As you are flat-out stating that you don’t really know what you’re talking about, maybe you could shut the fuck up for a while and try to learn something instead of posting these gigantic multi-paragraph posts full of empty, uninformed speculation.
You thought wrong.
“Puberty blockers” are JUST the blockers, no additional hormones. That’s it. Start to finish.
“Hormone replacement therapy” is to establish the hormone profile of the person’s identified gender. It may or may not include medication to block specific hormones in conjunction with hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, etc. If a trans person’s original gonads are removed then there is no need for a blocker, just the replacement hormones.
Keep in mind, DeSantis is not just trying to get rid of puberty blockers for kids, he’s trying to get rid of hormone replacement therapy for adults. Which, for at least some of the trans community, are essential to their long term health and well being on just a basic, physical level.
One more time, please - blockers do NOT cause changes. That is the point of blocker therapies, to prevent permanent changes.
First - the primary difference between two identical twins where one is give a puberty blocker and the other is not and that alone would be that (obviously) one twin would go through puberty sooner than the other, and the one that went through it later would probably be an inch or two taller. They’d still look like twins.
There are a lot of things that can result in identical twins looking different from each other (kidney disease is one, because it can stunt growth, although identical twins have a superpower the rest of us don’t - a health twin can donate an organ to their twin and the recipient will need no anti-rejection medication at all, ever). So what? Plenty of identical twins take steps to look LESS alike. It’s no big deal.
Except it is HIGHLY unlikely that would be done on a minor, and if the kid is on puberty blockers that surgery can be entirely avoided - and if when adult the kid decides NOT to transition then if the blockers are stopped normal breast develop occurs, again, without the need for surgery. Which is why banning the blockers is stupid. Unless, of course, you don’t mind inflicting pain and suffering on people or maybe that’s the point of it all.
I’m an ally of trans people. I will answer your uninformed or disingenuous questions.
Then you thought wrong. The point of giving puberty blockers to kids is to buy them more time before making big irreversible changes to their bodies. You know, like puberty. The effects of puberty are extremely hard to reverse, often impossible to reverse.
And the reason trans kids rarely get gender affirming surgery is because they don’t need it, and they are kids, so it’s better to delay that kind of irreversible change. Why don’t they need it? Until puberty, kids aren’t very physically different by sex, especially not with their clothes on. So it’s not hard for a prepubescent child to take the social role of the gender they identify with, and be accepted in that social role. Whereas it’s quite hard for others to accept you as a woman if you smell like a man, speak with a man’s voice, and have a man’s physique.
The “kids” who have breast reduction are trans boys who didn’t get hormone blockers, and had those irreversible effects of puberty imposed on their bodies, and are distressed by that. Also girls with breasts large enough to hurt their backs, it to interfere with their activities, or other physical problems with their breasts.
Hormone blockers buy time. They allow a youth to put off major irreversible bodily changes until they are an adult.
@filmore, I don’t have any trans children or family members, so I’m not that informed on what’s happening on the medical front. I don’t need to be, because it’s none of my business. If I had a trans child, I’m sure I would know tons about what is being done and what isn’t.
Fucker Carlson is similarly as uniformed as I am, but he’s making it his business to get in between children, their parents, and their doctors.
Ron Deathsantis is also uninformed, and is also putting himself between kids, parents, and their doctors.
Do you have trans kids or relatives? If not, why do you care about medical decisions for trans kids? Do you think that trans parents are uniquely bad at making medical decisions for their kids? Do you think doctors and surgeons are uniquely bad at trans issues? What other laws should the state government pass that would override medical boards, doctors, surgeons, and parents?
This is what you’re missing, I think. The Republicans are using trans issues as a wedge and passing hateful laws targeting trans people. You’re gobbling it up, thinking there must be some logical reason, but it’s just hate and identity politics on the right.
Ask yourself, why am I concerned about trans medical issues that have no effect on me or my loved ones? You’ll realize that you’re being played by the right-wing hate machine.
For children who think they might be trans, puberty blockers give them and their medical providers time to evaluate and determine the child’s gender identity and other needs. Transphobes have this very mistaken idea that a kid says “I’m trans” and then the next day they start getting hormones and then surgery. That doesn’t happen. It’s a long process, that usually starts with a child asking questions, and does not involve any flippant or rushed decisions. Puberty blockers ensure that the process can proceed as it should, without any great rush. And if a child and their team later determines they aren’t trans, or do not want to transition, then they can simply stop the puberty blockers and develop as most children do.
Republican policies on trans issues are monstrous and will lead to more dead children, with no positive for anyone but those who hate trans people.
Nor do i, but i have a lot of trans friends and acquaintances. And i care about my friends.
Also
This is all true.
Same here.
Standard practice at the Seattle Children’s Hospital gender clinic is to not start hormone therapy for at least a minimum of one year after having been screened in as a patient under care. The psychological side of the house is where they start, and explain in great detail with medical literature the various options.
Puberty blockers are discussed, and seems like a good method to buy time for both the child and parents. That said, puberty blockers are not prescribed if 2 years of puberty have already taken place. Unfortunately, a high percentage of trans kids really start to understand themselves during puberty. And puberty is often when dysphoria starts.
