobes (who'd rather force the children to commit suicide), not just cisgenders who are not affected by it anyhow.
On another note, cis people do have their gender-affirming healthcare, TRT/HRT for the people with low hormone levels and implants for breast cancer survivors.

[Azdeus]

16 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

If a child can access cancer treatment should they have cancer, they must be able to access puberty blockers if they have gender dysphoria.
For the reference, 12 year olds get neither surgeries nor HRT. Blockers only prevent the default hormones, which trigger the default puberty when the person stops taking the blockers. For younger kids only social transition, i.e. clothes, hairstyle, pronouns, is available, which obviously have 0 physical consequences. Thus, the only people threatened by trans youth having access to healthcare are transphobes (who'd rather force the children to commit suicide), not just cisgenders who are not affected by it anyhow.
On another note, cis people do have their gender-affirming healthcare, TRT/HRT for the people with low hormone levels and implants for breast cancer survivors.

I couldn't have said it better myself

[BruceVC]

14 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

If a child can access cancer treatment should they have cancer, they must be able to access puberty blockers if they have gender dysphoria.
For the reference, 12 year olds get neither surgeries nor HRT. Blockers only prevent the default hormones, which trigger the default puberty when the person stops taking the blockers. For younger kids only social transition, i.e. clothes, hairstyle, pronouns, is available, which obviously have 0 physical consequences. Thus, the only people threatened by trans youth having access to healthcare are transphobes (who'd rather force the children to commit suicide), not just cisgenders who are not affected by it anyhow.
On another note, cis people do have their gender-affirming healthcare, TRT/HRT for the people with low hormone levels and implants for breast cancer survivors.

Informative post, thanks for sharing 

And kids from the age of 13-16  do they have access to surgery and hormone treatment? And  do you support kids younger than 18 deciding outside there parents wishes?

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

53 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

If a child can access cancer treatment should they have cancer, they must be able to access puberty blockers if they have gender dysphoria.
For the reference, 12 year olds get neither surgeries nor HRT. Blockers only prevent the default hormones, which trigger the default puberty when the person stops taking the blockers. For younger kids only social transition, i.e. clothes, hairstyle, pronouns, is available, which obviously have 0 physical consequences. Thus, the only people threatened by trans youth having access to healthcare are transphobes (who'd rather force the children to commit suicide), not just cisgenders who are not affected by it anyhow.
On another note, cis people do have their gender-affirming healthcare, TRT/HRT for the people with low hormone levels and implants for breast cancer survivors.

I think there's a big misconception about the ease of official transition, probably due to fear mongering. Even in places where there are trans friendly options, getting official medical transition (blockers, then hrt, then surgery) for adults is usually a very long process with a lot of vetting and bureaucracy. For kids, most likely you'll see blockers at most and even then the transition is more likely to be social in nature.

As someone who lives in a place where they have made transition child abuse, I'll say that it should be allowed because the alternative is having kids taken from their parents and dumped into foster care. That's not a good thing at all.

[Hurlshort]

The last line of Bruce's quote is the important one: it is a process that involves work with a medical team and a mental health professional.

We don't need to have a say in this. It is between the young person and medical professionals. All we need to do is be tolerant. Puberty can be pretty rough even without transitional questions, so we should all be able to empathize.

[Guard Dog]

If we are discussing some sort of "soft" transition, dressing and acting as the preferred gender, that is all good with me. Even light hormone treatments. This is all reversible if desired later. Once you start having surgery and cutting things off there is no going back. Not to OEM normal at least. That is life altering and NOT a decision to be made by someone not mature enough to understand. So save the surgery until after adulthood. 

[Guest]

This book has a section on trans issues that might be food for thought.

[HoonDing]

I'm glad that in at least some countries ideologues find it hard to make inroads in purely medical matters.

[Hawke64]

23 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

If we are discussing some sort of "soft" transition, dressing and acting as the preferred gender, that is all good with me. Even light hormone treatments. This is all reversible if desired later. Once you start having surgery and cutting things off there is no going back. Not to OEM normal at least. That is life altering and NOT a decision to be made by someone not mature enough to understand. So save the surgery until after adulthood. 

As far as I know, the only children who might undergo surgery without their consent are intersex (it is an umbrella category which can include variations in chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and other sex characteristics that do not fit the typical medical establishment’s definitions of “male” or “female"; 1.7% according to the UN statistics). I can't find the list of countries where it is banned.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/07/25/us-harmful-surgery-intersex-children

On 7/17/2022 at 6:47 PM, BruceVC said:

Informative post, thanks for sharing 

And kids from the age of 13-16  do they have access to surgery and hormone treatment? And  do you support kids younger than 18 deciding outside there parents wishes?

 

Welcome.
Social transition and hormone blockers. They do not have access to surgeries.
Considering the levels of abuse towards LGBT and gender-non-confoming (i.e. not only trans) youth by their biological parents, if the parents' wishes include only the parents' ambitions, but not the child's happiness, they should not have been parents in the first place.
https://galop.org.uk/resource/lgbt-experiences-of-abuse-from-family-members/
An anecdotal story from 2018, but gives perspective (regardless of the child actually being gay/straight/cis/trans, he was killed because of his parents' homophobia).
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/mom-pleads-guilty-murder-8-year-old-boy-thought-be-n848741

[Hurlshort]

I did not include parents in my "young person and their medical and mental health professionals" for a reason. No kids should actually need parental consent if they want to talk to a mental health professional. It should be available to them freely and privately.

[alanschu]

Knowing two kids that have transitioned (to non-binary), the answer is definitely yes.

19 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

No kids should actually need parental consent if they want to talk to a mental health professional. It should be available to them freely and privately.

Unfortunately for some, kids are definitely property and any "secret" from a parent is roughly equivalent to mortal sin.

My cousin actively advocated for Gay Straight Alliances in school to mandatory report any involvement a student has to their parents. When I told her (and showed her studies) that this can be a threat to children who are often harmed as a result of being outed, her explanation was simply "if parents are going to harm kids for this they are probably already abusive so this shouldn't be a reason to not inform parents" which was, well, infuriating to read. Even pointing out that 50% of our homeless youth identify as LGBT as a result of hateful parents but god forbid we trust kids to not inform their parents about something like this.

Edited July 18, 2022 by alanschu