Majority of gender-confused children grow out of it by adulthood: Netherlands study

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[–]UncleWillard56 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (48 children)

True, but as you said, "adolescence is confusing." What makes it even more confusing is activists, politicians, corporations and media telling you you need to make that life-altering choice IMMEDIATELY! Letting biology run its course and allowing children the space to figure out who they are without rushing is the key. Sure, there will still be trans people, they've been around for thousands of years, but people can wait until the dust of childhood/adolescence settles to resort to drastic measures.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (47 children)

Activists should be aiming for the message that the life-altering choice should be allowed if the child, parents, and doctor are all certain it's the right call.

But, yeah, sometimes they overshoot. Sometimes their message more closely resembles "trans is virtue, cis is bigotry, and doctors are standing by to help you make your choice."

I do not believe the government should ban gender-affirming care for children. It's government overreach. Politicians shouldn't be practicing medicine. Sure, doctors get it wrong sometimes, but politicians get it wrong way more often.

[–]Barcodetilter 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

A child can’t possibly be certain that it’s the right call.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I disagree. I think sometimes children can be completely certain about what they want.

Our culture is weird. It says "Children have undeveloped brains so they can't make meaningful decisions. All decisions should be made by their parents. So, kid, what do you want to be when you grow up? And by the way, if you stab someone we'll decide you're adult enough to go to prison."

Anyway, yeah, kids' brains aren't fully developed, but they still know all kinds of stuff, often including their own physiological and psychological needs.

[–]Canbot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think sometimes children can be completely certain about what they want.

Every single one of the children with gender dysphoria is certain, even the 90% who change their mind after puberty.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

if the child, parents, and doctor are all certain it's the right call.

No one can be certain that it is the right call because no one can distinguish the 90% of children who grow out of it from the 10% who don't. What is certain is that there is a 90% chance to be right if you choose to allow normal development and non affirming therapy.

Anyone opting for the 10% chance to be right clearly has an agenda that is not in the interest of the child.

[–]Hematomato 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

No one can be certain that it is the right call because no one can distinguish the 90% of children who grow out of it from the 10% who don't.

Of course you can, if you use your own mind instead of relying on your partisan ideology.

If your kid spontaneously says "I'm a girl, not a boy" at age three and consistently believes that for seven straight years, and breaks into tears when people call them a boy, medical intervention is probably warranted.

If your kid comes home and says "My friend Missive is an enby and I think they're so cool and I think I want to be non-binary too and I want to take hormones," you say "How about you just express yourself with fashion until you're eighteen."

I mean, come on. A little critical thinking here.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

and breaks into tears when people call them a boy,

There is absolutely zero evidence that this is how it works. There is absolutely zero evidence that the 90% of kids who grow out of it are less sure, or less emotional about it. This is something you pulled out of your ass to desperately cling to your ideology. This is not critical thinking, it is pulling excuses out of your ass.

If you can design a study and prove that you can consistently identify the 10% then I will agree that those 10% should be allowed medical intervention. But not on the basis that you pulled some scenario out of your ass and insist it is true because you are just oh so smart and everyone else is a biased dumb dumb.

Until there is a real way to distinguish the only moral course of action is provide non affirming therapy and allow natural puberty.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

There is absolutely zero evidence that this is how it works.

Of course there is. There are plenty of case studies on children with lifelong gender dysphoria, and there's plenty of evidence of tweens being influenced by their friends to gender-bend.

And a reasonable, non-partisan person can tell the difference.

Only one of us is "desperately clinging to ideology" by insisting on an absolutist policy that doesn't take circumstance or context into account. And it isn't me.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There are plenty of case studies on children with lifelong gender dysphoria,

Your claim is that you can distinguish which kids will grow out of gender dysphoria and which won't by how emotional they are about being "misgendered". There are no studies about that. You are lying. There is not even a valid way to objectively measure how "sure" someone is or how emotional they are.

You can't just make up any claim that you want and then pretend there is evidence for your bullshit claim because "trans studied exist". That is fucking nuts.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There are case studies on people with lifelong gender dysphoria, which show how some people are certain of their transgender status from pretty much the time they can form words..

I'm getting the sense that what you're really trying to say is "there is no objective, one-hundred percent reliable assay for whether someone will grow out of childhood gender dysphoria."

That, of course, is true. But the perfect is the enemy of the good. The "always assume they'll grow out of it" policy is going to do harm to 10% of patients.

I am quite sure we can do better than that by simply allowing parents and doctors to use their discretion.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"there is no objective, one-hundred percent reliable assay

There is nothing with any efficacy. Your claim that you can tell is bullshit. You can't. No one can. None of the studies shows that you can.

If you or anyone had anything like that with any efficacy at all it would be getting used. Instead you are making baseless claims that you can tell with zero evidence, trying to pass of "hur dur trans exist" as evidence. It is not.

allowing parents and doctors to use their discretion.

They can't tell and if they could they would be treating 90% of their patients with non affirming therapy and advising them not to do anything until after puberty. That is not what is happening.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If your kid spontaneously says "I'm a girl, not a boy" at age three

My kid announced that he's a Tyrannosaurus Rex so now I'm looking for a doctor to cut off his arms and implant a tail.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not 100% convinced than any sort of so-called "sex reassignment" is genuinely the best treatment even for severe gender dysphoria, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for adults. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if doctors in the future look back at sex reassignment with the same horror we look at Victorian-era doctors who removed the clitorises of young girls and women to stop them masturbating.

