[high_derivative]

This seems on the surface about protecting LGBTQ+, but it seems the kicker is really about treatment for transgender teenagers.

There is a movement to stop any kind of discussion about therapy on gender dysphoria other than transition. Trans activists seek to cast all therapeutic interventions other than transitioning in the same light as conversion therapy.

I think we will deal with the fallout of this activism for decades to come: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/calls-to-end-transgender-...

[throwaway53453]

I have been friends with a few trans folks in the past, and more than one has suggested that things are going too far. The prevailing opinion I get is they just want to be left alone (after going through what is a traumatic situation), but they keep getting dragged into this culture war crap by a very loud and dangerous minority.

[fock]

this resonates well with an article in a german liberal newspaper about the fight for a "third sex". While the newspaper was merrily engaging in this culture war by their website, this article (from the actual physical paper) clearly mentioned that this problem (which by the way was akin to changing a single letter from a supposedly too aggressive variant to a "better" one) was only applicable to maybe 300 people in total, because even with a higher prevalence of chromosome defects, most people tend to grow/live happily one way. So we had a 1 year discussion about this problem, which was not a problem at all (just the wording was considered "offensive" by a single individual) occupying our parliament for hours. For me, this seems like a kind of tyranny by the few (since the change in wording doesn't change any of the liberties this one person has...)

[mrweasel]

Personally, I believe that Amazon should be free to choose what they want to sell. The problems start if they are pressured to adjust what they sell, based on a small, but vocal minority group with self serving interest.

In this case there's a group of transsexuals, who feel, perhaps rightly so, that society haven't been sufficiently helpful or protective. They just fail to understand that not all who identify as transsexual at an yearly age grow up to be transsexual. Some end up being comfortable with the gender they where born with, why other turn out to just be homosexual. Exposing these groups to a non-critical treatment and not discussing other options will hurt a group of people much larger than those you are currently denied help with transition.

It's just hard to argue with a well meaning minority, without being cast as being against them.

[guipsp]

Calling transgender people "transsexuals" is the same as calling black people "blacks". It's dehumanising.

[dogma1138]

I never understood that really.

Trans people that transition do not do that to assume the opposite gender (at least as Gender is used today especially in the same circles), they are attempting to assume the primary secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex.

I never got a good explanation why transsexual was changed to transgender other than the fact that you can’t change your biological sex.

The whole sex vs gender debate is a literal mess. On one hand gender is a social construct if so transgenderism would never be an issue, if gender is so fluid and a “choice” then why convention therapy can’t work (I don’t think it can, and I also don’t think that gender / sexual orientation is particularly fluid or a choice).

Personally I started to look at sex or well sexuality as the social construct these days, it’s clearly a tool to form societal structures as seen in places like prisons for example.

Gender on the other hand for me is the heuristics that arise from biological constraints due to the (biological) sexual dimorphism of humans.

As far as “black” vs “African American” that seems to be an utterly American thing.

In the U.K. Black British for example is literally an acceptable way to call a black person, if they are black British that is since there are plenty of other black minorities in the U.K. like black Caribbean etc. I’ve never seen anyone saying African British.

[esarbe]

Hey, that interesting.

> The whole sex vs gender debate is a literal mess. On one hand gender is a social construct if so transgenderism would never be an issue, if gender is so fluid and a “choice” then why convention therapy can’t work (I don’t think it can, and I also don’t think that gender / sexual orientation is particularly fluid or a choice).

I agree with the "it is a mess" part.

> Personally I started to look at sex or well sexuality as the social construct these days, it’s clearly a tool to form societal structures as seen in places like prisons for example.

> Gender on the other hand for me is the heuristics that arise from biological constraints due to the (biological) sexual dimorphism of humans.

