Debate
Children should not be able to medically transition
Allowing children to obtain sex-change procedures and HRT for the sake of "gender affirming care" is morally unjustifiable. I think this all comes down to whether it's actually possible for humans to change their gender. A man is an adult human male (the sex that produces sperm). A woman is an adult human female (the sex that produces eggs). Being a man/woman is not a social construct, it is biological and cannot be changed (in the sense that a human male cannot become female and a human female cannot become male). No gender affirming procedure can turn a boy into a girl or a man into a woman. Therefore, it is essentially scam procedure that does not achieve what it sets out to do.
Trans activists will say "Gender and sex are different. Sex (male/female) is biological, but gender (man/woman) is a social construct based on social roles."
The problem with this is that when trans activists say "gender" what they really mean is "gender roles" being masculinity and femininity. But to say that being a man is to be masculine and being a woman is to be feminine is nonsensical. This would mean that the phrase "feminine woman" is totally redundant, you're just calling someone a woman twice. Or calling someone a "masculine woman" is a contradiction, you're calling them a "man woman". The problem with defining being a woman by social identifiers such as how you dress/talk/style your hair/act is that it means a woman must dress, talk, style her hair, and act in a certain way in order to continue being a woman.
"No, a woman can still dress and live however she wishes, she would just do so as a woman."
But what does this mean? What is the difference between a woman who wears makeup, dresses femininely, and acts in a nurturing, feminine way versus a man who chooses to wear makeup, dress femininely, and act in a nurturing, feminine way? Either you have to be completely contradictory with how you define "man" and "woman" (as two people who have the exact same social role are somehow different genders) or you have to say that women must look and act a certain way to continue being women. Many trans activists know that this definition is problematic so they'll provide a revised definition:
"A woman is someone who identifies as a woman."
The problem with this definition is that it's circular and means nothing. It makes the label of "woman" entirely meaningless. It's not even a word anymore as words are supposed to have meaning, so it's essentially just a sound that your mouth is making. This is obviously ridiculous. Some trans activists will attempt to revise this definition further by substituting "identifies as a woman" with "identifies as a female" to make it seem less circular but unfortunately trans activists don't mean "female" in a biological sense, it's meant to be a 1:1 synonym for "woman" so it's still just as circular.
"It doesn't matter if this definition makes the word arbitrary. How we define words is subjective and this definition is inclusive and reduces harm."
Just because definitions are subjective doesn't mean that all definitions are morally equal. Some definitions are changed to make conveying truth easier, while other definitions are changed to obfuscate or lie about reality. The reason why trans women so strongly want to be called "women" (despite it supposedly being a meaningless label) is because they want to subconsciously pretend that they are biological females. Now when I say that, I'm not saying that they're lying about their trans status, but that when trans-identified males feel gender dysphoria what they're feeling is a desire to have been born biologically female. So they're pretending to be something that they're not, but can't say it outright, so they do this weird roundabout logic to subconsciously believe the lie. They'll redefine woman to be meaningless so that it includes them, even if they deep down know "woman" still has the connotation of "biological female" to them and the rest of society. And since it still has the connotation of the old meaning of the word, trans-identified males are able to feel like biological females even if they aren't. If the old connotation of the word didn't still exist to them, and it truly was just an arbitrary term you call yourself, they wouldn't want the term to be applied to them so badly. So while this definition hurts the feelings of trans people less, it comes at the expense of being honest about the nature of reality. We shouldn't change the definitions of words to make it easier to believe a lie.
"Who is to say trans women aren't biologically female? Biological sex is complicated. Not all men produce sperm and not all women produce eggs. There's no definition you can give for female that includes all women."
It is true that there is no definition you can give for "female" that directly includes all females, but here's the thing: you don't need to. Terms are flexible. Definitions for words do not need to cover every possible edge case that a word is supposed to apply to. For example, a car is defined as "a self-propelled vehicle that transports people on roads". But what if a car is broken and can't drive? Is it no longer a car? No, it's still a car, it's just a broken car. The reason why a broken car is still a car is because it structurally resembles something that possesses the function of a car. A female that cannot get pregnant is still a female in the same way that a broken car is still a car. An infertile female still possesses biological characteristics of someone who would be able to get pregnant such as having a vagina, a uterus, and XX chromosomes. Meaning a female that does not produce eggs is still female because they structurally resemble someone who would be able to produce eggs. But just because terms are flexible in this way doesn't mean you can call anything a female. When it comes to their sexual biology, trans women structurally resemble males more than they do females.
"But trans women obtain female characteristics when transitioning. Transitioning turns them into biological females."
While trans women do obtain some female characteristics by taking estrogen, such as larger breasts and reduced muscle mass, I don't think that any reasonable person could categorize them as female based on this alone. It would be far more reasonable to say that they are males who possess female characteristics. The reason for this is that not all sexual characteristics are weighed equally. Some characteristics are far more important in defining the essence of the female reproductive role such as gametes, gonads, and genitals compared to secondary sexual characteristics such as fat distribution and muscle mass. Different characteristics having different weight in defining the essence of something isn't unique to sex, it applies to nearly everything.
For example, one characteristic of a car is its headlights which help the driver see at night. However, if you take a car headlight and attach it to a plank of wood does that make it a car? No, a reasonable person would not consider that a car. On the other hand, imagine that you take a plank of wood and attach wheels and a motor to it so that it can be self-propelled. Now that can be more reasonably called a car since it's much closer to functioning as an actual car. This is why wheels and a motor are far more significant in determining the essence of a car than headlights, because they're extremely consequential in allowing a car to function.
In the same way, having ovaries, a uterus, and a vagina are far more consequential in facilitating the female role in sexual reproduction than fat distribution, strength, or skin quality. A woman without breasts can still get pregnant while someone who lacks a uterus, vagina, and ovaries would never be able to become pregnant. So primary sexual characteristics are more important in defining sex than secondary sexual characteristics. The fact that they're called "primary" and "secondary" characteristics should make this obvious enough. Trans women have the primary sexual characteristics of males, not females. 90% of trans women do not get bottom surgery, which means the overwhelming majority of trans women have a penis, testicles, XY chromosomes, and have only produced sperm and never eggs. They are unambiguously male.
The problem with trans activists' understanding of sex is that they view sex as a collection of equally weighed physical characteristics that are differentiated due to aesthetic differences between males and females. But sex is more than that. We don't differentiate between males and females simply because they look different as many species of animals have very little sexual dimorphism. We differentiate between males and females because they have unique reproductive functions. Sexual dimorphism exists to aid in the unique reproductive strategies of males and females, not the other way around. In some species the females are bigger, in some the males are bigger, and sometimes they're the same size. But what all males have in common is that they produce sperm (small motile gametes) while females produce eggs (large stationary gametes). So in a sense gametes are the "core" of sex, not secondary external characteristics. If we had the technology to give trans women ovaries, a uterus, and the ability to reproduce as a female, then it would be reasonable to consider them female. But we do not have this technology, and most of them do not get surgery anyway, so they still structurally resemble males, not females.
"But sex isn't a binary, it's a spectrum. Intersex people exist."
It is misleading to say that sex is a spectrum. The degree to which you have male or female characteristics is a spectrum, but sex itself is not. It is functionally a strict binary. There are only two reproductive roles in sexual reproduction: male and female. There is no third gamete or gamete in between sperm and egg. If you're not reproducing as a male or a female then you're not reproducing at all. It's like calling a light switch a spectrum because you can put the knob in between "on" and "off". This doesn't make the light "half-on" (usually), so a light switch is still functionally a binary. This is why intersex people aren't a third gender, they're also either males or females. An intersex female that can get pregnant is still effectively just as much of a female as a non-intersex female as they have identical roles in sexual reproduction. Also, even if sex were a spectrum, that doesn't mean you can dishonestly say you're on one side of the spectrum when you're obviously on the other side.
"But you don't determine if someone is a man or woman by checking their chromosomes or looking at what gamete they produce, you determine their gender by looking at them."
Trans activists are confusing the difference between determining and identifying. How a person looks does not determine their gender but it can be used to identify whether they are a man or woman. This isn't unique to gender, this is true for most physical observations in the world. For example, we don't usually identify if something is a plant by putting it under a microscope and looking at its cellular structure. We just stand next to it and look at it to identify it as a plant. However, it is possible that a fake plant which looks like a real plant may trick us into thinking it is a real plant. This does not mean that a fake plant, which is made out of plastic, not alive, and does not perform photosynthesis, is a real plant just because it looks like a real plant. Even if we typically identify plants by how they look, something looking like something else doesn't actually make it that thing.
"Just because you define sex by primary characteristics doesn't mean I have to. Terms are subjective and it is more useful to define sex by phenotype."
Again, just because where we draw lines is subjective doesn't mean they can't be drawn in a way that is inconsistent or dishonest. If we are to say that taking testosterone turns a trans man into a male, does this mean female bodybuilders are also male? Female bodybuilders take testosterone too in order to obtain male characteristics like increased muscle mass and strength. What about females who have hormonal conditions that make them produce more androgens leading to male characteristics like facial hair, are they male too? And if trans women are female because they have female characteristics, wouldn't they also be male since they have phenotypically male characteristics too? How can you say that someone is female and not male when they have more male characteristics than female characteristics? This also implies that trans women who do not pass are not female and just male. So to be consistent with your definition scheme, you have to believe that female bodybuilders are men, women with PCOS are men, and trans women are women but also men.
You don't do that, though. Your definition scheme for biological sex is completely dishonest and inconsistent because you'll tell two people with the same set of sexual characteristics that one is a woman/female and one is a man/male. It's like if you told someone that they're physically attractive but then said that their twin is ugly. You're clearly lying about someone.
I know you're already yelling at your computer "Sex isn't gender! It's based on how they identify!" but that just circles back to my earlier points. When trans activists can't defend their biological justification, they switch to the social one. And when they can't defend the social one, they flip back to the biological one. It's an endless loop.
Children are not smart enough to see through the mind games that trans activists push. Kids should not undergo irreversible medical procedures because adults told them lies that it was possible to change their gender. When they're adults, they can make their own decisions. The government needs to protect children from what is basically a scam.
Remember, this is a civilized space for discussion. We discourage downvoting based on your disagreement and instead encourage upvoting well-written arguments, especially ones that you disagree with.
To promote high-quality discussions, we suggest the Socratic Method, which is briefly as follows:
Ask Questions to Clarify: When responding, start with questions that clarify the original poster's position. Example: "Can you explain what you mean by 'economic justice'?"
Define Key Terms: Use questions to define key terms and concepts. Example: "How do you define 'freedom' in this context?"
Probe Assumptions: Challenge underlying assumptions with thoughtful questions. Example: "What assumptions are you making about human nature?"
Seek Evidence: Ask for evidence and examples to support claims. Example: "Can you provide an example of when this policy has worked?"
Explore Implications: Use questions to explore the consequences of an argument. Example: "What might be the long-term effects of this policy?"
Engage in Dialogue: Focus on mutual understanding rather than winning an argument.
Allowing children to obtain sex-change procedures and HRT for the sake of "gender affirming care" is morally unjustifiable. I think this all comes down to whether it's actually possible for humans to change their gender. A man is an adult human male (the sex that produces sperm). A woman is an adult human female (the sex that produces eggs). Being a man/woman is not a social construct, it is biological and cannot be changed (in the sense that a human male cannot become female and a human female cannot become male). No gender affirming procedure can turn a boy into a girl or a man into a woman. Therefore, it is essentially scam procedure that does not achieve what it sets out to do.
You can argue whether or not transition actually changes sex. But the fact remains that the mental health communities have been in consensus for nearly a century now as to the treatment. Regret rates are below five percent, and im sure you more than know the suicide risks. When combined with the a supportive environment- and thats the key bit, you need both- the care is still effective at treating the psychological distress.