People don't always have a privileged understanding of their own mental state. We all know people who are desperately unhappy, and they think they know why they are unhappy but they are always wrong. I'll be happy if only I change my job. I'll be happy if only I get a boy/girl friend or get married. I'll be happy once I have kids. Or grandkids. I'll be happy if I move to another city. I'll be happy if I could only afford that car. I'll be happy if only ... if only ... if only ...

This is probably why, even before the massive escalation of "transgender" since the mid 2010s, the effectiveness of sex reassignment for ending the depression and suicidal ideation related to sex dysphoria was not great. Sometimes it helps, but often not.

[–]ID10T 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Lobotomy should be allowed if the child, parents, and doctor are all certain it's the right call.

[–]UncleWillard56 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (33 children)

It's never the right call to interfere with nature unless it's a life-saving measure. Simply delaying these drastic measures until a child is 18 and can make that decision themselves is not life-threatening. I don't care what TRAs say, it's far better to wait until a person has had the opportunity for their body to mature to adulthood for this kind of thing.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (32 children)

Oh, I definitely disagree with that. Nature made me nearsighted. I interfered with it by having eye surgery. It wasn't a life-saving measure. But now I can see fine.

I'm confident that was the right call.

[–]UncleWillard56 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (31 children)

What's the risk if you do correct your eyesight? Barring a mistake by the doctor, worst case you have good/normal eyesight. Fucking with children's natural development to support a delusion or worse, a fad is higher stakes. Do kids even get Lasik eye surgery?

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (30 children)

So it seems that we can agree that "it's never the right call to interfere with nature unless it's a life-saving measure" isn't the real principle here. It's something else.

I agree that it's important not to give children hormones in service of a fad.

I do think it's possible to distinguish between "this child was obviously born trans" and "this child got interested in trans culture during middle school."

[–]UncleWillard56 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (29 children)

I still don't see what the rush it to make those decisions until they're 18 or older. Is there a way to tell if a child is "obviously born trans?" I'm not talking about intersex, I'm talking about a child who is biologically one sex or the other, but decides they need to transition. There is no good reason to treat that child before they are done physically developing. I'm sorry, just "i feel like boy/girl" is not a compelling reason.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (28 children)

There are rare, but documented, cases where a child insists they're in the wrong body from about the first moment they can form that sentence, and never wavers from that.

In a case like that, hormones before puberty are almost certainly necessary for that child to live a happy life.

When kids first start questioning their gender during middle school... there's a very strong chance we're just looking at kids responding to culture. And medical treatment is very likely to do harm.

Ultimately, parents and doctors - not politicians - should be able to tell the difference.

[–]UncleWillard56 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (27 children)

Funny, while we're having this conversation, someone posted this article in the Atlantic about this very topic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/cass-report-youth-gender-medicine/678031/?gift=SKtFP-7gCBnFn1bNJdqPMjMKWqn37bwn6gvlA8nlBfg&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

TL/DR - it states there no evidence either way that puberty blockers accomplish this. I still lean toward letting nature take its course. If my child still felt the same way after their body fully developed, I'd 100% support them (love isn't even in question here; don't care what gender they are). It does make a valid argument not to interfere.

Another pov: I saw this documentary from years ago about parents who had an intersex child (not hermaphrodite, but truly intersex). They raised "her" as a girl from birth. Before puberty (realize this is in the 60s or 70s), doctors advised them to basically flip a coin - boy or girl, and they opted for girl because she had been living that way up until this point in time. Later, after she'd become an adult, physically, she never felt right as a woman. She transitioned to he, and resented their parents for making that call. I didn't care for that part, as a parent, I feel for them especially given the time period where trans wasn't talked about and people just went with doctor's advice with little to no question. He ultimately reconciled with them.

Now in that scenario, the parents interfered with this person's development and it was detrimental. Is that any different than parents entertaining puberty blockers, hormones, or (heaven forbid) surgery for a child who feels they're trans? I don't see a difference and I would opt for waiting until they had naturally developed before I was onboard with anything more drastic than socially transitioning (obviously they'd do what the want when they were 18).

Kids questioning everything is universal. Kids wanting agency over their lives while they're figuring out who they are? Also universal. We don't let them drive before at least 16, drink til 21, vote til 18, or do any number of lessor things adults take for granted either. Why would we just throw that out the window when they can socially transition until they're done developing naturally.

[–]Hematomato 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (26 children)

So, to me, the question isn't "should I put my kid on puberty blockers." The answer is no. He's a boy and he's never shown any sign of anything else.

To me, the question is: who decides.

My position on that has always been clear (and honestly I don't even know whether this is a liberal or a conservative position anymore): my son belongs to my wife and me. We decide what's best for him. He doesn't belong to the Federal Government of the United States of America. He doesn't belong to the State of Nevada. He belongs to us.

So if there ever comes a time when I know in my heart he needs or doesn't need something - whether that's puberty blockers, whether it's vaccinations, whether it's psychotherapy, any of a thousand things - you know who I want to be in charge of that decision?

If you said "some state senator trying to shore up voter turnout among his base," well, you were wrong.