Transgender Rights & "Irreversible Damage" / Abigail Shrier

His question is about how trans rights will play as a political issue, i.e. is this something that is political advantageous for the Right to generate concern about?

Personally, I think trans rights are already playing out like an accelerated form of how gay rights played out. Started as a moral panic the Right could use to play off fears of the unknown, then as it became more spotlighted publicly (gay people in media, people realizing they had gay friends/family, etc.) their issues gained more steam and won enough legal cases until now it'd probably be political suicide for anyone on a national platform to denounce gay people. Trans rights as a popular issue is already at the point of having the public spotlight on it so the Right's best argument to try to counter it is the old man yelling at cloud "what the hell is happening?" They can bite off that for a good while since there are fewer trans people than there are gay people and gender is more abstract than sexuality, but I can't see it lasting for a generation the way that gay rights were held off for several.

This is an astonishing political bill - I often accuse Democrats nowadays of misrepresenting things in states - ie DeSantis' "Don't Say Gay" is not what that bill says at all really ....but this however is quite a Republican stretch.......and an example of how this does play into politics, mid-terms and 2024.

On Tuesday, the Idaho House passed legislation that would make it a felony for parents to seek gender-affirming care for trans minors, punishable with life in prison.

House Bill 675 stipulates that anyone who seeks to provide gender-affirming care for minors under the age of 18, including genital surgeries and hormone blockers, “for the purposes of attempting to change or affirm the child’s perception of the child’s sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child’s biological sex” could face life in prison is convicted. The legislation applies to any parent or guardian who takes their child outside of the state to receive such care.


gomag.com/article/idaho-house-passes-legislation-making-it-a-felony-to-provide-trans-minors-with-gender-affirming-care/

This shouldn't be a crime, but I do think it's very problematic to give your child gender altering surgeries or medicines. If it was my child, I wouldn't do it. I'd let them make that choice once they reached 18. These are permanent life changing procedures and I think too young imo to be considered for children. I can understand hormone pills when they're teenagers if they decide that. But gender surgery would be too much for me to approve for MY child. Once they turned 18 then yeah, they can go do whatever they please. Once again there's nuance here. Also, when it comes to biological males playing in women sports. How come you never see transmen beating all the regular men in physical sports, but you see a lot of transwomen beating all the regular women? 

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Also, stop with the straw man argument. Do you really think opposing this Idaho legislation is indicative of grooming kids to have these surgeries? Maybe he just doesn't think it should be a felony for a parent to try to help promote their child's identity, idk. Do you yourself have any idea of the hurdles it takes for a minor to receive even hormone blockers (which only stall puberty until its removal) let alone HRT or especially gender-reassignment surgery? What age do you think these kids are who would be going through those hurdles? Do you know the rates of people who express regret after going through such procedures, both in the immediate short-term and long-term? If your answer to any of those is "no," then I suggest you read something before going around calling people groomers. Now, if you have any problems, I'll hear you out.

EDIT: Btw, in case you're curious, I'm not even the one who deleted your comment.

You probably should have led with that bolded statement since it colors your whole perspective. And to it I'll just ask: when do you think gender identity becomes a thing? Is it only at the age of 18? When do you think gender "develops?" I'd be curious to hear about what you know and have read into the genetic and biopsychological development of gender to come to such a firm conclusion. Especially since I have a vested interest in reading as much as I can about this as a therapist who works with several trans clients (including those mythical trans kids). For me this is a tangible issue, not a hypothetical or an abstract concept to Google about.

Please do not include in whatever reply you may give stuff about isolated horror stories of people regretting their transition. I know it happens and I know it's an extremely small minority since it's usually an uphill battle to get any physical transition started (and surgery before you're a legal adult? That's so rare that any case of it ends up getting a news article). I also do not wanna hear more about suicide rates, I also know all those stats and imagine there might be more going on there than just someone regretting a transition (hmm, I wonder if this conversation would be depressing to a trans person?). Sorry, but the Jordan Peterson talking points are not gonna cut it with me.

It seems you are unaware of the underlying biopsychological components that can cause someone to be transgender. How the brain is sexually dimorphic in multiple ways and a transgender individual's brain is usually more resembling the gender they identify with from an early age (this is also true of non-binary identities where the brain is masculinized in some ways and femininized in others). Gender is not only a sociological construct - that's really only in terms of external definers of gender, i.e. boys getting blue stuff and girls getting pink - there's literally a biological component that often gets ignored since people don't care to learn about the brain. So when I ask about "gender development," I'm literally talking about brain development.

You are concerned about their developmental ability to process the long-term consequences of their actions, which I would also be concerned and is why the usual path for someone looking to undergo physical transition is to be seen by a counselor/psychiatrist to get a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria, start taking hormone blockers (which again only forestall puberty that resumes as soon as it is taken away) for an extended period of time to see if dysphoria persists, then move to monitored hormone replacement, and finally surgery which almost exclusively becomes an option after the person has reached adulthood. This process is over years and the trans individual being second-guessed is the default for most people involved in this process, including in a non-insignificant amount of cases where such second-guessing amplifies dysphoria. Idk if you were under some impression that there's a wave of 15-year-olds getting gender reassignment surgery because their teachers called them a boy, but I can assure you that is an imaginary concern.

