Please note, I didn’t say *anti* trans. I have trans friends who did it right (therapy, slow social transition, deep social transition, then when therapists and docs and friends all agreed that transitioning was the right way to fix this particular mental health problem, a full transition to the desired gender… and now there’s no telling she was once a he, or that he was once a she). I don’t care if a fully formed adult decides to transition, quickly or slowly, so long as they’re paying for it. When women with massive back problems due to their tits weighing so much (an actual physical health issue that’s REAL) can get their breasts reduced on insurance, then we can discuss other “vanity” surgeries. Otherwise, I don’t even want to begin to hear about it.
Oh, I lie. If a group of people get together and start an insurance company that chooses to cater to or otherwise insure trans people, because they WANT to, that’s also fine. Choice is a good thing, and I wouldn’t want to stop someone from doing that if it’s what they want. I just don’t want it thrust upon other people. Oh, and I don’t want to pay for your viagra, either. And stop mutilating little boys; we’re not allowed to cut off girls’ genitals so why is it okay to do it to boys? Just saying.
But I digress.
There are a lot of people who are standing up (and out) as detransitioners right now. While I support the right of an adult to do whatever they want to their own body (yes, *whatever* they want… it’s their body, not mine), at their own cost, the -TQIA++ community (LGB and part of T are not lumped in there, btw) need to back the fuck down and leave detransitioners alone. More importantly, they need to LISTEN to those who’ve chosen to go through the incredibly traumatic process of detransitioning. We all need to listen to them.
There are hundreds of hours of video at this point, of young men and women telling Congress and various courts why transitioning was wrong for them. There’s a lot to listen to. We should ALL be listening to them. Too many of us were taken in by doctors saying that “a trans kid is better than a dead kid.” Even the kids themselves bought in on that line. To listen to these young people talking about what was really going on in their heads during this “transition process” is terrifying. Many of them knew it wouldn’t fix anything. They simply got caught up in the social storm and couldn’t dig their way out.
Yes, this is sent out to mostly those on the Left. The Left doesn’t listen well when it’s something they don’t want to hear. Detransition is not something they want to hear about. But it goes out to those of us who’ve been dragged into the whole transition mess because we have kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews, or friends’ kids who have been transitioned or have been thinking about it. We may be on the Right, but we still have to listen. Frankly, we have to listen harder, because unlike many on the far Left, we actually want to hear.
Most importantly? We have to ACTUALLY listen. We cannot condemn our children (or whoever it was who thought about or did transition) for doing it, for getting caught up in it. It isn’t their fault. It isn’t their fault even if we warned them about it. It’s harder to walk away from a whole community of supposed support (because the Left does look that way when you’re hurting inside) than it is to stop shooting up heroin. There’s currently no program to help these folks detransition. They’re doing this largely on their own. They’re doing it by themselves, too, because most of their friends (maybe all of their friends) refuse to talk to them because of that detransitioning. It’s awful. All the support into “become who you need to be!” suddenly disappears and now they’re being treated like pariahs.
From Prager U: https://youtu.be/3yvjFSX0TB0?si=oC0iVUsUsbzVRdML
BBC from five years ago: https://youtu.be/fDi-jFVBLA8?si=rfCcQG3J2_Xi8-jM
Jordan Petersen clips: https://youtu.be/doaHPFWEa7E?si=-O6bnZnnJmnbUVfN
Genspect 1: https://youtu.be/wCshcfx4CSc?si=kQyRIa2xP5QOdOir
Genspect 2: https://youtu.be/H3WyLd1fBrA?si=q7lBmcY8Uo43oZc9
Independent Women: https://youtu.be/DtItMuCW0vI?si=4qmJ25oY0EOjEUXi
Identity Crisis: https://youtu.be/2AdJCMgq3hc?si=zEmNRjJLG7sxJ3j6
When people “on our side” today talk about the mental health crisis, I appreciate it… but I also hear this accusation in their tone. Like it’s the fault of the person with the mental disorder. It seems to carry this weight that, if only they’d withstood peer pressure or if only their parents had been stricter, they wouldn’t be where they are now. That’s not the case. They might have had different problems, but the mental health issues were not going to be solved by transitioning… or by not transitioning. So long as that stigma continues to exist, so long as people hear, “oh, you have a mental illness,” as a put down or a statement of their worth, it’s not going to get better.
