That was disturbing news to Angelica Jadunandan, who moved to New York from Florida with her two young daughters three years ago. Her older daughter, who is eight, is transgender, and Angelica wanted to move them to a safe blue state—somewhere her family’s medical care would not be called into question. New York is a self-declared “sanctuary state” for trans people. It seemed like a good option.
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All gender affirming care that is or has been provided to minors at scale is reversible. The standard for providing gender affirming care to minors is puberty blockers and social transition, never anything permanent like surgery. Personally, I don’t see any cause for concern about potential harm to minors from providing gender affirming care, but I do see the harm that is done to them when that care is denied and find it far more concerning given that a common result of that harm is the most permanent and irreversible outcome possible, suicide.
Question, I know of a kid in my kids friend circle. She has been on puberty blockers and is starting to take estrogen. She is 16. I would have thought that starting to take estrogen wouldn’t be truely reversible. But I really don’t know much about it. Can a person theoretically stop the estrogen and the puberty blockers and go through a sort of normal male puberty?
The estrogen isn’t reversible but testosterone would still work. In short, if she were to detransition she would have a feminine bone structure, breasts, and would likely be a bit smaller, but should otherwise develop fine.
The bigger thing is that at 16 you’re really balancing risks here. Detransition of a 16 year old who’d been on puberty blockers is very rare. Hitting 18 without any puberty is socially isolating and developmentally awkward. And going through the wrong puberty has permanent effects too as well as feeling like some sort of body horror. A choice has to be made and the person who is nearly an adult and has to experience the consequences is the one most likely to get it right, especially when they’ve thoroughly discussed it with doctors and therapists.
You mention hitting 18 without any puberty. What does that actually look like. I assume a person of any gender would just be shorter in general, but I don’t even know if that is true. For female, there would be no breasts, but I assume one could wear something that would make it look like there were. That doesn’t cover person to person contact, but it at least covers some phsyical appearance. Of course word would get around at school, but at 18 that would likely end. But there must be more. I am just not sure what puberty blockers would prevent that would be socially obvious, and I am curious.
She’d have a childlike fat distribution. Her bones may fuse in an androgynous way. She’d not develop sexual desires. Her muscle structure would remain childlike. She’d be slower to adult bone density.
Hell, all the mental and emotional changes that come with puberty at 16 she’ll be pretty late to all of that, but having to wait to 18 is taking two more years from it. Those are two years hanging out with peers and rebelling against parents. Of teenage angst. Of early dating at an age where it’s understood to probably go nowhere so you can make mistakes. It’s also two years of her body still feeling wrong, of clothes not fitting right, of not seeing the face she’s already jumped through so many hoops in pursuit of. It’s the entire lived experience of being 16 and not allowed to go through puberty for two more years unless you take the one you really don’t want.
For someone who’s uncertain it may very well be a better decision than picking a puberty. But for someone who is certain and whose doctors believe seriously understands the choices being made it should be her choice
I also think it’s worth saying here, that as various citizens not involved and for the government the question isn’t “what is the right choice”, but rather whether or not we should restrict the freedom of bodily autonomy for the teenager and the freedom of medical professionals to do what they believe is best for their patients. The neutral option is to not interfere in someone else’s medical choices.
That’s good to know, thank you. It makes the angle pretty different.
An integral part of transgender care is also therapeutic evaluation and discussion with minors and parents to thoroughly understand what is needed at specific stages of the minor’s development.
The issue of parents/schools “promoting” kids to be a different gender is so insanely overblown. There isn’t any documented case of an adult coming forward to claim that they received gender altering medical intervention as a minor when they shouldn’t have.
Just wait. It’ll be the cool thing for youth pastors to claim soon. Like all the ones that claim they were strung out giving handies in truck stop bathrooms when Jesus called them.
“I’ve been there. I was told it would be great to be trans. They offered me money and candy. Then dressed me in girls clothes and did surgery on me in math class. Then Jesus came to me and said ‘No more’”.
