My stance is as they say in Poland.
Not my monkeys, not my circus. I just dont care.
It doesn’t affect me in the slightest, other than a minimal amount of the taxes i pay go towards treatment of their illness. Although, i find it slightly hypocritical that they are allowed to start changing gender before 18. Would seem that many other things should be allowed before 18 aswell in that case.
I can’t speak as to Polish law, but kids are allowed to do quite a bit before the age of 18 in the US. Going on puberty blockers - to delay a puberty that could damn well be an irreversible scar on the psyche - is hardly an opening for a shakeup of the legal position of minors.
Not Polish, its just a Polish saying.
I’m not convinced that a kid can make that judgement. Certainly not before puberty. But that might just be my own unwavering feeling of comfort in my own sex talking.
If a doctor makes a judgement of it, then my opinion doesn’t matter.
Puberty blockers aren’t OTC, they’re prescribed by doctors. The kid’s not making the judgement so much as they’re bringing up the medical issue to a professional.
I was diagnosed with depression at a fairly young age, just entering into my teens, but I only got in to see a psych to begin with because I was worried enough to self-advocate. Can’t really imagine what it would be like if I was told that I was too young to understand depression and turned out on my metaphorical ass.
The trans agenda is not that simple. I support their right to exist. I am fully against the pipeline to trans that I’ve seen in schools. You are only allowed to encourage a confused teenager, if you push back at all you are fired.
They don’t need pushed, or influenced, or anything other than a safe space to be themselves, and find out what that means to them. People who are atypical already have plenty of pushback from everyday society, I don’t think we need to worry about making someone trans when they’re not.
I have two young male children, who both prefer playing with girls to playing with boys. When we casually mentioned that some boys have vaginas and some girls have penises, they separately decided that each of them is, in fact, a boy who like to play with girls. Because that’s who they are, and I doubt we could convince them otherwise.
If they want to be as unhappy as everyone else, they are welcome
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And mutilating people bodies to try to “cure” them is barbaric and insane.
You’re absolutely right. Let me get Hippocrates on the line, warn him of these dangerous ‘surgeon’ quacks waving their knives about.
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DSM also thought being gay was a mental disorder. Caving to pressure is sometimes a good thing.
Can you think of any other things that were previously classified as mental disorders but no longer are?
Maybe that’s not a fair question, maybe I’m just being hysterical.
“Being born in the wrong body” is a phrase used to simplify a fairly complex situation in a way that also makes it seem like to trans people it’s a metaphysical belief about the nature of the the soul. This is by and large incorrect. What trans people experience isn’t delusion. Delusion relies on a belief that contradicts reality or relies on the very shaky ground of the insubstantiated supernatural. What trans people experience is an uncontrolled mental reaction to physical replicatable stimuli to their own bodies. All the cultural stuff is in service to this.
For example - When you call a trans man a woman - what that person is reacting to is your perception of their body making them ground in that physical discomfort. It is like if you had a physical feature you despised, say a physical deformation with a traumatic memory attached, and people kept remarking on it in conversation. While you might be able to walk the world happily temporarily forgetting it exists someone remarking on it is like shoving a mirror in your face. This is why misgendering doesn’t have to be intentional to be hurtful.
Our culture has a lot of cultural protections built in for people who have deformaties through birth or accident because we understand universally the effect those things have on the psyche. It’s impolite to stare, to mention or exclude people with those features. Gender however is harmless for about 98% of the population. It’s remarked upon in the form of pronouns in every conversation where three or more people participate. This is ultimately why that saying "trans women are woman (etc.) " exists. It’s not them saying that trans people have any misunderstandings or delusions about the history of their bodies or how they differ from cis women. They have no delusions, they are painfully aware, at all times, exactly how they differ. What that saying is trying to convey is that a trans person should not be treated or categorized by society any differently than cis people of that gender or should be accommodated for being treated as neither gender.
This is also why surgeries are often employed. It’s in part to gain unwitting compliance from a population who reacts to physical sex characteristics and pairs that with gender. It’s mending how people react to themselves in the mirror as much as it is removing the mirror from the hands of other people. What the removal of the disorder portion of the DSM was about was an acknowledgement that this problem is cultural. It is as much a problem with society’s constructions and beliefs around sex and gender as it is a singular person’s problem. Just as being gay is only a problem if society responds to it as an undesirable characteristic the issues with being trans are exacerbated by cultural sorting of gender into exclusive categories and people’s personal ick about people’s surgical and hormonal personal autonomy around their bodies.
