The part about minors getting transition surgeries is just hysterical nonsense, and I think you probably know it.
As for gay marriage and abortion, they don't represent freedom for you because you don't happen to need them. But for the others who do, they represent some very basic individual freedoms, and are necessary for their full self-actualization, in just the way that the emancipation of former slaves and the extension of voting rights to women represented forms of very basic freedom for those groups. And I could add, just in the way that freedom from British Imperial prerogatives was essential for the liberty of individual American settlers, even though some settlers opposed this freedom and wanted to remain loyal to the British crown.
As an aside, you know social/religious conservatives are losing the argument about rights expansion when they resort to talk about "protecting the innocent"-- children and fetuses, eliding basic freedoms that individuals enjoy in many of the world's societies with child abuse and murder. No one ACTUALLY believes this. It's all about conservatives giving themselves permission to go after basic individual freedoms they just don't like.
In fact, quite a few minors have had and are in the process of getting surgical double mastectomies for reasons of "transition." This has been going on for years now.
In a paper published in JAMA Pediatrics in May 2018 using data collected in 2016, the head of the "clinic specializing in transgender youth care" at Children's Hospital Los Angeles reported that 94% of the female patients age 13-24 at the clinic who responded to a survey said that getting their breasts surgically removed was "very important" to them.
The paper also said that of the young female patients at the clinic who had already had double mastectomies, 49% were younger than 18 at the time of their surgeries - and of those, 48% were 15 or younger when they had their breasts removed.
The paper - "Chest Reconstruction and Chest Dysphoria in Transmasculine Minors and Young Adults" - by Joanna Olson-Kennedy MD et al is available in full for free online.
As for genital surgeries, there are indeed young males in the USA who were "transitioned" by their parents as small children who when they were still minors had surgeries to remove their testicles, flay their penises and rearrange the remaining tissue so as to resemble a vulva and to create an internal cavity that these youngsters were sadly told would be a vagina.
Transgender "poster child" Jazz Jennings was 17 when Jazz had the series of gruesome, painful genital surgeries documented on the TV series "I Am Jazz." Trinity Neal of Delaware was 16, which is why Neal was described in the press as "one of the youngest" teens in the US to have this kind of surgery.
Moreover, there are many in the field of "gender medicine" who for many years have advocated for an end to age restrictions, rules of caution and ethical standards which restrict doctors' ability to surgically castrate and remove the penises of male minors with gender identity issues.
On the "I Am Jazz" show, Jazz Jennings' genital surgeon Marci Bowers MD, who is the new head of WPATH, advocated doing genital surgeries on males like Jazz whilst they are under 18 and still in high school and living under their parents' roofs because Bowers doesn't think these youngsters can be trusted to comply with the post-surgery self-care instructions and dilation regimens when they're older and are living in college dorms or on their own.
In a TED Talk given in 2018, Tandy Aye MD, head of the pediatric gender clinic at Stanford Children’s Hospital in California, argued that since males like Jazz Jennings and Trinity Neal were already chemically castrated and rendered permanently sterile by "puberty blockers" and Big Pharma estrogen starting when they were 11 and 12, it would be a good idea to go ahead and surgically remove their balls and dicks before they turn 18 too.
Gender Affirmation Surgery is currently reserved for those who are 18 years or older. Rather, Tandy Aye argues for why it may be more beneficial for surgery...
Whilst I agree with your overall points about rights, liberties and autonomy, the issue you are overlooking is that children and adolescents do not have the same capacity to make sound decisions and to exercise personal and bodily autonomy as adults do. Which is why in many matters - medical care, sexual behavior, drinking and buying alcohol, buying and using tobacco, entering legal contracts, obtaining financial products like credit cards and mortgages, getting a license to operate a motor vehicle, getting tattoos, getting married, deciding what time to go to bed and what to eat - there are different rules, customs and laws for minors than for full-fledged adults.
You might disagree, but some people believe that individually and collectively, adults and society at large have a duty of care to safeguard the physical and mental health of children and adolescents and to prevent them from abuse, exploitation and needless harm.