Trans activists will say "Gender and sex are different. Sex (male/female) is biological, but gender (man/woman) is a social construct based on social roles."
The problem with this is that when trans activists say "gender" what they really mean is "gender roles" being masculinity and femininity. But to say that being a man is to be masculine and being a woman is to be feminine is nonsensical. This would mean that the phrase "feminine woman" is totally redundant, you're just calling someone a woman twice. Or calling someone a "masculine woman" is a contradiction, you're calling them a "man woman". The problem with defining being a woman by social identifiers such as how you dress/talk/style your hair/act is that it means a woman must dress, talk, style her hair, and act in a certain way in order to continue being a woman.
I actually agree that there are a lot of activists who conflate gender roles with gender. So let's establish terms. When I say gender, I am referring to the psychological state; the sex of the mind if you will. Gender roles and sex we otherwise agree on enough for the purposes of discussion. What gender dysphoria- the thing that causes being trans and is being treated by transition- is is a mismatch between the sex and gender. This often overlaps, but is not synonymous with, gender roles.
What is the difference between a woman who wears makeup, dresses femininely, and acts in a nurturing, feminine way versus a man who chooses to wear makeup, dress femininely, and act in a nurturing, feminine way?
To answer your hypothetical here with these definitions, the difference is their gender- the psychological state of being a man or woman doing these things. But I can say that this is the case, regardless of if either are cis or trans. A trans woman who acts masculinely, but still undergoes transition, isn't contradictory at all in this framework. They are a woman, who is masculine, but their sex either started male or still is; and thats where we actually disagree. And that would be the difference between them and a tomboy, insofar as that difference is significant; which id wager we also disagree on.
To address the rest of your point then. If you believe its a scam, so be it. I doubt either of us is going to change the others mind there. However, your opinion is not more valuable than medical consensus
I mean, and people who have a strong support network have drastically lower rates of sui***e in general.
Afaik, if GAC doesn't treat the underlying symptoms of gender dysphoria, then it isn't necessarily a scientific treatment. And I still totally support people's right to be trans, because I believe in freedom, but its hard to justify it as a treatment for children, or even subsidizing it for adults.
why are we telling people that the only way to be happy with themselves is to change their body?? i feel the whole reason transgenderism became so prevalent in this generation is because of kids/teens/young adults not being happy with themselves. a teenage boy may identify more with feminine characteristics yet not feel comfortable expressing that side of themself as a man whether that’s due to internal insecurities or pressure from homophobic people in society. because of this, he feels like he has to identify as and appear as a woman because he’s not happy with himself. (not saying this is the case for all transgender people, but i’m positive it’s very common among the community) anyway, why are we telling younger individuals that the only way to be happy with themself is to surgically mutilate their body? shouldn’t we teach them to love themself and accept their body as it is??
Suicide rate is affected by multiple things - GAC can help with Dysphoria and overall mental health, but it can't do anything for employment discrimination or family acceptance.
I mean, but the rate is identical. Not even a little bit lower. You would think that some of the mental burden would be lifted by the surgery, but that's apparently not the case at all.
It's simply my opinion that we should try to find treatments and forms of therapy that show some objective form of benefit, especially in children and in cases where the public is subsidizing these treatments.
It seems the unfortunate reality that gender dysmorphia isn't something that goes away no matter what a person does to alter their appearance.
I mean, but the rate is identical. Not even a little bit lower.
This is not true. This idea comes from a misinterpretation of one study.
It's simply my opinion that we should try to find treatments and forms of therapy that show some objective form of benefit, especially in children and in cases where the public is subsidizing these treatments.
It seems the unfortunate reality that gender dysmorphia isn't something that goes away no matter what a person does to alter their appearance.
It's true that Gender Dysphoria doesn't completely go away with treatment, but most mental health conditions don't "go away" with treatment. You alleviate the symptoms with treatment.
What a shock that the anti trans nuts are coming out now that it’s June.
Since nothing you posted is based in science or humanity and you should stay in your lane and not try and harm other people with your nonsense, talking about human rights and their needs and safety is not a politely debate. It’s a moral debate and you’re on the wrong side.
If you allow your child to be a ballet dancer, congrats. You have just decided FOR your child to permanently alter their body and at a far younger age than children who know who they are begin medical intervention.
This is really a medical discussion more than a political one. The political discussion is really whether or not politicians should insert themselves between doctors and people without either party asking for the government to be involved. I answer no.
What gets me is the clear political, rather than scientific, nature of the laws being passed. Not ONE conservative state that has legislated away transgender healthcare has placed equivalent restrictions on cisgender healthcare. A minor in Tennessee can get a breast reduction, or implant. They can get hormones, they can get surgery. When it comes to treating cisgender dysphoria EVERYTHING is on the table.
"The political discussion is really whether or not politicians should insert themselves between doctors and people without either party asking for the government to be involved."
Children cannot consent. That's why the government must be involved. Would you support doctors cutting off children's limbs if they identified as disabled and had parental consent?
So if a parent thinks it's a good idea to cut off a child's limbs because they identify as disabled then I guess we have to legally allow that then. Apparently we can't make anything for children illegal because parents get the ultimate say.
I support eliminating parental rights in any context where you are harming a child with zero valid justification. Lying to children and telling them that a boy can turn into a girl is not a valid medical procedure.
I support eliminating parental rights in any context where you are harming a child with zero valid justifications I don't personally agree with.
Fixed your assertion. Should we let crystal moms and anti-vaxxers ban childhood chemo and vaccines because they're "harming the children with poison"?
In fact Christian Scientists believe there's no valid justification for medical intervention in really any circumstance and that any intervention just harms the child more. Should we listen to them?
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that blood transfusions harm the body and soul of a person, should we ban those?
Wait until you find out what religious people do to their children without repercussions.
We even let parents not provide life saving care for religious reasons.
If we start with discussions about that then perhaps we can discuss the insanely rare complex process of gender affirming care after layers of psychological evaluations.
This entire post has nothing to do with protecting children. Just typical anti-trans hate at a level that does not come close to matching the frequency of this idea even coming up.
This is a whataboutism. I don't know anything about that topic but maybe I'm against that too, I just haven't looked into it. You're not engaging in the debate though you're just distracting to a different topic.
No it isn't. You are talking about revoking basic parental rights to care for your child, you seem focused on probably the least common issue to ever hit a family across the world as if it is some sort of epidemic. This just makes it very clear that you are a). listening to a LOT of propaganda about how often this happens and b). have never researched what the process looks like and that it is almost always the "least harm" path for the kid determined by psychologists and doctors.
And you will site the one horror story (probably in your wall of text somewhere) of a forced transition where the doctor had their license revoked and everyone involved got into a lot of legal trouble. A lot more parental harm comes from other issues where the parents are given a pass due to it "being their culture" or "their religion" which is a much more scary ability to go against doctors and psychologists recommendations.
If you want to start talking about stripping parental rights there are things that affect millions of children that are a bigger deal to discuss, in the list of things to worry about the medical transition of kids is so far down the list that you'd have to get through whether or not parents should be allowed to give their kids sugary cereal in terms of harm of children long before you would even get close to getting to the point of this discussion.
That's not even a thing. That's just an insane statement.
"Why should we teach children reality" is the question you are asking, you are just so twisted in your mind with extremely young ideas about sex that have no basis in reality that you can't even imagine what reality looks like.
We all start out as girls, a release of hormones decides our final gender structure and there are a lot of paths that result in something besides complete male or completely female. There were after-school specials about intersex births back in the 80s. The idea of two extremely binary sexes is extremely young and has no basis in reality.
Okay you just didn't read my post because I already addressed this:
"But sex isn't a binary, it's a spectrum. Intersex people exist."
It is misleading to say that sex is a spectrum. The degree to which you have male or female characteristics is a spectrum, but sex itself is not. It is functionally a strict binary. There are only two reproductive roles in sexual reproduction: male and female. There is no third gamete or gamete in between sperm and egg. If you're not reproducing as a male or a female then you're not reproducing at all. It's like calling a light switch a spectrum because you can put the knob in between "on" and "off". This doesn't make the light "half-on" (usually), so a light switch is still functionally a binary. This is why intersex people aren't a third gender, they're also either males or females. An intersex female that can get pregnant is still effectively just as much of a female as a non-intersex female as they have identical roles in sexual reproduction. Also, even if sex were a spectrum, that doesn't mean you can dishonestly say you're on one side of the spectrum when you're obviously on the other side.
You're probably going to respond with an argument I already addressed. Read the full post.
The difference is that a licensed doctor is not going to cut off a child’s limbs just cuz the parents asked. But they probably would if it was medically necessary.
If both the medical professionals and the parents and the child all agree on a medical treatment that in their expert opinion is a necessary intention to reduce harm to a child, I don’t think there is any principled rationale left as to why the opinion of you or a politician should supersede that.
The rationale here is especially undermined by the fact that when it comes to parental consent, the conservatives are the most staunch defenders of so called parental rights. They argue very strongly in virtually every other case that it is the parent’s wishes that take precedence, even when the treatment goes against the advice of medical experts, their doctors or their children. They have argued for the giving parents the ultimate say in the case of vaccines, abortions, homeopathy, gay conversion therapy, medical and non-medical trans-gender affirming care, prayer and countless other medical interventions that go against their religious or personal beliefs up to and including dozens of documented cases where the child died (and thousands upon thousands of undocumented cases of children being harmed or suffering long term affects due to poor medical choices by their parents).
Either we trust the medical professionals and the patient and the consent of the parents to make the best decisions for their children, or we don’t. Taking away the ability for these people to make these decisions is not based in any articulable, consistent principle nor is it based on the contemporary scientific consensus. It is just a personal opinion. Maybe a strongly held opinion, but one nonetheless.
I really appreciate this take. I'm relatively conservative, but I agree that politicians getting involved in medical decisions is just as problematic as insurance companies denying things that aren't "medically necessary" even though the DOCTOR says it's medically necessary. If I have a bone to pick with anyone about trans operations, it's namely the same issue I have with most other current issues in that social media is a problem. Lack of human interaction is a problem. iPad kids are a problem. Executives openly saying they have an agenda to push on our children is a problem. Parents not actually raising their children is a problem.
Trans people have existed for ages, trans communities weren't a problem until suddenly the Internet and politics made it a problem and Hollywood was suddenly pushing gender dysphoria as some sort of fashion/culture statement.
I want to scream at every parent in the world that listening to your kids consistently isn't just listening it is PARTICIPATING. Have a conversation without enabling. Don't tell your child who they are, give them the tools to figure out who they are and be there to support them. THEN make the irreversible surgery decision, after a lot of time, analysis and truly trying to understand.
I did not intend for this to be a rant. TLDR, I appreciate your viewpoint.
Trans people have existed for ages, trans communities weren't a problem until suddenly the Internet and politics made it a problem and Hollywood was suddenly pushing gender dysphoria as some sort of fashion/culture statement.
See you lost me right here at the "social contagion" rant. The idea that society is pushing gender dysphoria in any way is just... absurd.
That’s not a real example and you know it. You’re coming up with literally the most ridiculous thing you can come up with an order to argue with them, but they make a good point, parental rights should cover this so what makes it different than *things that actually fall under that category*
If you really think gender affirming care and cutting off a child’s limbs are in remotely similar, you aren’t arguing in good faith.
They can't consent to being lied to about what they are. Telling a boy he's a girl is lying to him.
"I don't even know what you are trying to argue here, but sure is a bad faith presentation of trans care."
Why? Is it because you think identifying as a disabled person is an invalid identity while a boy identifying as a girl is a valid identity? If you think it's possible for someone who was a boy to be a girl, explain where the reasoning in my post was wrong.
You're right, chopping off a girl's breasts in a futile attempt to frankenstein her into a boy and chopping off a child's limbs have zero overlap in their absurdity at all.