The reason trans people have to frame their fight primarily as medically nessisary intervention is largely because of cis people’s squeamishness causing them issues of lack of personal freedom to choose how to personally navigate a society not built to manage their specific personal struggles around their physical sex. The problem with society isn’t going anywhere most places yet so the individual is assuming the burdens of that and it’s well proven that those experiencing this issue are tackling that issue in thoughtful, logic based ways with proven ability to accurately judge risk and reward of their choices on that front.
This guy mansplains to doctors.
That’s actually a pretty good argument.
Ok buddy. Would you like some crayons to munch on while you go through life wondering why nobody likes you?
Out of curiosity, if you woke up tomorrow in the body of the opposite sex, how do you think you would feel or act on this in the long term? Like through magic, or alien science. Like in those 80s body swap movies, just permanent. Can you imagine that?
Personally I think I would just adapt. I’m a straight male and perfectly comfortable and like being a male, but I think I’d just live as a lesbian women then. It would be challenging and weird and people would see me differently, but it would also be intellectually interesting.
I recently realized that this makes me more gender-fluid than most trans people. Basically they might be more bonded to a concept of a specific gender than even the majority of people. And that is why it’s hard to imagine what they are going through, and hard to emphasize. If I imagine I’d have grown up as a girl I’d be perfectly comfortable as that too.
I like science fiction and consider myself a transhumanist, someone who believes that we should gain advanced bodies with full control over them, and e.g. change sex or appearance without needing surgery. Like if you could spend a year as a opposite sex without having to suffer and bleed for it, why wouldn’t you do it, even just to gain insight.
I don’t think you can make any argument saying that a human is sick just for strongly preferring or needing to be one gender. I don’t understand this need either, and think what lengths some people to is weird and some results questionable, but I can’t say they are wrong. There is an infinite number of ways a human mind can be. Why do you think it’s a mental illness?
Also, if you imagine a future where you could turn “flawlessly” into the opposite sex, and change back too, do you still think it would be a mental illness?
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I support trans people’s right to exist and to be able to live happy lives 🤘 ❤️ crazy how so many transphobes obsess over trans people. most of them haven’t even met a trans person
Any transphobe I’ve had the misfortune of talking to has met a trans person. Most of them don’t notice. One of them repeatedly hit on me.
I always equate these things just to human rights and the fact that someone is trans doesn’t automatically negate their right to live or be happier or prosperous. The fact that they’re trans should have no effect on basic human rights.
Most of them probably have, but didn’t notice.
the whole (he/him) in my email signature was a wild ride… like do I add it even though I’m CIS/hetero/boring? I see all the middle aged white women in my office doing it, and that means it’s a few weeks from HR making a vague rule about it… I’m not conservative, but I don’t want to be some fake virtue signaler, since I don’t really know any trans people… but I don’t want to give some kind of passive approval of intolerance by NOT adding it… will HR flag me if I do add it? or if I don’t?
This is where I fall off with liberals. “Lose the Trans talking points, they are holding the DNC back.”
How about first we try losing the DNC talking points. They’ve been in charge this whole time and I didn’t see trans people allow fascism to wash over the states while they were at the head of the government.
You arent going to win any elections catering to 1% of the total population and alienating a large part of it. I would say that is just common sense politics at this point.
Our current system is predicated upon catering to the wealthiest (0.)1% which keeps winning them elections. Abusers of power get to frame their own opposition, and so you have things like poor people being blamed for the excesses of the rich. So you have people start swearing off avocado toast they never bought in the first place instead of proper italian plumbing.
Trans-rights have never actually been an issue. Anti-trans people are the issue because they made their issue everyone elses.
Abusers deflect and redirect onto their targets so they never have to defend themselves. It isn’t that trans people want to survive, it’s that there’s motherfuckers that don’t want trans people to exist.
Protecting the rights of individuals is not catering to 1% of the total population. Its the bare minimum in a supposed civilized democracy. You can never, ever, compromise on protecting individuals that are causing no harm to others and just trying to navigate through the world.
Do we need to showcase the trans issue? No. We need politicians that are better at navigating the media environment and can effectively strategize against the GOP propaganda machine.
If you do that first, you wouldn’t have an issue with trans people. For fuck sakes make an attempt at it even and if they are capable and what I say is wrong, fine, expel the trans people from the party. Except, accept you will never be a party of values only one of opposition, so be cautious of ever trying to claim morality after that point.
Lose the gun talking point.
Dems be Beto O’Rourke’ing every election
This is the moment that O’Rourke lost texas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMVhL6OOuR0
2nd amendment can serve an important purpose, kill traitors who are violating the constitution.
Unfortunately, dems managed to convince people left-of-center to disarm, while the far-right have become the majority of gun owners.
Thanks, Democrats. You did the job for the fascists.