Of course, some people who publicly object to what's being done to the minds and bodies of children, minor teens and young adults in the name of "gender identity," "youth transition" and "gender affirming medical care" are grandstanding right-wing blowhards who don't really give a toss about these youngsters. But many people all across the political spectrum do genuinely care - and many are very well informed.
If you looked into this issue a bit more deeply, you'd find that there are a lot of liberal, progressive adults from various walks of life, parents, LGB people - and quite a few trans-identified adults too - who are alarmed by the way the gender identity lobby and youth transition industry are using arguments about rights, liberties and "bodily autonomy" to justify adults using powerful Big Pharma drugs and scalpels to sterilize, castrate and remove the healthy body parts of minors. We're not all phonies, reactionaries and/or nutters full of what you call "hysterical nonsense."
The part about minors getting transition surgeries is just hysterical nonsense, and I think you probably know it.
As for gay marriage and abortion, they don't represent freedom for you because you don't happen to need them. But for the others who do, they represent some very basic individual freedoms, and are necessary for their full self-actualization, in just the way that the emancipation of former slaves and the extension of voting rights to women represented forms of very basic freedom for those groups. And I could add, just in the way that freedom from British Imperial prerogatives was essential for the liberty of individual American settlers, even though some settlers opposed this freedom and wanted to remain loyal to the British crown.
As an aside, you know social/religious conservatives are losing the argument about rights expansion when they resort to talk about "protecting the innocent"-- children and fetuses, eliding basic freedoms that individuals enjoy in many of the world's societies with child abuse and murder. No one ACTUALLY believes this. It's all about conservatives giving themselves permission to go after basic individual freedoms they just don't like.
In fact, quite a few minors have had and are in the process of getting surgical double mastectomies for reasons of "transition." This has been going on for years now.
In a paper published in JAMA Pediatrics in May 2018 using data collected in 2016, the head of the "clinic specializing in transgender youth care" at Children's Hospital Los Angeles reported that 94% of the female patients age 13-24 at the clinic who responded to a survey said that getting their breasts surgically removed was "very important" to them.
The paper also said that of the young female patients at the clinic who had already had double mastectomies, 49% were younger than 18 at the time of their surgeries - and of those, 48% were 15 or younger when they had their breasts removed.
The paper - "Chest Reconstruction and Chest Dysphoria in Transmasculine Minors and Young Adults" - by Joanna Olson-Kennedy MD et al is available in full for free online.
As for genital surgeries, there are indeed young males in the USA who were "transitioned" by their parents as small children who when they were still minors had surgeries to remove their testicles, flay their penises and rearrange the remaining tissue so as to resemble a vulva and to create an internal cavity that these youngsters were sadly told would be a vagina.
Transgender "poster child" Jazz Jennings was 17 when Jazz had the series of gruesome, painful genital surgeries documented on the TV series "I Am Jazz." Trinity Neal of Delaware was 16, which is why Neal was described in the press as "one of the youngest" teens in the US to have this kind of surgery.
Moreover, there are many in the field of "gender medicine" who for many years have advocated for an end to age restrictions, rules of caution and ethical standards which restrict doctors' ability to surgically castrate and remove the penises of male minors with gender identity issues.
On the "I Am Jazz" show, Jazz Jennings' genital surgeon Marci Bowers MD, who is the new head of WPATH, advocated doing genital surgeries on males like Jazz whilst they are under 18 and still in high school and living under their parents' roofs because Bowers doesn't think these youngsters can be trusted to comply with the post-surgery self-care instructions and dilation regimens when they're older and are living in college dorms or on their own.
In a TED Talk given in 2018, Tandy Aye MD, head of the pediatric gender clinic at Stanford Children’s Hospital in California, argued that since males like Jazz Jennings and Trinity Neal were already chemically castrated and rendered permanently sterile by "puberty blockers" and Big Pharma estrogen starting when they were 11 and 12, it would be a good idea to go ahead and surgically remove their balls and dicks before they turn 18 too.
