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Etenne, perhaps I AM better at it which is how I can discern between a moral panic, on the one hand, and a reaction, however unjust it may become, to a social contagion, on the other. I've already said what I think about the "conservatives" who relish the opportunity to promulgate a moral panic, and who are doing so here - no argument! Yes, of course, "trans" as a broad concept, with a shifting definition, has always been with us. But it IS shifting and has shifted radically, even in our lifetimes! Puberty blockers have not always been available to the "trans" person, regardless of how that is defined. Nor has professionally-administered, "reassignment surgery." The assumption being made here is that those are medically legitimate means by which to provide alleviation of emotional distress. I say they are not. However, I think adults have every right to make that decision for themselves. Were I a hypothetical doctor, who for some crazy reason was in a position to make such medical decisions, despite not believing in them, I would not perform that surgery nor prescribe those hormones, but I certainly wouldn't ban them. This is a case where I think that adults, alone, can make that decision for themselves - but not for their kids who will, after all, be the ones to live with the consequences. The kids, were they to take those puberty blockers, which ARE hormones, would be playing what amounts to Russian Roulette with their current and future lives. Full stop. There is lots of research that shows that to be the case, in addition many anecdotal reports from those who've undergone those treatments who later regretted them, often bitterly. This information IS out there and is available, but you would have to separate it from the obvious neo-Nazi poison and brain-dead Christian apologetics that has flooded our country in the raging, ongoing civil culture war, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It does mean, however, that it requires more effort to arrive at an informed opinion based upon evidence. It even means that you would have to cast your gaze more suspiciously upon some of the academic papers that have been published in support of gender transition, such is the crisis in the academy. But I would start with the argument - and where the burden of proof does lie - that gender dysphoria, which is what we're talking about here, is alleviated in the individual so-afflicted in adolescence AND continuing into their adulthood AND that it provided more relief than other therapies WITHOUT devastating consequences. In other words, I would subject it to the scientific rigor that is brought to bear on all medical treatments. When you do that, you very quickly realize that trouble is, and has been, brewing in the medical community for a long time over that issue and anything like consensus is quite remote. [Note: MANY kids desist from their belief that they are actually the other sex over time. That's a reason for not acting medically to permanentize their transient false beliefs - they may well "grow out of them!" This happens very often.] You would have to, as with the aforementioned obvious fascists, consider the source of your information and factor in the extent to which the leftist culture warriors have smuggled in their own agenda to provide the appearance of rigorous science where it does not exist. Because, as I see it, that's just what they've done. They've developed a system of silencing their critics within academia and in the soft sciences, in particular, and shouted down and vilified and rendered jobless anyone who doesn't get with their program. That's where we're at, today. The burden is fully on those who say that this treatment is necessary. It is not on those who demand proof. That's how science, including medical science, works. And, until you've done that, not only to your satisfaction but to a medical standard of satisfaction, then you're going to have problems advancing this agenda and you will experience blowback politically through sustained loss of power. To the "They will always hate us - let's just burn it all down," crowd, I say: things can get much, much worse for us. Just keep electing (in the U.S.) Republicans and wait and see. I'll go out on a limb and say that "trans" is the single, greatest reason why the Democrats just lost power. If not the biggest reason, it was right up there with one or two others. |