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Pharmakon, with great respect, I question that kids are well-informed on this issue that they, themselves, are so caught up in. It's not as though quality information is available to them or that they have enough information to make informed, life-altering decisions (and puberty-blockers, which are hormones, ARE life-altering). What they have is a strongly-held, highly subjective set of beliefs that have been affirmed by similarly situated adults, many of whom, I suspect, desperately need affirmation of their own drastic decisions by creating a bandwagon effect. I think they all suffer from a persistent and overwhelming delusion that is based more in psychology, culture and social contagion than in a biological theory of non-binary gender. I am very skeptical of trans theory, or theories, and, while I have known many trans people over the years, many of whom are very lovely people, especially as I live in San Francisco, I do not believe that, in any fundamental way, they are members of the sex opposite their "birth" sex or gender, which I consider to be interchangeable with sex. There is a very significant number of regretful adults who have subjected themselves to varying levels of hormones and surgery and, if I were a doctor, I would absolutely refuse to give either to a minor and possibly not to adults. As I mentioned, I have known many trans people including two young adults now whom I have known since their birth. They are my company's former bookkeeper's kids, a boy and a girl, her and her husband's only children and both of whom have taken the plunge and have undergone years of hormone treatment and "top surgery." I cannot help but think that their environment growing up had something to do with their present beliefs in themselves as "born in the wrong body." Their mother was hysterical and always shrieking at them and their father and anyone else whom she wanted to blame for her problems. They came from a chaotic family. There are lots of things that could be added but I'll leave it with this one: Children who undergo puberty blockers are at great risk of never having a functional sex life, possibly never even experiencing orgasm. Oh, one last thing, how many here are familiar with "autogynephilia?" It affects males almost exclusively and is the result of finding themselves aroused by the idea of themselves as women. They usually remain heterosexual, that is, attracted only to females. It is distinct from the other form of trans belief in which mostly gay or lesbian kids come to see themselves as the opposite sex. Both of these forms are, I would say, highly problematic. The gay kids for me are more troubling in that they have come to see themselves as not gay but as born in the wrong body - and there are people who want them to see themselves that way, too. This is not an easy issue but I'm sure not going to trust "LGBTQ+" to get it right any more than I'm going to trust the fundamentalist thugs who beat their children to get it right, either. |