Whilst I agree with your overall points about rights, liberties and autonomy, the issue you are overlooking is that children and adolescents do not have the same capacity to make sound decisions and to exercise personal and bodily autonomy as adults do. Which is why in many matters - medical care, sexual behavior, drinking and buying alcohol, buying and using tobacco, entering legal contracts, obtaining financial products like credit cards and mortgages, getting a license to operate a motor vehicle, getting tattoos, getting married, deciding what time to go to bed and what to eat - there are different rules, customs and laws for minors than for full-fledged adults.
You might disagree, but some people believe that individually and collectively, adults and society at large have a duty of care to safeguard the physical and mental health of children and adolescents and to prevent them from abuse, exploitation and needless harm.
Of course, some people who publicly object to what's being done to the minds and bodies of children, minor teens and young adults in the name of "gender identity," "youth transition" and "gender affirming medical care" are grandstanding right-wing blowhards who don't really give a toss about these youngsters. But many people all across the political spectrum do genuinely care - and many are very well informed.
If you looked into this issue a bit more deeply, you'd find that there are a lot of liberal, progressive adults from various walks of life, parents, LGB people - and quite a few trans-identified adults too - who are alarmed by the way the gender identity lobby and youth transition industry are using arguments about rights, liberties and "bodily autonomy" to justify adults using powerful Big Pharma drugs and scalpels to sterilize, castrate and remove the healthy body parts of minors. We're not all phonies, reactionaries and/or nutters full of what you call "hysterical nonsense."
I'll take your word that you are thinking and speaking in good faith on this issue (even though you've included some clear distortions here-- e.g. most genital surgeries in very young kids have nothing to do with gender transformation as per the discussion about gender identity, but rather to "fix" so-called abnormal genitalia-- still arguably unethical but nothing to do with the topic at hand). But all we really need to know is that:
1. Parents overwhelming have the best interests of their kids at heart;
2. The current politics around gender transition absolutely do NOT have kids best interests at heart. Attempts by right wing politicians to ban approved medical practices are likely to do more harm than good;
3. All major medical associations approve of medical treatments for gender dysphoria in kids, and that they are overwhelmingly non-invasive and reversible. Not everyone in the medical community will agree on this, but their representatives in regulatory bodies do;
The "big pharma" argument is a nice move, though. It makes it easier for people to believe they're the underdog in what is essentially a fight to deny parents and their kids basic rights (and, yes, kids have rights that a appropriate to their ability to understand and make decisions for themselves, and in ways that do not pose a risk to society-- drinking, driving, owning guns, etc, being examples of the latter).
Well meaning though you may be on this, I don't think you have any solutions that will not end up doing more harm than good-- the standard that basic medical ethics applies on medical issues.
Many people in positions of power are open in their disapproval of Christians, and the beliefs they espouse. Presumably this makes life awkward for the Christians in their employ, does it not?
Why don’t we get to the root of the matter? Leftists are ok with Christians, and others with whom they disagree, being marginalized in society via legal or extra-legal means, because it occurs concurrently with leftists entering and maintaining positions of cultural influence and control.
Most atheists do not disapprove of all Christians, or even most. Who has been in a position of power and expressed dislike for all Christians? Because usually it’s just the Westboro gay hating type the rest of us cannot stand. I’m currently looking to become Christian btw. Feeling it out. Checking out some local episcopal churches.
Liberals are exceedingly Christian. All of our presidents have been Christian. Obama is a Christian. Some radical leftists may want to marginalize the Christians, but the liberals are largely Christian and do not intend to marginalize the Christians. But yes, we don’t think a religious institution should be in charge of laws/morality. That’s for the people to decide, and we’ve largely decided to accept the gays and not accept bigotry.
Glad to hear you are interested in Christianity. I would never argue that all, or even most, of our presidents have been Christians. Being a Christian is not just something you can casually claim, based on church attendance or membership.
Please consider these verses.
