Trans Women are not Women

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quadraginta said:
Just because someone is a child does not mean that their evaluations of themselves are without merit and can be casually dismissed. There is a difference between 'tomboys' or 'sissies' and children who are transgendered.
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Putting aside the fact I haven't seen anyone on here claiming they should just be dismissed, I am curious to know what age you feel IS too young to be making irreversible changes to children's bodies, going on what the child says the feel.
 
Belz... said:
Still too young for children to understand their sexuality and gender fully. Hell, before 25 it's often hard enough for them.
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Maybe not "fully". There are people in middle age who don't understand their sexuality and gender fully.

How about enough?

Enough to choose whether or not they want to postpone puberty?

theprestige said:
Depends how you look at it. As a point in a particular developmental process, it's pretty young. The major development into maturity is still ahead.
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There are lots of things we give children of that age sufficient agency to be involved in choices which affect them.

What is so special about this one?

As a percentage of an average human lifespan it's... I dunno? Entirely subjective?
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So what?


I note that you still don't address whether or not delaying puberty, a reversible process. is "child abuse".
 
quadraginta said:
Maybe not "fully". There are people in middle age who don't understand their sexuality and gender fully.

How about enough?
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Ok that's a fair point. I'd say at 25 they understand it enough. I don't know before that, but I'm willing to go down to the age when we consider them adults (18 where I live).

You?

There are lots of things we give children of that age sufficient agency to be involved in choices which affect them.

What is so special about this one?
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What's so special about driving? Or drinking? Or having sex?
 
theprestige said:
Probably because I'm not Belz... Not my circus, not my monkey.
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You're definitely not Belz.... He's much more handsome than you.

As for Quadra's question, I'm not particularily knowledgeable about the procedure, so I don't know exactly how reversible it is. I'd think that our biological systems don't take well to this sort of thing.
 
Ziggurat said:
Prepubescent children do not know what the changes caused by puberty are like, and cannot know until they experience it. Their opinions about not wanting to go through those changes are uninformed.
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What utter hogwash. There are plenty of sources of information aside from experiencing puberty.


Delaying the choice through androgen blockers doesn't solve the problem, because while they may be older at a later date, they still won't be informed because the only way to truly get informed is to go through the process.
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The problem it is intended to solve is to pause the process until the individual has reached an age where they are deemed by society to be sufficiently mature to decide for themselves.

Waiting is the only way for them to do that.

Yor assertion that the only way to be adequately informed about the effects of puberty is to experience it remains hogwash.

You say that like there's no psychological cost to the treatment. I don't think that's even remotely safe to assume.
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I don't know what gives you that idea.

Like almost all medical interventions (even to the decision to take an aspirin or not) there are risks and benefits to be weighed. The proper question is if the costs and risks are outweighed by the benefits.

There is a substantial body of peer-reviewed research and evidence which strongly suggests that they are.

How much have you found which suggests that they are not?
 
If you delay puberty until the person turns 18, is it no longer child abuse, because they're no longer a child?

Related issue: Doesn't brain development continue into the mid-twenties? Does delaying puberty delay that process as well? Does a delayed-puberty 20 year old have a 20 year old's brain maturity? Or are they still stuck with the intellectual capacity of a 12 year old?
 
quadraginta said:
What utter hogwash. There are plenty of sources of information aside from experiencing puberty.
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Yeah you can read about it in a book but the point is that nothing beats going through the process, especially since everybody does at some point anyway.

The problem it is intended to solve is to pause the process until the individual has reached an age where they are deemed by society to be sufficiently mature to decide for themselves.
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Zig's point is that the process itself is part of the maturing. Remove the process, and you stilt that maturation. It doesn't sounds like a great idea.
 
theprestige said:
If you delay puberty until the person turns 18, is it no longer child abuse, because they're no longer a child?

Related issue: Doesn't brain development continue into the mid-twenties? Does delaying puberty delay that process as well? Does a delayed-puberty 20 year old have a 20 year old's brain maturity? Or are they still stuck with the intellectual capacity of a 12 year old?
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Also: how does one ethically make a clinical test of this?
 
quadraginta said:
What utter hogwash. There are plenty of sources of information aside from experiencing puberty.
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Information sure. But no other sources of experience other than experience itself. And a common refrain from people who have experienced things is "studying this experience via other sources of information didn't prepare me for the experience itself!"

Nor do pre-pubescent children have the decades of diverse and focused experiences, nor even the mental maturity, to effectively estimate the value or risk of something they haven't experienced.

Then there's the issue that responses to experience change over time. As a child, I couldn't stand cheddar cheese. Somewhere during puberty, cheddar cheese became my favorite kind of cheese. Same with avocados.