Worse… I’m of the opinion that if we don’t get rid of that stigma, more of our young people will fall to the fallacies and lies of the Left. Why? Because when you’re a teen and your world is shite (which is true even of the most normal of teens, for heaven’s sake), having a group of people surround you and “affirm you” constantly sounds WAY better than getting screamed at by your parents. It’s always going to be the case. As I frequently tell people on the Left, not one single person has been changed from Right to Left (or vice versa, I might add) by having someone scream and yell at them, spit on them, or otherwise treat them like they are trash. And that’s what I see too many people on all sides of this debate doing to kids.
We need to find out why it is that girls at about age 11 start questioning their bodies and their minds. We need to find out why boys at about 13 start doing the same thing, but in vitally different ways. We know it happens, but we haven’t figured out why. If it’s normal, meaning it’s a healthy thing that is supposed to happen and to teach us how to better be human, then we need to build a better support system for our kids who are going through it. If it isn’t normal, meaning it’s caused by social contagion or microplastics in our milk or whatever, then we need to fix that shit. And we need to do all of this without blaming the kids, because good grief, they have enough on their plate. Alienating them, yelling at them, disowning them… all this does is prove the Left is “correct” and I do not want to do that.
So take a step with me away from forced transition… but also away from forced DEtransition, or forced “pray the gay away” (which is still going on today, despite being thoroughly debunked and proven to be horribly abusive), or anything else forced. Republicans and Conservatives are supposed to be anti-government overreach. Let’s back that up with our votes and our dollars and our support of those who want to strip powers from the government that do not belong there.
Transitioning, as a last resort fix for a broken mind, to make mind and body match when nothing else will work, used to be acceptable. Let’s make it moreso. Detransitioning should be made as painless as possible from the point of view of us as a support group (nothing can change the pain of the physical and mental loss). And let’s work on getting rid of this belief that not allowing medical transition as a child, and working on medical transition very slowly as an adult only in the most severe and necessary of cases, are somehow wrong. The whole “better a trans kid than a dead kid” is disingenuous and nasty, because it paints things in a very black and white way when the situation is anything but black and white.
How about we all focus no “no more kids killing themselves” instead of on transition or detransition? “No more kids wanting to suicide” seems like something we can all agree on. I’m tired of seeing kids in coffins.
“the -TQIA++ community … need to back the fuck down and leave detransitioners alone”
That, right there is destroying any widespread support for the trans community. When a group decides, publicly, that if you enter the doors, you can never leave, it becomes a cult. Calling JK Rowling a TERF and destroying her books is not helping either, but that is a subject for a different time.
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Every person who is transgender likely has several reasons for thinking it is right for them. Not going to speculate on what those reasons may be, but I somehow doubt a person just decides to change sex. No one decides to take a major in college for a single reason, no one decides to stay in a relationship for a single reason, no one decides to buy a car/house for a single reason, no one gets a tattoo for a single reason. Human behavior is a amalgamation of reasons, stimulus, and reactions.
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People will change their minds because of reasons that are important to them. It is perfectly OK for someone to go to the Toyota dealer a half dozen times, but then buy a Nissan on the first visit. Everyone accepts their reasons for doing so. No one, not even the most diehard Toyota fan would vilify that buyer for their decision. But… the transgender community thinks that once you start down that path, you cannot change your mind? Why? How does that impact them in any way?
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Or, is there decision so fragile they require the widespread support of strangers?
Is that why they refuse to listen to detransitioners? Why they refuse to listen to anyone advising caution?
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I do not see the folks who wake up one day and declare they are now the opposite sex, and schedule surgery that afternoon as ending up happy. But, i suspect those are the folks most vocal about the detransitioners. Too far, too fast, and seeing someone put on the brakes causes them to rethink their decision. Better to harass the detransitioner than to admit they, themselves made a mistake.
CBMTTek said: “…I somehow doubt a person just decides to change sex.”