Gun are great. End fascism where the idea begins 🧠 by using the 2A
it is like watching interdimensional cable from Rick and Morty “in this reality it is normal to carry guns and the discussion is which side of the aisle has more”
I have been saying this for years, as someone who lives in Texas: If the Dems stopped talking about “taking away guns”, then Progressive policies/candidates would win in landslide elections constantly.
I voted for Beto, donated to his campaign, had his yard sign, etc. But I knew that sound clip was going to haunt him forever.
I am far from a one issue voter, but the louder you are against the working class being armed, the slimmer the chances of me voting for you.
Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary
- Karl Marx
It’s one of things we actually agree with rightoids about… Democrat strategy is stupid beyond belief; who are the anti-gun libs going to vote for, the Republicans?
I feel like… this is half baked… but I feel like the gun stuff should be … states rights? Push it down to the state level. Let texas be texas. Let new york or new york city specifically have its own laws. Make right wing people argue against states rights some more.
But the gun stuff is a constitutional issue, which is the complete opposite of states rights.
Abortion was pushed back to a states rights thing because there was no federal laws on the books and they scrapped the right to privacy interpretation it was previously under. The right wing is happy to argue against states rights for a national abortion ban, especially when they are losing at the state level.
“non-trans” normal person here, and I think everyone who has a problem with trans / queer / whatever people is a fucking moron. I absolutely support the “trans agenda”
Gentle FYI for you today, the term for non-trans is cis or cisgender. 💜
I am fully aware what some people use, but it is a made-up word of the English language and I won’t apply it to myself. I don’t have a problem with people using it, but it’s not my vocabulary. It neither has an inherent sense, nor does it have any added value in most context. I respect that it helps to normalize specifying whatever gender one associates with when “cis” people also do it, as opposed to only having trans / non-binary people to specify “what” they identify as. But my solidarity extends only to full acceptance and tolerance, not to changing how I “identify” myself :p
“Cis” is as real a word as “trans” is. They’re both Latin prefixes. Cisgender has literally no other meaning besides “not transgender”
No, that part (cis) is a prefix and means “on this side of”. And for “on this side of gender” to mean what cisgender is used as, is a newly agreed-upon thing in the evolution of LGBTQ culture.
But when you say things like ‘“non-trans” normal person’ it sounds like you’re saying it isn’t normal to be trans. Why not just say “non-trans” or “cis” instead of saying “normal person”?
You assume that in my world “normal” is a compliment. It’s not.
That’s not quite how a natural language like English works. There’s a bunch of mess and idioms and “technically correct” is almost never how things start to get used in real life. Thus often it happens that whatever is the majority becomes the default, like for instance cisgender is a concept that almost never has to be used because 99% of people are cisgender. Not that it’s not a valid term, it’s just a term that’s almost universally redundant.
but it is a made-up word of the English language
Interesting, because every word you’ve used is made-up word of the English language.
I think he’s referring to the difference of descriptive vs prescriptive. I mean, some english words and concepts just become standard without anyone trying to make them that.
Terms like cisgender or “they” as a pronoun on identical level to “he” and “she” is an example of trying to be prescriptive. You would never have to correct people with native level language skills on the correct use of these words if they weren’t.
Singular they had been around since the 14th century. If you want to say it was prescriptive then I might be willing to agree, but we aren’t in the 14th century. We’re in the 21st century. I’m sure you’ll agree that over 500 years of precedence makes it descriptive by that point.
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I support the trans agenda, the gay agenda, the woke agenda, and the Hyena Agenda.
The what agenda?
Lol
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hugs. hugs to all my trans sisters, brothers, siblings. we need each other now more than ever.
Can’t get the thoughts that this earth was made for psychopaths off my mind
The vast majority of human history operated on gift economies. Oppressive systems of government (and governments in general) are much more of a recent invention in the grand scheme lf things.
One we must end
Through immediate violence, not sitting around for years and years waiting for a legal option that may never come and if it does will be rigged meanwhile innocent people are suffering each day.
If it’s any consolation, psychopaths have suffered serious setbacks these past 500 years or so.
?? do you mind explaining?
Protect the dolls!
I think
this ‘meme’the title of this post is a great example of what the problem really is. I do not have any issues with trans people. What I have a major problem with is that voicing an opinion, or have any form of meaningful debate, is met with immense aggression, trolling, cancelling, intimidation.I am for example not completely convinced about trans women in female sports and am sympathetic to arguments from both sides. Even voicing that will cause me to be vilified by one side.
Another example is transition care for children. I believe that at a young age making an irreversible choice is dangerous and we should be careful. Not saying care should abolished, just saying that such a big life decision needs extreme care because it can cause irreparable harm later in life. Again a reasonable, well willing position that will cause this to be downvoted into oblivion.
