I thought of another important point here. Question for you. Did you know what gender you were when you were, say, 8 years old? Yes, you did. And it wasn't from looking inside your pants. It was a feeling. It was an innate knowledge - meaning, it was in your brain. It was, actually, your brain's self-awareness of its configuration (male or female).
So, children, in terms of brain development, do know what they are by that age.
However, people like you would like to take that self-knowledge away from them.
How about a child with leukemia? Would you deny them access to treatment because you think they are 'not old enough to know or understand the consequences'? i don't think so. If you did, you'd be a fucking child abuser.
Same thing applies to trans children. You want to deny them the treatment for their medical condition. That makes you a fucking child abuser, nothing more.
If you can point me towards some 8 year old manifesto about an 'ideology' and how awful that is and how they are trying (and succeeding) to convince other 8 year olds to believe in that manifesto then yeah, I think i'll agree with you about some nefarious agenda. But if you can't provide this evidence, then I will say you're just another fascist bigot imposing your will on innocent children with medical conditions and not allowing them to choose their own treatment.
That's not anarchism. That's fascism. In which case, fuck you.
Calm down, calm down... I've been meaning to respond to your critiques... actually you might have to bear with me a bit, because I just learned that the XX/XY Chromosome binary isn't quite as clear-cut as we've been led to believe.
As for children and their gender identity, I think children are HIGHLY susceptible to suggestion...
Let me ask you this - can a child consent to a sex change prior to the acquisition of object permanence? Because a court in Germany recently ruled that newborn infants can undergo "gender-affirming care"... is that going too far for you?
I was seriously quite shocked at the sheer number of these disorders. Just scrolling down that list is enough!
So this is really why I get angry about people weaponising innocent people, especially children, whose only 'crime' is to have a recognisable medical condition (if we're talking trans/gender incongruence, with a tried and tested treatment pathway with a 99.5% success rate), but whose very existence, being different, poses such a 'threat' to the Establishment's patriarchal binary of male-female which has been employed solely for the purposes of social control - see the Garden of Eden story.
Like I said, for me this is an issue about child abuse. If consenting adults want to be queer or whatever then fine (although they shouldn't make a thing out of it), but it's when children are denied their identity and denied medical treatment and denied their autonomous agency - well, that's the kind of abuse that makes me seriously mad. So every time I hear someone banging on about 'gender ideology' (which doesn't exist) I immediately see the abuse of children. I apologise for that trigger.
I appreciate the change in tone... wasn't sure how to react to that... who likes being accused of being a pervert? If it wasn't for the fact I really like what you bring to the table, I might have gotten very defensive... but I know you mean well.
If that's true about the Germany thing then yes it absolutely goes too far. I seriously doubt it is true though (there is a hell of a lot of lies and misinformation out there).
By object permanence, I'm assuming you mean something like self-awareness of identity (i.e. aged 5-7, well beyond infancy). The neuroscience is quite clear about brain development and identity being sufficiently developed by the age of 7 for a child to know, or for its brain to know, what 'gender configuration' of its brain is - and it does know this independently of what its body looks like down there, so to speak. In other words, 'identity' is a different thing to 'physical/biological identity'. As I say, for 99.99% of people it's a happy match, so no problem and they don't even think about it. For those 1 in 10,000 though, through no choice of their own, it's hellish.
My concern, especially as a victim of serious child abuse, is precisely this aspect - the welfare of children and protecting them from abuse.
I'm a bit calmer now, sorry about that. I think I encountered a trigger or something.
okay, well we agree on something then - there is such a thing as being too young to consent.
Personally I think that it is insane to have the age for consent for irreversible elective surgery to be younger than the age of consent for sex. Just my personal opinion.
Do you any thoughts as to why reported cases of gender dysphoria are so much higher in English-speaking countries than non-English speaking countries?
By irreversible elective surgery, do you mean for intersex people or for gender incongruent people? If it's the former, the surgery is not elective, it's necessary. One could also argue it is necessary for the latter too, but leaving that aside, gender incongruent people do not receive surgery until they are fully grown - this is not for psychological reasons but for obvious physiological reasons. The guidelines are quite clear on the treatment pathway (despite what the propagandists say; or lie about, rather).
The second point, though, is that the neuroscience of brain development clearly shows that younger people are perfectly capable of understanding treatment decisions. It's also a case of the principle of bodily autonomy (which as an anarchist I would've thought you'd support?). It's not anyone's condescending place to dictate to anyone else (regardless of their age). You can 'advise' but you can't dictate. Then there is the principle of 'informed consent', which is a similar line of thought. Or do you not think children should be allowed to consent to any treatment for any condition? How about other non-medical decisions which are important? Do you think there should be a detailed list of decisions which children are allowed to make at each age, and decisions they are not allowed to make? Who decides what's on that list? What's their real motivations?
One of the underlying agendas with the anti-trans brigade is to remove bodily autonomy and informed consent and, in fact, any decision-making capacity whatsoever from children, thus making them not just slaves, but utterly at the mercy of abusive adults. You, I think, are looking at this entirely the wrong way round.
If you think children are unable to make rational decisions or to understand risk/benefit analyses, or do logical thought, and so on, then why bother teaching them anything? Surely, by this line of thought, you should wait until a human being is, what, eighteen? twenty-one? or whatever before you even let them out of the house or read a book or go to school or anything. It's patronising and condescending and just plain scientifically wrong, not to mention immoral.
