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Featured Replies

1 minute ago, Patricio Swayze said:


This thread has been eye opening and sad. Truly. I mean, I kind of expected Poe’s stance, he doesn’t hide his disapproval. Hell, he can’t even see men on tv kiss without having to fast forward. As if being gay is contagious.

Just really sad.

Ha, contagious. No, it’s just not my thing. 

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4 minutes ago, troph said:

One, I guarantee you there are some VERY misleading headlines in there.  some fringe sites are included and should be considered with extreme suspicion. second, I guarantee you there is not one medical decision made for a minor child without parental consent and if there is, it's a violation of fundamental bedrock laws around parental rights and that's the only thing I said. Any headline saying it's happening is either referring to college kids (over 18 years old) or is a lie or is describing an extreme situation that warrants doctors losing licenses and people going to jail.

But I will tell you, I don't have a good answer for whether schools should tell parents or not when a kid named Sam says hey call me Suzie.  You have to realize, some of these kids will be beaten. Some will be abused. Some in high school will be kicked out of their homes. Some will be in so much trouble their mental health will deteriorate.  What is a school counselor supposed to do if a 16 year old kid tells the school counselor please help, don't tell my parents, I'm afraid my dad will beat me.  Not to mention, therapists have their own professional rules including confidentiality.  I've had my kids in therapy, I do not have a right to know what is said or not said in their sessions.

This school issue on disclosure is not as cut and dried as your headlines make it out to be.  That said, I generally think parents should know absent an extremely compelling reason not to tell.

 

Thank you.  I don't disagree about the search results that popped up and I appreciate reasoned discussion.

20 minutes ago, Poe It Up said:

One would have to steel themself against that likelihood regardless of parental decisions. The suicide rate in that community is very high. Still, if your decisions are solely based on the probability of suicide, you’re not a parent, you’re a hostage. 

Holy shit man. You just voluntarily went and typed that out and hit "submit reply"?

What's next Poe? "If my kid doesn't eat his vegetables I'm going to murder that little shit"?

1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

What's next Poe? "If my kid doesn't eat his vegetables I'm going to murder that little shit"?

What parent hasn't had that thought?

1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

Holy shit man. You just voluntarily went and typed that out and hit "submit reply"?

Definitely. My friend’s son threatened suicide after he took his PlayStation away. Does that mean he gave it back? Of course he didn’t. There are effective measures beyond your child parenting you. 

Definitely. My friend’s son threatened suicide after he took his PlayStation away. Does that mean he gave it back? Of course he didn’t. There are effective measures beyond your child parenting you. 

Wow.

So that is the same as what is being discussed? I mean in your mind.
1 minute ago, Poe It Up said:

Definitely. My friend’s son threatened suicide after he took his PlayStation away. Does that mean he gave it back? Of course he didn’t. There are effective measures beyond your child parenting you. 

Jesus christ man, fuck you. You're the type of person that makes me hope that hell exists. 

12 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Thank you.  I don't disagree about the search results that popped up and I appreciate reasoned discussion.

See now you're conflating "just googling random bullshit and longcatting it into the thread" with "data and facts". There's not much to reason with when you're just being lazy as fuck and giving me the first page of google, as if you're contributing hard data to the discussion. 

I mean since you're making the claim of "I do think that there have been many examples of schools, courts, and child protective services-type agencies intervening in these decisions", I think it's reasonable to expect you to back that up with some specific examples if it's actually as prevalent as you claim.

Especially when it's as inflammatory and grievance-based as your framing makes it.

1 hour ago, troph said:

wait so every credible organization defines the standard of care as providing GAC on a continuum - one that starts with little intervention and slowly builds over time.  yet people here want to say that's wrong and then say doctors and professionals who engage in the standard of care are violating their duties with respect to the standard of care.

how fucked up are your minds man?

