One of the key questions about gender-affirming care among teenagers is: do they regret it later? A new study of both puberty blockers and hormone therapy shows that regret rates are extremely low a few years after the treatment has begun:
The data analyzed survey responses from more than 200 people who are part of the TransYouth Project, one of the largest and longest community-based studies on the experiences of transgender youths. The majority of respondents expressed satisfaction with the gender-affirming care they received, with only 4 percent — nine respondents — expressing some form of regret.
That's from the Washington Post's write-up. Unfortunately, nothing is ever easy when it comes to studies like these. This one has a decent, though not spectacular, sample size, and an excellent retention rate. Almost nobody dropped out along the way. But there's also this from the study itself:
The sample in the present work was unique in a few ways that are notable for interpretation of these results. Most showed signs of their transgender identity by 4 years of age. On average, they socially transitioned at age 6.7 years, and most were fairly binary in their gender identities and gender expressions throughout childhood. Early-identifying youth who are especially insistent about their identities are also more likely to socially transition in childhood and identify as transgender or continue to show gender dysphoria in adolescence and early adulthood.
In other words, nearly all the children in this study had been socially transitioned for many years before they began medical treatment. This is probably the most treatment friendly sample it's possible to get.
So once again we have a study of trans kids that doesn't really tell us much. It does suggest that medical interventions are probably OK for kids who are especially certain about their identity, and that's good to know. But for everyone else we're still in need of rigorous studies to guide policy going forward.
It tells us the entire trans "controversy" is a tempest in a teapot. It's extremely important to the people involved and has 0 implications for society as a whole. Trans folks are just the latest in a long list of minorities to be hated on for no particularly good reason.
Kevin and others keep moving the goalposts. Here's a detailed writeup.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/new-study-trans-youth-satisfied-6
+1
Regarding trans treatment:
It’s nobody’s damn business except the patient, the patient’s parents (if underage) and the doctor. That’s it.
Just like abortion, if you are morally opposed to transgender care, then don’t fucking undergo transgender care. The world would be an infinitely better place if people minded their own business when it comes to other people doing what they feel is right for themselves and that has zero or near zero* impact on anybody else.
*Having to poop separated by a stall wall next to someone else who may have different genitalia than your own hardly qualifies as “impacted.”
Damn right. 👍
Say it again, over.
I wouldn’t go that far. The state has the right and responsibility to prevent clearly dangerous or abusive behavior, regardless if the children agree and a willing medical professional is found.
However, when it comes to the trans issue, conservatives have not come within a million miles of meeting this criteria.
If the doctor is able to find an insurance company willing to fully insure them for malpractice lawsuits, is employed by a hospital governed by Medicare rules and/or is in good standing with their licensing board, then almost by definition whatever it is they’re doing is already backed up by the vast majority of the medical establishment’s research and isn’t “clearly dangerous or abusive behavior.” Almost nobody is seeking trans treatment in a back door alley somewhere… they’re doing it in some of the country’s best hospitals.
Thanks for your concern though. The bigger concern of course is that denying transition treatment entirely will lead to more suicides, as it has for trans people throughout all of human history. The number of trans people who used to commit suicide so far appears to dwarf the number of trans people now who regret their treatment.
I have yet to hear of a single incident of doctors mutilating a minor child's body because the child had gender dysphoria.
But I have met lots and lots of transgender adults who had gender dysphoria as children and were brutally treated by unaccepting family members.
Up to a point, but a great deal of dangerous behavior by children is condoned and even encouraged. Participation in contact sports, for example.
don't tell that to orange county republican
kevin drum & his new besties, jessie singal & katy hercog.
& speaking of kd's lamestream homies, i wonder what he thought about megan mc cardle singing the body orgasmic over donold's maccer's stunt.
Kevin is very consistently left-of-center. In fact, I can’t think of a single right-of-center view he has. But he is not far left.
Sorry, the left-most 10% of Americans are not the real lefties, with the final say on ethical thinking, and the other 90% of Americans are all equivalent to Republicans. The world is not so simple.
When people take policy tests, most people prefer left-of-center policies.