So, trans people, I support you to exist, be happy, live a meaningful life. But unfortunately there’s a group of loud people who are honestly behaving like psychopaths who are making it hard to stay sympathetic. Wake up.
(Edit) Wanted to share this NY times post that puts thing much more eloquent than I ever could: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/gay-lesbian-trans-rights.html
This, so much. There’re very real and important discussions in the medical field that (very candidly) go into these types of topics that become impossible to have (at least in the public discourse) due to these types of behaviours.
I had to laugh at this ridiculous line from the opinion piece:
staff members had a dark joke that at the rate they were going, there would be “no gay people left.”
The whole idea that transition care is “getting rid” of gay people is ridiculous, I was into girls way before I transitioned. The other trans people I know are all extremely gay.
You are concerned about a child making a decision that they may regret… so you think the decision should be made for them?
What I have a major problem with is that voicing an opinion, or have any form of meaningful debate, is met with immense aggression, trolling, cancelling, intimidation
So, trans people, I support you to exist, be happy, live a meaningful life. But unfortunately there’s a group of loud people who are honestly behaving like psychopaths who are making it hard to stay sympathetic. Wake up.
“I get aggression and trolling”
“people being mean to me are psychopaths who make it hard for me to stay sympathetic to trans people”
The whole idea that transition care is “getting rid” of gay people is ridiculous
I think the ‘dark joke’ is one of those jokes that actually reveals how some people feel about this; what I got the opinion piece is that some folks in the gay community worry that wanting to transition can also mean being attracted to the same sex and being confused about it at a young age.
You are concerned about a child making a decision that they may regret… so you think the decision should be made for them?
Not exactly, a child is a person and should have agency. But at the same time, they’re a child and are less experienced in life. I don’t let my kid eat ice cream whenever they feel like it, and I wouldn’t let him make such a major decision before he knows very sure who he is. Because transitioning is a decision, but who you are is not. And I believe that when you’re so young, it’s really hard to know who you are.
I’m gonna try to reply to this in good faith as you seem to be wanting to engage in a good faith discussion, so let me tell you my experience.
I’m a trans girl.
Before I even have memories I was always (according to my mother) asking for skirts and dresses and playing with dolls and makeup. These moments were always taken as a joke or as me ‘being in a phase’ and were brushed off and ignored. My earliest memories have me confused why my sister gets to wear pretty dresses to church but I have to wear a boring suit. I remember ‘borrowing’ my sister’s nail polish, makeup, and dresses as early as age NINE. Did I have the understanding of what I was feeling? No. This was in the 90s, trans people werent as widely known in the US, especially the South. But if you’d given me the option to transition at age 9, I would’ve taken it in a heartbeat.
How do I know?
I’d slip out of my window EVERY NIGHT after everyone had gone to bed to wish on the first star I laid eyes on to be a girl. Sure, it wasn’t the first star to appear, but it was the first one I saw! That counted, right? I remember watching the episode of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch where she made a potion to turn herself into a boy to figure out what her boyfriend did in the auto shop. What did I do immediately after the episode ended? Went into the kitchen and tried to make my own potion with ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’. Glitter is nice! Oh and soda! Soda’s very nice.
I went to bed daydreaming of going to hogwarts and finding a potion that could make me right. I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed for a way to change my gender that when I finally heard about trans people at age 17, my reaction wasn’t ‘hmmm, this is interesting. I wonder if this is what I’m feeling’, instead it was ‘Oh, THAT’s what this is? There are other people like me?!?!?!’
Scientific studies have shown that a child’s concept of gender is already developed by age 4. Studies have also shown that a child’s understanding of who they are ALSO develops pretty early on. And, yes, in cases of children going on hormones, it is all done in conjunction with the child’s experiences, the doctor’s EXPERTISE in the matter, and the parents’ consent. They aren’t just walking into a doctor’s office and boosting little timmy up with E. Before any medicine has been taken there is EXTENSIVE screening through therapy and physician visits over the course of YEARS.
This isn’t a question that nobody has ever asked. It’s studied. It’s tested over the course of DECADES. And lastly, it’s (frankly) none of your business unless it’s YOUR kid, at which point you have complete control over whether your child goes through with any of it (up until age 18 at least).
I got the opinion piece is that some folks in the gay community worry that wanting to transition can also mean being attracted to the same sex and being confused about it at a young age.
My experience was that I was not attracted to men at all, but because I liked sailor moon and painting my nails people would just assume that I was. It just strikes me as a very paternalistic attitude to be worried about misguiding poor gay people who are simply “confused”.
Because transitioning is a decision, but who you are is not. And I believe that when you’re so young, it’s really hard to know who you are.