We have many posters on this site who simply are disgusting people humans lacking compassion 

12 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Jesus christ man, fuck you. You're the type of person that makes me hope that hell exists. 

My father committed suicide and I’ve dealt with the whole range of emotions associated with it, including guilt. He wielded it as a weapon for many years, so I’m very sensitive to that particular threat. It doesn’t mean you do nothing, it means you intervene in a more creative fashion. 

17 minutes ago, Captainant said:

See now you're conflating "just googling random bullshit and longcatting it into the thread" with "data and facts". There's not much to reason with when you're just being lazy as fuck and giving me the first page of google, as if you're contributing hard data to the discussion. 

I mean since you're making the claim of "I do think that there have been many examples of schools, courts, and child protective services-type agencies intervening in these decisions", I think it's reasonable to expect you to back that up with some specific examples if it's actually as prevalent as you claim.

Especially when it's as inflammatory and grievance-based as your framing makes it.

Of course, I am deeply ashamed of not providing peer-reviewed research related to a discussion being held on a jocular football message board.  Please consider yourself free to research this topic yourself and to correct me as you think best.

2 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Of course, I am deeply ashamed of not providing peer-reviewed research related to a discussion being held on a jocular football message board.  Please consider yourself free to research this topic yourself and to correct me as you think best.

Well when you're making broad-ass statements like "there are MANY examples of the state putting hormones into kids on a whim", I'd expect that to at least have some basis in fact.

 

You're out here nursing a "muh CIVILITY!!!" grievance when you're failing to do us the barest courtesy of not just making shit up and lying to our faces.

5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Well when you're making broad-ass statements like "there are MANY examples of the state putting hormones into kids on a whim", I'd expect that to at least have some basis in fact.

 

You're out here nursing a "muh CIVILITY!!!" grievance when you're failing to do us the barest courtesy of not just making shit up and lying to our faces.

Please show me where I said anything like that.

ah...so it's become pretty obvious which posters are in this thread just for the thrill of poking others with a metaphorical stick.

i'd suggest ignoring if for no other reason than to deprive them of their dopamine hit.

1 minute ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Please show me where I said anything like that.

Literally the post I quoted of yours originally?

1 hour ago, DalTxHornFan said:

With respect, I do think that there have been many examples of schools, courts, and child protective services-type agencies intervening in these decisions.

with the context of "these decisions" being "children receiving hormones and other gender transition therapies"

 

For fucks sake man, do you not read what you post?

2 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Literally the post I quoted of yours originally?

with the context of "these decisions" being "children receiving hormones and other gender transition therapies"

 

For fucks sake man, do you not read what you post?

Cool -- so you are admitting that the words that you put in QUOTES were not mine.  Thanks.

We have many posters on this site who simply are disgusting people humans lacking compassion 

ah...so it's become pretty obvious which posters are in this thread just for the thrill of poking others with a metaphorical stick.
i'd suggest ignoring if for no other reason than to deprive them of their dopamine hit.


Very much so.

In the decade plus I have been part of surly and the old site, I have never put anyone on ignore. This might be the point where I change that.

Not sure a definition of "intervening" is "doing absolutely nothing and letting the status quo remain," but oh well

With respect, I do think that there have been many examples of schools, courts, and child protective services-type agencies intervening in these decisions.
But I totally agree with you -- they should not. 
Show me one example of a school stepping in to advocate for a student transitioning, much less intervening to force a parent's hand. Believe me, this is one of the last things a school wants anything to do with.

Or is this another email forward/Facebook story about out of control government schools?
1 hour ago, Poe It Up said:

Definitely. My friend’s son threatened suicide after he took his PlayStation away. Does that mean he gave it back? Of course he didn’t. There are effective measures beyond your child parenting you. 