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9 NIV
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2 NIV
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
“For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”” Romans 1:17 NIV
For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
Jesus came to save sinners, and to turn them to repentance. Not by turning over a new leaf, but by sending the Holy Spirit to change our hearts from the inside out. It is the only way to salvation.
I'll take your word that you are thinking and speaking in good faith on this issue (even though you've included some clear distortions here-- e.g. most genital surgeries in very young kids have nothing to do with gender transformation as per the discussion about gender identity, but rather to "fix" so-called abnormal genitalia-- still arguably unethical but nothing to do with the topic at hand). But all we really need to know is that:
1. Parents overwhelming have the best interests of their kids at heart;
2. The current politics around gender transition absolutely do NOT have kids best interests at heart. Attempts by right wing politicians to ban approved medical practices are likely to do more harm than good;
3. All major medical associations approve of medical treatments for gender dysphoria in kids, and that they are overwhelmingly non-invasive and reversible. Not everyone in the medical community will agree on this, but their representatives in regulatory bodies do;
The "big pharma" argument is a nice move, though. It makes it easier for people to believe they're the underdog in what is essentially a fight to deny parents and their kids basic rights (and, yes, kids have rights that a appropriate to their ability to understand and make decisions for themselves, and in ways that do not pose a risk to society-- drinking, driving, owning guns, etc, being examples of the latter).
Well meaning though you may be on this, I don't think you have any solutions that will not end up doing more harm than good-- the standard that basic medical ethics applies on medical issues.
Huh? Nowhere in my post did I I say or suggest that "most genital surgeries in very young kids" are related to "gender transformation." I didn't mention genital surgeries in young kids at all, in fact.
All I did was provide evidence including published facts and figures you can check for yourself to refute your erroneous claim that news, discussion and concern "about minors getting transition surgeries is just hysterical nonsense."
The fact that you seem to think that "transition surgeries" = genital surgeries makes it very clear you are not well informed on this topic.
The most commonly performed "transition surgeries" are done on body parts other than the genitals.
In the USA, by far the single most common "transition surgery" today and over the past decade+ is double mastectomy for female patients who "identify as" the opposite sex or, increasingly, as "non-binary" or another novel gender identity such as vapogender.
In the USA, double mastectomies for the purpose of "gender transition" and "gender identity affirmation" are routinely done on girls when they are still under 18.
The paper I cited in my earlier showed that 94% of the females age 13-24 who were active patients at the youth gender clinic at Children's Hospital Los Angeles in the first half of 2016 felt getting a double mastectomy was a "very important" part of affirming their gender identities, an essential milestone in their "gender journeys." Of the female patients who already had double mastectomy, half went under the knife to have their breasts removed surgically when they were 17 or younger. Some were 13, 14 and 15 when surgeons cut their breasts off.
Another gender clinic on the West Coast has reported that one of its patients had her breasts surgically removed for gender identity reasons when she was 12.
No matter how confidently and repeatedly you claim that "medical treatments for gender dysphoria in kids...are overwhelmingly non-invasive and reversible," this is not true.
A double mastectomy is not reversible. Once breast tissue, mammary glands and ducts have been removed, there is no way to get them back. There's no such thing as a breast transplant. There are no drugs or regimens that can cause a girl or woman to grow new breasts once she has had her breasts cut off.
The hormonal interventions routinely used treat gender distress in kids in the US such as use of GnRH analogs to halt puberty have a host of irreversible negative, unwanted effects on females too.
In Sweden, for example, 13 adolescent girls who were put on puberty blockers for gender dysphoria at the Karolinska Institut were found to have developed such severe bone density problems that they have spinal fractures, deformed discs and frequent broken bones - and the Karolinska had to report itself to Swedish law enforcement for having committed criminal medical malpractice and human rights violations on these girls. These female youngsters are in constant pain and can't stand for more than 15-20 minutes at a time. Plus, their height has ended up being stunted, so they are much shorter than they would have been otherwise - which makes it even more difficult for them to "pass" as males. None of this is reversible.