Before 5 years later they complete the cycle by coming back out and not getting why the community can’t trust them or welcome them back
I believe you, I don’t think there is malice here at all.
You might find a lecture bio a professor from Stanford, named Robert Sapolsky, entitled ‘Neuro-biologu of trans-sexuality’ interesting.
I had been a little while since I watched it, but the thing that stands out in my memory is:
When you look at the differences between biologically male brains, and biologically female brains, there is this part that has nodes (I don’t remember exactly, sorry, nouns are not my forte) and they are always one size in male brains, and a different size in female brains.
In trans-sexual brains, these little nodes are the size of the nodes in the brain of their believed gender, not their biological gender.
People with similar experiences as a child certainly exist, and their and your experiences are valid, but there are many documented and studied experience that are different. Something like your experience, I would hope would be identified by the parents.
Thanks for the response. People are being pretty evil to me here. I appreciate your thoughtful, detailed response a lot.
You should probably edit your comment to include this information since somebody might see the misinformation in your original comment and might not see this comment correcting it
I’ll add a clarifier at the end but I didn’t specifically reference procedures, so I’ll probably leave the “like this” part unless that’s considered deceptive in some way?
If a cis child is able to begin puberty without people calling into question whether the child is mature enough to make such a life altering decision, there’s no reason a trans child should be unable to begin puberty blockers or HRT at the age they’d typically begin puberty regardless.
Choosing not to allow trans children to take necessary medical steps to transition is not a neutral choice. The wrong puberty can irreversibly damage your body in ways that are impossible or very expensive to fix, and the torture of seeing that happen to yourself and be unable to prevent it can’t be overstated.
No 8 year old is starting HRT, because they aren’t at the age to begin puberty. If a child is insistent in their gender idenity being incongruous with the puberty they will undergo long term, there is no reason to prevent them accessing HRT at the correct age, and if there is any doubt, the neutral option to pause unwanted changes in the interim is puberty blockers.
Gender confirmation surgeries are very uncommon for minors, and typically only happen to those who have already undergone the wrong puberty and have developed unwanted secondary sex characteristics (typically just top surgery for trans mascs). Breast reduction surgery for cis boys is the vast majority of gender confirmation surgery on minors, and among trans minors specifically the rate of gender affirming surgery is around 0.0021% for those 15-17, 0.0001% for those 13-14, and 0 for 12 and under. And the best way to reduce this number is by letting trans teens access puberty blockers and HRT.
Edit: Also there have 1000% been trans minors who started HRT as a minor and are now trans adults who are still on HRT. The rate of desisting for minors who identify as trans is like ~2%, and most of those who do do so by age 10 (eg before any HRT or gender affirming care outside of social transition). [source]
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Thanks for the thoughtful response.
But look at how I’m being treated here, look at how they removed my original comment. I wasn’t being mean or anything.
If people expect to have discussion and convert people then they need to be nicer. What I saw today is evil, and it doesn’t help the trans community much when this happens.
I’m not going to let it poison my research, but holy moly you folks need some manners and decency.
Trans woman going to reply.
Imagine how it feels to be yelled at while in line to pee at a washroom.
Four hings here.
You are not owed politeness. (See 2). I dont know what you said that got removed, so I’m only judging on this comment. But talking to people who are criminalized for trying to pee in certain states, were done trying to be polite.
No one is converting anyone. Were here demanding basic rights and protections that are given to everyone else. You don’t like trans people, fine, we dont want to hang with people like that either.
No one in history has gotten said rights politely. Politics dont care about the oppressed until they’re forced to be heard.
If your allyship is so flimsy that someone being rude makes you question it, you were never an ally in the first place
From me to you, I face that every day as a trans woman. If you dont like it, get fucked I guess? Thats what I keep getting told…
I get mad when I’m told I should be more polite in the face of a Genocide upcoming
Well, there are people ready to listen. I see you, but not everyone is mean. I hope it gets better for you.
I can’t even access my original comment but it wasn’t mean or judgmental. The problem with society right now is that we can’t have polite discourse.
Thanks for your perspective!