Left/Right are cultural artifacts, not policy driven for the most part. Over the course of my lifetime, Trump Republicans, so far as I can tell, don't really care about policies, they care about culture; specifically, a culture so say whatever they want without consequences. And then they act surprised when there actually are consequences like unnecessary Covid deaths or pregnancies gone sideways or tween's pregnant with their daddies' babies.
👍👍👍👍👍
“Just like abortion”
I hadn’t really thought about it this way but there are some women who regret having the abortions. And anti-abortion activists use those people to “prove” abortion should be illegal. And just like abortion the fact that some people will have regrets doesn’t mean it should be denied to all.
Just like pregnancy shouldn't be denied to all because some parents regret having kids.
Exactly.
"We" don't "need" studies that tell us this. Shut the fuck up and get out of their personal business.
I suspect they chose a very young cohort for two reasons. 1. these kids are certain about their identity, perhaps making the results more binary. 2. Trans acceptance is at its highest right now and young children haven't yet been exposed to bigotry and shame that kept many older trans folks uncertain and in the closet. So, they probably see youngsters as having fewer confounding variables.
How does anyone know what their gender identity is? What are the material defining traits of “girl” that definitively exclude one from “boy”? What are the material defining traits of “boy” that definitively exclude one from “girl”?
It's probably not what is felt as right, but it's how every body else treats them and it's felt wrong to them. See the difference? Utilizing your avatar, if mommy made you wear dresses and daddy took you to cowboy town with pink boots and hat, you might've not liked it.
If you can't understand how they reach this point in their lives, then this isn't an issue you can knowledgeably weight in on, seems to me.
@JohnReed didn't weigh in. He raised 3 questions that he finds confusing.
the jaqing off piece.
Classic cases start at a very young age, like age 5. These children say they feel they are in the wrong bodies. And some say they wish they could change their gender identities. In today's world, in free countries, this is now often allowed.
There doesn't have to be a set of "defining traits" beyond these children strongly feeling that their genders are different than their biology suggests.
What are the facts that lead to these cases? “Feel” in this context refers not to a physical sensation, but rather to a subconscious thought, based on sensory input and memories. These feelings are the result of thinking about facts. What are the facts?
I don't know.
We used to define this as 'dysphoria'; but with people being allowed to transition socially and dress as they like, and some being able to 'withstand' their bodies betraying their minds...
Does it matter? Why does it matter to you what feels better?
The wrong puberty literally makes trans people (and cis gender people) feel ill.
You obviously know you're male. You're comfotable with that.
My oldest wasn't; it felt wrong from the first moments she can remember.
As the material defining traits; you need to sit down and have a very very long talk with a woman, doesn't even need to be a trans woman.
Thanks for the engagement so far. My concern is with the possibility to game the system for personal benefit… to cheat. How do we, as a society that values fairness and limiting cheating, confirm the truth of someone’s claim?
One way of looking at it is that essentially nothing legally or societally hinges on whether one is male or female. A man can be a zookeeper; so can a woman. A woman can be a busdriver; so can a man. Taxes, speed limits, the price of goods etc. are all effectively gender-neutral. So what business is it of yours if somebody says "I'm a man" or "I'm a woman"?
This is very different from identity categories that do carry legal or societal distinctions. I can't go around identifying as a doctor and prescribing drugs if I'm not, or claiming VA benefits if I am not, in fact, a veteran. But since our society (as is any decent society) is set up to be (aspirationally if not 100% in practice) gender-neutral, gender identification is a personal matter, so you gotta live and let live.
I don’t know where you live, but here in the United States, there are all sorts of services, spaces, and opportunities that are reserved for women, many of them designed to provide protection from the disproportionate risk associated with male aggression. Sex matters.
"here in the United States, there are all sorts of services, spaces, and opportunities that are reserved for women"
No, there are not. Unless you count services like reproductive healthcare, menstrual products, etc., which really have nothing to do with the question of whether or not a person should be able to say "I'm a [woman/man]" and have the government say "no you are not."
Again, this is really a live and let live issue. Nearly nothing legally hinges on a person being male or female, so there's no reason for the state to get involved in saying who is who.
You are casually dismissing safety barriers that feminists spent decades advocating for. Sex matters.