As for your appeal to authority: Just because the staff who run the headquarters of American establishment medical bodies like the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and Endocrine Society have come out saying they approve of subjecting kids to "gender medicine" doesn't mean youth "gender medicine" is beneficial and safe. These orgs - which were all founded to to promote the interests of doctors/medical practitioners - have not allowed their members to weigh in and vote on the topic. The policy statements approving "gender medicine" on children and adolescents have all been written by staffers in DC and rubber stamped by small numbers of officials. Moreover, all these orgs have made huge mistakes in the past.
The AMA has a particularly odious origin story and lots of ugly chapters in its history. In 1941, the AMA held a conference and published an article in its journal (JAMA) promoting a new procedure then starting to come into vogue, frontal lobotomy:
"This procedure is said be effective in removing the anxiety and in abolishing the responses (suicidal, homicidal and so on) to the delusions and hallucinations in certain depressive states, such as involutional melancholia, and in certain of the more agitated schizophrenic states. Psychotic persons subjected to this procedure also seem to lose much of their concern with self and with their own visceral and mental activities; they develop a more normal, healthy attitude toward their environment."
Not very long ago, a whole generation of kids developed iatrogenic peanut allergies because of the AAP's totally wrong-headed advice that babies and young children should never be exposed to any peanut products.
In the 1950s, 60s and early 70s, the Endocrine Society promoted putting American girls on high-dose estrogen made from pregnant horse urine (Premarin) to prevent them from growing "too tall" because some sexist male endocrinologists thought that boys and men wouldn't want to date or marry girls and women who were "too tall." In the sexist minds of these medical men, a girl or woman was "too tall" if she was over 5'6".
Also, American establishment medical orgs like the AMA, AAP and ES have not conducted thorough, in-depth reviews of the evidence base for, and the wide-ranging consequences of, youth "gender medicine" like medical authorities in Finland, Sweden, France and the UK all have done. All those countries have now decided to halt medical "gender transition" of minors through use of so-called puberty blockers, (cross) sex hormones and surgeries - and to advise and exercise caution about social transition of under 18s too.They've all published their findings and links to the underlying research online.
The UK's Cass Investigation is a good place to start if you're interested. So is the 4-part Swedish TV documentary series, "Trans Train," the first part of which aired in 2018. Another good source of info the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine.
I'll take your word that you are thinking and speaking in good faith on this issue (even though you've included some clear distortions here-- e.g. most genital surgeries in very young kids have nothing to do with gender transformation as per the discussion about gender identity, but rather to "fix" so-called abnormal genitalia-- still arguably unethical but nothing to do with the topic at hand).
Your claim that "most genital surgeries in very young kids have nothing to do with gender transformation as per the discussion about gender identity, but rather to "fix" so-called abnormal genitalia" is hogwash. It makes me wonder if you have kids - and if so, whether you have been involved in their medical care or you left that to someone else.
By far the single most common genital surgery done on very young kids particularly in the USA is removal of the foreskin of the penis of babies, aka male circumcision. (BTW, this is a surgery I also do not support doing on unwitting minors who can't consent and I did not do in the case of my own son.)
The next most common genital surgeries in babies and very young kids are operations to correct genuine physical problems that occur in normally-developed males which can cause dysfunction, pain and/or infection; diminish longterm health; and/or cause fertility issues such as hernias, hydroceles, cryptorchidism and hypospadias.
Surgeries to " 'fix' so-called abnormal genitalia" that occur in the case of some DSD conditions in order to make them look more normal are thankfully no longer done - or they're rarely done - purely for cosmetic reasons on babies, little kids and minor adolescents the way they once were routinely done. (The exception to this might be clitoral reduction and/or repair of fused labia in cases of baby girls with classic CAH and other DFSDs resulting in "masculinization" of female genitalia .)
Today, doctors are also much less likely to remove the internal testes of children and adolescents with DMSDs such as CAIS, PAIS and MAIS because even when they are raised as females, such persons have been found to have better emotional and physical health, more self-esteem and more satisfying sexual relations and lives in general if their testes are left intact - and because the actual risk of malignant cancer developing in internal testes has turned out to be much lower than once thought.
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