I don't know about the 'reported cases' of GD being higher in English-speaking countries. Where do you get this from? If so, however, then one possible explanation can be differences in social acceptance (or 'culture' loosely defined) - there are many illiberal countries out there, especially the ones still effectively governed by Judaeo-Christian thinking (or any 'religion'), who have projected a moral issue onto something that is just a medical condition. This would mean there is far less support available, and more 'repression' (both personal and social). Like Russia, for example. Same as with issues of sexuality - again, no one chooses their sexuality, and it's not acceptable to moralise about something that is not a choice. That's like the doctrine of original sin - projecting a 'sin' onto an innocent child. If I were a Catholic, I'd be a Pelagian.
"One of the underlying agendas with the anti-trans brigade is to remove bodily autonomy and informed consent and, in fact, any decision-making capacity whatsoever from children, thus making them not just slaves, but utterly at the mercy of abusive adults."
The question of what degree of autonomy children should have is an interesting one, but I'm not a parent and I think that my opinion is of limited value. I think that it would vary greater between a 3 year old, a 7 year old, a 12 year old, and a 17 year old. There are cultural differences and geographic considerations to take into account as well - if you live in a safe neighbourhood like the one I grew up in, children should have a lot of freedom to run around and play without supervision IMHO. For children living in NYC or a warzone, that's probably a terrible idea. But parents should be the authorities unless they are absolutely completely abusive or negligent... Taking kids away from their parents because you disagree with their parenting style is an extreme intervention. One decision I think young children should get to make is which parent they want to live with in the case of a custody battle. Even that is tricky, though, because one parent could kind of bribe them or turn them against their other parent through emotional manipulation and/or lying. Custody battles can get ugly AF. None of this stuff is clear-cut.
I'd say that's a fairly reasonable position, wouldn't you?
Very reasonable - especially as it's about a lot more than just age, quite true. Likewise there are different types of decisions. Some children aged, say, 11, can make perfectly rational decisions about some things but not others. And of course it depends on the support structure and all the rest of it. And yes, neighbourhood - social environment shall we say.
Much as I am loathe to use Wikipedia as a source, their article on the causes of gender incongruence is very well written and quite balanced, and it does have a lot of good references. Especially read the bit about brain structure which is linked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_gender_incongruence#Brain_structure - The academic paper in particular is Zhou et al. way back in 1995, which showed how the brain structure of trans women was similar to cis-women. So the fact that it isn't a 'psychological' condition goes back nearly thirty years - clearly there are those who are unhappy having to accept that fact, and are pushing against it (so called 'anti-trans ideology') - it was only when the WHO de-classified trans as a 'psychological' condition about ten years ago that this entire culture/identity war issue really started. It's a denial of basic neuroscience - previously when it was classified as a 'psychological' condition (wrongly) these 'TERFs' didn't have a problem because they could just pass it off as 'weird men' or something. But now, they have to confront the neuroscientific reality that their cosy little patriarchal view of the world with clearly defined 'male' and 'female' is not the whole truth. It may be the truth for the vast majority, but there are exceptions. And I don't like minorities being 'othered' - that's the slippery slope towards fascism.
Although do read the whole article - there's some interesting speculation about possible genetic factors, as well as some twin studies (if one twin is trans, the other one is likely to be as well).
In terms of this Germany thing, I have had a thought that perhaps this case isn't really about 'trans' but about some kind of 'intersex' issue - 'intersex' simply referring to various disorders of biological/genital development (which I guess would include hermaphrodites). Babies clearly born with disordered sex characteristics often receive surgical treatment in infancy - whether one should call this 'gender affirming' however is debateable. As a purely biological thing, it's got nothing to do with trans as such which is a brain thing.
Personally I think that long letter acronym thing, LGBTQI etc. is a really bad idea, as it lumps together categories which are actually entirely unrelated - thus causing a lot of misunderstanding. For example, a 'T' can be, in terms of sexuality, either L, G, or B (or hetero of course). 'T' shouldn't be in the same group. Likewise, 'I' (intersex) is a purely biological developmental disorder so has nothing whatsoever to do with LGB (sexuality) or T (gender of the brain). As for 'Q' I confess I don't even know what that's supposed to mean! That may be the one that causes all this fuss, because I'm getting the impression the Q refers to people just arbitrarily defining themselves this way or that, with no 'medical' basis whatsoever (whether sexual, biological, or neuroscientific). So I'd leave the Q out as well. So we should have 'LGB' category (referring to any non-hetero), 'T' trans, then 'I' intersex as three distinct and unrelated categories. It would solve a lot of problems.
I'm glad you've stumbled upon the chromosome issue - it's not as clear cut as most people believe. I read a paper on this a while ago so I shall now try and find it for you. It's really illuminating. Bear with me on this...
I had another thought. You keep going on about this 'trans ideology' thing. But you never quote from it!!
Is there a manifesto? I mean, surely if there is an ideology there is a manifesto, right? If you want to critique it you have to quote from it. Otherwise you are just making up shit and then critiqueing that made up shit.
So, from now on, please, whenever you come up with this fascist patriarchal anti-trans shit and cite the 'trans ideology' I would like you to start by quoting from that 'ideology' and then tell us why it's bad etc.
Oh, and by the way, being obsessed with other people's genitalia - that's called being a fucking pervert.
Um... I'm going to have to disagree with you there... but do you care to elaborate? What do you think is a healthy amount of interest in other people's genitals? Some interest is arguably indispensable to the propagation of the human species.
So you think that objection to child genital mutilation is perverted? Is that what you're suggesting?
I don't know what to tell you - you're conflating intersex children with children whose parents believe that their gender is the opposite of their biological sex. Children certainly cannot understand the long-term consequences of hormone-altering drugs or genital surgery. I believe in Free, Prior, and Informed consent. Someone who knows the dangers of taking certain drugs should have the right to take those drugs... even if they're objectively harmful. Alcohol is objectively harmful - it's poison, but policing substance consumption would be a cure worse than the disease. But if a pusher lied to an impressionable person, say by telling them that Oxycontin isn't addictive, is committing some kind of crime or sin or transgression against that person... though the ethics of fraud are quite complex, I'll give you that. People do have a responsibility for their own decisions... but there's a grey area when it comes to people who can't understand the consequences of certain actions. This would be true of old people with dementia, people with intellectual disabilities, people who are crazy or in extreme emotional distress, and children/young people.