1) that did not happen

2) if it did, it's not the anecdote that i think you wanted it to be

3) ok, whatever, we can pretend and play your little games; let's do a little thought exercise around why a child would do such a thing. how old is the child? sometimes kids say stupid shit. it's a miracle my kids still live under my roof as many times as they threatened to run away at 8 or 9. has the child been depressed? have there been any other warning signs of mental health anguish? is the child struggling in any other area of their lives? do you even care? no, you do not care. for you it's more important that people conform to your ideas of how the world should be. 

see, your major problem is that you are scared of demonstrating empathy. you probably don't know why that is, and it's pretty sad. you don't try to take a look from another person's perspective except as a lens to magnify how you would act in their stead. it's all about you. how something makes you feel. what choice you would make in a given situation. of course you would choose not to be gay, queer, transsexual, whatever. why, you might wonder? because you aren't that. neither am i, so it makes it difficult to empathize. but i try to listen. that's the best i can do as a middle age white straight dude. i try to listen and i try to understand. might not always, there are some letters in the alphabet soup of "queer" (if i can even say that word) that i don't understand. that's okay, i think. i'm working on it. 

because this conversation is not about me. 

why do you think it is about you?

12 minutes ago, tchookem said:

Show me one example of a school stepping in to advocate for a student transitioning, much less intervening to force a parent's hand. Believe me, this is one of the last things a school wants anything to do with.

Or is this another email forward/Facebook story about out of control government schools?

The outrage is over school employees (a teacher, perhaps, or a counselor,) who a child has confided in, not notifying the kid’s parents. Or worse, using whatever pronoun the child wants used.

Edited to say that shitty parents never blame themselves for being so shitty their kid can’t speak honestly to them.

Edited by Willfully Horn

1 hour ago, DalTxHornFan said:

What parent hasn't had that thought?

Frustrations borne of the daily grind of parenting are totally valid reasons for enacting punitive, faith-based, draconian public policy. My 10 y.o. will not practice piano between lessons, therefore we should ban music instruction.

2 hours ago, Poe It Up said:

Do you have children? Not to be rude, but it sounds like you have zero understanding of how they operate. 

also, i try not to neg, but congrats you fucking ape. 

i wonder sometimes what it is that makes you tick. is it a false feeling of superiority? like you got all this shit figured out?

12 minutes ago, tchookem said:

Show me one example of a school stepping in to advocate for a student transitioning, much less intervening to force a parent's hand. Believe me, this is one of the last things a school wants anything to do with.

Or is this another email forward/Facebook story about out of control government schools?

@DalTxHornFan, you might want to go ahead and back up this claim. you can't just say " I do think that there have been many examples of schools, courts, and child protective services-type agencies intervening in these decisions." and not tell us what the hell you are talking about. first of all, you think? great, i think my wife should have a threesome with me and mila kunis tonight. as a matter of fact, i do think that there have been many examples of my wife, me, and mila kunis having a threesome.
 

1 hour ago, Poe It Up said:

My father committed suicide and I’ve dealt with the whole range of emotions associated with it, including guilt. He wielded it as a weapon for many years, so I’m very sensitive to that particular threat. It doesn’t mean you do nothing, it means you intervene in a more creative fashion. 

"Hey, we know medical and psychological science has avenues that could assuage your pain, but I don't want to feel like a hostage to your threats, so I'm not gonna look go that route. We're gonna be creative."

The outrage is over school employees (a teacher, perhaps, or a counselor,) who a child has confided in, not notifying the kid’s parents. Or worse, using whatever pronoun the child wants used.
Edited to say that shitty parents never blame themselves for being so shitty their kid can’t speak honestly to them.
Right, and those are the links he shared. Nevermind that his original statement made it sound as though schools and child advocates were "intervening" and transitioning children despite the objections of parents.
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Neither of Dal or Poe are interested in actual discussion. Thinly veiled trolling.

On 2/1/2023 at 5:40 PM, DalTxHornFan said:

Lobotomies were celebrated as a huge medical breakthrough in the 40's and 50's.

When did you get yours?