Dude, what is there to cheat?
Sports? Do you really think some dudes going to take a muscle-weakening hormone so that he can win on women's teams instead?
Seriously?
(The most likely thing I know of is some creep saying he's trans so he can peep at women in the bathroom. That's cheating.)
Creeps in bathrooms is one of the primary reasons we even have different facilities for men and women. Is this a scenario worth accepting in a progressive society?
We have all sorts of things separated by sex (awards, job openings, sports come immediately to mind). If there is a devious advantage to be had, someone will exploit it. That’s why we have rules based on material evidence.
Since I had me my very own bonafide pedophile creep for many years and am mother to a beloved transgender daughter, I'm somewhat of an expert on this topic. In my experience, the people most inclined to this line of questioning are often using it to cover their own sorry behavior.
It's a deflection. Don't look at my own twisted behavior, look over here instead. . .
And I say this knowing that vast number of sexual assaults go unreported, and that transgender people suffer far higher rates of assault than other people. And the men who are not trans in the women's room are quite likely responsible for at least some of the assaults, so should be the folk being singled out for cheating. Not the trans kids. FFS.
How do you know which men in women’s room are “not trans”?
Why does this matter?
Should gay men be forced to wear pink triangles or jews a Star of David? When I dress in my work clothes and put my wool dress jacket, I get taken for a man.
But you did get my point: it's not cool for me to accuse you, but you are, inherently, accusing my daughter of something.
Well done, grasshopper. See if you can internalize that.
Creeps still try to divert attention from their own behavior, fyi. My family thought my abuser was the greatest guy; my whole town did. I clearly understood that nobody would believe me, he was so beloved and well-thought-of and ready to get the pitchforks out at some other guy's transgressions.
It matters because you mentioned singling them out for cheating, so I asked how you would know who to single out.
The only thing I believe about your child is that she grew up drowning in sexism. No accusations there, and I wish her a peaceful life. I also wish, however, that she could have felt accepted by society as a whole as the male she apparently is instead of needing to jump through hoops to accept herself.
My daughter grew up as a boy, and was depressed and unable to function and isolated himself more and more. Two years of therapy before an endocrinologist would prescribe meds, and two weeks in, she called me and said the last words I ever expected to hear, "Mom, I'm lonely." HRT was the single best thing that ever happened to her.
I hope you learn to accept yourself, it might take some hard work; and you still seem more intent on others than your own very sad othering.
It sounds to me like your child’s depression was done to her, not something that welled up from within. She learned that she “wasn’t right” as a boy. That is what 24/7 sexism in the US teaches our gender nonconforming children from the moment they figure out they are individuals.
Also, what did you just accuse me of? Not cool.
"We have all sorts of things separated by sex (awards, job openings, sports come immediately to mind)"
All of these are edge cases. It's dumb to set policy for everybody based on a fear that maybe someday a person born female will win the Oscar for Best Actor.
"Creeps in bathrooms is one of the primary reasons we even have different facilities for men and women."
I was just in Italy, and about half the public bathrooms I encountered there were co-ed. Nobody batted an eye.
Good for them. I hope the apparent lack of drama is a reflection of an actual peaceful situation and not merely another example of under-reported harassment.
I'd expect that harrassment occurs at more-or-less equal rates on train cars, in grocery stores, in schools, on sidewalks, and yes, in bathrooms as in any other place where people of any gender are allowed to be.
Honestly, I'm not sure what the issue is with bathrooms in particular you are hung up about. If you think segregated bathrooms are necessary to stop "creeps," why not segregated schools? Or seats on airplanes? Do you really think that there are fewer creeps and less harrasment in retrograde societies that cloister women?
Women are much more vulnerable in the bathroom than in a store or on a train.
https://www.newsweek.com/nows-time-defend-womens-sports-around-world-opinion-1972981
Here's a thought about cheating.
Okay, rather than stumble off on tangents, let’s get back to the original question. How do we know what is true? Is there a consistent, objective way to know what gender identity anyone is?
Is there a consistent, objective way to know what hope, hate, love, gloom, etc. are? Yeah, we've seen where you're trying to take this many, many times? The end reply is that people like you don't get to decide.