So yeah, I don't buy at all the notion that a twelve year old is competent to determine whether puberty is a good idea or not.
 
theprestige said:
If you delay puberty until the person turns 18, is it no longer child abuse, because they're no longer a child?

Related issue: Doesn't brain development continue into the mid-twenties? Does delaying puberty delay that process as well? Does a delayed-puberty 20 year old have a 20 year old's brain maturity? Or are they still stuck with the intellectual capacity of a 12 year old?
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I don't think that would be the case at all. Kallmann syndrome can result in a complete lack of onset of puberty, but none of the listed symptoms of this syndrome seem to relate to brain maturity, at least in cognition. I could be wrong because I haven't looked that closely at this condition, but remembered hearing about it and thought someone could be interested in it.
 
Belz... said:
Ok that's a fair point. I'd say at 25 they understand it enough. I don't know before that, but I'm willing to go down to the age when we consider them adults (18 where I live).

You?
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Yes. I think 18 is old enough for someone to decide for themselves (with appropriate counseling) to begin HRT.

I think that delaying puberty until they reach that point is a prudent precaution. Otherwise the choice is being taken from them. HRT is far more effective when the effects of puberty do not have to be dealt with as well.

Gender transition in general is far less invasive if the effects of puberty do not need to be contended with.

What's so special about driving? Or drinking? Or having sex?
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Good question. I haven't suggested that there is.

What is the cost of having someone wait a few years before they are granted those privileges by society?

Are the children harmed? No.

Because transgender children who are forced to suffer an irreversible puberty which they don't want when there are sufficiently benign ways to avoid that are be harmed.

Child abuse.
 
quadraginta said:
Yes. I think 18 is old enough for someone to decide for themselves (with appropriate counseling) to begin HRT.

I think that delaying puberty until they reach that point is a prudent precaution.
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Wait a second. You are proposing to delay puberty until they are old enough to make the decision, but by then the puberty not only should be underway, it should be mostly over. You don't think that could cause serious issues?

Good question. I haven't suggested that there is.
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Well, yes you have. You've suggested that having to wait for a decision on this one was because it is special. Wouldn't that be true of all things for which we wait for the child to be older to allow them to make decisions?

Because transgender children who are forced to suffer an irreversible puberty which they don't want when there are sufficiently benign ways to avoid that are be harmed.

Child abuse.
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Come on, man. They're not forced into anything. Puberty happens. (which, I'm told, means it doesn't exist)
 
theprestige said:
If you delay puberty until the person turns 18, is it no longer child abuse, because they're no longer a child?
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Haw, haw.

I expect better of you.


Related issue: Doesn't brain development continue into the mid-twenties? Does delaying puberty delay that process as well? Does a delayed-puberty 20 year old have a 20 year old's brain maturity? Or are they still stuck with the intellectual capacity of a 12 year old?
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I have not seen anything which suggests that delaying the onset of puberty for a few years has any effect on cognition.

I'll be interested in looking at whatever evidence you have that it does.
 
So let's get this straight

To avoid hassles later from stigma, we think it is a good idea to have weird looking man kid 18 year olds having to walk around whose bodies have been artificially stopped going through puberty?
 
quadraginta said:
Yes. I think 18 is old enough for someone to decide for themselves (with appropriate counseling) to begin HRT.
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18 years old is just a social convention, though. It's a "common sense" estimate of when a person has reached an adequate level of maturity. We generally hope that they're that mature a few years earlier, but we build in some slack.

This doesn't mean that 18 is a magical rubicon of maturity. You turn 18 and suddenly you know what's what and can decide things for yourself. It's just our estimate of how long it typically takes for that maturation process to get far enough along.

Retard the maturation process, and that estimate probably has to go out the window.
 
cullennz said:
So let's get this straight

To avoid hassles later from stigma, we think it is a good idea to have weird looking man kid 18 year olds having to walk around whose bodies have been artificially stopped going through puberty?
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Yeah, sound plan.

It's not like kids would see it as a form of punishment for being different, and it's a certainty none of those weedy, voice-not-yet-broken 17 year olds would be bullied.

Some people need to buy a calendar.
 
quadraginta said:
Haw, haw.

I expect better of you.
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I wish you were expecting a serious question, because that's what I asked. I feel like you haven't really given much thought to what the maturation process actually is, and what actually distinguishes a child from an adult. I feel like you're treating my question as a joke, because it's easier than actually stopping to think about what 18 years of age actually means in terms of this discussion.

I have not seen anything which suggests that delaying the onset of puberty for a few years has any effect on cognition.

I'll be interested in looking at whatever evidence you have that it does.
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I'll let you know if I find any.

But the way I see it, you're the one who's arguing that delaying maturation is safe and ethical. So it's on you to investigate related questions of maturity. If you can't answer the question of brain maturity, then I'm probably not ready to agree to your proposal.
 
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