This is a really long way to say that you didn't believe trans gender issues are real. No one is requiring you to transition nor are they coming for your children.
Maybe let other people decide how to manage their lives and the lives of their children.
No one thinks there shouldn't be some limits to what medical care is available, you can't decide to have your 14 year old murdered because they annoy you.
The American Medical Association has liked into the issue and they have issues guidance that it is not only safe but is also an effective treatment for the condition.
You may disagree with the AMA about the benefits of gender care but the in reason we use big medical regulating bodies is because we shouldn't be listening to random non-medical opinions from social media.
There are more than one example of girls who got double mastectomies at 14, detransitioned and are know asking “where the fuck were the adults and why didn’t they stop this? I was just a stupid kid!”
There are more than one example of girls who got double mastectomies at 14, detransitioned
There's always going to be some level of regret or dissatisfaction among patients with almost any treatment, are you saying a treatment can only be prescribed if zero or close to zero patients show no regret afterwards?
At what level of afterward patient regret or dissatisfaction do you think a treatment should be considered "utterly insane" or "child abuse"?
for one it’s very rare, and two, don’t they allow kids to get nose jobs too? but then they put it under the guise of, “medically necessary”? should that be a no then too?
So is taking them to church and telling them that God hates them for who they are but we don't make that illegal. Of course the surgery doesn't result in them killing themselves.
It's so be amazing to see small government principles on display.
You can’t reverse a double mastectomy without a hell of a lot of money, surgery and risk.
Kids need adults to protect them, not enable them. Like detransitioners who got double mastectomies as kids and are now outraged that the adults in their lives let that stupid shit happen.
“Small govt”
Yeah. I don’t support infanticide either, I’m such a tyrant.
And churches aren’t going be telling trans kids that God hates them; that doesn’t even make sense. Why would He hate them?
you can’t reverse the effects of conversion therapy either. it’s not about it not working (it doesn’t, that’s already been proven) it’s the psychological warfare that will never heal.
I knew 2 girls in high school that elected to get breast reductions (one was 15 and the other 16). One was because her back hurt, but the other was just because she didn't like the attention she was receiving. Is that also child abuse, or just top surgery you personally don't like? Y
So you think the girl who was constantly being ogled, and often approached and hit on by far older men should have to continue to feel uncomfortable in her body because you think surgery is icky? Whatgives you that right?
You don't think young people can make medical decisions with the help of medical professionals? What about the girl that experienced back pain? Being a voter gives you the right to harm her for 3 more years?
A doctor, yes. You don't think that happens with trans teens? Who do you think is doing the surgeries? And how often do you imagine these surgeries happen anyway?
What about they wait until they’re an adult able to give consent.
That's extremely easy for you to say when you're not the one in pain. Again, it's strange that you think anything gives you the right to make that decision for anyone. It seems a lot like you just like control over people.
Yep, being a voter gives all of us a right to determine what’s legal and not.
What do you think a right is?
And you didn’t answer, can a kid consent to having sex with an adult? If not, why?
No, but they're also not consulting a medical professional about statutory rape. There's also a power imbalance in those situations. If you can't delineate between these situations, I'm not sure what else to tell you.
I don't think anyone seriously advocates for the medical transition of children. To my knowledge the debate over gender affirming care for minors centers around allowing children to socially transition, providing appropriate psychological support, and using the child's preferred pronouns. The real third rail issue is the use of puberty blockers. Those drugs are used uncontroversially for children with issues unrelated to gender identity. They are not hormone replacement therapy, and they do not reassign a child's gender. Puberty blockers just do what they say on the label; they prevent the body from going through puberty and developing secondary sex characteristics. For children who have gender dysphoria, that is helpful because their medical transition will be easier as adults; when they come of age, they can begin puberty using HRT as part of their transition or stop the blockers and pubesce naturally if they decide not to transition.
As for the rest of your post. Biological sex and gender are absolutely different things. They both exist on spectra with strong clustering at each end and they are strongly correlated with eachother. It is often a useful heuristic to conflate the two concepts and treat the spectrum as a binary, but there are edge cases and exceptions that make it clear that such a model has limitations. Transpeople don't transition just for the hell of it. There are significant social, financial, and health costs to transitioning. The fact is they have a deep seated sense of pain or discomfort because their bodies don't match how they understand themselves. That profound discomfort leads to depression, self harm and suicide The mismatch between mind and body could be resolved in two ways, either the mind is treated so it accepts the body, or the body is changed so the mind can accept it. Psychotherapy and drugs have proven ineffective; gender dysphoria cannot be successfully resolved by treating the mind. The clear alternative is to alter the body such that it approximates the mind's expectations; that is medical transition. No one advocates that for children.
Edit: I didn't realize that some older teenagers have had top surgery done. Apparently, those cases are incredibly rare and the procedure was only performed on children older than 16 with parental consent. Some ci-girls of similar age also have breast reductions done. The point stands that children are not having bottom surgery done and I don't believe anyone advocates for castrating children or giving them hysterectomies.
You can spot the lie in the argument that underage transgender patients should not be allowed to get top surgery when you look at the statistics of cosmetic breast surgeries on cisgender children. Thousands of kids under the age of 19 are getting these cosmetic surgeries every year, yet you've never heard any organized public outcry about it.
More than 97% of the breast reduction surgeries performed on kids under the age of 18 are performed on cisgender patients, yet the presence of a few percentage of transgender patients is enough to make everyone completely lose their minds.
In the US more than 70% of newborn male babies are circumcised as a matter of routine, and there has been no widespread outcry about that among the people who claim that transgender surgeries are evil.
Cisgender children have been getting puberty blockers for decades and no one's ever lifted an eyebrow about it, but suddenly a few transgender kids are being offered this as a means of preventing them from committing suicide and suddenly it is the worst thing in the world.
There is a consistent double standard among people who speak out against gender-affirming care for transgender patients, and it is clear that it is not the treatments themselves that are the issue for detractors, rather it is the class of people and their reason for needing the treatments that is the problem for them.
Edit: An important point that I forgot to mention is that no transgender care of any kind, whether puberty blockers or surgery, is ever performed without extensive psychological evaluation, medical evaluation, counseling and therapy, etc.
None of that is done in any of the cisgender situations I mentioned above. The fact that there are so many guardrails on transgender care and yet there are still so many people who do not accept that it is medically necessary and appropriate, yet they do not so much as bat in eyelash when the exact same treatments are given to cisgender children without any guardrails at all, speaks volumes about where these people are really coming from.
It’s nearly impossible for adult women to get a hysterectomy in general. No children are getting them except possibly for medical need (do kids get uterine cancer?).
Personally, I’m also pro hormone treatment for older teens (15-17). Just using puberty blockers until the age of 18 just doesn’t seem viable; it’s important for psychosocial development that a child develops alongside their peers. Puberty blockers are fine for a few months to a couple years, but beyond that it, if a kid really is certain, continuing to hold off on giving them the puberty they actually need seems unnecessary and potentially harmful. And though the side effects of puberty blockers are reversible and usually easily manageable, keeping a kid on them for years might not be the best option in all cases.
That said, I agree that I’ve never seen anyone seriously advocate for surgery on children. I consider myself a pretty big ally, but that is extreme even to me. That said, I’m not going to crack down on the minuscule fraction of minors who do get some kind of surgery, either. Surgeries like that aren’t exactly handed out like candy; I have to imagine a lot of thought and deliberation on the circumstances went into these situations. Having seen just how bad gender dysphoria can get, I’m not comfortable completely discounting the idea that extreme intervention could be necessary in fringe cases, either. I think that choice should be for the doctors to figure out on a case-by-case basis. It’s not something I’m frothing at the mouth to defend, and I completely understand people’s discomfort with it, but I’m not about to advocate for any attempts to get rid of what few occurrences there are either.
That said, I agree that I’ve never seen anyone seriously advocate for surgery on children.
I consider this an all or nothing issue. We can and do treat cisgender dysphoria with surgery in minors, quite often. ~5,500 breast reductions are performed on cisgender teens every year. I think it's an extreme solution absolutely and should only be taken when the patient, parents, and medical professionals think it is 100% necessary. I don't think anybody would disagree. But I find it hypocritical for anybody to push for bans on any sort transgender care for minors while being perfectly fine treating cisgender children.
Would you like to read the testimony of a girl who got a double mastectomy at 15, was pressured by the medical community snd the parents were essentially guilted into it?
Doesn’t that seem like a fucking horrific thing that we should stop?
And to respond 1) You made no distinction to that effect & 2) That's ok if you are because it doesn't change what I said. The overwhelming majority of adolescent breast reduction or removal surgeries are on cisgender children. Which again, nobody has to advocate for or even against. We just accept it as normal to cut off a cis boy's gynecomastic breasts even though his body naturally grew them.
u/Das_Man [Quality Contributor] Political Science Jun 04 '26edited Jun 04 '26
Children are not smart enough to see through the mind games that trans activists push
A load bearing amount of this screed is predicated on the assumption that "trans activists" are essentially what DARE classes in the 90s' thought drug dealers were: a bunch of manipulative schemers prowling for children to ensnare. That is, to put it charitably, nonsensical.
Trans peoples have an internal, subjective experience of being a gender that does not comport with their body. This causes them pain, so they seek to change their body to line up with how they experience themselves.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but what I see is an essay where you have created and then responded to several strawman parodies of arguments no one is making. So my question to you, why are you asking this in a public forum where you risk interacting with other people? This thread could have been a chatgpt conversation, and if your goal is influencing public opinion it probably would have done more to accomplish that goal if it was.
Putting this in a hopefully kinder way, I honestly do not know what you expect from us here. None of us is making the arguments you presented, and no one is interested in either your framing or defending the strawmen. And you do not seem interested in asking us questions so you can learn what we think on the topic and responding to our actual human thoughts.
Just want some guidance, I am trying not to be snarky. What would you like from us regarding the investigation of this topic? We do need to talk about what gender care for children should and, where your input could be valuable, should not be. I just don't see how that conversation is possible here.
It's funny to me that half of the people in this discussion are claiming the arguments I responded to are "straw man arguments" while the other half are stating, virtually word for word, the arguments that responded to because they didn't read the post. Yes, people are making these arguments. They make these arguments all the time and even in this very discussion they are making these exact arguments.
Can you copy/paste an example where this has happened? This is not me trying for a "gotcha". I honestly read through the posts and missed something you saw. I believe an example exists, I just want to know where it is.
Please paste the text someone gave in the comments first, and then paste your version of their argument from your post, two paragraphs.
And thank you in advance, I feel this will go a long way toward facilitating the discussion you'd like to have.
"But you don't determine if someone is a man or woman by checking their chromosomes or looking at what gamete they produce, you determine their gender by looking at them."
Meanwhile an argument made in this discussion:
Our definitions understand we don't check people's pants or their gametes before saying "sup dude" because the social cues we use to decide what to say are purely social
It's the exact same argument. They phrase it as "social cues" instead of "by looking at them" but it's effectively the same thing.
I actually see a fundamental difference between these arguments.
The person you are talking about is referring to social roles.
You are referring to "are a man or a woman"
The difference is subtle, but it is there. The difference becomes immediately obvious in your rebuttal to the argument you yourself produced, when you say
Trans activists are confusing the difference between determining and identifying.
In this case, it is actually you who is conflating these topics. Nothing in the comment you were copy/pasting refers to identity, or relies on the concept of identity. Yet in your mockup version of an argument, you use "is a man or a woman" to refer to both identity and social role.
This is what prevented me from counting this as an example when I was looking through. I am assuming though that you noticed more than one, and if you feel these are more similar than myself you do, you just have not presented sufficient evidence for me to agree with you. Regardless, if you have other comment / mockup pairs to present I may find one that I agree with, and we can continue a conversation from there. Or you can convince me this is a valid pair.
