Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Trans women are not women (Part 8)
- Thread starter Meadmaker
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I think many people aren't aware of the role of sex hormones in brain restructuring during puberty, because they think of it as just being about the development of visible secondary sexual characteristics. Then you have the other problem of activists saying that anyone who presents evidence contradicting the narrative that puberty blockade is safe, is some evil far-right transphobe who wants children to die.
Thanks!
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
I am not at all in favor of allowing ANY of those medical treatments for minors; I oppose them fairly strongly.
I don't think that prosecuting the parents is a good approach. I think it is tantamount to child abuse, but I think it's abuse being perpetrated by the schools and the medical community. In many cases, I think parents are just as much a victim of this medical misinformation as the children are.
Some parents I view pretty negatively. The parents who say that their two year old "indicated" that they "identified" as a female because they unsnapped their onesie and tied a shirt around their head, and their parent interpreted this as the child wanting to wear a dress and have long hair so they must of course be trans... I kind of think those people shouldn't be allowed to have kids because it's simply idiotic.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Tough question. I think you're right that this is pretty high up the tree (great phrase)... but I've got a fairly deeply ingrained American tendency toward liberty and freedom, and against government overstep.
I have a hard time arguing that the government should not be allowed to prohibit abortion, but should be allowed to prohibit other medical procedures. I fear the slippery slope: once we allow non-medical government agencies to dictate what medical treatment cannot be given based on beliefs, it opens the door to all sorts of potential abuse. I'd rather exclude the government from that discussion altogether, and go after the AMA.
Principles versus pragmatism is a tough balancing act.
I think I've covered this part, so I won't say it over again unless you would like me to
Rolfe
Adult human female
I'm finding this very interesting. Although I did a fair bit of endocrinology as a post-graduate and in my clinical career, puberty wasn't something we studied at all. I also think a lot of what you posted has come to light since I graduated.
It is absolutely insane that people are getting away with messing up healthy bodies and healthy body development when the truth is known. It's yet another aspect of the trans capture of policy and agenda. The trans lobby says puberty blockers are safe and reversible and we've already established that it's transphobic to disagree with the trans lobby, and transphobia is the worst thing you can possibly be, so that's settled.
There was even a BBC education film where the clinician was talking to a boy and they superimposed a "pause" button on his chest and said, we can just press pause and this will give you more time to decide, and then if you decide not to change sex then we just press play again and everything will proceed.
I can tell you, if I had been watching that aged 12 and got the message that I could pause puberty and get to be a child for another couple of years, I'd have grabbed it. But then I wouldn't have been thinking about how it would be when all the other girls were maturing into women and I was left behind. I wouldn't have known anything about the adrenal or the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. I wouldn't have known anything about osteoporosis (although given how many horses I was falling off at that age, I might have found out). I wouldn't have been worrying that I wouldn't be able to have children, and what's an orgasm anyway?
Children and parents are being lied to on an industrial scale and irreversible damage is being done to young bodies. ST seems to have swallowed all the lies and to be regurgitating them without even thinking about what he's saying.
Rolfe
Adult human female
It's a difficult one. (And your "they shouldn't be allowed to have kids because they're idiots isn't very "American liberties", is it?) Prosecuting parents wouldn't have been my first choice of approach. But it's arguable that heavy-handed methods to break the trans industry as quickly as possible may be the kindest thing in the long run.
Profit is a huge driver in this. Massive amounts are being spent on these hormones and surgeries. (And if you do experience regret, then we'll charge you again to try to correct what we did to you.) The latest is apparently charging massive sums to harvest eggs from per-pubertal girls who intend to stop puberty, so they can have children later if they decide that "living as a man" is compatible with getting pregnant.
When you have a huge industry dependent on a continuous supply of children to feed the monster, maybe cutting off the supply cold turkey is an arguable approach.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Some of it I already knew, my goddaughter has a very rare pituitary disorder that prevents puberty. So I learned a lot about the time-bound aspect of puberty, as well as the bone-density and cognitive problems of the hormones being absent while the adrenal is triggering.
And since TRAs keep absolutely insisting on bringing DSDs into their ideology, I've learned a fair bit about other conditions as well. I'm currently taking the position that people's genuine medical conditions should not be used as leverage in a political war. I know people with DSDs and adjacent conditions, and it's ugly the way their conditions get abused by TRAs to push their argument that "sex is a spectrum". It sickens me.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
I ran across an article in which a dysphoric female described giving birth as "the most masculine thing" they could conceive of. I almost fell out of my chair at that one. It's a cognitive disconnect that is so profound that I just don't even know how to react other than to laugh at the state of the world.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Me too.
By the way, we did discuss Caster Semenya earlier in the thread. I have read stuff recently that indicates he actually has 5-alpha reductase deficiency. That makes him unequivocally a male who was wrongly registered at birth. It is completely insane that the poor lad was led by the nose to believe he was a girl so his country could win some medals.
Rolfe
Adult human female
I ran across an article in which a dysphoric female described giving birth as "the most masculine thing" they could conceive of. I almost fell out of my chair at that one. It's a cognitive disconnect that is so profound that I just don't even know how to react other than to laugh at the state of the world.