For me it is the other way around. With animals, we're talking about the sex they have, not their gender. So to me it seems that "sex" is the term that describes the biological morphisms that arise from the expression of various reproductive strategies, whereas I've only ever heard "gender" to be used in human social or linguistic context (e.g. to different names for female or male individuals of a species)

[dogma1138]

I wonder how much of this is linguistic dependent.

Many languages don’t even have different words for sex and gender, Hebrew and German come to mind.

I also find sex as in the act to be quite different.

At least when it comes to male on male sex “sadomy” was complicated through history, it was used to show dominance even in societies where homosexuality wasn’t acceptable especially in adulthood - this is an example of a Japanese propaganda poster following the battle of Port Arthur https://imgur.com/a/t9RtebX

In general it seems that same sex sexual activity has more to do than just sexual orientation, it’s far more common in sexually segregated environments wether it being prison or boarding schools.

And it’s just as commonly used to establish an intimate human connection as it is to assert power.

However I don’t particularly see this as related to what we normally call homosexuality which seems have much more to do with proper sexual attraction and sexual mating.

[vertex-four]

Transgender vs transsexual is an attempt to demedicalise the trans experience; very little, all in all, of what trans people go through is related to the medical process of transitioning. “Transsexualism” is what the doctors called it when focusing solely on the medical aspects, “transgender” is the word we picked for ourselves when we looked at our broader experience.

There’s some more history and a bunch of bigotry involved, but that’s the core of it.

[pseudalopex]

They said black people vs. blacks. Not black vs. African American.

[mrweasel]

Oh, sorry, I honestly had no idea.

[DanBC]

Weird that you link to an article about tavi.

1) Trans people hate tavi, and want the contract taken off them.

2) Tavi's child services don't provide access to surgery or cross sex hormones

3) Most of tavi's child patients don't get puberty blockers.

This is an area with considerable disinfo. Most people on HN are woefully unprepared to deal with that, which is why this thread is full of inaccurate info.

[herodoturtle]

> There is a movement to stop any kind of discussion about therapy on gender dysphoria other than transition.

Can you please unpack this sentence a little more? I'm just trying to understand things better.

My understanding of therapy is that it is used for healing and / or to cure a disorder.

And so I can see why using the word "therapy" in this context is problematic, because it implies that there exists something which needs to be healed, or a disorder which needs to be cured.

I'd value your thoughts on this. Thanks.

[Hermel]

“Therapy” does not necessarily imply a disorder. Consider physiotherapy, which is quite common to address things like a pain in the back or to support the recovery of muscles after an accident. Neither are disorders. Therapy does not even imply changing something with the client, but could be simply targeted at helping the client to find better strategies to handle something that is bothering them, for example helping a client to be better deal with the fact that not everyone understands his or her sexual orientation.

[herodoturtle]

> Therapy does not even imply changing something with the client, but could be simply targeted at helping the client to find better strategies to handle something that is bothering them, for example helping a client to be better deal with the fact that not everyone understands his or her sexual orientation.

That really helped frame things in a more constructive light for me.

Thank you.

[high_derivative]

I am not an expert on this, and these below are not my opinions but how I have understood the debate thus far:

- Gender dysphoria is classified in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

- When it manifests in young people, there can be various reasons, for example, coming to terms with being gay.

- Therapy can explore the reasons for this and help understand how to best help the patients

- For some patients, the right course of action is to have gender affirming surgery and transition

- For other patients, this is a temporary discomfort with their identity that passes or can be resolved otherwise (e..g by accepting sexual identity etc). <--- This is the controversial part. Trans right activists see this position as an erasure of trans identity/denying their right to exist, etc pp. They seek to suppress any kind of research investigating e.g. the rapid rise in gender dysmorphia in teenagers as a medical phenomenon (e.g. in https://quillette.com/2019/03/19/an-interview-with-lisa-litt...), and seek to ban any books/research/open debate in this area.

I have no idea on the biological or psychological reasons, but I object to any suppression of research on medical phenomena.

[herodoturtle]

Thanks for breaking down the evolution of the debate; your summary gave me a lot more context to this discussion.