And I say buy time for the parents, it is while many parents (like myself) are very supportive, starting something like approval for hormone therapy is not a decision taken lightly by parents. In my case, we started with birth control to stop his periods, which caused great distress. Also, I found a good therapist for my son, and about 18 months later and a year and a half of presenting among his peers in high school, I gave permission to start on a minimal dose of testosterone.
Some kids start testosterone and quickly realize it is not for them. Minimal doses of testosterone do not provide any immediate noticeable effects, and largely fade away if stopped. More testosterone does things like lower the voice significantly, which is not reversible.
One more personal anecdote. All the “joking” about suicide and suicidal ideation literally stopped after his first shot of testosterone. In fact, it almost flipped and for a month or two, my son would say things “Dad, drive carefully in the snow now that I have a reason to live.”
As pointed out upthread, having trans people adds to society and has absolutely zero personal impact on you. Unless of course, you’re a self-hating dysphoric denier of your own state, or you have children or relatives that are trans.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I think these laws are monstrous and will lead to mental health issues and suicide. I’m saying I’m not going to push for laws that get between doctors, parents, and kids, because I honestly don’t know enough about this, I’m sure they know best, and I’m definitely not going to take my guidance from Republican bigots.
A judge in Virginia Beach has ruled that the books Gender Queer and A Court of Mist and Fury contain obscene material not appropriate for kids, and a restraining order was put against Virginia Beach schools and the Barnes & Noble store in the city due to them both being available to read to minors without parental consent.
“We’re not trying to ban the books,” Anderson said. "We’re not trying to make the books illegal. We’re just saying that they can’t be distributed to minors without parental consent, just like minors would have to have parental consent to go into a movie theater and watch an R-rated movie."
(Bolding mine.)
Oh, really? Well, read further.
Retired Virginia Beach Circuit Court judge Pamela Baskervill placed a preliminary injunction against booksellers while she reviews the titles. This prohibition on selling and distributing the titles applies to everyone, regardless of age.
The judge could decide that these particular books are “obscene” enough that they should be illegal to sell, buy, or own anywhere in the state. And if that happens, any school, bookstore, library, or private citizen who is caught with these books on their shelf could be criminally prosecuted.
Has anyone read these books? Are they pretty adult, or is it just that they are about LGBTQ subjects? Also, how do various adult magazines and books get sold in Virginia???
In my devotion to the Dope (and plain old native curiosity) I have now detail-skimmed both these books.
The Gender Queer memoir by Maia Kobabe seems like a pretty standard coming-out story, but about being genderfluid/transgender rather than gay. AFAICT it isn’t any more sexually explicit than something like, say, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, which for that matter has also been banned in some places.
The Court of Mist and Fury novel by Sarah J. Maas also looks pretty unremarkable as one in a popular series in the “high fantasy” genre blending romance novel with sort of juvenile Game of Thrones stuff? According to this random reviewer,
There are a few fairly explicit verbal descriptions of sex from the female narrator’s point of view, but they and the rest of the character interactions appear to be pretty thoroughly cisgender and heterosexual (if you don’t count that one of the (female) narrator’s (male) lovers apparently has wings? not sure, like I said, I was skimming). You can find much steamier stuff in a Harlequin Romance novel any day of the week, and I’m not sure it’s even that unusual in the YA genre.
In short, Gender Queer appears to be a well-written/drawn cartoon memoir about gender identity, which is honest about gender and sex issues without being titillating, but which has conservatives in a tizzy because it’s about non-cisgender identities.
A Court of Mist and Fury (along with the rest of the series) appears to be a not-particularly-well-written YA/fantasy-epic/romance mashup with some slightly lurid scenes of sex and violence, which has conservatives in a tizzy because it’s apparently hugely popular with the same readership demographic that in the previous generation went crazy for Twilight.
(Apropos of which, I think that as a gesture of Doper solidarity we should try to get another and similarly titled well-written memoir about gender identity, our own AHunter3’s GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, onto conservatives’ book-banning radar. Nothing like making a huge fuss about banning a book to pique reader curiosity and drive up sales.)
How does a “retired” judge place an injuction?
Thanks for taking one for the team!
Ohio had decided* that doctors checking the genitals (external and internal) of an unknown number** of female athletes is worth it to root out the single digit number of trans athletes in their state.
- Passed the house, but not the senate/Governor
** People on twitter have suggested some will mass report out of protest, or that opposing teams will strategically accuse to knock out the star player until they get their results. I think it will depend on how easy the process is, and how many people actually know about the law and the process to trigger it, but at the very least I suspect this will affect a lot more cis girls with short haircuts, muscular builds, or good performances than it will catch any trans girls
Briefly, judges after retirement are designated as “senior judges” and can be called in by the chief judges of the court they served on to, in essence, act as full judges as they are “willing and able.” So they can carry a lighter workload, possibly in a court which doesn’t have a full complement of judges, but they still have all their powers and all their rulings have the full force of law.
Good odds, since apparently there is currently one trans girl competing in Ohio.
The real benefit is to pedophile doctors who now have an excuse to look at private parts of lots of girl athletes.
I’m not a scientist or doctor, but isn’t it possible to tell what someone’s sex is by simply doing a mouth swab?
And miss out on the humiliation?