When it comes to children/young people, adults do have a responsible to guide them towards good decisions...
I don't object to elective surgery in the case of intersex people... but the explosion of gender dysphoria is clearly spreading by social contagion encouraged by pharmaceutical companies.
As usual I wake up with some new thoughts in my head. Maybe my brain does strange things whilst I'm sleeping. I wouldn't be surprised.
I thought about this pharma company issue. The thing is, from what I can gather, all the medicinal (i.e. hormonal, basically) treatments for GD are generics - that's to say they're off-patent. My HRT, for example, costs me something like 20 euros a month, so no pharma company is making any profit out of that. The same thing applies to puberty blockers, which were first used in the 1960s (for stuff like early onset puberty) and then first used for GD in the 1980s (note: with no serious side effects - otherwise they'd have been taken off the market a long time ago). In other words, there is no profit to be made for the pharma companies from puberty blockers.
When we come to the surgery aspect, though, I think I'm beginning to understand what your concerns are. I keep picking up snippets of horror stories from across the Atlantic, and this is entirely alien to me, because carrying out surgery on children simply couldn't happen here in Europe with our healthcare system. If you did that, as a surgeon (and allowed it to happen if you're a parent) then you would be seriously lucky to escape a long prison term. You would certainly get struck off - and that would go for your entire surgery team. These sorts of abusive parents would also have to find a seriously corrupt surgeon to do it and you'd have to pay them a significant amount of money - it would be like those old back street abortions. So that would make it unaffordable and impossible for most Americans, I would've thought. Plus if the child is going to school you'd get found out and you'd be in serious doodah.
So maybe what we're really doing here is highlighting the awfulness of the American healthcare system?
An Ontario court ruled that taxpayers have to pay for this “non-binary” person to get a neo-vagina while keeping their penis.
This clearly has nothing at all with any medical condition with a neurochemical/biological/physiological basis. It's something else, something new and unfamiliar.
Your mention of the 'taxpayer' has prompted me for an idea for a funny comedy sketch, about a documentary film crew searching up and down the country for the elusive taxpayer. This poor sod is always getting lumbered by a massive tax bill, and to add indignity to insult they never even mention his name (or address), so he has to suffer in obscurity.
I can see where you're coming from with that one. I for one am certainly somewhat confused by this person! Do note though that she is 33 years old, so at least this isn't a child issue.
The 'taxpayer' argument - sure - I would possibly agree with that one - I grew up with the NHS (in England) where pretty much everything is free, although that didn't really include elective cosmetic surgery, which this case arguably is. Having said that, I think the 'funding of healthcare' thing is a separate issue. If we all had enough money to afford all these potential things then it wouldn't be an issue. Likewise, I would imagine that if this person had loads of money the case would never have happened? I don't know.
But sure, that is a weird one!
Ah - but hold on because I did a little Internet searching before I read your comment and I may have cracked it... bear with me.
Right then - I've solved the case! Detective Evie strikes again!
I knew there was something seriously bugging me about the anti-trans propaganda about 'children having surgery'. This simply doesn't happen for transgender children.
But!! It does happen for 'intersex' children. So what's happening here is that the anti-trans brigade are misrepresenting/mis-presenting (lying, basically) 'surgery for intersex' as 'surgery for transgender'. They are playing on the public's general ignorance of the difference.
And I admit that me too was ignorant about 'intersex' until recently. Given that 'intersex' covers such a wide range of possible developmental disorders, it is inevitable that treatment mistakes are going to be made, and that the level of 'regret' (when they become adults) is going to be not insignificant. Especially given that in many cases it's probably impossible to know what actual gender (brain gender I mean) the child is until they are older (age 7 or so). Except that infant surgery might be deemed medically necessary, for whatever reason (well-meaning, perhaps, but turns out to be wrong). Likewise, I am getting the impression this is a relatively new area of medical care, meaning specialists are still unsure of how to proceed.
Trans treatment pathway, however, has been established and tried and tested etc. for at least 40 years (starting with puberty blockers age around 11/12, followed by some hormones, and then surgery when they are fully grown - that seems perfectly reasonable to me and the 99.5% success rate speaks for itself) - so this issue, taken on its own as 'separate from intersex' shouldn't be controversial and really is exactly what I was saying about 'a medical condition with a treatment pathway'.
So what's really going on here is that these nasty authoritarian types are taking 'intersex' issues and projecting them onto 'trans' issues, when the truth is they are, or should be, entirely separate. But clearly, some very evil right-wing lawmakers are abusing this.
I discovered this article which looks at some of the propaganda myths: https://www.theverge.com/22590708/trans-youth-gender-affirming-healthcare-bans-science (unfortunately it makes you go through the bloody cookie list thing, so I don't blame you if you don't read it). There's one quote about this at the end though, which is revealing I thought:
"The bill bans surgeries for trans youth, but specifies that the ban doesn’t apply to procedures on intersex people. This exception leaves room for healthcare providers to continue the traumatizing practice of operating on intersex children of all ages without their consent or knowledge. “They’re going to force intersex people to endure the things that they’re withholding from trans people,” says Gill-Peterson.
Unlike medical treatments that trans youth seek out to affirm their identities, procedures done on intersex children, often during infancy, do cause irreversible physical and psychological harm. Medical opinion has shifted away from promoting intersex surgeries as medically necessary, and intersex activists are still calling on hospitals across the country to stop performing them.