Fuck your poliete discourse. Disrespectfully.
https://www.lemkininstitute.com/red-flag-alerts/red-flag-alert---anti-trans-genocide-in-the-usa---%233
Were in the face of a genocide agaosnt my trans siblings south of the border here.
Were past civilaized discussions.
Trans women are being raped in men’s prisons.
Why should I be polite to people who dont want to understand my oppression?
When it’s time that me, a Canadian trans woman, feels the need to own a gun for protection. Why should I be polite to anyone?
Thank you for your perspective. Please stop being mean, it doesn’t help.
I understand where you’re coming from.
You are not owed politeness.
Because an example I’m looking at, is a German telling a Jew to be more polite in 1939.
Politeness has never gotten anything, so no, I won’t stop.
Ok, thanks!
I would not call people being (rightfully) annoyed at you evil. What I would call evil is posting, on an article about the rights of trans kids being stripped away, how you’re “just asking questions” about why trans kids shouldn’t have the right to the correct puberty the same as their cis peers, while ignoring the sources people offer to you and using as your source a single article by a right-wing, anti-abortion christian site, out of some fear that kids are being pushed into transitioning. A fear that is being created by the people behind the rollback of trans rights, using the age old technique of accusing queer people of “grooming kids” (whether that’s turning them gay, trans, or anything else). One that you are being told is wrong from both actual medical studies as well as personal experience (I almost guarantee every trans person can tell you a story of medical gatekeeping they or someone they know experienced). Even as adults getting on HRT is not always an easy task, and as a minor it can be almost impossible.
Sorry that you feel trans people are being rude to you, but you have no idea how often we hear this exact same argument from cis people who think they somehow know better than medical experts and actual trans people about whether kids are too stupid to know that they’re trans but somehow not too stupid to know that they’re cis.
And, respectfully, you yourself did not approach this topic with the respect it deserves. Your initial now removed comment insinuated an 8 year old child not yet seeking medical intervention was the age for “alter[ing] their body like this” (eg medically transitioning), said how you
were “leaning towards being against”“don’t understand… and would say [you] even disagree” about trans care for minors [edit: correction since I misremembered exact wording], and reused a common TERF and transphobe talking point about how its possible you could have been pushed into transitioning as a child were it more well known and accepted, with no evidence other than a vague feeling. Your comment being removed is entirely fair and not evidence of mistreatment.That’s not really what I said but I appreciate your input, thank you.
If thats how several trans people in this thread took your argument it might be a good opportunity to self-reflect.
Is there any way to get a copy of my original Lemmy post so I can see it? I want to look at my tone and such.
Yeah I found a copy of it, here are the relevant parts I was thinking of in this response:
“Leaning towards being against”
“Just asking questions”
“pushed into transitioning”
Both “insinuating medical transition happens at 8 years old” and “trans kids are too stupid to know they’re trans and undergo HRT driven puberty, but cis kids can undergo natal puberty perfectly fine”. A 2 for 1 special, how fun.
Edit:
Also this is stupid for a multitude of reasons and shows you didn’t do even a tiny bit of research beforehand
Oh sweet, thanks! I wanted it to be seen again too!
And it even has the edits, perfect haha. Tyvm
Yeah, probably!
Trans people are getting our rights stripped away at an alarming rate, and you’re whining about people being pissed at you on an internet forum? Maybe log off and get some perspective
Ok, thanks!
Are you Trans? If not, then you cannot understand. Leave people to make their own medical decisions as long as they don’t hurt society at large. So, don’t come back at me about vaccination.
Even then, the same logic applies to vaccines. I don’t care if someone else doesn’t want to get their tetanus shot up to date. I don’t care if they don’t want to get a rabies shot.
Regret rate is lower then joint replacement surgery and chemotherapy.
I can’t really find a direct large scale study, honestly we should fund one. I did find this though…
This isn’t a direct study but it kind of explains the issue I was trying to communicate, and it even references the other study that was linked here:
The Amsterdam cohort of gender dysphoria study
Per that that website you linked:
I guess it makes sense you’re getting your talking points from people who don’t respect the bodily autonomy of women, since they also don’t seem to respect the bodily autonomy of people in general.