> This is the controversial part. Trans right activists see this position as an erasure of trans identity/denying their right to exist, etc pp. They seek to suppress any kind of research investigating

Does this mean _all_ Trans rights activists?

I'm wondering if there is discourse from Trans rights activists who are activists for reasons other than those associated with medical research - and who possibly object to this attempt by a subset of Trans rights activists to suppress said research.

I only have one Trans friend that I actively engage with on this topic, and I get the impression that even within the Trans community there is a lot of disagreement in terms of what's best for society (and how to best raise our children).

Which is perfectly normal - especially given the deeply nuanced nature of this discussion.

I'm just trying to wrap my mind around why Amazon took this step.

[e12e]

> Gender dysphoria is classified in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

So, will Amazon now de-list diagnostic manuals?

[ScottBurson]

Here's a rebuttal to the Littman paper: https://juliaserano.medium.com/everything-you-need-to-know-a...

Here, OTOH, is a young woman talking about how she was temporarily convinced she was a trans man: https://youtu.be/r57wGbiK3U8

[pseudalopex]

The last point is incorrect. Gender dysphoria being temporary for some people isn't controversial. Trans people oppose Littman's paper being taken seriously because it's incredibly shoddy.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnc_KvWkiHw&t=3324s

[mimikatz]

I am sorry to see your post as greyed out, it is an objective viewpoint neutral summary of the issue.

[DanBC]

It links to Quillette and spreads disinfo. That's not objective.

[lexicality]

You need to be wary about what positions people report "trans activists" as holding. The website you link to is considered "questionable" by the Media Bias Fact Check website (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/) and The Times has been instrumental in pushing transphobic rhetoric mainstream.

While I'm sure you could find someone on tumblr posting about how all 3 year old boys who play with dolls should immediately be given HRT, all mainstream thought (by trans people and medical professionals) I've seen is that children who exhibit gender dysphoria should be given puberty blockers while thorough psychological analyses etc are carried out.

[throwaway53453]

But even puberty blockers cause development issues in children. We are talking about permanent damage for something that might actually be temporary. Why not just let them decide at 18?

[plorkyeran]

At 18 it is too late and puberty has already done permanent damage. The entire purpose of puberty blockers is to make it possible to defer the decision until they are adults.

[lexicality]

Do you have more information? The only issue I've heard about puberty blockers is a slight reduction in bone density over extended usage which is apparently considered negligible. I'd be interested to read a paper or medical journal indicating otherwise.

EDIT: But also to answer your question - if you think a 10 year old child might be suffering from gender dysphoria but you decide to leave it 8 years to see how things turn out, you then have to spend an enormous amount of money undoing the puberty they went through and performing various surgeries (eg mastectomy).

However if you put that child on puberty blockers and give them therapy, it should become obvious very quickly if they're just faking it for attention and they can be taken off them again.

[DanBC]

> For other patients, this is a temporary discomfort with their identity that passes or can be resolved otherwise (e..g by accepting sexual identity etc). <--- This is the controversial part. Trans right activists see this position as an erasure of trans identity/denying their right to exist,

No, this is untrue. Trans people all accept that questioning is a valid part of treatment. The controversial bit is that transphobes say that the only allowable treatment is questioning and denial, and that any attempt to support someone to transition is abusive.

> etc pp. They seek to suppress any kind of research investigating e.g. the rapid rise in gender dysmorphia in teenagers as a medical phenomenon

Linking to Quilette lowers your credibility. Littman did not interview any trans children. She went to an online forum for "gender critical parents" and asked if their children's transition was a sudden. Unsurprisingly, many of those parents said yes. Turns out if you go to conspiracy theory forums you find people who believe conspiracy theories. That doesn't make them true. It's a bit weird to see people on HN suckered into this so easily, but here we are. Her "study" has been widely debunked by experts.

> and seek to ban any books/research/open debate in this area.

