| > This whole comment section is pretty frustrating. I agree. The amount of misinformation and/or active disinformation in this comment section is horrifying and disheartening. > My trans brothers and sisters have it way, way worse - especially when surgery and/or hormones are not nearly as easy to come by as these people on the internet would like to think. It really is wild to me how many people think, like, school nurses are handing out hormone medication like candy or something, or you can just go get them OTC at the corner drug store. My kid's school nurse won't even give her Tylenol without calling me, these people really think they're secretly sending kids home with hormone medication? It is not and easy or fast process. Often, in the case of gender questioning youth, puberty blockers are used to buy time for them while they assess their feelings and the process plays out, because they are entirely reversible - just stop taking them. The whole initial transition process can often take a year or more from first appointment to hormone therapy starting and there are lots of gatekeepers along the way to safeguard you. In most places if you are under 18 you have to be under the care of an LGBT-affirming physician (which can be very hard to find, even in cities, and often have months of wait time), have had at least some therapy under your belt, and an official gender dysphoria diagnosis to get hormone treatment started. Surgical approaches are very rarely considered for young people. Like I am sure there have been some, I can't fully rule it out, but I run in LGBT+ circles a lot and have for decades, and I personally have not met a single person who had any kind of gender-affirming surgery done before 18. Most have them done in their 20s or 30s if they can afford it. The wait times can stretch into years, and the surgeries themselves are often considered cosmetic procedures and are often not covered the same as a medically-required surgery. Even among adult trans people, surgeries are often considered a far off goal that many never be reached, and quite a few will find that they don't want or need it once other transitioning processes have happened and they no longer feel crippling levels of dysphoria. And all of that assumes you have a supportive parent or guarding and, as one stroll through various transgender hangouts on the web will tell you, that is not as common as one would hope. All it takes is one parent to say "no" and you're not doing anything until you're an adult. Once you are 18 things are a bit more open and you have more options to speed the process up, but it is hard being a transgender youth. There are a lot of misconceptions in these comments about what being transgender is, what the process for getting HRT is, and all of the various steps needed to reach each person's individual goals. And all of this is easily researchable using Google in 10 minutes, it just takes an open mind and a willingness to see others' viewpoints. It's extremely frustrating. |
I'm not sure how to fix it though.
More doctors speaking out? seeing some parents & their young trans kids feels helps.
The fact that the word 'humanizing' is used just shows how gross this is; that these kids and queer people are somehow not human already.
Just as a thought experiment type rabbit hole, I've spent some time thinking about the net benefit of our increasing representation and being more integrated into society at large.
It feels that on the whole the #s look more accepting. Gay marriage has majority support (so does abortion..)
But seeing trans people and queer people on TV has triggered an insane backlash.
See it on HN threads all the time.
"netflix is all propaganda."
When the representation numbers are just barely catching up the real general population (of which is probably still low given closeting).
Our existence isn't propaganda.
It's not indoctrination to live our truth.
But a lot of people feel threatened and backed into a corner which is dangerous.
And some politicians pick up on this and whip it up into an very dangerous frenzy of disinformation and hate.