There are some strange people around with some strange ideas. There always have been and I imagine there always will be.
Most societies just say "there there" and get on with living in the real world.
Earthborn
Terrestrial Intelligence
They are still campaigning against them. There is a greater recognition of the fact that gender stereotypical behaviour does not indicate gender identity, that many trans individuals do not conform to gender stereotypes and there is greater recognition of non-binary identifying people as well. It is much less true today than it was a few decades ago that transsexuals had to prove to conservative therapists how well they fit into a gender stereotype to get any treatment at all.
Nobody is claiming this, especially not in the "trans-rights" movement. It is true that kids who conform more obviously to the opposite gender stereotype are more likely to be brought by their parents to a therapist who helps potentially transgender children, but that does not automatically mean they will be diagnosed as such.
It is an somewhat outmoded expression to express an experience of feeling there is a disconnect between one's sense of self and one's sexual characteristics.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Oh yeah, that one should be settled. Female-appearing genitalia at birth, sure, but unequivocally male since puberty. There's also that whole thing where Semenya has managed to impregnate their very-obviously female spouse. Twice. So any question of their sex at this point is willful ignorance.
Rolfe
Adult human female
I had heard that he had fathered children, but couldn't find confirmation of it. I spent some time carefully but entirely unintuitively referring to him as "she" on the grounds that someone who had been brought up as a girl in good faith deserved that courtesy, but I misunderstood the situation. Everyone concerned must have known he was male long before any of this hit the headlines. It was a cynical attempt to cheat for medals.
I have read that most boys with 5-alpha reductase deficiency settle down quite happily as normal adult men even if they were raised as girls. This seems to be the case with Semenya too. I think he knew all along, despite all the "I'm just a misunderstood girl" schtick. It's still unconscionable to have used him like that, but I think he was pretty complicit. "Some intersex characteristics" my eye. That one is one of the most obviously male variants there is.
I can see that everyone is very cagey about how these children were conceived. Obviously I don't know but I have my suspicions. It's usual for 5-alpha reductase boys to develop functional external genitalia eventually. Having said that, Erik Schinneger needed quite extensive surgery before his natural male genitalia were practically usable and he was able to father a child. I am assuming his condition is the same as Semenya's, because the stories and the development of the stories are so similar.
I have read that most boys with 5-alpha reductase deficiency settle down quite happily as normal adult men even if they were raised as girls. This seems to be the case with Semenya too. I think he knew all along, despite all the "I'm just a misunderstood girl" schtick. It's still unconscionable to have used him like that, but I think he was pretty complicit. "Some intersex characteristics" my eye. That one is one of the most obviously male variants there is.
I can see that everyone is very cagey about how these children were conceived. Obviously I don't know but I have my suspicions. It's usual for 5-alpha reductase boys to develop functional external genitalia eventually. Having said that, Erik Schinneger needed quite extensive surgery before his natural male genitalia were practically usable and he was able to father a child. I am assuming his condition is the same as Semenya's, because the stories and the development of the stories are so similar.
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I get that, but there are side effects, so to speak, with the particular grouping you are using.
I'm kind of coming back to some things I want to reply to, and I'm not going to search for the exact post, but I believe somewhere in this exchange you mention that this includes both social and medical transition. My issue is that one can agree with social transitions in certain circumstances while disagreeing with medical transition in those some circumstances. One of those circumstances can be age.
Using a broader catch-all term reduces the granularity of the discussion and makes it more difficult to talk about nuanced situations.
Somewhere someone on the opposite side as you mentioned that if you let kids do whatever they want, neither encouraging or discouraging gendered behavior, that they usually grow out of it. In my mind, that is allowing the kid to socially transition. Actually, transition is not the right word...it's allowing them to just be themselves whatever that might be. If nothing else, that's the first step. If the kid "grows out of it," fine. If not, also fine. Then it's time to pursue things further, if the kid needs to. Either result should be acceptable to everyone.
I'm going to carry on with one long post rather than track down the multitude of issues I want to comment on. There have been a lot of posts today that...well....
Puberty blockers.
Note, that I'm not talking about taking opposite sex hormones, I'm talking about measures to delay puberty. I think there is merit in both sides here. The motivation behind them is to delay portions of body development while an attempt is made to figure out what the correct course of action is. If a child's condition is such that a transition would be beneficial, this is s benefit as it will allow for a smoother transition and a more socially acceptable appearance post-transition. No, one's appearance should not matter. But, yes, in this world, unfortunately, it does. However, like any other treatment, there are consequences. Side effects. Some of which may be long term. For instance bone density can be affected.
But the existence of side-effects is not by itself an indication that a treatment should be banned across the board.
No, puberty blockers and hormone treatment should not be given out lightly. But that does not mean they should not be prescribed at all. This is where I have issues with both sides. One wants free prescription free access on demand, and the other wants no access at all. I think a doctor should be able to prescribe them after careful consideration of the case. I also think they should be subject to the consequences of damages caused by misdiagnosis.
