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.
Sorry, Greg, you're gonna just have to have breasts until you offically turn 18, because people think the goverment need to control children thet hate with no understanding of any detail.
But seriously, I had a cousin who had breast removal surgery when he was like 10-12, because he was a boy and didn't want to grow breasts, and he had the surgery so early in the process he was never in a position to be made fun of or bullied over it.
Gender affirming care for minors doesn't mean surgery. I'm not sure if you're under the impression that's what this is banning but if it is, it's wrong.
What this is banning, and what every similar ban is banning is things like puberty blockers which are reversible and are only effective before puberty (obviously). Preventing or delaying puberty is REALLY important because it makes fully transitioning infinitely easier later on as adults.
All bans like this are doing is making the lives of trans people much harder under the guise of "preventing unreversible operations" when that's not even what they're banning.
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?
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 and physiological 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?
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?
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.
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.