33 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

also, i try not to neg, but congrats you fucking ape. 

i wonder sometimes what it is that makes you tick. is it a false feeling of superiority? like you got all this shit figured out?

No need for name calling. I was curious on whether they had children because it helps to understand where they’re coming from. 

8 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Neither of Dal or Poe are interested in actual discussion. Thinly veiled trolling.

i'm not sure of that.

i mean, poe possibly, i guess, because he has made the completely ridiculous statement that he doesn't know any gay people in real life because none live near him because he lives in some fantasy land.

2 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

What's next Poe? "If my kid doesn't eat his vegetables I'm going to murder that little shit"?

I used to just get threatened with a spanking.

1 minute ago, Poe It Up said:

No need for name calling. I was curious on whether they had children because it helps to understand where they’re coming from. 

no you fucking weren't, dude. 

you were interested in being a fucking condescending prick because you got all this shit figured out, right?

if you weren't, well, here i am telling you you are. you are a condescending prick. maybe you don't mean to be. but you are.

 

 

1 minute ago, hayden_horn said:

i'm not sure of that.

i mean, poe possibly, i guess, because he has made the completely ridiculous statement that he doesn't know any gay people in real life because none live near him because he lives in some fantasy land.

No, my point was that I live in an area with very few openly gay people. 

41 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

1) that did not happen

2) if it did, it's not the anecdote that i think you wanted it to be

3) ok, whatever, we can pretend and play your little games; let's do a little thought exercise around why a child would do such a thing. how old is the child? sometimes kids say stupid shit. it's a miracle my kids still live under my roof as many times as they threatened to run away at 8 or 9. has the child been depressed? have there been any other warning signs of mental health anguish? is the child struggling in any other area of their lives? do you even care? no, you do not care. for you it's more important that people conform to your ideas of how the world should be. 

see, your major problem is that you are scared of demonstrating empathy. you probably don't know why that is, and it's pretty sad. you don't try to take a look from another person's perspective except as a lens to magnify how you would act in their stead. it's all about you. how something makes you feel. what choice you would make in a given situation. of course you would choose not to be gay, queer, transsexual, whatever. why, you might wonder? because you aren't that. neither am i, so it makes it difficult to empathize. but i try to listen. that's the best i can do as a middle age white straight dude. i try to listen and i try to understand. might not always, there are some letters in the alphabet soup of "queer" (if i can even say that word) that i don't understand. that's okay, i think. i'm working on it. 

because this conversation is not about me. 

why do you think it is about you?

Yes, it happened. It happens all the time to parents, there’s all kinds of threats made to get their way, you can’t parent in fear. You’ll end making terrible decisions. This particular kid seems to be on the straight and narrow right now, which is awesome.
 

It’s true that I find it very difficult to empathize with individuals facing this issue, it’s foreign to me and although it makes me uncomfortable, I do try. I’ll never be on board with transitioning children, but maybe there’s a middle ground to be found. 

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Nothing will satisfy or even get Poe, Dal, or Anastasia to even consider that their stance is flawed. If you provide an anecdotal experience, they will provide ones that are completely asinine (MIL climbed trees, doctors would shoot her up with hormones. Or a child threatens to kill himself in a tantrum over a PlayStation). If you provide research, it will never be to the standard they want. You provide research to that standard, well, the percentages are not to their liking. Throw it out. Or maybe by some miracle it meets their standard…well, then there is their safety argument: Christianity and the Bible.

They are not interested in honestly and truly seeing what other people outside of their perfect, privileged bubble think or are going through.

I’m pretty sure I know why Poe’s dad killed himself (although I believe that about as much as I believe something George Santos would say).

You absolutely do not try to empathize, you gaslighting garbage pile. In the very next sentence you say you'll never be on board with transitioning for children, even though it is the medical standard of care for trans kids. An empathetic person would realize that, as well as realizing that it's none of their fucking business what a child, parent, and doctor decide in regards to gender transition.