“That’s the tell. That’s how you know none of these bills have anything to do with science and are purely ideological,” says Gill-Peterson. “[It’s] all the same medicine for cis, trans, and intersex people. They’re just treated entirely differently now under the law, and I think that’s really, really disturbing.”
That seems to summarise what I've discovered. What do you think?
You will be pleased to hear of course that having discovered this I am a lot calmer about the whole thing. I still don't know enough about intersex to have a fully informed opinion though, I admit. Given there are so many different types of developmental disorders, like I say, it's ripe for propagandists to seize upon and use it for their nasty, prejudiced, bigoted purposes. I think that's the answer to the anti-trans issue.
I'm not entirely sure where you get this 'child genital mutilation' thing from. That sounds like propaganda to me. Trans children don't even know they are trans until around 5-7. The treatment guidelines are very clear that they do not have irreversible surgeries until 18 years old (possibly 16 perhaps, but certainly sufficiently old). Before then they just get reversible hormonal treatment starting Tanner stage 1 or 2 (around age 11 - which is easily old enough to understand all the issues and provide informed consent).
If there are 'parents who believe that their gender is opposite to their biological sex' and are forcing illegal medical procedures on the child then regardless of the age of that child the issue there is those particular parents, not the condition of 'gender incongruence' itself. So that child should be removed from those parents, because they are clearly abusive. And if they were somehow inflicting irreversible surgeries on that child then that's a crime, as it would also be for the physician performing it (see also circumcision at 8 days old).
So the scenario you are describing has nothing to do with gender incongruence and everything to do with abusive parents.
The vast majority of parents of trans children, by contrast, are frequently upset by the diagnosis and go through a kind of grieving process (especially the fathers) before they finally accept it. In other words, it's the other way round - it's not the parents forcing anything on the children.
If there are pharma companies exploiting things then, yes, that is a problem of course - but again, that's a problem of pharma companies, not of the condition known as gender incongruence. Given what pharma companies are like, in fact, you could say that about any medical condition - pharma companies exploit all of them! So it's important not to conflate the two. Otherwise children suffer and are denied treatment.
And I will repeat what I say. According to the facts of brain development, a child aged 7 knows which gender they are, and a child aged 11 is psychologically capable of making rational, long-term treatment decisions (puberty blockers). They simply need a good support network and loving parents and a good medical specialist and so on. If they have all that, there is a 99.5% chance of a happy outcome for the rest of their lives.
But I would imagine there are, indeed, some very evil people out there, especially in pharma companies, who need to be removed from the equation. Permanently.
OK. Crow. Just to warn you, I'm going to be playing a really, really, serious 'devil's advocate' here and you are SERIOUSLY going to get upset with me. But please, please, understand that this is not meant to be taken 'personally'. I'm just going to give you a basic lesson in FUCKING NEUROSCIENCE.
First. As a caveat, if there is some kind of 'queer theory' then if that is not rooted in neuroscience and is essentially saying 'people can choose their gender' then that queer theory is equally bullshit.
Second: if this is the 'queer theory' and 'gender ideology' patriarchal, fascist bullshit propaganda you GENUINELY believe because you haven't FUCKING BOTHERED to do any FUCKING research for yourself then - yeah, I'll forgive your ignorance. But ONLY temporarily.
Third. If you adopt the 'anti-trans' agenda/ideology then you are a FUCKING PATRIARCHAL FASCIST. You are presenting yourself as EXACTLY the fascist the powers-that-be want people to think of you as, so they will be turned against our great ideas.
Fourth: Your ignorance. Here are the basic FUCKING SCIENTIFIC FACTS, OK, SO GET THIS THROUGH YOUR FUCKING THICK HEAD!!!
'trans' is actually just a FUCKING MEDICAL CONDITION!!! it's not a FUCKING CHOICE!!! You don't FUCKING CHOOSE!!! to be 'male' or 'female' with regards to the GENDER OF YOUR FUCKING BRAIN!!! Human beings are dimorphic - that means they are either male or female. BUT!!!! there are TWO FORMS OF FUCKING GENDER!!! One is your physical/biological gender, the other is the GENDER OF YOUR FUCKING BRAIN!!! What is known as 'trans' is the extremely rare condition (1 in 10,000) in which the 'biological' gender is 'incongruent' with the gender configuration of the brain (which finally manifests aged 7 in terms of brain development).
So please, can you FUCKING stop with this patriarchal, fascist, Victorian EVIL bullshit anti-trans IDEOLOGY AND AGENDA for once in your fucking life!!! You seriously have no idea how much this fucks me off. At other times you are a seriously intelligent guy who I greatly respect, but when it comes to these manufactured (by the Establishment!!! by the FUCKING VATICAN!!!) anti-trans ideology bullshit you just buy into it hook line and sinker to the extent that you just end up presenting yourself as just another fucking stupid fascist bigot.
So, FUCKING GROW UP AND LEARN SOME BASIC FUCKING NEUROSCIENCE FOR FUCK'S FUCKING SAKE!!!
Stop, please, stop buying in to this manufactured fascist bullshit that has only been projected onto the 'resistance' in order to make them look like a bunch of fucking retard sicko fascists.
I am an anarcho-socialist-feminist. I am NOT A FUCKING FASCIST AND I NEVER WILL BE. If you don't grow up then that's it, quite frankly. You can go and stew in your own patriarchal sickness.
I thought of another important point here. Question for you. Did you know what gender you were when you were, say, 8 years old? Yes, you did. And it wasn't from looking inside your pants. It was a feeling. It was an innate knowledge - meaning, it was in your brain. It was, actually, your brain's self-awareness of its configuration (male or female).
So, children, in terms of brain development, do know what they are by that age.