Being trans is very much a part of who you are. However while there has been a tremendous social pressure to repress over the years, trans people are not a recent development.
I’m a trans woman, I transitioned later in life, but I knew from a very young age that I was uncomfortable as a boy and I didn’t have the words to describe it until much later in life.
I grew up in the 90s’s/00’s and back then the gatekeeping and lack of information was pretty bad. Unless you were presenting with an acute mental health condition you really weren’t getting taken seriously. I was able to hold my shit long enough to go to a college and land a career because throwing myself into work (and drinking heavily) was my coping skill.
Meeting and working with another trans person after years of repressing that feeling was all it really took for me to put it together and transition myself after 10+ years of denial. That’s also what happens when trans people are erased from daily life.
I think it’s a good thing that kids actually get listened to when they say what they want. It’s not ‘ice cream for dinner’ but that orientation does speak volumes. None of these transition decisions get made flippantly, this is a process that takes years and plenty of oversight.
In regards to the whole trans women in sports thing: Sport doesn’t fucking matter. Let them play their little games if they want. Discouraging young people from healthy exercise just because some bigots care too much about who wins a meaningless contest is ridiculous.
I understand what you’re saying, and agree that discouraging young people to exercise is preposterous. But sports and competition do matter to a lot of people (especially in the US I think, which comes across way more competitive than Europe), and it’s not meaningless to them (neither to trans athletes I might add).
So I would say that your comment will be considered quite disrespectful. Would you say that this large group of people are more, or less inclined to agree with you if they’re being called a bigot?
I have no objection to people enjoying sports. Lord knows I enjoy a lot of inconsequential nonsense myself. The bigots I refer to are the people that are using trans people in sports as some sort of civilisation ending issue when it’s really not all that serious. They’re just using it to push a bigoted agenda that really has less to do with sport as it does their own irrational fears.
Another example is transition care for children. I believe that at a young age making an irreversible choice is dangerous and we should be careful.
… do you think transition care for minors is just handed out at the grocery store checkout or something?
“We need to be cautious!” would be much more compelling if the standard medical approach to trans minors was not already immensely cautious.
But unfortunately there’s a group of loud people who are honestly behaving like psychopaths who are making it hard to stay sympathetic. Wake up.
I dread to think of how quickly your sympathy would’ve been sapped for Black rights in the 1950s and 60s.
“We need to be cautious!” would be much more compelling if the standard medical approach to trans minors was not already immensely cautious.
The standard may be cautious, but a significant number of individual clinicians are not. But pointing out that a concerning number of care providers have looser-than-standard medical approaches gets the speaker attacked as a traitor to the cause.
Bolding mine, quite from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/transgender-youth-skrmetti/683350/
When red-state bans are discussed, you will also hear liberals say that conservative fears about the medical-transition pathway are overwrought—because all children get extensive, personalized assessments before being prescribed blockers or hormones. This, too, is untrue. Although the official standards of care recommend thorough assessment over several months, many American clinics say they will prescribe blockers on a first visit.
People act like natal puberty is the neutral choice here - it’s not. The first wrong puberty made me actively suicidal and that’s not unusual. If a kid has gotten so far as to get to a doctor about this, it’s pretty clear that something is up (cis people generally don’t question their gender in the first place) and by waiting on puberty blockers you’re allowing further suffering and irreversible harm to a trans kid. Puberty blockers are a very low risk way of hitting pause and if the kid decides to go through with natal puberty they can just stop taking puberty blockers with no harm other than a delayed puberty.
Puberty blockers are an overwhelmingly safe way to buy time for a patient, fuck’s sake.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/the-moderate-case-against-trans-youth
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/the-moderate-case-against-transgender
I should not have had to suffer through the first, wrong, puberty. I’m left with permanent scars, both physical and psychological, as a result. I’m not coming back to debate people who think thousands of trans kids should suffer the same way I did because one or two cis kids could be hurt. I damn near didn’t survive and a lot of trans kids don’t. Just dropping these links, I will not debate.
Hey, thanks for your comment and link. I respect that it must be incredibly hard having to suffer so much because of personal experience, and to then be expected to debate about it. I totally get that.
As the article says, there is a lot of misinformation around this, a lot of ignorance, and I do believe that an open debate about this (or anything in general really) is truly important. Way i see it, you’ve got bad actors on one side (opposing trans in this case) who will use anything to further their agenda. And they have an advantage: they can oversimplify a complex process. It’s really easy to shout “They want all your children to be trans!”, and quite a bit harder to explain the reality. That’s what the trans community is up against. It will take a lot of patience and time, decades, to educate the masses unfortunately, and any excesses, like online vitriol, trolling, will be used against you. I’m sorry to say this, but you’re an easy target.