If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? See, because the prefrontal cortex is the last part of the brain to fully mature which happens around the age of 25. The prefrontal cortex is where you get more refined in your executive functioning so planning, decision-making, personal expression, differentiating conflicting thoughts, and greater control of social behavior. I ask because that's the part of the brain you are expressing concern about.

I understand why you think this way, I mean hold these truths to be self evident. If I got an entire higher level education on this stuff, I would probably assume it’s gospel too and not a load of nonsense or mental illness that was invented by overeducated social scientists with nothing better to do and out of ideas for how to get funding. It’s ok, my degrees were scams too. I do appreciate you regurgitating your curriculum at me though, feels like I learned so much useless information without having to spend a dime. I’m looking forward to the next lecture. I particularly liked the psychology jargon, I’ll have to add it to my repertoire of Wall Street jargon/political jargon/lawyerspeak. It’s one of the reasons I really enjoy reading your posts and respect your opinions. I know I’m talking to a smart, proficient writer who can provide expert insight from their field, unlike certain others who seem more akin to Twitter reply guys who blindly retweet every other Occupy Democrats post. However, I’m sorry but I had to roll my eyes at gender being called a sociological construct. It’s like your version of my “Jordan Peterson talking points” but I hit you with my “Jordan Peterson taking points” so fair is fair. We can talk about social conventions - which you did touch on when mentioning blue for boys/pink for girls which I’ll agree that’s convention or gender stereotype w/e you want to call it, but constructs are a non starter

I will concede I come off as alarmist when talking about surgeries for minors, even if I never explicitly stated they’re happening now. Went back and reread my posts to make sure of that too before making that statement. I will fully stand by what I said about the grooming though and that kids are being groomed for these surgeries when they’re older. Kids are very impressionable and don’t need to be manipulated by predatory teachers who have their own ulterior motives, not much different from a sicko bishop or priest. I will say considering things have gotten to this point and it’s a conversation that actually needs to be had, I won’t be surprised when certain circles start trying to normalize the idea of minors getting the surgery in the name of tolerance for everyone just like how recently we’ve seen the promotion of the term “minor attracted persons” to describe pedophiles because the word pedophile is dehumanizing to pedophiles. The two are connected and newsflash, pedophiles should indeed be dehumanized

If you must know my age, fed (I jest), I have not hit that magic 25 yet. So yes, I already knew beforehand that my brain hasn’t fully finished developing and there’s a chance it might not even be done until later in my late 20s and wrote my posts with that knowledge in my mind. Shit there’s still stuff my brain needs to work on and be able to process at this age, much like everyone else my age, so imagine processing a life altering sex change operation. Takes a lot of maturity, and I will be the first to admit I am one immature motherfucker lmao, and immaturity is a god damn epidemic in my generation

I don’t think I can disagree with that highlighted point. There’s absolutely a large number of parents who will try to snap their kids out of it if they suspect they may be flirting with the idea of being transgender so I guess by definition you can call it another form of grooming, this being the other side of the “grooming for trans surgery” coin. Although in terms of grooming for surgery, I’m thinking in terms of a predator grooming for their own sexual gratification because with that prior definition then you could theoretically argue that any parent-child or teacher-student relationship is grooming. When a parent “grooms” their kid to not be trans I don’t think there’s any sexual ulterior motives, although this won’t be the case 100% of the time obviously as there are sick fucks in every walk of life. The overwhelming majority of the time I gotta assume the parent is in a mindset of “no, you are my son. I don’t have a daughter” or it’s just a transphobia thing or both. Whether suppression of resources for minors is a bigger issue, I’m gonna say no on that. I ultimately think there’s a chance to end up doing more harm if you push through with transition at a younger age than if you sit back and have honest conversations with parents/professionals and hold off until that person is mature enough to make that decision for themself with the understanding of everything that it means. Definitely a better alternative imo than a non parent or non clinical professional trying to be a guide for someone who is not their child and probably has never had children of their own. I do also see what you mean when you say strained relationships between trans people and their families are a societal issue, as I do believe that many societal issues can ultimately be traced back to strained familial relationships and generally weak households regardless of background. I’m probably taking this in a different direction and that probably wasn’t the point you were trying to make but I see what you’re saying. Very complicated issue

If anyone is curious....... David Pakman - who I often mock, joined Michael Knowles - who I should mock more often tbh - on Knowles podcast to discuss Ketanji Brown Jackson and the "not answering "what is a woman?" question that has come up the last couple of days in SCOTUS hearing.........and it was a great little healthy conversation - you can look it up later today on Youtube if you like......it's at the beginning of the show and gets into the nature of honest discussion or political motivations, the difference between law and "dictionary definitions" on words and what's appropriate to ask in this setting, and by extension the transgender discussion.

Pakman acquitted himself quite well I thought tbh.....wish it had been longer, it was just a few minutes