18 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

First, thanks for expanding on what you meant by control groups; I am always grateful to learn more.

That said, you are tilting at windmills, to put it kindly, and have resorted to hyperbole. Not the castration comparison, though that is a non rigorously studied and nebulous conclusion  depending on the time frame involved, but your “crazy” characterization. Innovation is a species long technique, and individuals, or parents intent on protecting their kids, trying to solve life issues, using what knowledge is available, is exactly what sane humans do. 
 

The study I have posted was, at the time, current news. It is far from the only study concluding that gender affirming care leads to improvement in the lives of the transgendered community. I will link other reports that reach the same conclusion, but at some point you ought admit that you, and other like minded dissenters have no support other than Heritage level publications. IOW, you argue that your doubts are more trustworthy than the conclusions of the institutions found below, and you imply peer review suffers the same failings as the report authors.  Again, to put it gently, hyperbole.

Except you frame these reports in terms of popular bias. The “everyone else is wrong, is lying, and is putting out fake news for a political, or cultural, purpose” narrative is as weak an argument as I have ever heard from you.  Congrats on your NEJM subscription and best of luck on your insecurity issues.


https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2674039

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-the-science-on-gender-affirming-care-for-transgender-kids-really-shows/

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789433
 

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/01/mental-health-hormone-treatment-transgender-people.html

 

This is an awesome post. It’s as if an AI chatbot coded by particularly dim programmers was brought to life on surly. The way that it moves so fluidly from acknowledgment to cliche to misunderstanding to world salad to misrepresentation and to straw man is mesmerizing. But the real coup de grace is you citing more links to things that, by your own words you don’t read and/or understand, while running out appeal to authority and you literally trying to tell me anything about how peer review works. 
 

Jeez man. You realize that there are other people reading your nonsense right. 
 

My perspective is really not controversial. The same principles can be applied to many very different areas where people want to run out drug therapy. I am responding no differently to this topic than I would people arguing about giving gabapentin to people to treat borderline personality disorder or as a mood stabilizer in bipolar disorder. There are certain objective standards that apply to evidence based medicine. We can grade the evidence and talk about it in honest and consistent ways. If you want to carve out a particular therapeutic area from that scrutiny it reflects your bias ( “royal you” willfully). Not mine. 
 

I wish triplehorn was still posting here. He’d probably have some really interesting insights to share. 

Edited by Anastasis

17 hours ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Is your Google not working?

 

Negged for long cat. 

Speaking of posters that aren’t here anymore, what happened to that jimmyjames guy? I kinda miss reading all of his hyper-paranoid posts. 

20 hours ago, Poe It Up said:

My father committed suicide and I’ve dealt with the whole range of emotions associated with it, including guilt. He wielded it as a weapon for many years, so I’m very sensitive to that particular threat. It doesn’t mean you do nothing, it means you intervene in a more creative fashion. 

This makes me hope genetics are actually destiny.

35 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

This makes me hope genetics are actually destiny.

Jimmy Fallon Omg GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

18 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

i mean, poe possibly, i guess, because he has made the completely ridiculous statement that he doesn't know any gay people in real life because none live near him because he lives in some fantasy land.

I get your want to drag Poe with this, but I don’t find it as ridiculous as you may think.  As far as “openly” gay, my wife has a cousin we see every other Christmas or so, and other than that, I don’t have work or social ties with openly gay folks. My gay “friends” are the few here on this site. I’ve met many through the years, but typically in passing. My wife had probably a half dozen gay (male and female) roommates in college, lots of gay acquaintances; it just hasn’t been my experience.
 

I’m not being hyperbolic about this. I was thinking about this recently, but I’m almost certain I doubled the amount of trans folks I’ve seen “in the flesh” on a recent vacation.   There’s some things you can drag Poe about, but I’m not certain he’s trolling with that statement.  