Again, not expecting anyone to debate who doesn’t want to. But I hope that the people who do enter the public debate can be as composed as the author of the article you shared. I believe that’s the only road to acceptance.
I wish you all the best, and hope you can find peace. From the little information I have I can tell, you are beautiful.
Wrong place wrong time.
You’re vilified because you’re acting like a villain. People don’t want to debate your neckbeardedly presented well ahcktuallies while they’re fighting for the right to exist.
We don’t have this fight when it comes to other medical matters. Like if kids with cancer should get treatment even though chemo and surgery could have long-lasting repucussions. The alternative is they die. People who don’t get proper medical treatment die. Trans kids die of depression and suicide without treatment. Those are real things, there are real risks to not treating a medical condition. It’s not a matter up for public debate just because some dickwads are trying to distract everyone by making healthcare for a specific group of people political. It’s medical, we have facts and data that say trans people need healthcare to support their transition to live healthier longer lives. There are fucking doctors out there with years of practice who say yes, these kids need medical intervention. And here you are bitching that no one will debate you in a place where, again, people are fighting to exist. And you’re bringing up tired arguments because you gotta be that guy.
We have data on trans performance in sports and there is no clear advantage.
Besides, if you’re a world-class athlete, you already have a way different kind of body than most people. There are plenty of biological advantages that are celebrated in sports rather than weeded out. Want to start making sure everyone is the same height and weight for every sport, too? Same lung capacity? Reaction time? Born in the same country? Live at the same altitude? Same race? If you want to get advantages, there are clearer divisions along racial lines than trans status. No, I don’t advocate for segregation in sports because I’m not a goddamn monster of a person who can’t think for two seconds about why that’s idiotic.
Fuck off. Stop being a moron. Show some goddamn empathy.
How is anyone supposed to show empathy, let alone learn anything when even the slightest hint of wanting to have a conversation is met with this kind of reaction? I’m the villain? OK, but then you’re an extremist.
I made it clear in my comment what I support, and it was certainly not denying anyone’s right to exist. None of what I said supports the claim you made. What I pointed out is a major problem is exactly what you illustrate with your comment. It’s impossible to discuss anything when 2 sides are so entrenched and unwilling to debate. I get the urgency and gravity of what is happening right now, but for people like me, who consider themselves very sympathetic to the trans community, you’re making it very hard to help. It’s either support everything we say, or shut the f up. That’s never going to work.
And on the data you’re referring to around gender-affirming care, show me. Latest I heard, this is a very young field of study, and data, if any, is inconclusive. And yet here I am, supporting gender-affirming care, having to defend the position that please can we tread with care. Insanity!
As you (seem to) point out, trans people in sports is a different conversation. The science is clearer, but now we have a group of formerly (and frankly, still) marginalised people (women at birth, biologically) who fear unfair advantage. Much more political, philosophical even, a much harder debate. I empathise with both sides, how villainous of me.
So, showing empathy to you is hard. You reap what you sow.
Saying you’re supportive vs. actually doing the work to listen, understand, and be supportive, are much different things. Your empathy is performative if you don’t back up your words with actions, no matter how you dress up your opinions with empathetic-sounding statements.
Consider this: If you’re truly empathetic and open minded, why do you need to keep pointing it out?
The fact that you present an opinion piece from media owned by special interests to support your argument is enough to see why you believe what you do.
I have a group of friends, some of whom are trans, some of whom have medical degrees, and we have these discussions all the time. However, when someone talks about their right to exist being threatened, in a world where their right to exist is being threatened, is when you’ve decided to come in complaining about how poor you can’t engage in any polite discourse because people downvote you.
A number of people here have told you why this is the case, but you proceed to play the victim.
There are more than two sides, and no, the science on sports isn’t more clear than it is on gender affirming care. Even in the pub med links someone else posted, which they apparently hadn’t read in entirety, it go into how controversies around trans identities is sports has become a solution in search of a problem. You should read those links.
I don’t know what about my post made you think I wanted or was willing to extend empathy to your point of view. Was it when I called you a moron or an idiot?
Hi. I’m not sure what data she’s referring to that shows trans women have no athletic advantage in sports.
I’m trans and I disagree completely.
I believe the issue at hand is, and always has been, male puberty.
I don’t want people who went through male puberty physically competing against people who haven’t.
Male puberty gives an advantage that is not really possible to “undo” completely.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9331831/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10641525/
Also, you are not bad for asking questions, or sharing your assumptions. I welcome them.
You mean well. That’s what matters.
Thank you.