You have no actual points or argument and are just wasting peoples time.
OK thanks, I will take their numbers with a grain of salt. It’s looking like the regret numbers might be closer to 10-20% but that’s still pretty low and generally acceptable.
Its difficult to find large scale studies due to both the fact trans people are often understudied/represented in medical literature, and the existence of trans minors is so highly politicized. Almost all generally agreed upon data points to regret rates for gender affirming care being extremely low compared to almost every other type of treatment. Beginning HRT while you aren’t trans is pretty likely to give you biochemical dysphoria very quickly, the same way not being on HRT while you are trans can cause biochemical dysphoria.
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That makes sense. Hopefully we can have some more new ones over the next couple decades!
Yeah, there’s definitely data supporting this. It’s good news for sure in the medical field.
I do wonder about sample sizes and selection bias, as the ones I found seem to be a bit small and targeted. I think I’m going to research some of the larger studies that might be ongoing right now to see how they’re coming along.
If I find anything useful, I’ll post it here!
My friend, the meta analysis has been done. Consult a medical librarian. This is not controversial at all.
Oh, I’m not referring to a meta analysis… I actually avoid those because it’s a bit harder to verify all of the sample selection methods. I’m curious about direct, ongoing, large scale studies that may or may not have wrapped up.
You shouldn’t avoid them, because they’re considered the golden standard in terms of evidence. Compiling and analyzing the studies that dozens or hundreds of people have done can give much higher quality evidence than any of those studies alone.
This is true but there’s nuance to it. Often these aggregations have other issues based on their own selection methods.
So, I prefer to look at the direct relationships instead. That’s just my opinion, but I did get it from a person in the field.
I imagine the process differs a lot depending on the subject or focus of the study.
Or I’m just wrong! Oh well 🤷♂️
The issues that individual studies have, on average, tend to be flattened out when aggregated with many other studies. Basing this on what I learned this semester from someone with a PhD in a portion of class specifically devoted to understanding the different types of evidence in scientific studies, and how reliable each type is.
You can always review the methods of a meta study to see if there’s anything that leaps out at you with their selection criteria. But more data is always going to win against less data. Even a study with a p-value of 0.05 can still have results that happened entirely due to chance, but when you add many other studies with the same or similar results then you become much more certain that it wasn’t due to chance.
That makes a lot of sense!
Oh get stuffed with this concern trolling. The regret rate for children who transition is almost non-existent.
Man, I really thought this place would have more thoughtful discussion than Reddit. There’s nuance to everything and we’re all trying to understand each others human experience. It looks like mine is vastly different from yours, but that’s alright.
Edit: Oh I see this is your main topic you post about, it probably affects you deeply. Sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way!
Buddy, this isn’t “thoughtful discussion” this is the same transphobic bullshit we hear day in and day out. It’s been debunked so many times you don’t deserve a discussion, you deserve to be pelted with eggs and tomatoes until you get your clown ass of the stage
Transgender people’s existence isn’t up for debate.
Its not transphobic to question the science and statistics that are thrown around constantly. Somehow everyone’s supposed to believe this is the one single medical field that’s entirely solved, and the statistics are infallible.
It doesnt add up, and when people ask questions they get hated out, banned, and comments removed.
That makes this an echo chamber, not a place for discussion. Lemmy is not the place to debate this issue in any healthy way.
You’re right, it’s not. Leave. Go play in traffic. Nobody wants you here.
Great demonstration of good mental health there.
Yes, this is exactly how you get people to convert to your side! /s
I’m not going to let you poison my opinion of trans folks, but you’re not doing them any favors right now. Go take a deep breath, friend.
Fuck off entirely with this
As a fascist, what on earth made you decide to join Lemmy? Get the fuck out of here!
You have no idea what I am. When you’re talking to people with different opinions though, this isn’t the way my friend. This is not the way.
