[prottog]

> appropriate healthcare for teenagers

You're begging the question. Reasonable, empathetic people are capable of thinking that "gender-affirming care" is an ideologically-driven phenomenon that does more harm than good.

> Plus they have a sweet setup since they're the 18th-most dependent state on Federal aid

Do you feel the same way about Virginia (second highest per capita federal balance of payments), New Mexico (4th), or Maine (9th)? They're all blue states that receive a lot more from the federal government than they pay in.

Do you also feel the same way about high income earners paying more than they get back? Because effectively that's what you're describing. California has a lot of high incomes and because the federal government does a lot of redistributing via taxation, the state as a whole pays more than it gets back. Though if you look at the per capita data[0], it works out to a few hundred bucks a year. It's also worth mentioning that since Covid, every single state has received more than it paid, and in aggregate California the most by far (which makes sense, since it's the most populous state). So California too has a sweet setup.

Implicit behind your sentiment is the idea that the "train-wreck" policies in California is causative of the high incomes that has it pay more than it gets back from the federal government. That is, your argument paraphrased is that conservative Idahoans can't criticize progressive Californians since California with its progressive policies has high incomes that pay for some of Idaho's bills via redistributed federal taxation. I find that assumption unpersuasive.

[0]: https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-...

[Eisenstein]

> Reasonable, empathetic people are capable of thinking that "gender-affirming care" is an ideologically-driven phenomenon that does more harm than good.

Reasonable, empathetic people who have no experience with an issue personally should mind their own damn business regarding other people's medical decisions, especially when they themselves are actually, demonstrably (not suspectedly) ideologically motivated.

[mrangle]

>Reasonable, empathetic people who have no experience with an issue personally should mind their own damn business regarding other people's medical decisions, especially when they themselves are actually, demonstrably (not suspectedly) ideologically motivated.

Sorry, kids don't get to make medical decisions and adults don't get to make harmful decisions for them. Your rant is borderline suited to an adult, and no one else. Last, imagine couching anti-child castration and mutilation as "ideological". Competent adults label this position to as sanity.

[Eisenstein]

They aren't your kids and you have no say in how they are treated medically so it is still none of your business.

No one is castrating children. These are medically accepted practices and you are not a practicing physician and making that comparison is unhinged.

Also, plenty of babies are sexually altered when their sex is undeterminable would you advocate not doing that?

Leave medicine to physicians and their patients and stop putting your ideology and religion and gender anxiety on kids that aren't yours.

[howinteresting]

> adults don't get to make harmful decisions for them

I believe exposing children to organized religion is inherently harmful because it inhibits the development of a scientific, evidence-based temperament that I think is an important part of good moral character. Yet billions of people drag their children to churches, mosques and temples every day.

[ofcourseyoudo]

>adults don't get to make harmful decisions for them

Actually, adults that are the parents of children get to make all sorts of decisions for children, harmful and not harmful. It's literally none of your business.

[prottog]

I have several bones to pick with this stance.

First, that anyone not agreeing with your position is actually and demonstrably ideologically motivated. It may be one of the surest signs that your position is not based on reason, when you perceive it to be so blindingly clear that anyone disagreeing must have an ulterior motive. There's another commenter who said that the only way anyone could oppose their position is through stupidity, which is along the same vein.

Second, that people should mind their own damn business. I agree with this on principle, but it does have its limits. Am I wrong to be concerned about and disapproving of the practice of female genital mutilation in parts of the world? After all, it doesn't directly affect me one bit. I suppose you might consider me a cultural imperialist for thinking it a barbaric practice. Should I equally mind my own business if I see a neighbor routinely take opiates to the point of stupor? That's his medical decision, and one that I have no experience with personally.

At some point, the line between well-meaning non-judgmentalism and craven indifference is blurred. I want to help repair the social fabric in this country because I feel it is torn and tattered. The way to do that is through open dialogue on what I think is right and wrong. I can admit that this can be taken too far, and has been in the past on many matters. What you suggest is that I keep it to myself and don't condemn others, no matter what I see, because everyone walks in their own pair of shoes. I'm not convinced that this is the better way; at least one that doesn't end up in a world where everyone only cares about themselves.

To put another way: can you imagine a fast-spreading, medically-involved phenomenon that affects minors in the long term that you would be concerned about, even if you had no personal experience with it? Or is such a thing not possible in your view?