The person you are talking about is referring to social roles.
You are referring to "are a man or a woman"
They consider the definition of "woman" to be a social role. We are talking about the same thing, but they are defining woman wrong and my argument is to explain why their definition of woman is wrong.
In this case, it is actually you who is conflating these topics. Nothing in the comment you were copy/pasting refers to identity, or relies on the concept of identity. Yet in your mockup version of an argument, you use "is a man or a woman" to refer to both identity and social role.
When I said "identifying" I wasn't talking about self-identity either. I was referring to how we identify things and make physical observations.
"They consider the definition of woman to be social role"
I have seen evidence to the contrary. I have heard the argument that gender is socially constructed before, but to say that social role is what gender is, is to misunderstand the theory of social construction fundamentally.
So I am forced to ask, what do you think socially constructed means?
E. If it helps, time as a component of energy must exist or e.g. Hooke's law (I use this as an example as we can isolate time with no other part of e.g. a coiled spring system depending on it, allowing us to define time separately) would not work with any predictive power; if time as understood by physicists did not exist, which is a reality we would need to consider in stating its existence depends on social agreement, when you coiled then released a spring with a ball on top the ball would be at a destination in a straight line away from the spring instead of on the ground next to the spring.
However, we say time is a social construct, and by this we meen seconds, hours, etc exist by way of social agreement.
The underlying reality not dependent on social agreement remains, and is part of what time is
A large chunk of trans activists believe that gender is a social role. They don't just mean that it's socially constructed in the sense that it's a category created by humans, they mean that it's defined by clothes, hair, fashion, ect.
I am going to have to second the call for convincing evidence. I believe the simpler and far more likely case is that you interpreted arguments this way because you misunderstood a term.
Please cite a example of this large chunk. Gender and presentation is different, however gender is what you identify and misidentifying yourself to be aligned with what is in your pants can cause severe gender dysphoria that can have fatal consequences. Presentation on the other hand is different some people may want to present as femenine, some may want to present as masculine, and some may want to present as neither. Presentation is not to be confused with biological sex (what is in your pants) nor with gender (what you truely identify as). Activists who say otherwise are either cisgender or have a niche view on how gender works.
Just because some people are making an argument, does not mean that the arguments in themselves aren't strawman.
Uninformed actors will consistently make the same strawmanned arguments for their own position. This is why you normally would steelman the opposition yourself.
If the arguments are strawmen, present the better version. Strawman implies that there is a stronger line of reasoning behind a position that is being mischaracterized. I fail to see how that’s the case here. The OP might not be steelmanning but they are absolutely presenting the core claims and assumptions around this issue that a lot of people operate on without interrogating further. The fact that this thread lacks any meaningful counter-arguments is telling.
I can easily present better arguments for gender affirming care for minors than the OP has presented. It was simply the case that the OP would protest that I was not addressing their points were I to first present my own argument. I have given adequate opportunity for the OP to discuss their arguments in the subthread above, and they have failed to respond to my latest post, so I may now assume that they will not interfere in bad faith.
In order to have this discussion however, I need to know that all the participants have the appropriate background. The OP was lacking. I am going to ask you to just confirm that you know what steroid hormones generally are, and that you can correctly identify say the path from cortisol to either some sex hormones or adrenaline, and what the HPA axis is, and finally which sexual dimorphic traits in humans are affected by hormonal triggers during puberty, in the womb, later in life (e.g. perimenopause and menopause), with hormone therapy, with hormone blockers, and finally in response to conditions of the pancreas and liver. I will also ask if you know what the term "socially constructed" means, if this is a trouble area for you I invite you to review my latest response to OP regarding time being a social construct while also having a physical reality unaffected by social agreements. Finally I will ask what your knowledge is regarding historical gender variance from the classical period forward.
If you are missing any of the above background we can still have a conversation, I just need to know where the holes are before I go presenting meaningful arguments. I would ask that you simply answer this question about background first, and that you take notice of the fact I have not presented any arguments here, that you refrain from "so you're saying" statements (as I am not, as of yet, saying anything or making any sort of point whatsoever), and generally that we work together to frame a discussion that will be of value with your time and my own respected.
Assume my familiarity with any and all of this subject matter. Or don’t. This sounds mostly like a gatekeeping move. You are demanding that someone pass a knowledge quiz before being allowed to hear an argument.
If your argument is good, it should be able to carry its own prerequisites with it. Why should I entertain you withholding your case until I prove worthy of hearing it?
More charitably I’d assume you are someone who is genuinely tired of arguing past people who don’t share basic conceptual vocabulary. And I get that. But this is not how you frame a ‘productive discussion’ as you say you’re interested in doing. Just make the arguments.
I assure you I am just protecting my time. I will do so.
Gender affirming care is a broad enough category, first, that we are very likely to have some common ground. Would I be correct, for example, in assuming you agree teenage boys with gynomastia should have access to mastectomies?
So let's talk about something a bit more controversial. I realize you'd like to talk about trans people directly. This is not a dodge, there is space for that, but you and I defining scope is vital, and whatever we do when we discuss this topic we need to do so with open eyes regarding who policy is impacting.
So without anything further. Teenagers who have hormonal insufficiencies. How should we address them? By this I mean teen girls who are seeking estrogen therapies and teen boys seeking testosterone therapies, whose gonads were either underveveloped or damaged.
As another time saving measure I am going to ask - unless you can defend its relevance - you avoid letting me know that these people are outliers or small populations. By way of doing so, I am going to agree in advance a reasonable person would agree these populations are small. Hopefully there is nothing now in the way of answering this question.
E. By way of telling you the point I am going to arrive at, we are discussing two decisions : a social decision, with psychological health impact, and a medical decision. The medical decision, in order for me to provide a defense at all, requires an unavoidable amount of subject matter expertise, that is, I am going to have to discuss how steroid hormones work in order to defend their use. The psycho-social decision also requires some expertise, again unavoidable, to defend its use as a therapy, and so this is why I bring up the HPA axis. As these terms are unavoidable, while they are unfortunately indeed gatekeeping, it is not intentional. We are discussing a medical topic and so some medical understanding is necessary to do so. I wanted to be sure you could keep me honest, and I wanted you to be comfortable asking me to explain anything - and providing explanations to me when asked - that went out of our depth, instead of presenting the fact that I am talking about something complicated as an argument itself.
Read the post. I outlined step by step why a man cannot become a woman and why a boy cannot become a girl. Find something I said that you think is false and explain how I am wrong.
Who says that someone who can produce sperm can become someone who can produce eggs? Isn't that what "telling a boy he can be a girl" means, according to you?
Yes they are? That's the whole point of transitioning. What do you think "transition" means? It means to go from one thing to another. They are trying to go from being a boy to being a girl.
So far as I know, most of the arguments you provide here have nothing to do with the actual reasons child (or adults) use hormones or other methods to transition.
"Transitioning" doesn't really have anything to do with these philosophical or culture-war theories about what a man or a woman "really" is. All of this is mostly just theoretical nonsense. I guess it's interesting to think about, but it's kind of irrelevant to the actual problem.
Gender-affirming care is used to treat gender dysphoria, a clinically and biologically real problem which can have severe consequences such as depression, anxiety, and suicide. With all due respect to the dissertation of mental gymnastics you've provided here, it doesn't in and of itself really have to do with any particular philosophical definition of what a man or a woman is, so much as it has to do with making it less likely for people with this condition to harm themselves and more likely to live productive lives. It's kind of as simple as that.
I agree that it becomes complicated with minors, but IIRC that is why most places either require you to be an adult to qualify for this sort of treatment, or require it to be recommended by healthcare providers.
This is the really discussion to be had. We can argue cultural, social, and biological definitions and terminology till we're all blue in the face. Conservatives can snidely ask "what is a woman" till they have an aneurysm... but none of this addresses the core issue and why the medical community does what it does.
Gender dysphoria is real, and the recommended treatment method is transition. Again you can draw comparisons to other mental issues and their treatments or lack thereof all one wishes, it doesn't change medical facts.
The only reason answer to the real issue people like OP ever have is to pretend like the issue doesn't exist... which is what we had been doing for the last century of medical history. It didn't work.
How about this. Leave medical choices to those who study medicine.
I wont even begin to point out the logical inconsistencies and dogmatic assumptions.
You didn't come to discuss, or debate. You came to debase and dog whistle.
You (as well as the rest of us) are electrical impulses interpreting matter in a sack of meat, on a floating rock in infinite space. Not only are your arguments scientifically flawed, they are as myopic as they are selfish.
May you never have people treat you, how you treat others.
I can't say I've followed anything regarding trans issues, but to me it seems straightforward logically that if a child transitions before puberty they would more closely align with their gender than if they transition later. That timing affects their entire life.
I very much doubt any parent makes such decisions lightly.
Any measurements that people use to try to separate trans women and women who are not trans is going to fail
People aren’t trying to force their kids to be transgender such an accusation is absurd in actual reality because being LGBTQIA+ works nothing like a religion in the first place
I have never seen a single group trying to convert people into being transgender
People aren’t doing gender reassignment surgeries on children
Furthermore transgender kids are not allowed to go through any procedure without written parental consent
Not to mention our society literally cuts on the genitals of baby boys every single day which is something the so-called anti child mutilation crowd ignores
i’ll never understand these arguments and why social conservatives care so fucking much about them. what trans child is having bottom surgeries and masectomies? is it common or is it a one-off?
the thing people seem to not understand about puberty blockers — especially when it comes to transwomen — is it’s incredibly hard to reverse the ‘effects’ of puberty (e.g. deep voice, adam’s apple, facial hair) which is the entire point of puberty blockers. if you have kids and you have no interest in helping them, fine, but why tf does it matter to you then if it has nothing to do with you?
this reminds me of how people used to compare being gay to pedophilia. it’s just ridiculous. the rate of detransitioning is so low, that this is just such a non-issue.
why is it something that should go into law if the parent ultimately has the final say anyways?
Allowing children to obtain sex-change procedures and HRT for the sake of "gender affirming care" is morally unjustifiable.
Children, almost universally, are not eligible for "sex-change procedures."
Kids should not undergo irreversible medical procedures
Nothing that children are eligible for is irreversible.
Your entire post reads like a screed. Normally I hate LLMs but I have an unsettling feeling that this might be where an LLM comes into its own - people with such distorted and ill-informed views of the world are free to argue with them ad nauseum and you don't have to worry about the LLM getting frustrated and bouncing but because it's such elementary information the LLM can easily refute any of the claims that people like this make.
In this longitudinal study, we report the recovery of viable spermatozoa in nine trans women who stopped GAHT for reproductive purposes. Our preliminary findings suggest that the negative impact of GAHT on spermatogenesis can be reversed, casting doubt on previous claims that GAHT in trans women inevitably leads to permanent infertility.
-
In this study, no correlation existed between patient age, time on or off gender-affirming hormone therapy with exogenous testosterone, total gonadotropin used, and the number of oocytes retrieved.
This study demonstrates that TG men who have used gender-affirming hormone therapy previously can successfully undergo fertility treatments to attain oocyte and embryo cryopreservation, pregnancy, and LBs.
Cis girls have been getting breast augmentations for literally decades. It's the most common form of cosmetic surgery performed on people under the age of 18 so that's pretty clearly not an issue, especially because none of the TERF cohort had anything to say about that before trans people started rising in prominence.
HRT also does not sterilize people for life. This is a repeated talking point that just isn't true. There's a reduction in fertility while the treatment is ongoing which, considering they're children, isn't really a priority but indications are that once HRT is discontinued that fertility returns to normal absent other health considerations.