Didn’t think I’d ever see this shit here
Against my better judgement, I’m going to engage in good faith here.
What exactly do you mean by “like this”? There is nothing about this girl altering her body in the article at all. In general, people her age transitioning is mostly social (changing name/pronouns/aesthetic) and getting care from specialists who are doctors who know more than you or I or the average person about what might help the person in question. At a certain point puberty blockers come into play, which is not really altering the body as it is preventing possible harm to the child by forcing them to go through a possible traumatic experience that we can prevent. This gives the person additional time to ensure they are confident and happy with their decision. Puberty blockers are widely studied and if a person chooses they can stop them and the puberty of their assigned sex will proceed as expected. In the case that they decide to proceed there is an extremely small regret rate and the majority of that regret is because post coming out the person was not supported by others.
Your personal experience has really nothing to do with her experience or truly any other trans persons experience, seeing as you are clearly not trans. Your thoughts on these people are irrelevant as they and their literal team of doctors likely know what’s best for them far more than you ever could. There is paper after paper and organization after organization that you can look into with stats and figures and actual evidence, so I hope before you go around assuming your personal experience is somehow more relevant or accurate than that of the majority of all trans people and accredited medical professionals, you spend some time actually bothering to look into it. If you truly believe that time will tell, then I have great news for you because we as a society have known about trans people forever, and time has indeed already told, over and over and over again: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8099405/
Thank you for all that you are sharing, @MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com . You’re a very kind and thoughtful human being - and I can see that you have a lot of patience.
I wish I had your strength of character to respond to such a person as you have.
I recognize the individual in question is thoroughly obstinate - even in the face of obvious defeat. But your words in this comment and the other ones that you shared below are illuminating and inspiring for the many readers that come across this page.
The study appears to be a meta analysis or aggregation, so it’s going to take me a bit longer to look into. If you have favorite non-aggregate studies you personally know of, please let me know too. I’m sure I’ll find some, but my searches might not lead me down the same path.
I specifically linked a meta analysis because it shows that we have collected the same data over and over again and have found the same results.
If you’re unwilling to take the current medical approach as based on science, I really can’t imagine a single study changing your mind, but just for fun, here’s one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15842032/ 0.6% regret rate
Feel free to note it’s from 2005 and treatments have generally become even more advanced since then, meaning the process of medical transition was likely more physically taxing for them and with wore outcomes than it might be for people now, two decades later.
This does a decent enough job of trying to explain my issue with the sample selection and process used:
https://lemmy.today/comment/26855969
This is standard concern trolling behavior. I provided a specific study per your explicit request, and instead of responding to that specific study you link to a random website that has a bunch of boilerplate responses that are not a response at all.
Also, per that that website you linked:
I guess it makes sense you’re getting your talking points from people who don’t respect the bodily autonomy of women, since they also don’t seem to respect the bodily autonomy of people in general.
I promise I’m not trolling and you can DM me if you want and I won’t get upset or emotional, just want to talk and understand.
It did also mention that study in the link, or so I thought. I could be wrong.
Thanks! It would work to your advantage to operate a bit friendlier though. How are we going to change the internet without some smiles?
I’ll take a look at the link. Personally, I just think it’s a bit harder to verify the sample integrity in aggregate studies, that’s all. I believe a good portion of the scientific community hold this belief as well, but it’s not my area of expertise.
Thanks but with respect, everyone’s personal opinion is valid. I appreciate your information and will read the article you linked.
What do you mean by valid? If I believe onions cures cancer is that a valid personal opinion? People can have opinions, sure, but especially regarding actual medical issues, not all opinions are equal.
That’s fair, maybe I used the wrong words.
I think my experience can have something to do with their experience. I think a lot of the feelings I’ve felt are similar, although not the same.
I don’t think my experience is inherently unrelated, invalid, or dismissible because I’m not trans. If you still disagree I guess that’s alright, but that’s what I meant by opinion.
Go play in traffic, Dumbass
Two day old account. Definitely a troll. I’m blocking and moving on.