Deflection noted, @Anastasis. Good job on reigning in your hyperbolic rhetoric.

You could spend your time arguing the long term effects of puberty blockers are unknown, which is made crystal clear to those who chose that therapy, btw. That these medications and surgeries improve mental health outcomes has been established.

 

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On 2/2/2023 at 6:11 AM, wildcat09 said:

Rate of Left-Handedness in the US: Stigma & Society - Slow Reveal Graphs

I remember in 7th grade, my earth sciences teacher was also a baseball coach.  I will never forget when he noticed I was a lefty and told me that he was right handed, but was a lefty as a small kid, and his parents would slap his left hand every time he used it, and forced him into being a righty.  He was a grown man, he was at least 40, and even in 7th grade I could hear his resentment towards his parents that they didn't allow him to be what nature made him.

 

On 2/2/2023 at 8:37 AM, troph said:

36 years ago I was 11. One fall afternoon walking home from school, I took a slight detour and found myself standing under a bridge smoking a cigarette I stole from my neighbors parents. It was a Benson & Hedges because they were sophisticated like that. Emotionally hollow, I had friends, I played sports and yet no one knew me. I cried as I sank down against the concrete wall until I slid all the way into the ground. Sitting in the dark, my back up against a cold concrete wall, I sank further. There were the faint sounds of cars going by above. Finally my external reality matched my inside, in a dark, cold, lonely place with the world just going by. Then I said it. 11 years old, “I want to be a girl.” Before the Southern Baptists come out and scream, “see, it’s a choice!!” I must say those are the words I muttered at a time when I had no idea what was what. There was no medical protocol, and if I said it to an adult I would either be patted on the head or sent for psych evaluation at the hospital. I finished my cigarette and put it out and walked home. A latch key kid at the time I was able to maintain the silence and solitude for a few more hours. Nothing had changed. Weeks maybe months later, I was in my room thumbing through the pages of my wall to wall set of encyclopedia Britannica volumes and by happenstance I was in the “T” volume. Usually stopping on countries to read and learn about their geography I just kept flipping pages until my eye caught a quarter page entry for “transsexuals”. I read about Christine Jorgensen who was “once a man and underwent sex reassignment surgery to become a woman” and I immediately knew who I was. I found the light! I kept reading and the last paragraph said most “transsexuals” live in big cities like New York or San Fransisco and then the light flickered and disappeared. This unlucky suburban trans kid from Texas had no real way to make it to New York or San Fransisco as an 11 year old. So I closed the book, and cried myself to sleep. I didn’t tell anyone - not a soul - for nearly two more decades. 

that’s your typical gender dysphoria diagnosis more than 20 years ago. 

I remember a similar experience (minus the smoking), except with a human sexuality book when I was 12 that I found on my mom's bookshelf.  I stumbled across the section on homosexuality and my little mind was fucking blown. But I was in small town west Texas, where that shit just wasn't ok, so I hid myself until I could get to a bigger city.  Then the first friends I made at UT made it clear it wasn't ok, and I decided I'd rather have friends that be my true self and kept right on hiding it.  Like you, my drive for being alive was the only thing that kept me going through some of those times.  It is not a pleasant experience when you flat out are not allowed to be who you are.

On 2/2/2023 at 1:37 PM, Poe It Up said:

This is all so very new and the rules we’re supposed to play by are constantly changing. We’ll get there, but there will always be parents that refuse to let their child make an irreversible decision like this one. I know I’m one. 

There are words for transgenders in the Americas that are older than when Columbus first landed in America, what are you talking about this is all new?

On 2/2/2023 at 3:17 PM, Poe It Up said:

Do you have children? Not to be rude, but it sounds like you have zero understanding of how they operate. 

I was a child myself, and have very clear memories of the internal battles I went through to try not to be what I was, and very clear memories of the emotional toll that took on me, and in fact, how I'm still paying that toll today.  So yes, I have a very good understanding of how kids in these situations operate, because one of those kids was me.  