No they don't.

[VBprogrammer]

This is a classic application of the appeal to think of the children. I'm sure before homosexually became culturally acceptable there were plenty of people employing the same arguments against legalising homosexually.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

[inglor_cz]

"Think of the children" is not an universal red herring, though. It can be used in bad ways and good ways, and a lot of ways in the middle. Child labor was banned because people started to think of the children.

Transition of minors does not seem to be a morally clear cut topic to me, given that they aren't allowed to do a lot of other life changing things. You can argue for the opposite, but too many trans activists are painting their opponents as stupid, disingenious or even hateful and want to silence them by force.

This will blow back on them.

[DanBC]

Where do children get cross sex hormones or surgery?

(If you can't answer this question without googling it shows that maybe you need to slow down before posting, to avoid spreading misinformation.)

[morelisp]

Minors are prescribed hormone blockers, which are not "transition." You are being lied to by the UK press.

[Hamuko]

Were?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law

[konjin]

We are literally thinking about the children here. We are asking: "Should we let children cut off their genitals?"

If we are going to let them do that we should at least let them put their genitals where they feel like before then.

The hypocrisy is the problem. You can't both have children be too immature to decide to have sex, yet be mature enough to make decisions about their sex which will impact them for the rest of their lives.

[tesseractive]

> "Should we let children cut off their genitals?"

It is currently against any kind of recommended practice to perform genital surgery on children. It is not approved nor is it practiced. This kind of intentionally hyperbolic language is the sort of thing that is the stuff of tabloid headlines, not reasoned discussion.

[tekknik]

Yet there are people condoning this in this very comment section.

[morelisp]

> Should we let children cut off their genitals?

This is disingenuous moral panic and a good example of the motte-and-bailey approach the UK press uses to discredit proper medical treatment of trans youth.

[konjin]

This is disingenuous and sidesteps the argument about capability of children.

It's really simple:

You are either OK with kids having control of their bodies up to and including invasive surgery and having sex with who they want or you are not.

Anything in between is either pedophiles trying to push the narrative on their side, or idiots not understanding what they are doing.

[spacemanmatt]

Conflating sexual identity with precocious sexuality is clown-car category duplicity. Sometimes the audience here even takes offence at being treated like that.

[DanBC]

You're basing your argument on a lie. Children do not get GCS nor cross-sex hormones.

[lumberingjack]

Lots of graves because it's fact even if they get alterations they still commit suicide greater number than anyone else.

[spacemanmatt]

Transition is the generally recognized treatment for gender dysphoria.

[fock]

yes. but why is pumping bodies full of hormons and cutting them preferred to non-invasive techniques? (which may or may not work as well and which are the first "solution" to similar problems before going to the meds)

[DanBC]

Non invasive techniques are used -- people socially transition before they get access to hormones and surgery. For some people social transition is all they need, but ofr a small group of people hormones and surgery are life saving interventions.

[fock]

ok, but why are we talking about a lot of kids doing this then (with the technicality of just removing the hormons and not adding them). I don't think you can judge whether social transitioning works within a month or so?

Also: is there any indication that this is (in the sense that people need transition or otherwise kill themselves) is a problem in other societies than ours (or just with a bunch of apes). Because I still think that we should maybe change our society before we do hardly reversible things to people to make them fit in (very unpopular and quite influenced by conservative christianity (though I'm not affiliated))

[DanBC]

> but why are we talking about a lot of kids doing this then

Because you've been lied to. You've been duped by hate groups, and now you're happily spreading their disinfo.

> Also: is there any indication that this is (in the sense that people need transition or otherwise kill themselves) is a problem in other societies than ours (or just with a bunch of apes). Because I still think that we should maybe change our society before we do hardly reversible things to people to make them fit in (very unpopular and quite influenced by conservative christianity (though I'm not affiliated))

It's not a problem in other cultures because other cultures just let people transition. Without transition we do see increased rates of distress, including higher rates of attempted suicide and deaths by suicide.

