Argentina's president says he has banned gender-affirming care for people under age 18. A presidential spokesperson said Wednesday the government was repealing a 2012 gender identity law provision allowing such practices with parental or guardian consent.
Ok call me a bad guy about what follows, but I've been thinking a bit about this lately and I think I agree with this call. We don't let children make the "adult" decisions until they're either 18 or 21 in most places. We all may know a kids going to go nowhere in life and probably be a alcoholic later in life, but we don't give them alcohol now cause their brain is still developing.
Once your brain is developed? Go right ahead and do whatever you want. But until your brain is mostly done growing it's up to adults to protect children from those decisions. And unfortunately this is one of those decisions IMHO.
But like growing up as a straight dude I wanted bigger muscles, like another foot of height, and a dick that would make anyone jealous. Which all that would have made me feel the way I wanted, but no sane adult would actually take me serious if I asked. Now that I'm older I can do all those things and that'd be my perogative, but it's no longer necessary cause I love me for who I am. Which I only got there cause no adult would make me into a super human freak of a man at the age or 14.
So like, dress and act how you want, but actual genderaffirming care should be left till at least on can have a drink over it first.
Edit: this is even more fucked, but like if I hypothetically had a teenage girl and she came up to me and asked for gender affirming care so she could have bigger boobs or whatever I would never let her, but I'm supposed to allow my hypothetical teenage son decide to have boobs?
Edit edit: If my hypothetical teenage son just wants to be the most alpha male he can be, I'm i supposed to just pump him full of testosterone so I'm a good parent?
None of that is anywhere close to what's happening.
They give them a pill to temporarily block puberty. The point is to keep them from feeling severe mental anguish at their body developing the wrong way while they get years of therapy before a surgery.
Your argument fails to take into account that any person seeking to change their gender will not get any gender afferming treatment from medical professionsals, without a lot of therapy, phycological, and medical assessment. These kids don't just go up to their parents and say "I want boobs" or "I want a penis" and mom calls up the family doc to schedule the appointment.
Your whole argument hinges of this conservative boogeyman thinking that any kid can just walk up to their lib parents and magic up a full gender reassignment surgery. And your example of girl asking her parents for bigger boobs would probably be denied by any reputable cosmetic surgeon.
Let's be real: that type of total transition medical care is astronomically expensive and heavily gated by the professional medical community/industry. So how 'bout we leave those decisions to these kids, their families, and the qualified medical professionals?
But where do you draw the line of gender affirming care?
Is giving a teenage boy a bigger dick gender affirming care, and therefore essential medical care? What about a girl who's flat chested wanting bigger boobs? I know it's weird to ask and I do feel kinda gross but yeah. Is that too far? What about an athlete who wants to take steroids cause it would help them achieve their ideal body?
I'm genuinely not trying to be rude. I just, if you give the life altering drugs to one group of kids, where do you draw the line? What about kids who clearly need to hit a joint and chill but it's illegal cause they're underage? I don't think it's fair to give one group more privileges regardless of how they feel.
Is giving a teenage boy a bigger dick gender affirming care, and therefore essential medical care? What about a girl who's flat chested wanting bigger boobs? I know it's weird to ask and I do feel kinda gross but yeah. Is that too far? What about an athlete who wants to take steroids cause it would help them achieve their ideal body?
If my grandma had wheels?
None of these are mostly reversible treatments with negligible long term impacts that are common with trans minors.
None of thee are also connected to issues that cause intense mental health issues, including suicidal ideation AND can be treated by your proposed suggestions.
You're comparing completely incomparable situations that look similar at face value without thinking about them for just a minute.
None of thee are also connected to issues that cause intense mental health issues, including suicidal ideation AND can be treated by your proposed suggestions.
This isn't leading to CIS people not having intense mental problems that can potentially be changed through body modifications? That only people who are trans want to kill themselves because of the body they were born with?
Everyone has problems mentally. And I'm truly sorry trans people haven't been helped in the past. But I honestly think and body modifications, be it through surgery or hormones or anything else, should be held off until we as a society agree children are adults. Else we might as well allow kids to smoke, drink, take steroids, or do anything that will let them have the "ideal" body.
You're not a bad guy, but this is kind of a bad faith argument, saying that a 14yo not being comfortable with their gender is just a phase they'll grow out of (like any other stupid kid / teenager phase). Does it happen? sure, of course it does. But it's not 'just a phase' for the VAST majority of trans pre adults. If you're scared that someone will change their mind and keep them from doing anything until 18, then they get hit with full wrong gender puberty and change their bodies in ways they can't undo. Most of the older trans women I know transitioned in adulthood, and it sucks to say but they still sound like a dude talking. They hate it. They wish so bad they could have been allowed to do this as early as possible. They knew exactly what was going on, but had to wait. It's up to parents to know their kids and say are you sure? are you SURE? REALLY? yeah? ok cool let's do this then. Why make them suffer longer?
is it ok to treat non trans kids for gender affirming care
Absolute yes, puberty blockers weren't even invented for trans kids. Early puberty is a thing and a problem that's treated using puberty blockers, the same that a trans person would use.
My son nearly had to go on puberty blockers, as he was starting to show signs of early puberty. We talked to our pediatrician, who ultimately determined that he's not starting puberty just yet. Turns out he's just a really rambunctious and rowdy 8 year old.
