Republicans' war on transgender people: Omnibus thread

The BBQ Pit
1061

If it helps, I, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and a vast majority of doctors giving gender affirming care, their parents, and the kids themselves all tend to agree with you. This idea that doctors, parents, and surgeons only listen to the kids’ stated desire without any actual processes or determinations of medical necessity is yet another in a long line of lies trumpted by the fanatical right wing to scare up support for their hate-fueled legislation. Here in reality, any gender affirming medical care is done only after a long series of tests, discussions, other less serious treatments, and actual work by actual doctors.

These are decisions that are best left to the child, the caregivers, and their doctors; not to some politician hoping to scam a few more dollars from … not so bright, but very, very scared and angry people … by creating a panic and screaming “Wont anyone think of the children!!”. It’s a playbook as old as time.

1062

I’m not here to defend that poster, but people who aren’t as steeped in LGBTQ+ issues as many on this board do get confused about that stuff. My cite is my quite liberal extended family who often confuse gender and sexuality, and not in any way that’s meant to belittle or oppress trans folks, they just don’t quite grok the difference, even after one of my sisters and I have pointed out their errors.

1063

I have never shoved myself where I didn’t belong, and my girlfriend thinks well of me( she was born a male but shes female now). All I said was people shouldn’t apologize for their opinions, when they’re not sorry, just so the public won’t pile on.

1064

Wow, your relationship status sure has changed in the last few months…

1065

Girlfriend-a woman who is my platonic friend. Seriously?

1066

I’m not sure if that usage of the term is common outside of the United States.

I knew what you meant, my mom used to talk about her “girlfriends” all the time. Funny that guys don’t call their male friends “boyfriends”. It’s just one of those cultural quirks.

1067

Did you ever tell her that you consider her lived experience to have been invalid until she turned an arbitrary age, or do you keep your assholitude confined to online spaces?

1068

No, that would be a lie. I met her before she transitioned. She hasn’t asked my opinion on the subject. I feel sorry for Ne-Yo. You may want to find him on twitter and flame him, maybe it will make you happy.

1069

Who is “Ne-Yo?”

1070

My favorite response to this is “How old were you when you knew what gender you were?” because for some reason it’s perfectly fine for a child with a penis to decide they’re a boy, but wrong and illegitimate for them to decide they’re a girl.

If it’s wrong for a child to decide what gender they are it’s equally wrong for an adult to tell them what gender they are, because if they can’t know how are we to know? If you’ve spent any time around kids, it doesn’t take long for them to form opinions on how they want to present themselves. Most are punished and forced into the molds that society has constructed: If you have a penis you must look and behave like this, if you have a vagina you must look and behave like that.

1071

Seems to be a singer.

1072

You know that skin covers underlying tissue, and that less skin necessarily means less tissue? But don’t take my word for this obvious point; you can look at other reliable sources:
https://www.stlouischildrens.org/conditions-treatments/transgender-center/puberty-blockers

  • Less development of genital tissue, which may limit options for gender affirming surgery (bottom surgery) later in life.

Saying it’s “only an issue if the person goes on to transition” is a rather ridiculous argument. Can you really not think of any other issues with having (say) a penis that is only partially between pre-pubescent and adult-sized?

Yes, and the fact that there is still great disagreement among professionals should be concerning. Not with the disagreement, per-se–medicine is science, and science is often messy. But when the language from some sources sounds authoritative, and it disagrees with other authoritative sources, then maybe it should be considered with significantly less weight.

The NHS, incidentally, hedges things even further:

Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.

Although GIDS advises this is a physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the psychological effects may be.

It’s also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or children’s bones. Side effects may also include hot flushes, fatigue and mood alterations.

“GIDS advises” is a typically British slam on their own division. Given that they plan on closing the clinic, I think it’s safe to assume that the position of GIDS does not match that of the NHS as a whole (which is clear given the surrounding text).

Much of the safety claims rest on the blocker’s use for precocious puberty. I.e., delaying it from (say) 9 until 12. And they are reasonably safe in that application, with caveats. But that safety data is not necessarily applicable toward delaying normal puberty.

Let’s try to do better than that. I almost said “it would be hard to do worse”, though I’m not sure that’s actually true.

1073

And, of course, you feel you are the complete and arbitrator of what the… truth is.

Fuck your feelings.

1074

Looks like some of your best friends are trans.

1075

Who is this “us” who should try better? Me? I try really hard to be medically accurate. The popular press? They are routinely horrible on medical news. Even when there’s no politics involved, articles in the general press are routinely wrong about really basic stuff. Some study shows a correlation and they assume a casual relationship. Some other study shows a result with little biological significance and they for it up into something you should change your life for. Hoping to get perfectly accurate science and medical reporting is a pipe dream.

(Although one reason i subscribe to the wall street journal is that they are substantially better than average at it.)

1076

That’s not how i read it, but i will confirm that it’s pretty common in the US for women to refer to platonic female friends as “girlfriends”.

1077

After all the conversations here you have participated in, supposedly in good faith, your post is clearly the perfect example of deliberate ignorance. In my experience, the proper response to deliberate ignorance is “Fuck off, asshole.”

Fuck off, asshole.

1078

I’m aware of the usage, but it’s not usually phrased as “my girlfriend”, singular. “One of my girlfriends” or “this one girlfriend” or similar. “My girlfriend” is the kind of phrasing I’d expect for a romantic partner. Seriously.

But will they, absent any other context, regularly refer to one as just “my girlfriend”? That’s different than the usage here, then.

1079

Absolutely. I used to tease my mom about it sometimes. “Oooh… You have a GIRLFRIEND…?” I mean, I was a kid.

But yeah, in the US that’s not at all weird. Is it ambiguous? Yeah, it is, and sometimes confusing. Don’t ask me to justify American culture, because I can’t. :stuck_out_tongue:

1080

I believe you mean openly identifying.