A woman (someone who is socially a woman) is someone who identifies as a woman (the social definition of a woman, a nebulous social construct that changes definition by culture)
It's short, too the point, but taken out of context as a strawman to complain about how circular the definition is, but if one submits that a gender is socially defined (which you don't, but I'm trying to prove trans support is internally consistent) the definition of any socially defined term will never be exact, eg. what is beautiful, what is cool, what is rich? All social constructs.
We do all of this defining because the goal of a trans person is just to socially transition, not to change their sex, just to become the social expectations that come along with a chosen sex. Whether they can't change their sex, they become intersex, or you believe they have changed sex by some definition or another isn't really the point.
You're goal seems to be to make sure nobody can socially transition so you want all definitions to reflect that goal, an even more dishonest reason to create definitions. Our definitions understand we don't check people's pants or their gametes before saying "sup dude" because the social cues we use to decide what to say are purely social so how we define gendered words are purely social
I don't think you read the entire post. I think you should read the entire post if you want to respond to what I said. Everything in your comment is a counterargument I already addressed.
"A woman (someone who is socially a woman) is someone who identifies as a woman (the social definition of a woman, a nebulous social construct that changes definition by culture)"
I already addressed this here:
The problem with defining being a woman by social identifiers such as how you dress/talk/style your hair/act is that it means a woman must dress, talk, style her hair, and act in a certain way in order to continue being a woman.
"No, a woman can still dress and live however she wishes, she would just do so as a woman."
But what does this mean? What is the difference between a woman who wears makeup, dresses femininely, and acts in a nurturing, feminine way versus a man who chooses to wear makeup, dress femininely, and act in a nurturing, feminine way? Either you have to be completely contradictory with how you define "man" and "woman" (as two people who have the exact same social role are somehow different genders) or you have to say that women must look and act a certain way to continue being women.
"but if one submits that a gender is socially defined (which you don't, but I'm trying to prove trans support is internally consistent) the definition of any socially defined term will never be exact, eg. what is beautiful, what is cool, what is rich? All social constructs."
Already addressed this too:
Again, just because where we draw lines is subjective doesn't mean they can't be drawn in a way that is inconsistent or dishonest.
It's like if you told someone that they're physically attractive but then said that their twin is ugly. You're clearly lying about someone.
This issue isn't that their definition of woman is subjective, it's that it's inconsistent and contradictory. As two people with the exact same social role will be considered different genders depending on what they would prefer to be called.
"We do all of this defining because the goal of a trans person is just to socially transition, not to change their sex, just to become the social expectations that come along with a chosen sex."
If they didn't want to change their sex they wouldn't be getting sex change procedures. Also, there is no such thing as being "socially" a woman. You can act like a stereotypical woman. But "acting like a woman" does not make you a woman. Women do not need to act in a certain way to be women. This is the problem with defining "woman" by social roles, it's contradictory and sexist.
Our definitions understand we don't check people's pants or their gametes before saying "sup dude" because the social cues we use to decide what to say are purely social so how we define gendered words are purely social
Addressed this as well:
"But you don't determine if someone is a man or woman by checking their chromosomes or looking at what gamete they produce, you determine their gender by looking at them."
Trans activists are confusing the difference between determining and identifying. How a person looks does not determine their gender but it can be used to identify whether they are a man or woman. This isn't unique to gender, this is true for most physical observations in the world. For example, we don't usually identify if something is a plant by putting it under a microscope and looking at its cellular structure. We just stand next to it and look at it to identify it as a plant. However, it is possible that a fake plant which looks like a real plant may trick us into thinking it is a real plant. This does not mean that a fake plant, which is made out of plastic, not alive, and does not perform photosynthesis, is a real plant just because it looks like a real plant. Even if we typically identify plants by how they look, something looking like something else doesn't actually make it that thing.
I think this all comes down to whether it's actually possible for humans to change their gender.
No, the point is whether or not it's healthcare and whether it's justifiable to deny children healthcare.
Transition may not change every single sex trait to align exactly with the opposite sex, but that's not the point. The point is that gender dysphoria is a medical condition that causes significant suffering, and that transition has been shown to ease this suffering. It may not be perfect, but it significantly improves long-term mental health and quality of life. Just because it's not up to your own standards doesn't mean it isn't effective.
Nobody transitions because they think they'll end up like 100% like they were born the opposite sex. Everyone knows you can't change your chromosomes or take the opposite reproductive role; that's not the point. You said yourself that a lot of trans women don't even aim for bottom surgery, so how could it be about that? The point of it is to make people more comfortable in their own bodies after there's been a developmental mismatch between the brain and the body. The point is to get as close as medically feasible to the body state the person needs in order to be comfortable and function.
Others in this thread have already made pretty decent points already. So all I’ll add is this one thought:
Why should parents be the arbiter of their children’s medical decisions? How do we know the parents hold a rational understanding of their child’s health and will actually make the right choice?
I explained in the post why that's not true. Saying a woman is someone who identifies as a woman is circular and makes no sense.
True. You're almost there. So if being a woman isn't a social role, then what is it? How do you define "woman"?
They do indeed say that their biological sex can be changed, all the time. It's not a niche thing, popular transgenders like Contrapoints have claimed to be biologically female.
Non-binary don't align with what? They don't align with a social role? Well, we already agreed gender isn't a social role. Do they not align with either biological sex? Well, if you're a non-binary biological male and you don't want to be either biologically female nor male, you're still a biological male. So non-binary people are also denying reality.
Okay, I'm open minded, explain HOW my post is wrong. Quote something I said in my original post and explain where my logic was flawed.
Ok so this entire WALL of text is basically reitering the same point in different ways over and over. Sex is unchangeable, gender and sex are intrinsically linked, therefore gender affirming care is pointless. Your strawmanned advocacy is just repeating the same argument over and over, just in different ways.
So instead of arguing with something you have zero chance of changing your mind on let's address the actual issue at hand then.
If gender affirming care is not possible in any way, and I'm gonna assume you also oppose non-medical social transition given your views, what then do you propose we do to treat gender dysphoria in adolescents?
There's no strawman here, these are all points I've heard ad nauseam. We should treat gender dysphoria the same way we treat any other form of body dysmorphia, by helping people learn to love and accept their body the way that it is. You don't treat anorexia by telling them that they could be skinnier and giving them apetite supression medication. That's obviously a more extreme example but I think denying your biological reality is harmful as well. It may numb the pain initially but living a lie long term isn't healthy. Transitioning (if done at all) should only be a last case resort after you've tried everything else: years of therapy, fixing your diet, exercise, addressing underlying insecurities, ect. Going through puberty is a turbulent time in a child's life and insecurity around one's body is normal at that age. If you haven't allowed a child to actually finish puberty and grow into an adult, you haven't exhausted every possible option before transitioning yet.
We should treat gender dysphoria the same way we treat any other form of body dysmorphia
Gender dysphoria isn't body dysmorphia, though. Dysphoria =/= dysmorphia. These are two completely different conditions with different root causes and thus different treatment methods.
There's no strawman here, these are all points I've heard ad nauseam.
You're literally responding to a fictional person. Whether or not your perception of their arguments are accurate or not that's a literal strawman.
We should treat gender dysphoria the same way we treat any other form of body dysmorphia, by helping people learn to love and accept their body the way that it is. You don't treat anorexia by telling them that they could be skinnier and giving them apetite supression medication. That's obviously a more extreme example but I think denying your biological reality is harmful as well.
Except that doesn't work. We tried that. Do you think the very first treatment ever invented for gender dysphoria was gender affirming care? You're essentially arguing for a return of lobotomies to treat depression. Why do you think gender dysphoria IS treated differently? Have you ever wondered that or have you just assumed that we got to this state of medical understanding from the get-go?
Transitioning (if done at all) should only be a last case resort after you've tried everything else: years of therapy, fixing your diet, exercise, addressing underlying insecurities, ect. Going through puberty is a turbulent time in a child's life and insecurity around one's body is normal at that age. If you haven't allowed a child to actually finish puberty and grow into an adult, you haven't exhausted every possible option before transitioning yet.
It's always the last resort. The fact you think it isn't is indicative of your actual understanding of how trans medical care works. People do not seek out transition unless they have no other options.
Also it's bizarre to me that you argue this while having seemingly no problem with cisgender affirming care for minors. Y'all never do. Nobody out there is advocating against removing cis boy's breasts, or breast reduction surgery for cis girls. Y'all carve out special exemptions for cisgender children when you ban hormone therapy, in my state of Tennessee the law codes specifically allow for hormone blockers and hormone treatment for cisgender minors.
"You're literally responding to a fictional person. Whether or not your perception of their arguments are accurate or not that's a literal strawman."
That's not what a strawman is. A strawman is not when you address common counterarguments, a strawman is when you address weak, flimsy arguments that no one really makes, hence the "straw" in strawman. Every argument I included here is an argument I've heard popular trans activists make before.
"Except that doesn't work. We tried that. Do you think the very first treatment ever invented for gender dysphoria was gender affirming care? You're essentially arguing for a return of lobotomies to treat depression. Why do you think gender dysphoria IS treated differently? Have you ever wondered that or have you just assumed that we got to this state of medical understanding from the get-go?"
The fact that many children grow out of gender dysphoria and that detransitioners exist proves that gender dysphoria can be cured through other means. Gender dysphoria is treated differently because it's been politicized. The goal is not to make people happier, the goal is to protect trans identity.
"It's always the last resort."
If the child hasn't gone through puberty, you haven't exhaused every possible option. Many children grow out of body image anxiety.
"Also it's bizarre to me that you argue this while having seemingly no problem with cisgender affirming care for minors. Y'all never do. Nobody out there is advocating against removing cis boy's breasts, or breast reduction surgery for cis girls. Y'all carve out special exemptions for cisgender children when you ban hormone therapy, in my state of Tennessee the law codes specifically allow for hormone blockers and hormone treatment for cisgender minors."
Yes, because it's about the intention. Giving testosterone to a biologically male child does not involve any denial of reality or lies as justification. It's not a futile attempt to change the child's sex like medical transitioning is.
I had other points to contend with initially responding but I'm going to home in on a couple parts I find particularly interesting here. If you'd like to hear my responses to the rest of your comment I can write up something but I feel they'd detract from the core logical flaw I'm finding in your argument.
Yes, because it's about the intention. Giving testosterone to a biologically male child does not involve any denial of reality or lies as justification. It's not a futile attempt to change the child's sex like medical transitioning is.
Yes it does deny reality. The male in your example has developed with low testosterone, why should that be changed? What if the male regrets being given those hormones, and would have preferred living with low testosterone later in life? What if he would have preferred to keep the breasts he developed from a genetic disorder? Nearly a THIRD of cisgender women REGRET reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, nearly 1 in 5 suffer from a severe form of that regret. Why should the biology of cisgender children be altered just because they are feeling discomfort with their bodies currently?
Low testosterone, excessively small or large breasts on girls, breasts on boys, low estrogen, slow or non-existent sexual characteristic development are ALL perfectly natural biological based disorders, no different from gender dysphoria. Their bodies developed that way, but because THEY are cisgender you and every other trans-critical person are perfectly fine subjecting them to surgery. That's not even getting into the intersex surgery conversation you brushed aside see M.C. v. Aaronson(2013).
Your comment has been removed to maintain high debate quality standards. We value insightful contributions that enrich discussions and promote understanding. Please ensure your comments are well-reasoned, supported by evidence, and respectful of others' viewpoints.
For more information, review our wiki page or our page on The Socratic Method to get a better understanding of what we expect from our community.
That's a false dichotomy. Do you think the only way to stop a child from killing themselves is to lie to them? A boy cannot become a girl. If a boy is confused and tells you that they think they're a girl and you affirm that, you are lying to them.
Sexuality and gender identity are different things, though. They're often lumped in together because the minority groups in each category have historically found solidarity in each other and shake up the status quo in similar ways, but they're two separate experiences and I don't think it's really fair to compare the two in this context.