You are exactly right. I don’t get to decide.
And neither does anyone else. We are born as males and females. Our culture teaches us from a very young age that displaying specific behaviors and appearances mean that you must belong in the “girl” box or the “boy” box. Children pick up this lesson very early on from living in the 24/7 sexism that washes over us from every angle.
Gender-nonconformity is okay.
But trans ideology says it means so much more than “you don’t fit in with these out-dated cultural expectations.” It says, “you are literally the other sex.” Go jump into the other “box”.
That is about as REgressive as you can get.
Trans ideology is to let people be what they want, not what you want them to be.
Beyond that, it's just you making rules that don't really exist.
Trans ideology includes gender non-conforming. They are not mutually exclusive and should be stated as such.
So it's not regressive to allow for fundamental different modes of being in a society.
Also, you writing you don't get to decide, then the next sentence is you deciding, is you getting to decide.
Material reality is what material reality is. It’s not me “deciding” that males are male and females female any more than “deciding” that my dog isn’t actually a cat.
This is the science of biology. Bodies that develop on a pathway that leads toward the production of sperm cells are male. Those whose pathway leads toward egg cells are female. No amount of sexist stereotypes can change that.
The study participants are the textbook examples of who should transition. I'm guessing they don't have a control that did not transition. The researchers would have to find historical cases.
As for larger studies--I doubt there that many cases per year.
It appears that the study participants were not chosen for the features above, but rather the study looked at children who had received care 3 or 4 years before being surveyed and were still children. And doing that resulted in a sample of children who knew at an early age they were transgendered. That suggests that the children that get care are not in fact being rushed into it, as some people have accused. That is useful information. It seems to be good support for the current system, but it does not tell us about other uses of gender care.
I have heard from a reliable source that Salvadorian gang members are sneaking into this country in order to get arrested so that they can get sex change operations in our prisons. And despite this study my guess is those gang members will feel regret, or would if they were not figments of diseased minds.
The last time Drum wrote on this topic it also had a tortured argument as to why evidence that trans people do not regret treatment shows nothing. Given that the biggest worry about such care is that people are getting treatment for transitory moods, this seems to be yet more reason to believe that isn't happening. It always seemed implausible that this was a problem, but it is good that the evidence supports this. This study only does so for early treatment. But that is where most of the moral panic exists.
It's wrong for you to have your heart medication because heart medication is against my religion and you can't go off the reservation and hedonistically screw with god's ticking destiny like that, and I got a law passed that criminalizes you, that makes you a criminal, and your whole terrorizing attempt to illegally live forever like some kind of living forever life perv.
If the Drama Queen of the Eternal had meant for you to not croak you wouldn't croak already now all on your own, now wouldn't you? >mic drop</.
"we're still in need of rigorous studies to guide policy going forward"
Well, yes. The safety and efficacy of the "gender-affirming care" model has never been rigorously tested, and all of the treatments are off-label. Why there isn't more of an outcry over this I will never understand. These are children. There are already lawsuits.
People really have partisan blinkers on this topic.
The same can be said of nearly all medical treatments that children receive for all conditions. I don't weigh in on how pediatric cardiac or bowel issues are being treated either.
Because you're fucking lying. There are zero lawsuits based in reality.
These treatments have been done for decades. I took hormone blockers as a diagnostic before hormones when I transitioned nearly thirty years ago.
Sure, we need better tracking. But fucking lying about a time tested procedure is disgusting.
+1
If you had a good argument, you wouldn't have to swear and name-call.
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Not your happiness, their happiness. They don't need y'all looking over their shoulders telling them they're wrong. The presumption that others should be able to pass judgement over them is appalling.
+1
Sometime last year, Masha Gessen was on Ezra Klein's show, and although their take on this is a little controversial even among other trans people, I really did like them pointing out that a significant percentage of young people make other life-affecting choices that they regret, such as joining the army. We don't debate this in anything remotely like the same terms.
It's worth a listen.
Kids join the army at puberty? That should be stopped!
kony2012.