[fock]

> You've been duped by hate groups, and now you're happily spreading their disinfo.

ok, this is three people in a very left-wing german publication: https://www.zeit.de/2020/22/transsexualitaet-lgtbq-geschlech... - one of them states that more people are coming to him. The intro states that the number in Sweden multiplied 15-fold. I'm sorry, but I miss the hate-group disinformation aspect here? (unless, everyone not agreeing with your PoV is a hate group. Which is interesting but in the past this behaviour usually led to violent conflict...)

> It's not a problem in other cultures because other cultures just let people transition.

oook. So which culture except Iran (which is certainly influenced by western capitalism) does/did this? To my knowledge the typical instruments of physical transition are only available in the western capitalism influenced sphere nowadays?

> Without transition we do see increased rates of distress, including higher rates of attempted suicide and deaths by suicide.

So, you for sure have numbers for that. But no, that can't be, because the number of people transitioning is constant!

[NestedLoopGoBrr]

Because the other options don’t work. Do even a little research instead of reposting the same question that you keep getting flagged for.

[morelisp]

Hormone blockers are not "transition" and the hormone treatments given to trans teenagers are regularly prescribed for cis people of all ages for other reasons.

[throwaway53453]

Read the article again. We know there are severe long term effects to a child's development, and there's been more than a few cases of people saying they regret it decades down the line.

[morelisp]

As is the normal talking point for the UK anti-trans lobby, you are conflating the medical intervention for children (hormone blockers) with the medical intervention for young adults (hormones) with the long-term effects of hormones after taking them for years - well into adulthood.

Some adults do regret the long-term effects of their hormone treatments. Many more adults regret not getting access to hormone treatments sooner. Others regret going off hormones for personal or professional reasons and then not being able to start again because their doctor says they must not really be trans.

The solution for all these problems is easier and more flexible access to the treatments and a society more open to all modes of gender. Not a "but the children" moral panic.

[throwaway53453]

First, I'm not some kind of shill who's "part of the UK anti-trans lobby". I'm not anti trans. What I am concerned about is damaging children's hormonal development and having them later regret it.

> Some adults do regret the long-term effects of their hormone treatments.

Even a single child regretting this when they're older is enough for me to say this is morally ambiguous, but I bet you those numbers will go up in decades to come.

[vertex-four]

What about children who are later angry they could not get treatment that would’ve helped them? Do they not count?

We could just, never treat anyone for anything, then nobody would ever regret any treatment.

[throwaway53453]

It's not a good solution, but no. We don't allow children to have sex until they're 16, or drink until 18, for valid reason. This is the same situation.

Which is that they're not mentally developed enough to consent to those things.

[esarbe]

Blocking hormones can have just a bad effect as giving hormones. Hormones are signals for the body. I don't think we know enough about the developmental process to justify interfering with it.

This is a quote from a recent article in the Economist[0].

>One big worry is that puberty blockers seem to reliably lead to cross-sex hormones, in what doctors call a “cascade of interventions”. The best estimate, from studies starting in the 1970s, is that around 80% of gender-dysphoric children who are allowed to express themselves as they wish, but who do not socially transition—change their clothes, pronouns and the like to present as members of the opposite sex—will, as they grow up, become reconciled to their biological sex. Yet puberty blockers seem to prevent that reconciliation.

[0] https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/02/20/...

[nostrebored]

Yes... Like hormonal imbalance. This is a disingenuous framing.

[morelisp]

Yes, and like hormonal imbalance in cis people, the evidence is clear the benefits of the treatments outweigh the risks also for trans people. This is how we make medical decisions, not as a proxy for moral panic.

The only disingenuous framing is hormone blockers as "transition".

I'm extremely cynical about Amazon's move qua their own ethics, here but I also understand where the internal pressure is coming from given how rapidly the UK mainstreamed such deep transphobia.