[Eisenstein]

> First, that anyone not agreeing with your position is actually and demonstrably ideologically motivated. I

I said that the people who were doing were demonstrably ideologically motivated. This is because it is true and evidenced. This has nothing to do with how I feel.

> Am I wrong to be concerned about and disapproving of the practice of female genital mutilation in parts of the world?

Is FGM a medically accepted practice? No? Then it has no relevance to this discussion.

> At some point, the line between well-meaning non-judgmentalism and craven indifference is blurred.

This is ideologically motivated people advocating that politicians and laypeople legislate medical decision making that should be between a doctor and his patient and their guardians. Whatever else is drummed up by comparing it to barbaric practices ask yourself this: would you want a politician telling you what is medically appropriate for your child?

[ptero]

As parents, myself and my wife get to make medical decisions for our children until they become adults.

I saw a lot of push and propaganda in schools to subvert this setup, for my kids in the name of ideology. This is now the #1 issue for me to push back on. Just a single data point.

[howinteresting]

Schools aren't involved in medical transition.

edit, responding to below:

By "heavy advertising" do you mean letting kids know it is a thing that exists? Because that's just teaching kids the facts of life, something schools have a responsibility to do (since apparently you're not willing to tell your kids that medical transition exists?) It falls under the same bucket as sex education, another thing that schools should do regardless of whether the parents think it's OK or not.

Schools don't make medical decisions, doctors do.

edit 2:

MEDICAL transition.

[all2]

This [0] that might interest you, then, if you think schools aren't involved in transitioning children.

Relevant quote:

===

    Even though the policy states that “the goal in all cases is to strive for consensus between parents/guardians and student as to the application of this policy,” it adds that the decision to participate in the “gender transition plan” belongs to the student, and “does not require additional parent/guardian consent”—unless parental/guardian rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), or other applicable law, would be implicated.

===

[0] https://www.ntd.com/parents-and-legal-guardians-excluded-fro...

[a_shovel]

The primary source cited in the article seems to have been wiped and replaced with "under review", but based on the article it seems it was primarily that if a trans kid is out at school, staff shouldn't assume they're out at home and so they should default to using the kid's legal name when communicating with parents. This seems like a good policy; if someone doesn't want to come out to their parents, it may be because they fear being beaten or thrown out of their home if they do.

"Schools transitioning children" is not a coherent phrase. "Transition" in the gender sense is not a transitive verb; transition is not something done to someone by others, is something that person does themselves.

[ptero]

Is this sarcasm? There is what, to me and many other parents, amounts to heavy advertising of medical transition in many classrooms.

[ofcourseyoudo]

>Implicit behind your sentiment is the idea that the "train-wreck" policies in California is causative of the high incomes

Quite a straw man you built there! I hold no such opinion.

> Reasonable, empathetic people are capable of thinking that "gender-affirming care" is an ideologically-driven phenomenon

No reasonable, empathetic people that are in any genuine contact with trans kids are likely to feel this way, considering suicide rates and mental health outcomes of gender-affirming healthcare.

>Do you feel the same way about Virginia (second highest per capita federal balance of payments), New Mexico (4th), or Maine (9th)?

Are people from those states voicing the opinion that their states are well-function oases relative to the "train-wreck" that is California? I haven't heard much of it. Yet it's pretty common for red-state folks to rag on California as if their welfare governments aren't benefiting from our homofemitrans tax dollars.

>in aggregate

lol, this is a profoundly unserious point

[howinteresting]

> Reasonable, empathetic people are capable of thinking that "gender-affirming care" is an ideologically-driven phenomenon that does more harm than good.

The only way it is possible for a reasonable, empathetic person to believe that the state government banning GAC is good, is if they're stupid. Which is ok to some degree, many people are stupid.

[all2]

If the point of gender affirming care (GAC) is to improve the mental health outcomes of the one being cared for, then it is a colossal waste of time. Mental health outcomes do not demonstrably improve after a person is placed on HRT and had their genitalia suitably modified. In fact, their long term health outcomes decline significantly later in life [0]. The suicide rate of transgender individuals is about 40%. This does not take into account whether they received GAC or not [1]. Per [0], even GAC does not improve late life all cause morbidity.

I oppose gender affirming care on the grounds that it does not effectively improve a person's life (which we can see over a 30 year period in [0]) and that it often requires damaging the delicate balance of the biological machine that is the human body.