However, people like you would like to take that self-knowledge away from them.
How about a child with leukemia? Would you deny them access to treatment because you think they are 'not old enough to know or understand the consequences'? i don't think so. If you did, you'd be a fucking child abuser.
Same thing applies to trans children. You want to deny them the treatment for their medical condition. That makes you a fucking child abuser, nothing more.
If you can point me towards some 8 year old manifesto about an 'ideology' and how awful that is and how they are trying (and succeeding) to convince other 8 year olds to believe in that manifesto then yeah, I think i'll agree with you about some nefarious agenda. But if you can't provide this evidence, then I will say you're just another fascist bigot imposing your will on innocent children with medical conditions and not allowing them to choose their own treatment.
That's not anarchism. That's fascism. In which case, fuck you.
Calm down, calm down... I've been meaning to respond to your critiques... actually you might have to bear with me a bit, because I just learned that the XX/XY Chromosome binary isn't quite as clear-cut as we've been led to believe.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpIqQ0pGs1E
As for children and their gender identity, I think children are HIGHLY susceptible to suggestion...
Let me ask you this - can a child consent to a sex change prior to the acquisition of object permanence? Because a court in Germany recently ruled that newborn infants can undergo "gender-affirming care"... is that going too far for you?
I found the article I was thinking of: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337438023_The_Misuses_of_Biological_Sex
Likewise, this Wiki article shows just how much can go wrong in human development: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development
I was seriously quite shocked at the sheer number of these disorders. Just scrolling down that list is enough!
So this is really why I get angry about people weaponising innocent people, especially children, whose only 'crime' is to have a recognisable medical condition (if we're talking trans/gender incongruence, with a tried and tested treatment pathway with a 99.5% success rate), but whose very existence, being different, poses such a 'threat' to the Establishment's patriarchal binary of male-female which has been employed solely for the purposes of social control - see the Garden of Eden story.
Like I said, for me this is an issue about child abuse. If consenting adults want to be queer or whatever then fine (although they shouldn't make a thing out of it), but it's when children are denied their identity and denied medical treatment and denied their autonomous agency - well, that's the kind of abuse that makes me seriously mad. So every time I hear someone banging on about 'gender ideology' (which doesn't exist) I immediately see the abuse of children. I apologise for that trigger.
I appreciate the change in tone... wasn't sure how to react to that... who likes being accused of being a pervert? If it wasn't for the fact I really like what you bring to the table, I might have gotten very defensive... but I know you mean well.
If that's true about the Germany thing then yes it absolutely goes too far. I seriously doubt it is true though (there is a hell of a lot of lies and misinformation out there).
By object permanence, I'm assuming you mean something like self-awareness of identity (i.e. aged 5-7, well beyond infancy). The neuroscience is quite clear about brain development and identity being sufficiently developed by the age of 7 for a child to know, or for its brain to know, what 'gender configuration' of its brain is - and it does know this independently of what its body looks like down there, so to speak. In other words, 'identity' is a different thing to 'physical/biological identity'. As I say, for 99.99% of people it's a happy match, so no problem and they don't even think about it. For those 1 in 10,000 though, through no choice of their own, it's hellish.
My concern, especially as a victim of serious child abuse, is precisely this aspect - the welfare of children and protecting them from abuse.
I'm a bit calmer now, sorry about that. I think I encountered a trigger or something.
okay, well we agree on something then - there is such a thing as being too young to consent.
Personally I think that it is insane to have the age for consent for irreversible elective surgery to be younger than the age of consent for sex. Just my personal opinion.
Do you any thoughts as to why reported cases of gender dysphoria are so much higher in English-speaking countries than non-English speaking countries?
By irreversible elective surgery, do you mean for intersex people or for gender incongruent people? If it's the former, the surgery is not elective, it's necessary. One could also argue it is necessary for the latter too, but leaving that aside, gender incongruent people do not receive surgery until they are fully grown - this is not for psychological reasons but for obvious physiological reasons. The guidelines are quite clear on the treatment pathway (despite what the propagandists say; or lie about, rather).
The second point, though, is that the neuroscience of brain development clearly shows that younger people are perfectly capable of understanding treatment decisions. It's also a case of the principle of bodily autonomy (which as an anarchist I would've thought you'd support?). It's not anyone's condescending place to dictate to anyone else (regardless of their age). You can 'advise' but you can't dictate. Then there is the principle of 'informed consent', which is a similar line of thought. Or do you not think children should be allowed to consent to any treatment for any condition? How about other non-medical decisions which are important? Do you think there should be a detailed list of decisions which children are allowed to make at each age, and decisions they are not allowed to make? Who decides what's on that list? What's their real motivations?
One of the underlying agendas with the anti-trans brigade is to remove bodily autonomy and informed consent and, in fact, any decision-making capacity whatsoever from children, thus making them not just slaves, but utterly at the mercy of abusive adults. You, I think, are looking at this entirely the wrong way round.
If you think children are unable to make rational decisions or to understand risk/benefit analyses, or do logical thought, and so on, then why bother teaching them anything? Surely, by this line of thought, you should wait until a human being is, what, eighteen? twenty-one? or whatever before you even let them out of the house or read a book or go to school or anything. It's patronising and condescending and just plain scientifically wrong, not to mention immoral.
I don't know about the 'reported cases' of GD being higher in English-speaking countries. Where do you get this from? If so, however, then one possible explanation can be differences in social acceptance (or 'culture' loosely defined) - there are many illiberal countries out there, especially the ones still effectively governed by Judaeo-Christian thinking (or any 'religion'), who have projected a moral issue onto something that is just a medical condition. This would mean there is far less support available, and more 'repression' (both personal and social). Like Russia, for example. Same as with issues of sexuality - again, no one chooses their sexuality, and it's not acceptable to moralise about something that is not a choice. That's like the doctrine of original sin - projecting a 'sin' onto an innocent child. If I were a Catholic, I'd be a Pelagian.