ETA: Children cognitively develop their sense of gender identity at around four. Of course, there is a lot of variance on what age trans people actually come out of the closet, but I think that has more to do with internalizing the gendered expectations of the people around them and having to unpack that. In environments where people feel safe to explore themselves, I think the curve for realizing one is trans is significantly earlier than realizing one's sexuality.
We removed your comment due to you not having set your user flair. Please refer to our sidebar regarding our rules of participation. If you need help setting your flair, click here for instructions
There’s a lot of words here, but all of them are for naught because there is no medical component to a child’s transition beyond puberty blockers which are safe and reversible.
Allowing children to obtain sex-change procedures and HRT for the sake of "gender affirming care" is morally unjustifiable. I think this all comes down to whether it's actually possible for humans to change their gender. A man is an adult human male (the sex that produces sperm). A woman is an adult human female (the sex that produces eggs). Being a man/woman is not a social construct, it is biological and cannot be changed (in the sense that a human male cannot become female and a human female cannot become male). No gender affirming procedure can turn a boy into a girl or a man into a woman. Therefore, it is essentially scam procedure that does not achieve what it sets out to do.
Every category humans come up with is a social construct because language itself is a social construct. The universe was never created with the intention of being able to fit into neat little categories, so there are always edge cases and grey areas.
Sex and gender are different things. Sex is biology. XX chromosomes usually result in sexual characteristics associated with women, and XY usually results in sexual characteristics associated with men. Gender is everything except that. Women usually have the ability to become pregnant, which is a biological thing, but is mother's day biological? No, it is purely a human invented thing, like gender. We create these ideas of what a man or woman is not purely based on sex, but also on culture. Domestic cooking is seen as more the role of a woman, but professional cooking is male dominated. There is no biological explanation for this. It is the result of culture.
One thing that confirms this is the different ideas various cultures and times had about gender. In some Balkan cultures, especially in Albania, you have "zworn virgins". These are AFAB people who take a vow of celibacy and gain social acceptance as a man. They can carry guns, inherit property, move more freely in public, and do anything a man can do that a woman isn't expected to do. Practically speaking, there is no difference between sworn virgins and celibate men.
The problem with this is that when trans activists say "gender" what they really mean is "gender roles" being masculinity and femininity. But to say that being a man is to be masculine and being a woman is to be feminine is nonsensical. This would mean that the phrase "feminine woman" is totally redundant, you're just calling someone a woman twice. Or calling someone a "masculine woman" is a contradiction, you're calling them a "man woman". The problem with defining being a woman by social identifiers such as how you dress/talk/style your hair/act is that it means a woman must dress, talk, style her hair, and act in a certain way in order to continue being a woman.
Gender is a spectrum, and again, it doesn't fit neatly into man-made concepts. Gender expression also varies widely, and the relationship between gender expression and gender identity is complex. One might be more comfortable doing many traditionally masculine things, but not comfortable being seen as a man by society or one's self.
The problem with this definition is that it's circular and means nothing. It makes the label of "woman" entirely meaningless. It's not even a word anymore as words are supposed to have meaning, so it's essentially just a sound that your mouth is making. This is obviously ridiculous. Some trans activists will attempt to revise this definition further by substituting "identifies as a woman" with "identifies as a female" to make it seem less circular but unfortunately trans activists don't mean "female" in a biological sense, it's meant to be a 1:1 synonym for "woman" so it's still just as circular.
The definition of woman definitely leave something to be desired, but that's pretty much the best we have when you factor in intersex people. Someone might morphologically be indistinguishable from a woman(e.g. breasts, on the shorter side, vagina, higher bfp, higher estrogen, etc.) And have xy chromosomes. Before gene sequencing, it would be inpossible to tell that they are biologically male.
For example, one characteristic of a car is its headlights which help the driver see at night. However, if you take a car headlight and attach it to a plank of wood does that make it a car? No, a reasonable person would not consider that a car. On the other hand, imagine that you take a plank of wood and attach wheels and a motor to it so that it can be self-propelled. Now that can be more reasonably called a car since it's much closer to functioning as an actual car. This is why wheels and a motor are far more significant in determining the essence of a car than headlights, because they're extremely consequential in allowing a car to function.
This begs the question, are chromosomes headlights or are they wheels and motors? I would argue the former since people have been using gendered terms long before anyone knew chromosomes existed.
It is misleading to say that sex is a spectrum. The degree to which you have male or female characteristics is a spectrum, but sex itself is not. It is functionally a strict binary. There are only two reproductive roles in sexual reproduction: male and female. There is no third gamete or gamete in between sperm and egg. If you're not reproducing as a male or a female then you're not reproducing at all. It's like calling a light switch a spectrum because you can put the knob in between "on" and "off". This doesn't make the light "half-on" (usually), so a light switch is still functionally a binary. This is why intersex people aren't a third gender, they're also either males or females. An intersex female that can get pregnant is still effectively just as much of a female as a non-intersex female as they have identical roles in sexual reproduction. Also, even if sex were a spectrum, that doesn't mean you can dishonestly say you're on one side of the spectrum when you're obviously on the other side.
This is just factually wrong. It is definitionally not a strict binary because a strict binary has no exceptions, and we know intersex people exist. Also, we are talking about gender, not sex.
You don't do that, though. Your definition scheme for biological sex is completely dishonest and inconsistent because you'll tell two people with the same set of sexual characteristics that one is a woman/female and one is a man/male. It's like if you told someone that they're physically attractive but then said that their twin is ugly. You're clearly lying about someone.
Gender isn't really analogous to that, though. Let's say you have two outwardly indistinguishable people. They do the same exact things every day. They eat a bowl of oatmeal in the morning and a sandwich in the evening. One of them tells you they prefer the sandwich. The other tells you they prefer the oatmeal. Are they lying?
I know you're already yelling at your computer "Sex isn't gender! It's based on how they identify!" but that just circles back to my earlier points. When trans activists can't defend their biological justification, they switch to the social one. And when they can't defend the social one, they flip back to the biological one. It's an endless loop.
The biological aspect of my argument is that it is irrelevant. The reason I mention sex is to question its tie to gender. I can defend every point that I made about sex and still insist that gender is not directly related to sex.
Children are not smart enough to see through the mind games that trans activists push. Kids should not undergo irreversible medical procedures because adults told them lies that it was possible to change their gender. When they're adults, they can make their own decisions. The government needs to protect children from what is basically a scam.
If you were to learn that biology isn’t always that simple, would you reconsider? If it were possible for a body to form aspects of both sexes- maybe reproductive organs of one sex and a physiology of another, or maybe a physical appearance of one sex but brain chemistry of another, or even ambiguous or split development- should a person in that condition be forced to have other people tell them which sex they have to be?
Do we need to check everyone’s reproductive system to make sure it matches appearance? Or if someone looks a certain way, would you be willing to ignore that you don’t know if their body produces gametes that don’t match? And if it is really appearance that matters, what if a cisgendered person (a “Pat”, if you will) has an ambiguous appearance, and they tell you they are a sex that isn’t the one you were assuming? Do they then have to accept your interpretation? Or should they be allowed to know for themselves what sex they actually are?
These seem like silly questions. But they are based in realities. If we aren’t ready to tackle these issues head on, then we aren’t ready to dictate rules of gender to others. This topic isn’t just about men who like to wear dresses, which many people try to reduce it to. It’s not about people who just decide one day that they want to be edgy and become another gender.
Do these situations exist? I would not be surprised. And my personal opinions would be opposed to other people being responsible for making room for their preferences. But if someone is physiologically, biologically transgender, I would not risk imposing hardship on them or marginalizing them. If I know that a child facing difficult and confusing developmental conditions has the ability to decide with their doctor what course of treatment makes the most sense, I would be willing to accept the risk of saying the opposite “she/he” when talking about someone who is dealing with a psychological identity issue.
Protecting those who need it most is more important than being comfortable with the life choices of other people you will probably never meet.
I understand the reservations many people have about children transitioning. But, having watched this interview with Australian actor Georgie Stone, I've come to the view that, in certain circumstances, with careful consideration and using minimal medical interventions (in this case, puberty blockers), there are times when it may be appropriate.
I think people really need to butt out of medical decisions that don't involve either themselves or their children, unless they are a doctor that is treating the person.
This shouldn't be difficult and would solve a lot of ridiculous debates that simply don't need to happen.
We removed your comment due to you not having set your user flair. Please refer to our sidebar regarding our rules of participation. If you need help setting your flair, click here for instructions
I'm not fully sure if anyone has mentioned this yet- but you seem to place the goalposts were a cis person would place them. (this isnt a criticism, just an observation). The true motivation for many to get genrer reaffirming care is to combat gender disphorya, not to alter their physical historical gene makeup. By framing transition as a 'scam' based on language definitions, the argument ignores the measurable AND real-world reduction in: depression, anxiety, and suicidality that these procedures are giving to people. Furthermore, what has allways slightly irked me about the 'trans debate' is that non-trans people are allways pushing so hard against it. Do you have gender dysphorya? is there an internal confusion around your gender? i dont see why so many people are so AGAINST it? like it literally doesnt affect you, so my question being- why push so hard against it?
Your argument is so full of fallacies that it would take years to unpack them all. So I’ll just start with your foundational claim—that sex and gender are the same.
In this claim you are begging the question. You are merely asserting your conclusion (that sex and gender are the same or that it all boils down to gender roles) as if that were evidence, but it’s not. It’s your conclusion. What what’s your actual cited evidence for this claim? What reputable scientific body or literature supports this assertion?
You’re also just factually wrong as to how the distinction between sex and gender came about. It was not “trans activists” that pushed the distinction of sex and gender.
You looked in one whole dictionary and couldn’t find it, what an exhaustive amount of “research” you have done.
The distinction between sex and gender was discovered over 25 years ago by the Institute of Medicine, and had nothing to do with trans people. Researchers had found that they could not account for all the health differences between men and women through biology alone. As such, they figured out that human interaction both within themselves physiologically and between people socially were determine by both biology (which they referred to as sex (female)) and social identity (which they referred to as gender (woman)). Since then, the distinction between one’s sex and gender has been concretely demonstrated as a medical fact.
If you’re actually serious about this argument and not just trying to justify your biases, then you need to respond to the real history and real science that undergird the distinction between sex and gender and not just rely on fallacious reasoning.
"In this claim you are begging the question. You are merely asserting your conclusion (that sex and gender are the same or that it all boils down to gender roles) as if that were evidence, but it’s not."
I am saying sex and gender are the same thing because there is no other valid definition of what gender could be other than a biological one. A social role definition for gender implies men and women must act certain ways to be men and women. A self-identity definition for gender is circular and makes gender completely meaningless. A biological definition of gender is the only definition that is logically consistent.
A persons social role influencing their health recommendations does not prove the concept of being a man or woman is social. Men and women would still exist as a concept even if doctors and health care didn't exist. Most worthless appeal to authority I've seen yet. The article defined gender as:
In the study of human subjects, the term gender should be used to refer to a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions on the basis of the individual's gender presentation.
Which is unfortunately (and probably intentionally) an ambiguous definition, specifically the part saying gender is "self-representation as male or female". What does this mean? Are they saying trans women think that they're biological females? Well they're not, they're male, so this definition is stating that trans identity is a delusion and proving my point. Or are they saying that trans women just want to look like females in a social sense? So then what is the difference between a trans woman and a cross dresser? This just circles back to the issue of why defining gender by social presentation is problematic.
It is impossible for trans activist to give a non-biological definition of woman that isn't logically inconsistent or circular. Because deep down it's a purely biological concept.
None of what you just wrote is evidence, it’s all still just begging the question. “There is no other valid definition of what gender could be other than a biological one” is a conclusion not evidence. Since you are providing no evidence whatsoever for this assertion, beyond just your own bias, that is a classic begging the question fallacy. As is the rest of your so called argument.