Thats literally not the same thing. CPP can cause actual health problems past wanting to kill yourself.
The drugs in this case it to make suure kid, primarily girls, can grow to their full height and bot have spinal issues due to that, lower cancer rates, and significantly lower the chances of diabetes.
Nah, nobody here has been talking about psycotherapist. If that was all it was, everything would be cool. This is about body modifications. Which no kid should be doing. Leave it till 18
The fact that children are getting body modigicatiks after talking is still the problem.
It sucks people are born into the wrong body. I wish it didn't happen. But it does.
And if you start letting one group of kids start making body modifications, where do you draw the line of too much? Why would it be fair for a group to completely change gender but not for another to add more modifications the help theirs.
And this whole thread started by Argentina blocking those life altering changes. They didn't stop therepy or anything, atleast not from what I've seen. The article was super short and Google results didn't lead to much.
If they did then I'm sorry for the previous ignorance. But my original argument said dress and act a certain way all you want. And I'll add we need to crack down on people bullying those that want to transition. I just don't think the answer is let the child start transitioning. And it sucks for those that truly do know early that they should be yhe other gender.
But like, what about short people that know if they were taller than would have everything. What about kids who think if just had the one part of their body diffrent everything would be better? At what point do we stop the idealization that if we were just diffrent everything would be better and start helping kids in other ways.
Just FYI, most "gender-affirming surgery" in the below 18 group is males having their moobs removed because male boobs are usually a source of social problems like being bullied in school. This will mostly affect straight young cis men if we're going purely by the numbers.
So like, be as bigoted as you want, but don't pretend to be informed on the subject just because you feel like jumping on the right wing bandwagon.
Trans people are a small minority compared to fat teenage boys.
Obviously this is aimed against trans people, so there's a clear difference in how it's received and it clearly affects trans people more politically, but according to numbers most gender affirming surgeries are indeed on cis males.
Of gender-affirming surgical procedures identified among adults and minors, 1591 of 2664 (59.7%) and 82 of 85 (96.4%) were chest-related procedures, respectively. Of the 636 breast reductions among cisgender male and TGD adults, 507 (80%) were performed on cisgender males. Of the 151 breast reductions among cisgender male minors and TGD minors, 146 (97%) were performed on cisgender male minors
Puberty blockers are maybe considered gender affirming care legally, idk, but technically it's the opposite of affirming. You can't use puberty blockers forever afaik, but you can use them to delay your decision possible gender affirming care until you're ready to make the decision. And with that sort of use, they've proven to be quite safe and effective.
But like, it doesn't matter where you draw the line in gender affirming care definitions, but by the definition were going on based on this thread it includes hormone blockers.
How on Earth did I call you fat by pointing out that cis-males with obesity issues are far more common than trans people?
Guess you've some confidence to work on buddy, as talking about you didn't even cross my mind. I pointed out a fact about gender-affirming care. Honestly, I assume that people are more or less closer to my age on Lemmy, so I genuinely didn't consider that you might be actually a minor looking to get themselves some gender affirming care.
Yeah, puberty blockers are probably considered gender affirming care, but them not being included is just me being pedantic about the name. I guess "care which affirms your position of not being sure about your gender identity yet until you're old enough to make one".
You're saying gender affirming care shouldn't exist for minors despite not knowing the facts then when the facts are pointed out, you start screaming about me calling you fat.
Get off your high horse.
How is you supporting right wing policies being less of a dick than me pointing out your support of right wing policies, which might be because you don't understand all the facts, not because you actually support the right, which is why I pointed out the facts which you took personal offense at?
Well you're the one who went off on a rant on something I didn't even bring. I was talking about hormone blockers and you went off onto surgeries. Then when I brought up how I also would have liked some gender affirming care when younger you said well there's less trans people than fat boys. I never brought up weight, it's another thing you brought up.
I just, you're attacking me for trying to express my opinion. I'm open for civil discussion but you've been on the offense. If you have any points for anything I actually brought up that would be cool
Are you actively having a stroke? You were pretty politely informed and corrected and nowhere in the above responses were you attacked in anything but the most mild and tame interpretation of the word.
Then when I brought up how I also would have liked some gender affirming care when younger
You mean after you got angry at me, you edited your earlier comment to justify getting angry at me for quoting stats, as if I had actually made a personal slight when you hadn't mentioned your age, gender, sex or health before my first reply.
"I was talking about hormone blockers"
You said "but actual gender affirming care should be left to when you can have a drink over it".
So that sentence would include gender affirming care for cis males (which you hadn't even identified as when I wrote those replies), and the gender affirming care they receive is getting moobs removed.
You wrote like 70% more text to your original comment. Making a wild strawman about how you should have been allowed to use as much testosterone as you wanted to, because you pretend that's what gender affirming care is. (The doctors don't arbitrarily give people bottles of HRT to use willy nilly.)
Puberty blockers are safe and reversible and we have lots of data to back that up.
I'm asking you whether you think teenage boys who may have issues with gynecomastia should be able to have them removed, or would it be somehow morally wrong? Should we make those boys go through their teenage years suffering from something they know they don't like, so that they can decide about it when they're "old enough to be sure"?
I have not attacked you once. I said "get off your high horse". I don't think that's too inflammatory, tbh.