This seems to be the result people would expect from a study of kids who voiced that they were trans while still extremely young. Those parents often have years of watching their kids be consistent about their gender identity before puberty hits. When gender-affirming care comes up, those parents can be pretty confident that their kid won't regret it. It's nice that a study bears this out, but it's not at all surprising.
The great difficulty is knowing what course of action to take, and how quickly, when it's a teenager who has never previously said anything about their gender identity. Lots of parents really want to see that research.
In that case, gender affirming care says allow them to experiment. It does not, in any standards of care, start with medication, let alone hormones.
I dunno, man. Kind of sounds like the new study tells us a LOT about trans regret rates. But I get that those goal posts ain't gonna move themselves.
+1000
Kevin, I've been reading - and commenting - under the same name on your blog since Calpundit days.
I transitioned in 1996 after a year on hormone blockers,
It's a very important treatment, and it's completely reversible. The regret rate is impossible to calculate because it's so restricted in access, Literally no medical procedure has as low a regret rate.
People regret bandaids more,
And I'm so disappointed in you.
Do you think that unopposed hormone blockers helped or do you think that you could have gone straight to HRT?
Puberty blockers are a compromise in a world where almost all of the doctors, parents, and politicians are cis people. AFAIK there's no medical need for them for trans youth. They could go directly to HRT.
I'm not sure this is accurate medically. The explanation I have is, "hormones give, they don't take away". So a trans woman (girl) might want to go on blockers to prevent certain masculine changes that might happen at puberty, things like facial bone changes, and the quality of body hair, and voice change.
However, this is less important in an adult who has already done with puberty.
HRT, in this case, estrogen, will do things like change the quality of skin, and promote breast development, which are desired, and will carry this out even in an adult.
I transitioned as an adult, so I'm pretty familiar with the effects of HRT.
Cis kids don't need blockers. Their bodies produce the appropriate hormones and they go through the appropriate puberty.
The same should be happening with trans kids. They don't need to go on blockers. They can just start HRT at an appropriate age. For transfeminine kids this might (or might not) include antiandrogens, but this is different than puberty blockers.
Trans kids are instead usually started on puberty blockers because cis people are uncomfortable with trans people, and want to see that the trans kid is Really Sure before they start HRT. So they're usually on blockers for multiple years, and often don't start HRT until 16 or even later - far later than puberty starts for cis kids. This is unnecessary, but done to assuage the feelings of the (usually cis) parents and medical professionals in the trans kid's life.
I went through this with my adult child, and I have been to many trans conferences, and listened to many trans people. You are the very first one I have ever heard say "blockers are unnecessary". Mostly they say, "I wish I had some, it would have avoided expensive surgery, etc, etc"
That's mostly what I hear, too.
Is Kevin imagining that there is a large cohort of children who are recipients of gender-affirming medical care who did not previously transition socially and are just “trans-curious” or something???
To be fair to Kevin, unless you believe that whether or not a minor receives (is subjected to) “Conversion Therapy” is only between a patient, their doctor, and their parents and does not need to be subjected to scientific scrutiny, let’s not pretend that gender-affirming medical care does not deserve to be subjected the same scientific scrutiny regarding safety, efficacy, and outcomes.
Regret comes in many forms.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2024/oct/12/gavin-grimm-trans-youth-rights
Grimm has complex post-traumatic stress disorder and has suffered from stress-induced seizures that have affected his cognition and left him hospitalized in 2021. “The PTSD at its core is about not being safe or understood, being rejected, and the adults in my life not acting responsibly,” he explains. “In high school, I was picked over and hyper-analyzed. I was tortured, harassed and bullied.” He recalls a period when the stress was so severe he’d dissociate as he walked down the hallway, not hearing his friends call his name.
Grimm also has autism and struggles with sensory processing, and the combined impacts of his disabilities have prevented him from holding down a job or completing school, he says. He’s relied on a GoFundMe and disability benefits, but has repeatedly struggled to make rent.
His mother supports him but also has a tight income, he says. “I don’t have options … unless some rich gay philanthropist tosses me a crispy million.” At times, he’s felt disposable to the broader movement; he says it’s hard not to think of notable gay rights plaintiffs who have not struggled to make ends meet after their victories.
