That was disturbing news to Angelica Jadunandan, who moved to New York from Florida with her two young daughters three years ago. Her older daughter, who is eight, is transgender, and Angelica wanted to move them to a safe blue state—somewhere her family’s medical care would not be called into question. New York is a self-declared “sanctuary state” for trans people. It seemed like a good option.
It’s quite curious that we’re trying to allow folks that can’t drive, drink, vote, join the military, or do any other number of adult activities alter their body like this. I went through this when I was younger, and it’s rough. We need to be aware that children genuinely do not have their own best interests at heart most of the time.
I wanted to be the same gender as the only parent that was there for me, and I think a lot of what we’re seeing here is similar to that. Maybe it would be worth it to talk to someone that’s grown up, someone that went through this themselves. Someone that received the gender affirming care while they were young… although that might be hard to find for this very reason.
I don’t understand it right now, and I would even say I disagree. But I’m open to understanding… I just don’t think the experience I’m looking for has even happened in a person yet (due to the mentioned legal issues).
At the end of the day, the subjective experience runs everything. Does this stuff harm or hurt folks in the long run? Only time will tell.
Edit: The angle is pretty different depending on if we’re talking about reversible procedures or not. If they’re reversible, the discussion is probably more similar to the current accepted practice of prescribing mental health medication to kids, which most people see as fine.
For those that wish to continue the scientific pursuit, this does a decent job of explaining the issues with current studies, although the organization is not without bias: Amsterdam cohort study
Are you Trans? If not, then you cannot understand. Leave people to make their own medical decisions as long as they don’t hurt society at large. So, don’t come back at me about vaccination.
As a fascist, what on earth made you decide to join Lemmy? Get the fuck out of here!
Didn’t think I’d ever see this shit here
If a cis child is able to begin puberty without people calling into question whether the child is mature enough to make such a life altering decision, there’s no reason a trans child should be unable to begin puberty blockers or HRT at the age they’d typically begin puberty regardless.
Choosing not to allow trans children to take necessary medical steps to transition is not a neutral choice. The wrong puberty can irreversibly damage your body in ways that are impossible or very expensive to fix, and the torture of seeing that happen to yourself and be unable to prevent it can’t be overstated.
No 8 year old is starting HRT, because they aren’t at the age to begin puberty. If a child is insistent in their gender idenity being incongruous with the puberty they will undergo long term, there is no reason to prevent them accessing HRT at the correct age, and if there is any doubt, the neutral option to pause unwanted changes in the interim is puberty blockers.
Gender confirmation surgeries are very uncommon for minors, and typically only happen to those who have already undergone the wrong puberty and have developed unwanted secondary sex characteristics (typically just top surgery for trans mascs). Breast reduction surgery for cis boys is the vast majority of gender confirmation surgery on minors, and among trans minors specifically the rate of gender affirming surgery is around 0.0021% for those 15-17, 0.0001% for those 13-14, and 0 for 12 and under. And the best way to reduce this number is by letting trans teens access puberty blockers and HRT.
Edit: Also there have 1000% been trans minors who started HRT as a minor and are now trans adults who are still on HRT. The rate of desisting for minors who identify as trans is like ~2%, and most of those who do do so by age 10 (eg before any HRT or gender affirming care outside of social transition). [source]
Fuck off entirely with this
All gender affirming care that is or has been provided to minors at scale is reversible. The standard for providing gender affirming care to minors is puberty blockers and social transition, never anything permanent like surgery. Personally, I don’t see any cause for concern about potential harm to minors from providing gender affirming care, but I do see the harm that is done to them when that care is denied and find it far more concerning given that a common result of that harm is the most permanent and irreversible outcome possible, suicide.
That’s good to know, thank you. It makes the angle pretty different.
An integral part of transgender care is also therapeutic evaluation and discussion with minors and parents to thoroughly understand what is needed at specific stages of the minor’s development.
The issue of parents/schools “promoting” kids to be a different gender is so insanely overblown. There isn’t any documented case of an adult coming forward to claim that they received gender altering medical intervention as a minor when they shouldn’t have.
You might find a lecture bio a professor from Stanford, named Robert Sapolsky, entitled ‘Neuro-biologu of trans-sexuality’ interesting.
I had been a little while since I watched it, but the thing that stands out in my memory is:
When you look at the differences between biologically male brains, and biologically female brains, there is this part that has nodes (I don’t remember exactly, sorry, nouns are not my forte) and they are always one size in male brains, and a different size in female brains.
In trans-sexual brains, these little nodes are the size of the nodes in the brain of their believed gender, not their biological gender.
People with similar experiences as a child certainly exist, and their and your experiences are valid, but there are many documented and studied experience that are different. Something like your experience, I would hope would be identified by the parents.
You should probably edit your comment to include this information since somebody might see the misinformation in your original comment and might not see this comment correcting it
I’ll add a clarifier at the end but I didn’t specifically reference procedures, so I’ll probably leave the “like this” part unless that’s considered deceptive in some way?
Regret rate is lower then joint replacement surgery and chemotherapy.
I can’t really find a direct large scale study, honestly we should fund one. I did find this though…
This isn’t a direct study but it kind of explains the issue I was trying to communicate, and it even references the other study that was linked here:
The Amsterdam cohort of gender dysphoria study
Its difficult to find large scale studies due to both the fact trans people are often understudied/represented in medical literature, and the existence of trans minors is so highly politicized. Almost all generally agreed upon data points to regret rates for gender affirming care being extremely low compared to almost every other type of treatment. Beginning HRT while you aren’t trans is pretty likely to give you biochemical dysphoria very quickly, the same way not being on HRT while you are trans can cause biochemical dysphoria.