Hey, thanks for this thoughtful response. This is basically what I’m seeing happening; I don’t think it’s a black and white, clear cut situation. On the one hand there’s trans people, who feel discriminated against on this matter, on the other hand there’s women who have similar sentiments on the same. And here I am agreeing with them both. An impossible position. Agreeing with one side is denying the other. I don’t see a solution to this and that really sucks.
I didn’t actually comment to ask questions to be honest, but to comment on the polarisation that is happening, and that folks who are sympathetic perhaps become less sympathetic when immediately being put away as Satan. That’s burning bridges which you can’t afford as a minority.
But, I’m happy I did comment because there’s also some really good insights here and thoughtful responses. I don’t know any trans people IRL, so it’s valuable to me.
Thank you
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it’s not 2014 anymore. we aren’t canceling anyone. we’re getting canceled. JKR is doing victory laps. NHS has banned HRT for minors, as have 27 states. we’re kicked out of the military, and forbidden from security clearances. teachers in Florida can’t even use their own pronouns. Medicaid/Medicare/ACA funding for HRT for adults is stripped now. we can’t get passports with the correct gender marker. Sarah McBride has to use the men’s bathroom in Congress. Newsom calls us freaks. conservative media is calling us groomers and every time there’s a mass shooter they spread the rumor the shooter was trans. “gender ideology” is the new Satanic Panic. NYT keeps running op-eds on why Dems should throw us under the bus. Nancy Mace shouted “tr*nny” three times on the House floor and wasn’t censured for it.
you really think we’re the ones holding the cards?
It’s not 2014 and yet this is a post about not supporting the trans agenda makes one a “fucking psychopath”.
The joke, if you paid attention, is that the trans agenda isn’t a thing. They’re just trying to survive. So yeah, not supporting someone’s right to exist is some psychopathic behavior.
The fact thay you think there’s a trans agenda outside of just trying to survive doesn’t make you a psychopath, but it does make you an idiot.
What else do you call someone who wants to deny medical care for children and force them to go through irreversible changes?
With irreversible changes do you mean puberty?
Correct. Snowies did a good job explaining why.
Unfortunately puberty causes irreversible changes yes.
Now that doctors and parents en masse know trans people are a thing, if a child shows signs of gender dysphoria in early childhood, therapy is in order.
If the therapist determines the child is probably trans, and the (male) child insists they don’t want to grow up as a man, or vice versa, or whatever, and the parents feel like it’s not going to change and they’re more concerned with the child’s happiness than with some religious conviction or conservative values they may be clinging to…
The child should be given puberty blockers, which studies have shown do NOT cause irreversible damage.
As the child becomes a teenager and the situation stays the same… eventually it becomes obvious that some form of puberty needs to happen, and a choice has to be made. Usually this happens around 14 - 16 I believe.
It’s a tough decision, with many people involved, and the end result will be permanent irreversible changes to the teenager’s (soon to be adult’s) body.
If you force the child to go through a puberty they don’t want, you fuck them up… forever.
You destroy their life in a lot of ways. You condemn them to a life of harassment and rejection and isolation. Your own child.
This isn’t just mad doctors running around with meat cleavers going to town.
It’s a process that spans the child’s entire childhood, with thousands of opportunities to pump the breaks and change course, that if avoided in the name of something other than the child’s happiness and the doctors recommendations… will lead to tremendous misery and resentment.
I was born in the late 80s. My parents didn’t know what trans was. They took me to a conversion therapist when I was 5. Their solution for me was to “convince me to be normal”.
I grew up hating myself and feeling like a freak, because the feelings never went away, and I no longer felt safe talking about them… with anyone… so I was alone, hurting, in silence, watching my body change forever in ways I hated, trying to rationalize it all, imagining that one day I’d like the changes somehow.
That day never came.
I have been through a lot in my life. If my parents had known about transsexualism and gender transition, and supported me fully, my life would have been so much better.
I now have a whole host of mental issues that will haunt me until the day I die.
I want to love life. I want to see the good in people. It’s so hard when you’ve been through what someone like me has.
I am the direct result of your nervousness about treating children for gender dysphoria.
I am the alternative to supporting them.
Please don’t believe I am better off.
I’m not.
I am in psychological pain that never ends.
Thank you for your openness and sharing your personal story. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like, and I’m sorry that you had to experience that.
Also thank you for taking the time to explain. I 100% agree with what you say. You describe a very careful procedure, it being such a delicate matter. This is what I would want for my son if he was in this position. He’s 4 and has said he’s a girl many times lately. That’s incredibly young and probably a phase. I recall myself wanting to be a girl for a bit, at the same age, and my mom gave me a dress to wear (great mum, and a wonderful memory, I was lucky). It didn’t stick for me. But if it does for him, my primary concern is their wellbeing, and that they grow up in an accepting environment (and society). I wish you could’ve had that.