Regret is a terrible measure because people don't want to regret their own life choices, except if someone else can be blamed. E.g. my mother who regretted having dropped out of university because society at the time expected that of married women. I have a similar gripe with happiness indexes which are always topped by countries where everything is so well organized, any unhappiness or loneliness must be your own fault. There's a bias in any poll which implicitly asks people if they blame themselves for anything.
I'm not saying people who transitioned when kids would have been better off if they hadn't. No idea. Probably some yes, some no, and no polls can find out the numbers. My own opinion on the issue is simply that when it comes to children, protecting them is the parents' job. That can mean not allowing them to make choices they are too young for, and conversely fixing discrepancies they suffer under. Not always easy as it is and the last thing they need is politics getting involved.
ruralhobo, why don't you stop commenting on north american politics & ficus on your first love, rodentcoitusing france like your russian-funded altleftist homie melancon?
Why don't you just put your face in the toilet and flush?
I think it's time that lactation al go the way of the dodo bird. Kevin has banned particularly odious posters before.
+1
+2
Some people regret experimenting with new cancer drugs, after the side effects result in them, say, losing their sense of taste forever. Does this mean that all cancer patients should be banned from taking all new treatments until the medical professionals are 100% certain there will be no lasting regrets? Because that’s exactly what you’re saying with regards to trans kids being barred from trans treatments. You’re saying “well I couldn’t possibly live without my sense of taste, so nobody else should be allowed to try Drug X either.” That seems… horribly paternalistic. Let the patient decide what they want to do and just support them in it. Having regrets is part of life: not all decisions people make are great, but the freedom to make those decisions is still important to their self worth.
The usual caveat of “underage patients should get a parent’s support” apply, of course… before someone accuses me above of saying “kindergarteners should be able and encouraged to chop off their junk without telling mom or dad.” But what I am saying is pursuing trans treatment for a child is one the most fraught decisions a family will face, and they don’t need anybody else but people who know the specifics of this child (aka the medical staff that have been there the whole time) involved in their decision making.
The hilarious part is we still allow routine circumcision for boys even though a non zero number of those result in “too much” being taken off. Those boys are sexually crippled forever yet nobody bats an eye about that kind of irreversible decsion being made too early for kids.
Love the analogy! I imagine that some percentage of women regret having an abortion so let's ban it to protect them from themselves! /s
Kevin really wants trans regret to be a thing.
Crap, made my post and only then realized you'd said the same thing.
That study looks like pretty good evidence. It's possible to imagine better evidence, but it's also possible to imagine a sort of Zeno's Paradox of bad faith whereby one always finds that the available evidence is just a tiny bit short of what one needs, updated as necessary.
The study tells us that there's a patient population that responds well to treatments with little regret afterwards. That means there's a group of kids that will be actively hurt by the blanket treatments bans that have been enacted in many conservative states and that "regret" is not a valid reason to deny those patients treatments.
"But for everyone else we're still in need of rigorous studies to guide policy going forward."
Seems a little odd to frame this immediately as a policy question. Generally, our policy is treatment is that if it's unsafe or ineffective, it shouldn't be approved, and that's that. If the patient, the patient's parents, and the patient's doctors all feel that it's the best course of treatment, I'd think there would be a pretty high bar to having a policy that interferes with those decisions. If a study happened to show even something as high as 40% of patients regretted their treatment, I would think that would be important information for patients, parents, and doctors to consider, but I'd still be reluctant to have government step in and override their decisions.
I just don't think we look at gender-affirming care the way we look at other types of healthcare, and that doesn't seem wise. Adding cultural baggage to health care decisions will not likely help us make better decisions.
I don't think Kevin understands the context. The context is that this is the path for children, that is very, very typical. They don't get rushed into anything. They are often frustrated and angry about how slowly things move.
Yes, you can find people with regrets. There are about 10 times more under-18 cis girls who get breast augmentation than trans girls. Do we study whether they have regrets? Do we care? Do we write laws?
I googled 'study of people who regret having plastic surgery' and got this:
Many people regret having had cosmetic surgery, either because the outcome does not match the hoped-for image or because of complications. Research by Medical Accident Group found that 65% of people they polled regretted their surgery, though 28% were very happy with its results.