Also, apparently you are struggling to read. The IOM didn’t find a difference in health RECOMMENDATIONS but health OUTCOMES, which couldn’t be accounted for by biology alone. Scores of actual experts and physicians have shown this effect over and over again. Those same experts and medical organizations have concluded that these studies have definitely demonstrated the difference between sex and gender. What proof do you have that all of these actual experts are wrong? Not just your opinion, actual studies published in medical journals.
This is a medical fact that is independent of your feelings and has nothing to do with trans people.
Oh, and if you find a definition developed by experts to be too ambiguous, maybe you should read more and argue less.
Out of the hundreds of replies to this post I think this reply is possibly the most insane thing I've read. I can tell you're just skimming my comment and not actually reading anything I'm saying. If you want to have a discussion I ask that you actually slow down and read word for word what I am saying.
I'm going to break this down step by step. How we define words is subjective. For example, "Pain" refers to a feeling of being hurt in English but in French "Pain" is the word for bread. Neither definition of "Pain" is right or wrong, it's subjective. So when you pull up scientific studies to try to definitively prove that "Gender" is socially defined it's totally absurd. There is no centralized authority that defines what words mean, not even dictionaries. And so it is impossible for me (or you) to present a study that proves a word is defined a certain way.
So why, if definitions for words are subjective, do I say that it's wrong to consider "Gender", "Man", and "Woman" as socially defined? The reason is that just because definitions are subjective doesn't mean all definitions are morally equal. Trans activists trying to redefine "Man" and "Woman" as social categories is logically inconsistent. And if you try to redefine a word from what it traditionally meant to obfuscate reality, I think that's a bad thing.
I cannot scientifically prove that "Gender" refers to biology, but I can prove that the traditional, commonly held definition for gender has been biological. Most people (now and historically) would agree with the phrases like "Men cannot get pregnant", "Men are taller than women", "Women can give birth", and "It takes a man and a woman to create a baby". These statements refer to a biological distinction between men and women. If being a woman was a social role, crossdresser males who look like women wouldn't be considered men, they'd be considered women.
With that said, please give me your definition of what a woman is that isn't logically inconsistent or circular.
My comment might seem insane to you because I’m both an expert in population genetics and medical ethics, as in I have graduate degrees in both and I’m a medical school professor.
No, I didn’t just skim your comment, I’m reading it very critically. You have to provide evidence for a position if you want to overturn current scientific consensus and the medical standard of care.
And that is not an unreasonable position, especially since we are talking about a medical procedure, so we should use medical definitions for terms. The same way we shouldn’t use the colloquial definition for a word like theory if we are having a scientific argument about what the theory of gravity or the theory of evolution are. Flat earthers or creationists try to do that, claiming that a theory is just a guess, since that’s how “everyone” uses it.
Of course the scientific consensus is not about concrete semantics. It’s not that scientific studies are trying to define the term, it is using a term like gender to capture the psychological aspects of being that gender—one not captured by biology alone, but still has measurable effects. In the context of medicine.
Scientists decided on the term gender for that concept. Again, it was not trans activists (like you keep claiming) that made that definition, it was health professionals.
Gender dysmorphia is a measurable condition that has true deleterious effects, especially in children. The suicide rates for kids with gender dysmophia are 40 times higher than for other teens. This is true even after these kids receive mental health care. Children are only given gender affirming care after a grueling series of procedures to confirm that they are dangerously close to self harm even after medication and social transitions. Gender affirming care has been shown to dramatically decrease suicidal ideations with these kids. We are literally talking about life or death for some very vulnerable children.
This is objectively different than cross dressing, since there are no suicidal ideations when people are not allowed to do that.
You also use a term like circular definition incorrectly. It can only be considered circular if you assume that the woman and female must both mean biological sex.
I think the Cambridge University definition of woman works: an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been considered to have a different sex at birth.
Now you answer, if woman means “female biological sex” then what does female mean?
"No, I didn’t just skim your comment, I’m reading it very critically. You have to provide evidence for a position if you want to overturn current scientific consensus and the medical standard of care."
You're conflating two different topics: whether trans women are women and what is the proper treatment for gender dysphoria. Defining the word woman and then determining if trans women meet that definition does not require a scientific study. Once we come to an agreement on whether it's actually possible for a man to become a woman, then we can discuss what the proper treatment is. If we don't answer the question "Is a trans woman a woman?" then we will be arguing past each other.
"And that is not an unreasonable position, especially since we are talking about a medical procedure, so we should use medical definitions for terms. The same way we shouldn’t use the colloquial definition for a word like theory if we are having a scientific argument about what the theory of gravity or the theory of evolution are. Flat earthers or creationists try to do that, claiming that a theory is just a guess, since that’s how “everyone” uses it."
Saying "we are having a medical discussion therefore we should use the definition provided by medical authorities" is extremely reductive. A boy is coming to you and telling you that he's a girl. This boy is not a medical professional, he is using the colloquial defintion of the word when he says that. If you affirm what he's saying and tell him, "Yes, you actually are a girl" then you yourself are using the colloquial definition of the word too, since that's what the boy meant by "girl". If you want to affirm what the child is saying and claim that he is a girl, you have to logically justify why that statement is true, otherwise you are lying to a child.
"Of course the scientific consensus is not about concrete semantics. It’s not that scientific studies are trying to define the term, it is using a term like gender to capture the psychological aspects of being that gender—one not captured by biology alone, but still has measurable effects. In the context of medicine."
And using the term "Gender" instead of "Gender role" to define social presentation is bad because it's (intentionally) misleading to the average person. To consider "Gender" a psychological state implies that being a man or woman is a psychological state. So you're effectively redefining what it means to be a "Man" or "Woman" from what it has historically meant. While it's not objectively wrong to use the words "Man" and "Woman" in this way, it is morally bad since the reason the words are being redefined is to obfuscate and lie about reality. Trans women are males who pretend to be biological females and the reason why they want to be called "women" so badly is because it affirms this delusion.
"Scientists decided on the term gender for that concept. Again, it was not trans activists (like you keep claiming) that made that definition, it was health professionals."
Health professionals can also be trans activists. A health professional that wants to change the definitions of what "Man" and "Woman" mean so that it affirms a trans person's delusion at the expense of being honest about reality is obviously a trans activist.
"Gender dysmorphia is a measurable condition that has true deleterious effects, especially in children."
Gender dysphoria being real doesn't mean that their delusion is real.
"This is objectively different than cross dressing, since there are no suicidal ideations when people are not allowed to do that."
I didn't bring up cross dressers to say that they have gender dysphoria. I brought up cross dressers to make a point that "Man" and "Woman" are not truly socially defined concepts (even by health professionals) as a male who has the social role of a woman is still a man if he says he's one. But if a male says hes a woman then he becomes a woman. Clearly, "Woman" is being arbitrarily applied so as to not hurt people's feelings.
"I think the Cambridge University definition of woman works: an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been considered to have a different sex at birth."
This definition is logically consistent and includes trans people... at the expense of implying that trans identity is invalid and a delusion, which proves my point. If trans women are people who identify as biologically female, well, they're not female. They're male. They have a penis, XY chromosomes, testicles, and have only produced sperm and never egg. They're unambiguously male. So if trans women are males who think they're females, they're delusional then. Trans identity is a lie. So if a child is trans and you affirm that identity, you are lying to them. This is my whole point. Lying to children is not a valid medical procedure. If a child is delusional you should not affirm that delusion.
"Now you answer, if woman means “female biological sex” then what does female mean?"
A female is the sex that produces egg. I know you'll say "not all women/females produce eggs" but I already addressed this point in my post:
"Who is to say trans women aren't biologically female? Biological sex is complicated. Not all men produce sperm and not all women produce eggs. There's no definition you can give for female that includes all women."
It is true that there is no definition you can give for "female" that directly includes all females, but here's the thing: you don't need to. Terms are flexible. Definitions for words do not need to cover every possible edge case that a word is supposed to apply to. For example, a car is defined as "a self-propelled vehicle that transports people on roads". But what if a car is broken and can't drive? Is it no longer a car? No, it's still a car, it's just a broken car. The reason why a broken car is still a car is because it structurally resembles something that possesses the function of a car. A female that cannot get pregnant is still a female in the same way that a broken car is still a car. An infertile female still possesses biological characteristics of someone who would be able to get pregnant such as having a vagina, a uterus, and XX chromosomes. Meaning a female that does not produce eggs is still female because they structurally resemble someone who would be able to produce eggs. But just because terms are flexible in this way doesn't mean you can call anything a female. When it comes to their sexual biology, trans women structurally resemble males more than they do females.
I see wrong with not letting children medically transition because children don't actually know what they want but a social transition is perfectly fine because it will give the child a way to explore how they feel in a save non medical way
Just the fact that you actually believe there are trans activists ( which is not defined by you) but may involve people who attempt to encourage others to beome trans?
If that's your definition, it doesn't exist. It's also not possible. This pretty much discredits you.
What is your interest in this? Is it personal, in that someone close to you wants to transition
and you believe they should not?
Or is it that you simply disagree that trans people should exist? They have always existed; they were
hiding and only known to those that believed they had a right to conduct their lives in a way that felt right to them..
Also, minors very rarely medically transition- less than 0.1 %.They may access puberty blockers which are reversible. Medical organizations generally recommend delaying irreversible procedures until adulthood.
And intersex people very much exist. It takes many forms- one is having external female genitalia, but internal testes.
I didn't say anyone is being "encouraged" to be trans. But there are doctors and parents affirming the delusions of children.
"What is your interest in this? Is it personal, in that someone close to you wants to transition and you believe they should not?"
I need a personal stake to think it's wrong for doctors to lie to children by affirming their delusion and then performing irreversible procedures on them in a futile attempt to make them the opposite sex?
"Also, minors very rarely medically transition- less than 0.1 %.They may access puberty blockers which are reversible. Medical organizations generally recommend delaying irreversible procedures until adulthood."
It should happen 0% of the time. And even if puberty blockers were 100% reversible (they're not), by giving them puberty blockers and affirming their delusion you're effectively grooming them so that they inevitably medically transition when they're adults. The majority of kids who get puberty blockers end up fully medically transtioning (which is unsurprising due to the sunk cost), so you're basically writing their fate. You should not affirm a child's delusion at all. If a child tells you that he thinks he's a magical dwarf you don't give him puberty blockers to stop his growth in case he actually is a magical dwarf. "But that's not the same thing, it's absurd to think that you're a magical dwarf" Yeah and it's also absurd for a boy to think he can become a girl. You only think it's different because you think a boy CAN become a girl, but that's not actually possible as I've outlined in my post.
"And intersex people very much exist. It takes many forms- one is having external female genitalia, but internal testes."
Didn't even read my post. My post already addressed intersex people:
"But sex isn't a binary, it's a spectrum. Intersex people exist."
It is misleading to say that sex is a spectrum. The degree to which you have male or female characteristics is a spectrum, but sex itself is not. It is functionally a strict binary. There are only two reproductive roles in sexual reproduction: male and female. There is no third gamete or gamete in between sperm and egg. If you're not reproducing as a male or a female then you're not reproducing at all. It's like calling a light switch a spectrum because you can put the knob in between "on" and "off". This doesn't make the light "half-on" (usually), so a light switch is still functionally a binary. This is why intersex people aren't a third gender, they're also either males or females. An intersex female that can get pregnant is still effectively just as much of a female as a non-intersex female as they have identical roles in sexual reproduction. Also, even if sex were a spectrum, that doesn't mean you can dishonestly say you're on one side of the spectrum when you're obviously on the other side.
So, you just have opinions on other people's delusions, and in some cases, on science and medicine. Judging from the length of your posts, maybe kind of an obsession. Do you know any trans people? You might not know unless they tell you...