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I would agree with you. I have known many trans folks over the years, both before and during the current “troubles.” Before 2020, I had great sympathy for those few who had gone through all the work, strife, and horrid treatment by people around them in order to change genders. It was hard, it was work, it was expensive, and it was entirely worth it to them. As I’ve often said, you get what you pay for, and they paid a lot. Their largest concern was making sure they didn’t get beat up in the bathroom. And that’s both M2F and F2M. They just wanted to be treated like the human beings they are, and getting that basic acceptance was life-changing and awesome. I think it was Chris who said, if it walks, talks, eats, and pisses like a duck, then I’m willing to treat it as a duck.
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Today, with the laissez-faire attitude toward gender on the Left, there are no ducks. There are squirrels at a rave. I don’t want people who legitimately have worked through it and transitioned because it’s the only workable answer for them to be beaten up in bathrooms or treated like trash. The current bull is making it much more likely that trans people, ALL of them, are going to be treated poorly. But I also strongly feel like the vast majority of those claiming to be trans are not. They’re attention seekers, mentally ill people who aren’t really in control of themselves, and paid shills. My guess is there are probably more actual trans people than we saw prior to 2020, but considerably less (several sigmas less) than we’re currently hearing about. There needs to be a natural progression of acceptance, and that WAS happening. Yeah, slowly. Slowly sucks, but it’s better than the alternative (which is what we’re seeing now).
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And the far Left don’t want to hear detransitioners because it means they might have been wrong about something. They can’t afford that. IMO of course.
Young people should not be “transitioned” before they are fully emancipated at 21.
What they should recieve is emotional health support I ntil that age. From a counselor who believes what ever your birth gender is, its acceptable to be that gender.
It would avoid negative outcomes.
I can’t support 21 as a number. If you can vote for your government and die for your country, then it’s no business of mine what you have stashed in your slacks. Period. Full stop. Either we want smaller government (and we get out of people’s pants) or we go Left. I don’t see two ways about that particular one. Gun ownership at 18, voting at 18, drinking at 18, age of consent at 18. Pick a number, and we stick with it. None of this spreading it around. It’s wrong. You want to move *all* those things to 21, I might consider it… especially with the way kids are acting these days. But I’d be hard pressed, honestly. We picked 18 for a reason.
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But as to transitioning, if you can decide to have a tattoo or piercing, have a drink, vote, and carry a firearm in defence of this country, then you can do what you want with your body. But having a right and using it is not without consequences. For instance, if you decide to transition at 18, that should be allowed… but it will mean there are jobs you can’t do (because you have to take meds, you can’t be in the armed forces, for instance). It’s not that you’re unqualified, it’s that you don’t meet the requirements for the job. The same rules that apply to asthma meds also apply to sex meds. That goes for women who want HRT, I might add, and men who need to have testosterone for whatever reason. *shrug*
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I believe that people who think they are the wrong gender need to go to therapy with a therapist who is not vested in one gender or another, but is interested in the best outcome for the patient. First stop, were you treated in a way that would make you want or need to dissociate with your original gender? Yes? Okay let’s deal with THAT first. Mental health MUST come first, because in many cases, dealing with the mental health issues will clear up the problem entirely. In the rest of the cases, dealing with the mental health issues will result in a much better transition, should it come to that. The end result we ALL want is “less dead kids.” Clearly the Left’s vision of letting everyone just claim to be whatever, and handing out meds and surgeries like it’s no big deal, didn’t work. Let’s try something more in between.
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And again, I repeat over and over, we MUST end the stigma of getting help with mental health. You don’t judge someone poorly for having T1 Diabetes or for developing Parkinsons. It isn’t their fault. It isn’t the fault of people with mental health issues that they have those issues. We need to start treating mental health treatment the same way we treat insulin injections and such. It’s something that happens, and it helps. Once we’re able to do that, we start pumping out actual healthy kids. That should pretty much take care of most of the problems going forward.
here in maine gubmint made a law- under 21 no tobacco products…
then “they” put a pamphlet in stores claiming “1200 children a month start smoking “…..
I agree, “adulthood” should be one number, not 18 for this, 21 for that, 16 for this, 5 for WTF!…