You might want to check out the best article I have ever read on the subject of gender reassignment at Quillette.com. It’s written by a transgender man who does not regret the decision but also thinks that forcing such things on children at early ages is a mistake. Here’s a very brief snippet:
I write all this as a 47-year-old transgender man who transitioned five years ago. I’m also a parent to three teenagers. Though I admire the good intentions of parents who seek to support their children, I have serious concerns about reckless acquiescence to a child’s Internet-mediated self-diagnosis. Many older transgender folks share these concerns, too.
and this:
Transgenderism isn’t a vague feeling, or a distaste for stereotypical roles. It’s a serious internal condition that causes you to want to become the opposite sex. Medical transition, such as the kind I went through, can enhance an illusion that helps some gender dysphoric individuals navigate the world with more comfort. It did for me, and it was the right path for me to choose.
I wasn’t “born in the wrong body.†I was born female. But I didn’t like it. So I changed my appearance, at significant monetary, psychological, and physical cost, with plastic surgery and hormones. My sex never changed, though. Only my appearance changed.
Read the whole thing.
Very difficult to understand the feelings that would make one take on the misery and risk if they knew going in, but of course he’s right about the confusion of puberty , and wow,
how in the world do they even get surgeons to do this to kids.
Greyshambler, what makes the world go round? Lots of cash and carry in this field and there be some with a Pygmalion complex.
Good article, very good points made. Was I baddie when I told my 5 year old he could not be nun? The mention of Lupron reminds of when it was a wonder drug for sexually acting out and/or aggressive autistic male teens.
Dave, I read the article a few days ago, and I also agree it was outstanding. It’s too bad that only someone with her life experience is now allowed to speak truth to power. I hope you read the comments too, Quillette has an outstanding array or intelligent commenters (along with a few duds) and the language is restrained.
One thing stuck out in his article though was the 900K + cost of the transformation, paid by insurance. If she had had to pay for it herself, I would have strongly doubted she would have gone through mutilating herself. Other people’s money tends to make one very loose with it. I recall an old story about shock therapy written in the 1970’s, how common its use was because the institutions were able to charge so much. When Canada limited the how much hospitals could charge for shock treatment, it disappeared from the repertoire of treatments.
It is well written, so it will bye given undue deference. What we should be looking at is overall data and knowing what is really happening. First, the larger clinics treating gender dysphoria report that the majority of teens receive counseling only and never go into treatment. Next, there is no agreed upon age, and note that the author here does not offer one. Is it 16, 18, 21, 30? There is real disagreement about whether it is better or worse to go through puberty with gender dysphoria.
Then there is the issue of regret which is what is largely being addressed here. The incidence of regret, per available research, is actually decreasing. They get a lot of publicity so it may seem to bye increasing. So, there is no truth to power here. The issues are well known, they are addressed and the majority of teens do not get treatment when “challenged”. There is honest disagreement about when to start treatment and what risks are acceptable. Note that the article cited quotes one or two studies when there are dozens available. That is usually a tell on whether they writer is making a one sided argument. Link goes to a review of recent articles.
https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/
THe $900,000 bit bears a little comment. A sex change doesnt cost that much. The very large majority of that $900,000 came from treating complications. As the author notes, sex change stuff is not well regulated so there are some people involved in this area who really dont have the expertise to be doing it. So this is a good example of the free market at work in medicine. (This is the whole libertarian approach to medicine. Let anyone who wants practice medicine regardless of training and if their results are bad the market will figure it out and you can always sue if there are bad results.) So the real value in this article I think is making people aware that there is a lot of shoddy care in this area. If you dont do your research and go to people without real expertise you can have bad results. This also has value as in the argument over what is the proper age of consent it seems to be pushing for an older age, which I think is probably a good idea, though this is not an area of expertise. However, note that while he says adult, we have multiple ages that we use for defining adult. Marriage is legal at 13 and 14 in places in the US.
Steve
The only states in which marriage with parental consent is legal younger than the age of 16 are Hawaii (15) and Massachusetts (14 for males and 12! for females). The age of consent is generally the same as the age of marriage without parental consent.
“This is the whole libertarian approach to medicine. Let anyone who wants practice medicine regardless of training and if their results are bad the market will figure it out and you can always sue if there are bad results.â€
Who are these libertarian witch doctor advocates of which you speak? Another straw man argument?
Peter Suderman, Alex Tabarrok, Don Boudreaux, Arnold Kling, Bryan Caplan and many others you would not read. Each one of those may not support all of the above but they all support some of it.
New Hampshire was 13 years old up until 2019.
Steve
‘THe $900,000 bit bears a little comment. A sex change doesnt cost that much. The very large majority of that $900,000 came from treating complications.’
Agreed, and I should have probably should have mentioned in my post that the high figure was likely due to the complications. But I still feel that had she not been able to have her mutilation paid for by insurance, she might not chosen to ‘transition’ at all. And I believe in Canada, the UK, and other nations with universal health care the operations are paid for by the taxpayer. The other people’s money argument.
Transgenderism may be a true birth defect, but not one that should require surgery, just acceptance. The author, I assume will want a partner to share life with but who would be interested in someone with so many physical surgical deformities?
Someone with issues of their own I suppose.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy comes to mind.
” forcing such things on children ”
No one is forcing it on children in western countries. It is being promoted and glamourized to children with the potential pitfalls not mentioned in most media. I think it is crazy that it is illegal to drink or smoke for people under 21 but it is legal to give girls under 18 drugs and perform surgeries that will make them sterile and unable to have a normal sex life.
There is currently a trial in the UK about doing this to children. Here is one account:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54450273
Abigail Shrier wrote a book about teenage girls transitioning. Here is her twitter account which has links to book excerpts and interviews with her:
https://twitter.com/AbigailShrier
I suspect that what is probably being referred to are the lawsuits in which one (divorced) parent is suing another trying to prevent the custodial parent from starting a “transition” on their child, particularly if the child is at a very young age.