Sterility.
OK, it's important. But it's not so important that it is the over-riding consideration. I've known plenty of happy and healthy men and women who just happen to be sterile. Ones life does not lose purpose or value from an inability to have kids. It's not the horror it is sometimes presented as.
Sterility is a consequence of some treatments that should be considered. Just like other side-effects.
AGP
I'm sure it exists. But I keep hearing, without citation, that the vast majority of trans-women are AGP. I have seen zero evidence to support this and does not seem to be a commonly accepted theory in the field. I think it's being over-credited.
There was even an argument that trans athletes were competing as women in order to satisfy their AGP. That's just weird.
Part of the huge logic hole in the idea is the assertion (cited many threads ago) that a male being more aroused in fantasies envisioning themselves as female are evidence of AGP. That's just such mindbogglingly bad logic. Because a non-AGP dysphoric male would also logically have a greater response viewing themselfs as female. Duh. For such non-AGP people, envisioning themselves as male would trigger their dysphoria and be quite the turn-off.
People with science backgrounds really should try to think if the data they are evaluating really means what they think it means and only what they think it means.
Why some trans-women never want to get bottom surgery:
It's not that they are "attached to their penises" as someone suggested (indicating that they really are just AGP men). It's that many of them recognize that it's major surgery with a lot of potential consequences. They also know that it can further send their hormonal makeup into chaos.
there is a cost benefit evaluation to be made. For some they may feel the risks outweigh the benefits and the rest of their transition is enough for them to be happy and healthy, even if not a "perfect" situation. Others may need to take that last step.
Laws by stupid people in Texas
These laws are not being made for medical concerns. They are legislating what they think morality is. I have problems with politicians legislating morality. Or rather, they are legislating what they think the voters will consider morality. It's a type of virtue signaling designed to put their name in the papers on a "hot" issue and (this is the important part) get votes.
Please don't praise these people.
Neither are laws passed in the opposite direction evidence of the "right" path.
Sports
Interestingly, sports are where there is a lot of common ground. Even ST recognizes that someone self-declaring their gender causes issue with women's sports. Personally, I think that sports default to sex segregation, but individual cases can and should be evaluated for exceptions. OF course the problem is that that requires judgment which is hard to write into a rule or a law. Meadmaker referred to this and concluded that the rule had to be by sex. My conclusion is that since no rule can be written...don't try to write one and allow judgment by whoever the governing body is of that sport.
I ran across an article in which a dysphoric female described giving birth as "the most masculine thing" they could conceive of. I almost fell out of my chair at that one. It's a cognitive disconnect that is so profound that I just don't even know how to react other than to laugh at the state of the world.
Does it occur to you that people redefine things in order to match their self-image?
Yes, it's an eye-rolling statement. But it might also be how this person internally reconciles contradictory data.
I'd be careful of reading too much into it.
It's really a lot simpler than that. If one wants to be identified by others as a particular gender, they need to send signals that other people will interpret as that gender. Otherwise, they would need a neon sign above their head indicating their gender to the world or constantly be correcting people. Unfortunately, the most readily usable tools are stereotypical aspects of appearance: hair, makeup, clothing etc.
But there are cis women who like to present themselves with these stereotypical fashions as well. I don't think the few trans people who depend on stereotypes are doing more damage than the cis women who also conform to them. Of course most cis women are less limited. They can where flannel and jeans and still be clocked as women.
Side note: Many of us use stereotypes to express our identity. Bikers, punks, preppies, etc. There are stereotypical dress codes that we conform to. Largely because we want to be seen as (or see ourselves) as part of a group.
Well...maybe.
If a therapist is cautious or slow with a diagnosis of transgender, I have seen it posted that the therapist is anti-trans. There at least appears to be some pressure on therapists to immediately affirm a patients self-diagnosis uncritically.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Every law and every policy banning any given medical procedure is ultimately made on moral grounds, including laws against things that we'd really like to keep illegal, e.g. paying poor people for spare kidneys, involuntary sterilization, euthanizing gingers, etc. The problem isn't that lawmakers are doing ethics, the problem is that they are doing it wrong.
Right
I doubt very much that there are schools who go looking for kids to push towards being trans. Granted, there may be individual teachers or counselors who, in an attempt to be supportive or helpful, may end up nudging a student in a direction and then, with positive feedback, reinforce the idea. But you make it sounds like an intentional recruitment, which I find questionable.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Right
I doubt very much that there are schools who go looking for kids to push towards being trans. Granted, there may be individual teachers or counselors who, in an attempt to be supportive or helpful, may end up nudging a student in a direction and then, with positive feedback, reinforce the idea. But you make it sounds like an intentional recruitment, which I find questionable.
I think it's more of an institutional culture than an intentional program. Progressive teachers looking for opportunities to do progressive stuff with/for/to their students, progressive teachers' lounges where they can find encouragement, and progressive school administrators who will back them up.
Add in the progressive fetish for genderqueer, and the recent advent of the "parents are wrong and should be excluded from the education of their children, and it ends up being very much like schools are looking for kids to transition. In practice if not official policy.
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