Per that that website you linked:
I guess it makes sense you’re getting your talking points from people who don’t respect the bodily autonomy of women, since they also don’t seem to respect the bodily autonomy of people in general.
You have no actual points or argument and are just wasting peoples time.
OK thanks, I will take their numbers with a grain of salt. It’s looking like the regret numbers might be closer to 10-20% but that’s still pretty low and generally acceptable.
Yeah, there’s definitely data supporting this. It’s good news for sure in the medical field.
I do wonder about sample sizes and selection bias, as the ones I found seem to be a bit small and targeted. I think I’m going to research some of the larger studies that might be ongoing right now to see how they’re coming along.
If I find anything useful, I’ll post it here!
My friend, the meta analysis has been done. Consult a medical librarian. This is not controversial at all.
Oh, I’m not referring to a meta analysis… I actually avoid those because it’s a bit harder to verify all of the sample selection methods. I’m curious about direct, ongoing, large scale studies that may or may not have wrapped up.
Oh get stuffed with this concern trolling. The regret rate for children who transition is almost non-existent.
Man, I really thought this place would have more thoughtful discussion than Reddit. There’s nuance to everything and we’re all trying to understand each others human experience. It looks like mine is vastly different from yours, but that’s alright.
Edit: Oh I see this is your main topic you post about, it probably affects you deeply. Sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way!
Buddy, this isn’t “thoughtful discussion” this is the same transphobic bullshit we hear day in and day out. It’s been debunked so many times you don’t deserve a discussion, you deserve to be pelted with eggs and tomatoes until you get your clown ass of the stage
Transgender people’s existence isn’t up for debate.
Against my better judgement, I’m going to engage in good faith here.
What exactly do you mean by “like this”? There is nothing about this girl altering her body in the article at all. In general, people her age transitioning is mostly social (changing name/pronouns/aesthetic) and getting care from specialists who are doctors who know more than you or I or the average person about what might help the person in question. At a certain point puberty blockers come into play, which is not really altering the body as it is preventing possible harm to the child by forcing them to go through a possible traumatic experience that we can prevent. This gives the person additional time to ensure they are confident and happy with their decision. Puberty blockers are widely studied and if a person chooses they can stop them and the puberty of their assigned sex will proceed as expected. In the case that they decide to proceed there is an extremely small regret rate and the majority of that regret is because post coming out the person was not supported by others.
Your personal experience has really nothing to do with her experience or truly any other trans persons experience, seeing as you are clearly not trans. Your thoughts on these people are irrelevant as they and their literal team of doctors likely know what’s best for them far more than you ever could. There is paper after paper and organization after organization that you can look into with stats and figures and actual evidence, so I hope before you go around assuming your personal experience is somehow more relevant or accurate than that of the majority of all trans people and accredited medical professionals, you spend some time actually bothering to look into it. If you truly believe that time will tell, then I have great news for you because we as a society have known about trans people forever, and time has indeed already told, over and over and over again: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8099405/
The study appears to be a meta analysis or aggregation, so it’s going to take me a bit longer to look into. If you have favorite non-aggregate studies you personally know of, please let me know too. I’m sure I’ll find some, but my searches might not lead me down the same path.
I specifically linked a meta analysis because it shows that we have collected the same data over and over again and have found the same results.
If you’re unwilling to take the current medical approach as based on science, I really can’t imagine a single study changing your mind, but just for fun, here’s one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15842032/ 0.6% regret rate
Feel free to note it’s from 2005 and treatments have generally become even more advanced since then, meaning the process of medical transition was likely more physically taxing for them and with wore outcomes than it might be for people now, two decades later.
This does a decent enough job of trying to explain my issue with the sample selection and process used:
https://lemmy.today/comment/26855969
This is standard concern trolling behavior. I provided a specific study per your explicit request, and instead of responding to that specific study you link to a random website that has a bunch of boilerplate responses that are not a response at all.
Also, per that that website you linked:
I guess it makes sense you’re getting your talking points from people who don’t respect the bodily autonomy of women, since they also don’t seem to respect the bodily autonomy of people in general.
I promise I’m not trolling and you can DM me if you want and I won’t get upset or emotional, just want to talk and understand.
It did also mention that study in the link, or so I thought. I could be wrong.
Thanks! It would work to your advantage to operate a bit friendlier though. How are we going to change the internet without some smiles?
I’ll take a look at the link. Personally, I just think it’s a bit harder to verify the sample integrity in aggregate studies, that’s all. I believe a good portion of the scientific community hold this belief as well, but it’s not my area of expertise.
Thanks but with respect, everyone’s personal opinion is valid. I appreciate your information and will read the article you linked.
What do you mean by valid? If I believe onions cures cancer is that a valid personal opinion? People can have opinions, sure, but especially regarding actual medical issues, not all opinions are equal.
That’s fair, maybe I used the wrong words.
I think my experience can have something to do with their experience. I think a lot of the feelings I’ve felt are similar, although not the same.
I don’t think my experience is inherently unrelated, invalid, or dismissible because I’m not trans. If you still disagree I guess that’s alright, but that’s what I meant by opinion.
Go play in traffic, Dumbass