If I may ask you a question, I honestly don’t know this. Puberty is a natural process that everyone goes through under normal circumstances. But children who transition and take puberty blockers don’t, I assume (or do they but after transitioning?). If they don’t, that’s an experience they will never have, is there any issue with that?
Thanks again for your thoughtful response. It’s really helpful to understand.
PS I wanted to clarify that my worry on this issue is primarily with doing away with a careful process, as I’ve heard sometimes being voiced. I’m not saying it should be made more difficult, but it is a delicate process, with young children, and I feel what you described is a proper way of handling it. I think many folks (the majority really) who consider themselves a bit more neutral on the matter think this way, and being called transphobe for even the slightest deviation from the opinion of some folks does the trans community more harm than good.
So there’s something called Hormone Replacement Therapy.
It’s where doctors refer you to endocrinologists who measure the hormone levels in ng/DL or nanograms per deciliter in your blood.
The endocrinologists then recommend a dosage of estradiol and progesterone, or testosterone if the child is transitioning from “female to male”, in order to bring their hormone levels into a healthy range for someone their age of the opposite sex.
The body is surprisingly flexible especially during development when your bones and ligaments are still forming and your epiphyseal plates are still porous and malleable. When they go from blockers to HRT, their body will make puberty of the opposite sex happen, and they will look completely natural as a member of that sex, with the exception of their gonads/genitals.
These are almost always the trans people “you can’t tell” with. It’s easy to blend in when you never went through “the wrong puberty” so to speak.
That happens after the blockers, and is basically the final decision before permanent changes happen, usually at 14 - 16 years of age after having the child on puberty blockers and regularly therapy sessions.
No medicine will be prescribed until puberty begins, and no surgeries will be prescribed until adulthood in most cases. There are some rare exceptions in some states, but it’s still at the parents discretion.
If the child and you decide transition isn’t the right choice, the child can simply go off the puberty blockers, and regular puberty happens in line with their assigned sex at birth, with a minimal change in development.
If your child is showing signs I absolutely recommend talking to multiple doctors and therapists about all of this, and if it seems right you may end up wanting to schedule some pediatric therapy for them to really investigate and potentially diagnose… or simply to learn that it really is just a phase, which is also worth knowing for sure from professionals, that way you don’t have to second guess yourself as much.
Professionals make mistakes which is why I recommend seeking multiple opinions just to be sure.
If you make the child feel safe and give them options, they will show you their true unfiltered nature, whatever that may be.
Some little girls are tomboys early in life but grow up and remain female and live as women, because it’s not about what toys they like or how they interact with others… it’s about whether or not they have clinical gender dysphoria and feel sad or scared at the idea of growing up and living as their birth sex.
Doctors are your friend. They became doctors to help people. Let them try!
Banning HRT for minors was the right decision.
Are you a doctor? No? Sorry, your opinion is a irrelevant.
Since you seem to be chronically online I’m quite sure it’s YOU who is not a doctor. Which means YOUR opinion is quite irrelevant.
I’m not a doctor, but I’ve read multiple peer reviewed articles about the safety and efficacy of gender affirming care for children, have worked with children on puberty blockers (who were healthy and wonderful and were thriving under the treatment they were receiving), and am trans myself (so I’ve pirated and read multiple textbooks on trans care to advocate for myself at the doctors office.)
You are probably the kind of dumb fuck who think that 13 year olds are getting testosterone and dicks lopped off. Your opinion is worth the same as the toilet paper I just flushed.
average .ml L
Bash the red fash.
I rest my case.
Fuck your case.
No nuance for transphobia.
He literally said he supports us and that he wants to learn…
How in the world do you see anything he said as transphobic?
You sound extremely unreasonable right now…
You should probably not use words that you don’t know the meaning of.
I think if you want to be fair you make a distinction about policies you support based on your pov and how you treat the people you come across in your life. That could also make a difference to someone. Preferably by letting them know you’re ok with them existing without getting into a discussion about which policies you support and which you don’t.
For example, I could feel migrants take away our jobs and tell everyone I assume might be a migrant about my political views. That would make me a lot less of a pleasant human being than if I were to treat someone I assume is a migrant like the people I assume are not. Because to those people I also don’t start a conversation about how I feel about that.
I’m not accusing you of anything, but want to tell you that it is possible to come across people choose not to voice your opinion. Not just to prevent receiving that aggression, trolling, cancelling, intimidation you mention; but also because it might help someone feel relaxed when they’re around you.
I was only reacting to the title of the post, and I stupidly said ‘this meme’, that was a mistake. The content of the meme on it’s own I fully support. Apologies, thanks for pointing that out!