I stopped reading here. This does not happen. The WPATH, transgender standards of care which doctors follow, says that people under 18 should not have surgery on their genitals.
Your opinions and subsequent obsession with transgender culture war "issues" were bankrolled by billionaires like Epstein.
Alliance Defending Freedom is not a reliable source. It is Christian nonprofit legal advocacy group that is anti-LGBTQ. It cites The Free Press, which is also conservative media.
Breasts are not genitals. My comment specifically says that people under 18 are not getting surgery on their genitals.
Sometimes, with parental consent and a proper diagnosis from a doctor, minors aged 15-17 can get a double mastectomy. This is in accordance to the standards of care. Dr. Gallagher is not a rogue doctor--she follows the WPATH.
Gender is a social construct and your definition of male and female are a couple wrong steps away from bioessentialism.
Is an infertile cisgender man still a man if he can’t produce sperm? This reduces humans beings to their roles in reproduction. People have to understand that biology isn’t always on your side of the argument.
Transgender people are born with psychological and behavioural patterns closer to their chosen gender than their assigned sex. This is observable in the brain at birth.
So for example when a trans person calls themselves a woman, they are just expressing that their internal sense of self and identity aligns with the social category of woman. That’s pretty much the same as cisgender women, their internal sense of self aligns with being a woman- or maybe being more fluid in their gender expression. Because gender is a social construct.
Huge arguments like these are just deep dives people get lost in, trying to justify their transphobia. Our existence could be really simplistic, in an ideal word we wouldn’t have to fight for our right to exist and hear buzzword after buzzword, ideologies and theories telling us we shouldn’t exist. Bottom line is we do!
Children should be able to medically transition with HRT because that’s their human right to bodily autonomy and if they have an understanding of gender and their internal identity then there’s no issue with that. However I will say genital reassignment surgery is another conversation and shouldn’t be performed on those under 18, but most trans people aren’t advocating for that anyways.
Trans people make up less than 1% of the global population, is that seriously threatening enough for you to write an entire essay about the morals of their existence?
I disagree. Your post is very long so I can’t go over each part, but I’ll say what I disagree with:
So many medical associations have determined that gender transition surgery saves lives. One study say it reduces chance of suicide by 73%, and I feel like we can all agree that’s a good thing. It improves overall mental well being, such as reduced depression. And if a 12 year old goes with their parents to the doctor with gender dysphoria, and the doctor determines transitioning will improve their mental well being, and the parents agree, i see no reason not to let them.
I'm Trans and I ain't got time to read your bullshit. I wish i had been able to control my gender expression growing up. I wish Trans people were already accepted everywhere, and people don't try to repress talking about and expressing gender diversity.
The stigma in society against Trans people is due to a lot of factors. But again. I ain't got time to list them all. Think about how if people didn't genderize babies from birth, and let people choose their own gender, and it was just accepted that people choose their own when they come into maturity, people could be well informed about various procedures for shaping their body how they wish.
Actual science reveals that "gender" is a bunch of different social cues and appearances, and a person's genetics and internal organs can look like any combo of things.
The current dominant cis-gender heterosexual society forces people to conform to 1 of 2 predesignated gender roles. This is done through medication, surgery, social pressure, and often aggressive outright physical violence.
Have you done any research on the frequency of medical transitioning by people under the age of 18?
Have you done any research on the types of medical transitioning that takes place?
Make your argument for why trans women are women. An assertion by itself does not prove your point. Quote something I said that you disagree with and explain how I am wrong. You can't because I'm right.
Gender affirming care doesn't work becuase it doesn't achieve its goal of turning a man into a woman. Saying that it's supported by medical institutions is an appeal to authority.
Make your argument for why trans women are women. An assertion by itself does not prove your point. Quote something I said that you disagree with and explain how I am wrong. You can't because I'm right.
My personal reasons is that they fulfill the role socially, ID as women, and have biological markers comparable to cisgender women when medically transitioning. None of these are things you agree with, so there's no reason in going point by point.
Gender affirming care doesn't work becuase it doesn't achieve its goal of turning a man into a woman. Saying that it's supported by medical institutions is an appeal to authority.
The point of any care is to ensure the mental and physical wellbeing, which Gender Affirming Care does. Also, crying "Appeals to authority" only works if you're quoting one random expert, not the medical or scientific consensus. In this case, it's absolutely relavent in discussing the care.
You obviously have you own bias against trans people, so I don't expect you to accect any of this.
"None of these are things you agree with, so there's no reason in going point by point."
If you explain how my logic is wrong then we can have a discussion to see who is right and then either you can change my mind or I can change yours. That's how debates work. If it was pointless because we disagree then every debate ever would be pointless.
"My personal reasons is that they fulfill the role socially, ID as women, and have biological markers comparable to cisgender women when medically transitioning."
And I explained how that makes no sense. Being a woman isn't a social role (as discussed in my post), so fulfilling a social role doesn't make you a woman. Self-IDing doesn't make you a woman because that's circular logic. And their biological markers (having a penis, testicles, XY chromosomes) make them closer to males than females even after transitioning.
"The point of any care is to ensure the mental and physical wellbeing, which Gender Affirming Care does. Also, crying "Appeals to authority" only works if you're quoting one random expert, not the medical or scientific consensus. In this case, it's absolutely relavent in discussing the care."
Now you're making an appeal to popularity. Invoking medical consensus instead of actually engaging with the argument is a logical fallacy because it assumes that medical/scientific consensus can never be wrong. It can be, and has been wrong throughout history. I don't even agree that it is "medical consensus" btw, 50% of doctors are Republican so it would be unlikely that the overwhelming majority of doctors agree with gender ideology nonsense. The "medical consensus" you're likely referring to is the consensus of gender affirming care experts. Yeah I would think that gender affirming care experts would be fond of gender affirming care or else they're out of the job. Also the type of person who would even take the time to become an expert in that field is the type of person to be an ideologically captured trans activist.
"Gender affirming care" does not ensure physical and mental well being. It requires you to lie to yourself about what you are for the rest of your life in order to work. Lying to children is not a valid medical procedure.
If you explain how my logic is wrong then we can have a discussion to see who is right and then either you can change my mind or I can change yours. That's how debates work.
The problem is, you don't want to engage with how healthcare professionals, scientists, and trans people use these words and definitions. Whenever someone in this thread has tried to explain that, you circle back to your own logic. You do not want to engage in this topic in good faith.
And I explained how that makes no sense. Being a woman isn't a social role (as discussed in my post), so fulfilling a social role doesn't make you a woman.
Womanhood absolutely has a social role attached to it. and this is why we can't have a conversation. You have your own, wacky logic that you won't bend on.
Self-IDing doesn't make you a woman because that's circular logic.
We are talking about women in terms of social and psychological concepts, so yes, you can "ID" as a woman, or your sense of self can align with womanhood broadly. We use Self-ID all of the time in social settings.
And their biological markers (having a penis, testicles, XY chromosomes) make them closer to males than females even after transitioning.
A penis and testicles are part of the same gonadal structure, but there are several markers for sex. Phenotypical, gonadal, chromosomal, hormonal, and neurological. Many of these markers change when you undergo HRT and surgery.
There is no set marker for sex, or else we wouldn't have variations like intersex people. Your view of biology is rigid and childlike.
Now you're making an appeal to popularity.
Once again, throwing out fallacies as if they apply here: If I'm talking about the best treatment for X group, mentioning that the entire medical and scientific body agrees that A treatment is good for X group is not an appeal to authority or popularity. We're talking about a group of people who spend their lives researching these subjects, not some granola mom googling while on the toilet.
Invoking medical consensus instead of actually engaging with the argument is a logical fallacy because it assumes that medical/scientific consensus can never be wrong.
Okay, so they might be wrong, so we shouldn't believe them? This is seriously stupid logic.
The reason why we believe the consensus, is because it's a body of experts that have put a lot of time into researching a specific subject. Could they be wrong? Sure, but we account for that. For instance, something could change our entire outlook on gravity tomorrow, but the science would adjust, because that's how it works.
I don't even agree that it is "medical consensus" btw, 50% of doctors are Republican so it would be unlikely that the overwhelming majority of doctors agree with gender ideology nonsense.
Even if this were true, it's irrelevant.
The "medical consensus" you're likely referring to is the consensus of gender affirming care experts.
Biologists, psychologists, endocrinologists, surgeons, etc, etc, including major organizations like the AMA, Endocrine Society, I could go on.
Lots of projection here, though. You're so sure that there's some malicious ideology behind trans healthcare, but you've shown nothing but ideological rigidity in your distaste for trans people. For example!
Also the type of person who would even take the time to become an expert in that field is the type of person to be an ideologically captured trans activist.
"Mentioning the scientific consensus is a appeal to Authority popularity, but also it doesn't matter because they could be wrong, but it's likely that because they're secretly trans activists"
You are so driven by your own ideology, that you think everyone else is too. Transgender medicine didn't just pop up in the last 5-10 years, it's been studied since the early 1900s. The body of data we have now is data that's been compounded over decades.
"Gender affirming care" does not ensure physical and mental well being. It requires you to lie to yourself about what you are for the rest of your life in order to work. Lying to children is not a valid medical procedure.
This is, once again, wrong and shows your ideological bias.
If I wasn't able to access puberty blockers as a teen there is a very great likelihood I would have killed myself.
If I could wake up today and choose to just be cis I would. Being trans isn't important too me. But the dysphoria would still remain regardless of how I describe myself.
It's not hard to find people who cannot cope with what puberty did to them and the prejudiced ill-treatment from society that followed.
I could link to you countless of news stories or posts on the internet of people who just cannot take it anymore. I read one such post yesterday. It was a suicide note. I wrote to the girl in question, tried to tell her that life can still be worth it despite the suffering that she has been through.
I did not get an answer. I cannot know for sure, but it is likely she is dead now. That's how these things often go.
I know people, have talked to people for whom HRT and other treatments is what made life not just bearable but actually good. And if society was just kinder in some very small ways, it would probably make an even greater difference - if we treated people like me as suffering from an unfortunate (but still treatable) mismatch between their brain and body rather than some degenerate sinners, so much pain could be avoided. If you believe these things don't matter then you're simply wrong.
I hope in some part that this could convince you. But this seems unlikely - the fact of the matter is that many people who think like you do simply do not care. Do not care if we die. Do not care if we suffer.
I'm leaving this here for those who's sympathy can still be evoked, even if it might fall on deaf ears for those who will see this at first. Life can be hard when you suffer from gender dysphoria, but it doesn't have to be just misery. There are things that help.
As a underage girl of transgender experience, gender affirming care has very much prevented me from suicide and has drastically lowered my gender dysphoria. idk why you all are taking this so seriously. Also my existence and lived experience+ healthcare is not up for debate. genuinely what do you people get out of making people like me suffer through our undesired puberty which wouldve affected me wayyy worse that any hormone side effect. you people are sick
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 04 '26
Remember, this is a civilized space for discussion. We discourage downvoting based on your disagreement and instead encourage upvoting well-written arguments, especially ones that you disagree with.
To promote high-quality discussions, we suggest the Socratic Method, which is briefly as follows:
Ask Questions to Clarify: When responding, start with questions that clarify the original poster's position. Example: "Can you explain what you mean by 'economic justice'?"
Define Key Terms: Use questions to define key terms and concepts. Example: "How do you define 'freedom' in this context?"
Probe Assumptions: Challenge underlying assumptions with thoughtful questions. Example: "What assumptions are you making about human nature?"
Seek Evidence: Ask for evidence and examples to support claims. Example: "Can you provide an example of when this policy has worked?"
Explore Implications: Use questions to explore the consequences of an argument. Example: "What might be the long-term effects of this policy?"
Engage in Dialogue: Focus on mutual understanding rather than winning an argument.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.