"One of the underlying agendas with the anti-trans brigade is to remove bodily autonomy and informed consent and, in fact, any decision-making capacity whatsoever from children, thus making them not just slaves, but utterly at the mercy of abusive adults."
The question of what degree of autonomy children should have is an interesting one, but I'm not a parent and I think that my opinion is of limited value. I think that it would vary greater between a 3 year old, a 7 year old, a 12 year old, and a 17 year old. There are cultural differences and geographic considerations to take into account as well - if you live in a safe neighbourhood like the one I grew up in, children should have a lot of freedom to run around and play without supervision IMHO. For children living in NYC or a warzone, that's probably a terrible idea. But parents should be the authorities unless they are absolutely completely abusive or negligent... Taking kids away from their parents because you disagree with their parenting style is an extreme intervention. One decision I think young children should get to make is which parent they want to live with in the case of a custody battle. Even that is tricky, though, because one parent could kind of bribe them or turn them against their other parent through emotional manipulation and/or lying. Custody battles can get ugly AF. None of this stuff is clear-cut.
I'd say that's a fairly reasonable position, wouldn't you?
Very reasonable - especially as it's about a lot more than just age, quite true. Likewise there are different types of decisions. Some children aged, say, 11, can make perfectly rational decisions about some things but not others. And of course it depends on the support structure and all the rest of it. And yes, neighbourhood - social environment shall we say.
So yes, I agree with you on this one! Yay!
Much as I am loathe to use Wikipedia as a source, their article on the causes of gender incongruence is very well written and quite balanced, and it does have a lot of good references. Especially read the bit about brain structure which is linked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_gender_incongruence#Brain_structure - The academic paper in particular is Zhou et al. way back in 1995, which showed how the brain structure of trans women was similar to cis-women. So the fact that it isn't a 'psychological' condition goes back nearly thirty years - clearly there are those who are unhappy having to accept that fact, and are pushing against it (so called 'anti-trans ideology') - it was only when the WHO de-classified trans as a 'psychological' condition about ten years ago that this entire culture/identity war issue really started. It's a denial of basic neuroscience - previously when it was classified as a 'psychological' condition (wrongly) these 'TERFs' didn't have a problem because they could just pass it off as 'weird men' or something. But now, they have to confront the neuroscientific reality that their cosy little patriarchal view of the world with clearly defined 'male' and 'female' is not the whole truth. It may be the truth for the vast majority, but there are exceptions. And I don't like minorities being 'othered' - that's the slippery slope towards fascism.
Although do read the whole article - there's some interesting speculation about possible genetic factors, as well as some twin studies (if one twin is trans, the other one is likely to be as well).
In terms of this Germany thing, I have had a thought that perhaps this case isn't really about 'trans' but about some kind of 'intersex' issue - 'intersex' simply referring to various disorders of biological/genital development (which I guess would include hermaphrodites). Babies clearly born with disordered sex characteristics often receive surgical treatment in infancy - whether one should call this 'gender affirming' however is debateable. As a purely biological thing, it's got nothing to do with trans as such which is a brain thing.
Personally I think that long letter acronym thing, LGBTQI etc. is a really bad idea, as it lumps together categories which are actually entirely unrelated - thus causing a lot of misunderstanding. For example, a 'T' can be, in terms of sexuality, either L, G, or B (or hetero of course). 'T' shouldn't be in the same group. Likewise, 'I' (intersex) is a purely biological developmental disorder so has nothing whatsoever to do with LGB (sexuality) or T (gender of the brain). As for 'Q' I confess I don't even know what that's supposed to mean! That may be the one that causes all this fuss, because I'm getting the impression the Q refers to people just arbitrarily defining themselves this way or that, with no 'medical' basis whatsoever (whether sexual, biological, or neuroscientific). So I'd leave the Q out as well. So we should have 'LGB' category (referring to any non-hetero), 'T' trans, then 'I' intersex as three distinct and unrelated categories. It would solve a lot of problems.
I'm glad you've stumbled upon the chromosome issue - it's not as clear cut as most people believe. I read a paper on this a while ago so I shall now try and find it for you. It's really illuminating. Bear with me on this...
I had another thought. You keep going on about this 'trans ideology' thing. But you never quote from it!!
Is there a manifesto? I mean, surely if there is an ideology there is a manifesto, right? If you want to critique it you have to quote from it. Otherwise you are just making up shit and then critiqueing that made up shit.
So, from now on, please, whenever you come up with this fascist patriarchal anti-trans shit and cite the 'trans ideology' I would like you to start by quoting from that 'ideology' and then tell us why it's bad etc.
Oh, and by the way, being obsessed with other people's genitalia - that's called being a fucking pervert.
Um... I'm going to have to disagree with you there... but do you care to elaborate? What do you think is a healthy amount of interest in other people's genitals? Some interest is arguably indispensable to the propagation of the human species.
Between consenting adults, sure...
So you think that objection to child genital mutilation is perverted? Is that what you're suggesting?
I don't know what to tell you - you're conflating intersex children with children whose parents believe that their gender is the opposite of their biological sex. Children certainly cannot understand the long-term consequences of hormone-altering drugs or genital surgery. I believe in Free, Prior, and Informed consent. Someone who knows the dangers of taking certain drugs should have the right to take those drugs... even if they're objectively harmful. Alcohol is objectively harmful - it's poison, but policing substance consumption would be a cure worse than the disease. But if a pusher lied to an impressionable person, say by telling them that Oxycontin isn't addictive, is committing some kind of crime or sin or transgression against that person... though the ethics of fraud are quite complex, I'll give you that. People do have a responsibility for their own decisions... but there's a grey area when it comes to people who can't understand the consequences of certain actions. This would be true of old people with dementia, people with intellectual disabilities, people who are crazy or in extreme emotional distress, and children/young people.