Just for a comparison. And then there's this:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/brittanywong/people-regret-plastic-surgery
Seems Transgender treatment is way more successful in comparison.
Good one!
A cheap shot, but...
Kevin, I know of some people who regret going through long-term cancer treatment. Should that be an excuse to prevent you from doing the same until we can be absolutely sure who might have regrets under what circumstances? Sure, some cancer patients may die (and some trans kids may kill themselves) but don't we need to pay that price just to be sure?
Of course the answer (in both cases) is "HELL NO!" I'm very glad you have access to the best available care, and pray that it keeps working. And I advocate and work for the best available care for trans kids too.
This is all good information. Extensive longitudinal studies would be great but it will take several decades to get the data.
What is the major issue that we're solving here? What's the big policy question? I've never heard anyone raise an issue that isn't totally made up.
That thing you're worried about (Kevin Drum turning into a cranky conservative just in the last year or so)? Yeah, that's what's happening. I take it there are few people who both read this blog and would tell him in real life that he's making an ass out of himself.
Well, when my own child began to transition, it was quite a shock. I had to relearn a bunch of stuff I thought I knew, but was wrong about it.
So, I prefer to lead people who are well-meaning (and Kevin is well-meaning, for sure) along the same path I took.
The media climate is so bad, so riddled with holes, and misinformation, along with disinformation, that I can't expect someone who is not personally familiar with transition to have any solid facts to command.
+1
Gender affirming procedures (including such things as puberty blockers and hormone therapy) should not be made available to minors.
I would say that for most Americans, if not most human beings, such a statement is about as obvious and noncontroversial as could possibly be imagined.
But, on this issue perhaps more than any other, the Left has gone spectacularly off the rails.
It was just yesterday that Kevin wrote a blog post detailing how progressive overreach has greatly damaged the public perception of progressives and their causes (and undoubtedly helped to fuel Trump's rise). And there may be no other topic on which that observation is more accurate than with the issue not just of trans individuals but especially of trans children.
So, to be blunt: if you're arguing in favor of procedures that help transition minors into what ultimately amounts to a different sex, you're losing. That is a hill that you and your cause will most definitely die on. When it comes to trans adults, I suspect that a lot more people will accept the idea that others can do what they want with their own lives. But minors taking irreversible steps to fundamentally alter their bodies? I have to ask: how is that not extremism?
And when I see progressives advocating for such things, it's as if they have suddenly started speaking a different language. I look through the comments to this blog post and I am reminded of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." The band that I was in has started playing very, very different tunes (look it up).
I think there's one other commenter here who stated that the Left has partisan blinkers on when it comes to this topic. Someone responded, of course, by accusing that person of "fucking lying." Sort of proves the point about partisan blinkers, doesn't it?
Indeed, the vitriol that the Left heaps upon anyone who questions sex change/gender affirming procedures for minors is perhaps the single most astonishing partisan phenomenon that I have ever witnessed. I find it to be even more inexplicable than the Right's ongoing support for Trump. I simply cannot wrap my head around the Left's conduct on this topic other than to conclude that the tribalism has become so severe that it now resembles religious fundamentalism.
Anyway, here are a few "Key Findings" from the Cass Review (from the UK) on this topic:
"Clinicians are unable to determine with any certainty which children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity."
"For the majority of young people, a medical pathway may not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress. For those young people for whom a medical pathway is clinically indicated, it is not enough to provide this without also addressing wider mental health and/or psychosocially challenging problems."
And a recommendation from that report:
"The option to provide masculinising/feminising hormones from age 16 is available, but the Review recommends extreme caution. There should be a clear clinical rationale for providing hormones at this stage rather than waiting until an individual reaches 18. Every case considered for medical treatment should be discussed at a national Multi- Disciplinary Team (MDT)."
Again, to most people, these points sound like the most obvious sort of common sense. The Left is discrediting and isolating itself on this topic.
Well, I sure do wish my child had access to them back in the roaring 90's.
I wish those books had been on the library shelf.
They weren't, I'm glad they're available now.