If that makes me "stupid", so be it.

[0] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [1] https://www.thetrevorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/... << Warning, PDF.

[howinteresting]

Correct, that makes you stupid. Your premise is wrong (the correct endpoint is satisfaction and regret rates, since there are many confounding factors with something like mental health), your data doesn't show why you think it shows (the Sweden study was done in a time when the Swedish government mandated sterilization for trans people), and GAC changes the balance of the body much less than, say, lithium.

Next question?

[all2]

GAC, by definition, sterilizes the person. Both on the hormonal front and, if they have bottom surgery, physically as well.

HRT vs lithium? Dunno, I'm not a doctor.

I do know that exogenous hormones can cause a body to stop producing the hormone, even at sub-clinical levels.

I also know that GAC surgeries cannot be undone. But you can stop taking lithium.

And all of this in the face of 40+% suicide rate that isn't affected by GAC in the slightest.

Who is the ideological one here?

[howinteresting]

The correct endpoint is satisfaction and regret rates. GAC has some of the highest satisfaction rates and lowest regret rates in all of medicine.

edit: I'm going to say this very slowly:

The Sweden study

about suicide rates

was done in a time

when the Swedish government

mandated sterilization

for trans people.

Does that help?

edit 2: since it's still not clear:

The

Sweden

study

about

suicide rates

was done

in a time

when

the Swedish government

mandated

sterilization

for

trans people.

[all2]

The Sweden study is backed up by the Trevor Project (which I linked above somewhere) that shows as many as 80% of the transgender population have suicidal ideations and as many as 60% have attempted suicide. And this is from self-reporting. The stats aren't just from Sweden.

[all2]

A 40% attempted suicide rate does not suggest "satisfaction" to me. It suggests mental illness.

[ofcourseyoudo]

>GAC, by definition, sterilizes the person

That's crazy, my trans masc friend Kyle just carried a baby to term and delivered it, but to be fair I can't 100% confirm he didn't just hide a frozen turkey under his cardigan for 9 months

[prottog]

If a teenage girl standing 5'7" and weighing 80 pounds came to the doctor and said she feels too fat and needs to lose weight, the doctor would rightly tell her that she is anorexic, that her being too fat is only in her head, and that she should instead gain a bit of weight to be healthy. A doctor who instead prescribes her weight loss pills would be treated with skepticism; a doctor who performed gastric bypass on her would rightly be excoriated and maybe even have their medical license taken away. If there was an epidemic of such doctors, voters would rightly take alarm and may even petition the state legislature to ban such a practice. None of this would be stupid.

[howinteresting]

Correct, but anorexia is very different from gender dysphoria and involves diametrically opposite treatment protocols.

edit: responding to prottog:

> gender dysphoria was classified a mental illness [...] It's only very recently that with the former we started to take the (mentally unwell) patient's word over evidence.

You're the one begging the question now.

If gender dysphoria really is a mental illness, why are regret rates for gender-affirming care so low? One of the defining characteristics of a mental illness is that if you "feed into it", it gets worse. For example, with schizophrenia, you should not validate the voices someone might be hearing because doing so makes it worse. The situation with gender dysphoria is exactly the opposite.

[prottog]

Treatment protocols aren't divine edicts. They can be wrong. The medical community is as susceptible as any to groupthink and being taken in by the current culture milieu, as well as being influenced by moneyed interests.

As recently as ten years ago, with DSM-5, gender dysphoria was classified a mental illness, much like how anorexia is still classified as one. It's only very recently that with the former we started to take the (mentally unwell) patient's word over evidence.

Doctors used to say that cigarettes were good for you. I suspect that we'll look back at gender-affirming care the same way in a few decades.

[Eisenstein]

> Treatment protocols aren't divine edicts. They can be wrong. The medical community is as susceptible as any to groupthink and being taken in by the current culture milieu, as well as being influenced by moneyed interests.

Do your suspicions in this instance merit an intervention in care for other people? At what point do your 'feelings' matter so much that you get to tell other people what to do medically with their own children? Apply this in an inverse fashion -- at what point do other people who suspect doctors are not right get to tell you how to make medical decision regarding your children?

Let's compare how many times Doctors as a group have been wrong about something vs Politicians. Are you still for Politicians making medical decisions for people?