When it comes to children/young people, adults do have a responsible to guide them towards good decisions...
I don't object to elective surgery in the case of intersex people... but the explosion of gender dysphoria is clearly spreading by social contagion encouraged by pharmaceutical companies.
As usual I wake up with some new thoughts in my head. Maybe my brain does strange things whilst I'm sleeping. I wouldn't be surprised.
I thought about this pharma company issue. The thing is, from what I can gather, all the medicinal (i.e. hormonal, basically) treatments for GD are generics - that's to say they're off-patent. My HRT, for example, costs me something like 20 euros a month, so no pharma company is making any profit out of that. The same thing applies to puberty blockers, which were first used in the 1960s (for stuff like early onset puberty) and then first used for GD in the 1980s (note: with no serious side effects - otherwise they'd have been taken off the market a long time ago). In other words, there is no profit to be made for the pharma companies from puberty blockers.
When we come to the surgery aspect, though, I think I'm beginning to understand what your concerns are. I keep picking up snippets of horror stories from across the Atlantic, and this is entirely alien to me, because carrying out surgery on children simply couldn't happen here in Europe with our healthcare system. If you did that, as a surgeon (and allowed it to happen if you're a parent) then you would be seriously lucky to escape a long prison term. You would certainly get struck off - and that would go for your entire surgery team. These sorts of abusive parents would also have to find a seriously corrupt surgeon to do it and you'd have to pay them a significant amount of money - it would be like those old back street abortions. So that would make it unaffordable and impossible for most Americans, I would've thought. Plus if the child is going to school you'd get found out and you'd be in serious doodah.
So maybe what we're really doing here is highlighting the awfulness of the American healthcare system?
That makes sense, yes, although it seems like the fight in the U.K. has been very intense, and Canada is pretty bonkers too.
Here's a question for you: how do you feel about this: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-resident-ohip-surgery
An Ontario court ruled that taxpayers have to pay for this “non-binary” person to get a neo-vagina while keeping their penis.
This clearly has nothing at all with any medical condition with a neurochemical/biological/physiological basis. It's something else, something new and unfamiliar.
Your mention of the 'taxpayer' has prompted me for an idea for a funny comedy sketch, about a documentary film crew searching up and down the country for the elusive taxpayer. This poor sod is always getting lumbered by a massive tax bill, and to add indignity to insult they never even mention his name (or address), so he has to suffer in obscurity.
I can see where you're coming from with that one. I for one am certainly somewhat confused by this person! Do note though that she is 33 years old, so at least this isn't a child issue.
The 'taxpayer' argument - sure - I would possibly agree with that one - I grew up with the NHS (in England) where pretty much everything is free, although that didn't really include elective cosmetic surgery, which this case arguably is. Having said that, I think the 'funding of healthcare' thing is a separate issue. If we all had enough money to afford all these potential things then it wouldn't be an issue. Likewise, I would imagine that if this person had loads of money the case would never have happened? I don't know.
But sure, that is a weird one!
Ah - but hold on because I did a little Internet searching before I read your comment and I may have cracked it... bear with me.
Right then - I've solved the case! Detective Evie strikes again!
I knew there was something seriously bugging me about the anti-trans propaganda about 'children having surgery'. This simply doesn't happen for transgender children.
But!! It does happen for 'intersex' children. So what's happening here is that the anti-trans brigade are misrepresenting/mis-presenting (lying, basically) 'surgery for intersex' as 'surgery for transgender'. They are playing on the public's general ignorance of the difference.
And I admit that me too was ignorant about 'intersex' until recently. Given that 'intersex' covers such a wide range of possible developmental disorders, it is inevitable that treatment mistakes are going to be made, and that the level of 'regret' (when they become adults) is going to be not insignificant. Especially given that in many cases it's probably impossible to know what actual gender (brain gender I mean) the child is until they are older (age 7 or so). Except that infant surgery might be deemed medically necessary, for whatever reason (well-meaning, perhaps, but turns out to be wrong). Likewise, I am getting the impression this is a relatively new area of medical care, meaning specialists are still unsure of how to proceed.
Trans treatment pathway, however, has been established and tried and tested etc. for at least 40 years (starting with puberty blockers age around 11/12, followed by some hormones, and then surgery when they are fully grown - that seems perfectly reasonable to me and the 99.5% success rate speaks for itself) - so this issue, taken on its own as 'separate from intersex' shouldn't be controversial and really is exactly what I was saying about 'a medical condition with a treatment pathway'.
So what's really going on here is that these nasty authoritarian types are taking 'intersex' issues and projecting them onto 'trans' issues, when the truth is they are, or should be, entirely separate. But clearly, some very evil right-wing lawmakers are abusing this.
I discovered this article which looks at some of the propaganda myths: https://www.theverge.com/22590708/trans-youth-gender-affirming-healthcare-bans-science (unfortunately it makes you go through the bloody cookie list thing, so I don't blame you if you don't read it). There's one quote about this at the end though, which is revealing I thought:
"The bill bans surgeries for trans youth, but specifies that the ban doesn’t apply to procedures on intersex people. This exception leaves room for healthcare providers to continue the traumatizing practice of operating on intersex children of all ages without their consent or knowledge. “They’re going to force intersex people to endure the things that they’re withholding from trans people,” says Gill-Peterson.
Unlike medical treatments that trans youth seek out to affirm their identities, procedures done on intersex children, often during infancy, do cause irreversible physical and psychological harm. Medical opinion has shifted away from promoting intersex surgeries as medically necessary, and intersex activists are still calling on hospitals across the country to stop performing them.