6 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

You could spend your time arguing the long term effects of puberty blockers are unknown, which is made crystal clear to those who chose that therapy, btw. That these medications and surgeries improve mental health outcomes has been established.

You might as well be triple talking about HCQ. In fact, you may be triple. He didn't seem as generally dimwitted as you. But just putting it out into the universe. 

4 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

You might as well be triple talking about HCQ. In fact, you may be triple. He didn't seem as generally dimwitted as you. But just putting it out into the universe. 

You are a bundle of raw nerves, it seems. Must be difficult. 

In this debate, Ana, you are the only one whose argument is unsupported.
 

 

4 hours ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

I remember in 7th grade, my earth sciences teacher was also a baseball coach.  I will never forget when he noticed I was a lefty and told me that he was right handed, but was a lefty as a small kid, and his parents would slap his left hand every time he used it, and forced him into being a righty.  He was a grown man, he was at least 40, and even in 7th grade I could hear his resentment towards his parents that they didn't allow him to be what nature made him.

 

I remember a similar experience (minus the smoking), except with a human sexuality book when I was 12 that I found on my mom's bookshelf.  I stumbled across the section on homosexuality and my little mind was fucking blown. But I was in small town west Texas, where that shit just wasn't ok, so I hid myself until I could get to a bigger city.  Then the first friends I made at UT made it clear it wasn't ok, and I decided I'd rather have friends that be my true self and kept right on hiding it.  Like you, my drive for being alive was the only thing that kept me going through some of those times.  It is not a pleasant experience when you flat out are not allowed to be who you are.

There are words for transgenders in the Americas that are older than when Columbus first landed in America, what are you talking about this is all new?

I was a child myself, and have very clear memories of the internal battles I went through to try not to be what I was, and very clear memories of the emotional toll that took on me, and in fact, how I'm still paying that toll today.  So yes, I have a very good understanding of how kids in these situations operate, because one of those kids was me.  

There weren’t 50 gender identities and hormone treatments that destroy one’s reproductive systems. This is new territory, especially when it comes to children. 

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1 hour ago, Poe It Up said:

There weren’t 50 gender identities and hormone treatments that destroy one’s reproductive systems. This is new territory, especially when it comes to children. 

One of the first things to understand is that for minors, there's very little pharmaceutical or surgical intervention.

It's mostly social, and carefully monitored.  The people involved in this know better than you that children are whimsical to say the least.

And, as much as you may like to think libruls are destroying the social fabric of America, the fact is that a child that chooses, with guidance, to socially transition will have to balance their internal happiness against a mega shit ton of people who will socially isolate and abuse them, from other kids to adults.  And that's a decision that a child can make, and reverse, validly with proper support.

Puberty blockers are sometimes used to halt development of secondary sex characteristics until the child reaches majority or passes through any possible "phase."  They have relatively few side effects and certainly don't destroy the reproductive system.  They were designed for the cases of 8 year olds growing big tits, hairy chests, and big dicks and have a 40 year track record.

The people involved in this are not letting 13-year olds have sex change operations because they think it's cool this week, despite what your political allies tell you or want you to think.

When I come across stuff like this, I remember and want to remind people that alcoholism was universally considered a moral defect or lack of willpower until the latter 20th century.  For all of modern medicine's flaws, it doesn't really tend to embrace some "flavor of the month" in social or scientific thinking, the relationship between serum cholesterol and eating cholesterol-containing foods notwithstanding.

Yeah sure, this 50 gender identities seems laughable at first, and any notion of letting minors have sex-change operations is problematic to say the least.  But, if you're not willing to dig a little deeper into the facts of it and consider that this can be a huge issue for people, then I don't really know what to tell you, other than you should "check yourself before you wreck yourself."  Analogiing this to kids wanting to eat skittles for breakfast is pretty appalling.

Edited by TwiceHorn

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