“Consensus” that children’s opinion on “gender” matter is outlandish.
The link you posted is pure tragicomedy.
Nearly at the top: “Many are unsure if it is just a “teenage phase” or their child is really transgender. It may be helpful to allow your teen to explore their gender identity with support from a counselor or therapist who has experience supporting transgender youth.”
You really find nothing strange about “an counselor who has experience supporting transgender youth”?!
Right, so your teenage son has a weirdo phase and uses lipstick because he like a goth chic. So the school counselor recommends this “experienced counselor” to … guide him? You realize if you go to a antiaging clinic you will get a hormonal-prescription, if you go to a certain doctor, he’ll get you a medical MJ license etc, the reasons actually don’t matter cause these guys will simply cater to customers.
You know what I see?
A future where many weird teens who might blossomed into T-Men will become the new ADHD kids.
Meanwhile you conformists will, in maybe thirty years, turn and reflect, “nobody could’ve foreseen that, I mean it was the consensus”.
I have known some weird youth and given the right climate they would’ve been nudged into the trans direction.
Good thing the cooler penis heads prevailed since two immediately changed when they finally got laid.
No, because that’s what counselors do. They help people deal with difficult problems. I don’t find it strange at all that there are counselors who deal with this. I’d be surprised if there weren’t.
Are you imagining that the only outcome of these sessions is full-blown hormone treatment and sex change? I’m no more of an expert on this than you are, but I’d imagine that plenty of kids can and do get these things sorted out and go on to lead productive, normal lives. A “phase”, if you will.
I’ll agree that society doesn’t owe any special deference to gay or transgendered people. I’m firmly in the “use the men’s room if you have a dick” camp. I’m just not opposed to applying the scientific method to understand this or any other phenomena. It does, after all, have a pretty good track record.
You’ve made it clear that you find understanding this phenomenon through observation and study to be flawed at best, destructive at worst. So I have to ask, what do YOU think we, as a society, should do for adolescents with gender identity issues?
Beat it out of them with a belt? Pray for them REALLY hard? Abduct them and send them to a religious retreat for some type of de-conditioning? Shame them until they come around?
If you find counseling strange, what would you consider normal?
Do you think warping factually defined terms like gender makes an impressionable child less or more confused. Hell, I can’t even figure out what someone means when they talk about gender anymore and I’m a fairly smart well-adjusted adult.
Maybe playing along with the delusion is the best treatment and the best way for them to have a fulfilled life, I readily admit I don’t know. Even up to and including surgery. There may very well be physiological reasons outside of the persons control that result in this outcome. However, even if it is best to play along, and even if it is caused by physiological conditions, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a delusion or that it isn’t a disorder.
I have no idea either, honestly. I get just as confused as you do. It seems like a difficult issue, which is why I generally support methodical efforts to understand it better.
The counseling system is rather broken, as is the pain medication system, the psychological treatment system and so on.
In short, many medical niches that enjoy profitable business through strategical pharma bombing are broken. In fact, too many medical services are way too biased for reasonable parents to entrust them with their child’s health, or here specifically, their hormonal wellbeing.
You want a nice, easy solution?
There is none.
If your child asks you about nutrition, will you hand them the universally agreed upon food pyramid brochure?
A decades old consensus!
I’d say it’s probably better for an informed T-Man to teach your child about nutrition yourself.
Once he knows the basics, he can explore on his own.
Of course I’m not saying that medicine in general is fubar- quite the contrary(eg If your child’s arm is broken, go see a doc). But where ideology can seep in to make a buck, it usually does and nobody feels particularly bad about destroying some kid’s hormonal composition.
And why should they? The consensus absolved them.
And if you know the stakes are high (ie permanently screwing your child up) and the whole program is, at best, young, experimental, full of political momentum and has neither good tangible results nor hard statistics on its side- it becomes a rather obvious nobrainer to oppose it.
Fetal abnormalities occur in all systems in the body. As such, a certain percentage of babies are born with ambiguous genetalia. And even genetic testing may not provide definitive sex typing. So what follows as a result of this doesn’t really surprise me now that I’ve done some research.
People feel the need to infringe on other’s comfort levels and personal space, to “make sure” that these special “scientifically created flowers” do not feel put down upon.
If I was a mother with my young daughter and a dude came strolling into the ladies room shouting “It’s fine, I’m a transgender” I’m gonna get fucking pissed off.
Man, I remember when public restrooms were wholesome places for gloryholes and casual anonymous sexual encounters and selling/doing drugs. You’re telling me people are going to start pooping and peeing in them? Is nothing sacred?