“That’s the tell. That’s how you know none of these bills have anything to do with science and are purely ideological,” says Gill-Peterson. “[It’s] all the same medicine for cis, trans, and intersex people. They’re just treated entirely differently now under the law, and I think that’s really, really disturbing.”
That seems to summarise what I've discovered. What do you think?
You will be pleased to hear of course that having discovered this I am a lot calmer about the whole thing. I still don't know enough about intersex to have a fully informed opinion though, I admit. Given there are so many different types of developmental disorders, like I say, it's ripe for propagandists to seize upon and use it for their nasty, prejudiced, bigoted purposes. I think that's the answer to the anti-trans issue.
I'm not entirely sure where you get this 'child genital mutilation' thing from. That sounds like propaganda to me. Trans children don't even know they are trans until around 5-7. The treatment guidelines are very clear that they do not have irreversible surgeries until 18 years old (possibly 16 perhaps, but certainly sufficiently old). Before then they just get reversible hormonal treatment starting Tanner stage 1 or 2 (around age 11 - which is easily old enough to understand all the issues and provide informed consent).
If there are 'parents who believe that their gender is opposite to their biological sex' and are forcing illegal medical procedures on the child then regardless of the age of that child the issue there is those particular parents, not the condition of 'gender incongruence' itself. So that child should be removed from those parents, because they are clearly abusive. And if they were somehow inflicting irreversible surgeries on that child then that's a crime, as it would also be for the physician performing it (see also circumcision at 8 days old).
So the scenario you are describing has nothing to do with gender incongruence and everything to do with abusive parents.
The vast majority of parents of trans children, by contrast, are frequently upset by the diagnosis and go through a kind of grieving process (especially the fathers) before they finally accept it. In other words, it's the other way round - it's not the parents forcing anything on the children.
If there are pharma companies exploiting things then, yes, that is a problem of course - but again, that's a problem of pharma companies, not of the condition known as gender incongruence. Given what pharma companies are like, in fact, you could say that about any medical condition - pharma companies exploit all of them! So it's important not to conflate the two. Otherwise children suffer and are denied treatment.
And I will repeat what I say. According to the facts of brain development, a child aged 7 knows which gender they are, and a child aged 11 is psychologically capable of making rational, long-term treatment decisions (puberty blockers). They simply need a good support network and loving parents and a good medical specialist and so on. If they have all that, there is a 99.5% chance of a happy outcome for the rest of their lives.
But I would imagine there are, indeed, some very evil people out there, especially in pharma companies, who need to be removed from the equation. Permanently.
OK. Crow. Just to warn you, I'm going to be playing a really, really, serious 'devil's advocate' here and you are SERIOUSLY going to get upset with me. But please, please, understand that this is not meant to be taken 'personally'. I'm just going to give you a basic lesson in FUCKING NEUROSCIENCE.
First. As a caveat, if there is some kind of 'queer theory' then if that is not rooted in neuroscience and is essentially saying 'people can choose their gender' then that queer theory is equally bullshit.
Second: if this is the 'queer theory' and 'gender ideology' patriarchal, fascist bullshit propaganda you GENUINELY believe because you haven't FUCKING BOTHERED to do any FUCKING research for yourself then - yeah, I'll forgive your ignorance. But ONLY temporarily.
Third. If you adopt the 'anti-trans' agenda/ideology then you are a FUCKING PATRIARCHAL FASCIST. You are presenting yourself as EXACTLY the fascist the powers-that-be want people to think of you as, so they will be turned against our great ideas.
Fourth: Your ignorance. Here are the basic FUCKING SCIENTIFIC FACTS, OK, SO GET THIS THROUGH YOUR FUCKING THICK HEAD!!!
'trans' is actually just a FUCKING MEDICAL CONDITION!!! it's not a FUCKING CHOICE!!! You don't FUCKING CHOOSE!!! to be 'male' or 'female' with regards to the GENDER OF YOUR FUCKING BRAIN!!! Human beings are dimorphic - that means they are either male or female. BUT!!!! there are TWO FORMS OF FUCKING GENDER!!! One is your physical/biological gender, the other is the GENDER OF YOUR FUCKING BRAIN!!! What is known as 'trans' is the extremely rare condition (1 in 10,000) in which the 'biological' gender is 'incongruent' with the gender configuration of the brain (which finally manifests aged 7 in terms of brain development).
So please, can you FUCKING stop with this patriarchal, fascist, Victorian EVIL bullshit anti-trans IDEOLOGY AND AGENDA for once in your fucking life!!! You seriously have no idea how much this fucks me off. At other times you are a seriously intelligent guy who I greatly respect, but when it comes to these manufactured (by the Establishment!!! by the FUCKING VATICAN!!!) anti-trans ideology bullshit you just buy into it hook line and sinker to the extent that you just end up presenting yourself as just another fucking stupid fascist bigot.
So, FUCKING GROW UP AND LEARN SOME BASIC FUCKING NEUROSCIENCE FOR FUCK'S FUCKING SAKE!!!
Stop, please, stop buying in to this manufactured fascist bullshit that has only been projected onto the 'resistance' in order to make them look like a bunch of fucking retard sicko fascists.
I am an anarcho-socialist-feminist. I am NOT A FUCKING FASCIST AND I NEVER WILL BE. If you don't grow up then that's it, quite frankly. You can go and stew in your own patriarchal sickness.
I've had enough.
I think Le Tigre said it best … https://open.spotify.com/track/4l0HxP8wm5iWHqo9myvFsm?si=OotQVNTeT1SLsyzdjmbG0Q&context=spotify%3Aartist%3A2n6FviARgtjjimZXu18uRM