Mississippi Passes "More Dead Kids Please" bill. Texas responds w/ "hold my beer"

[Oleg]

So? Tomboys are tomboys. Masculine desires doesn't mean they wish to be male.

Yes. Exactly. That’s why transgenderism shouldn’t be pushed on children.

 

[Oleg]

by someone who hates the LGBT community.

As someone who doesn't hate the queers,
There's a bunch of stuff I don't think underage people are in a position to choose, however much they might want it(at the moment).
Sex and babies is one. Sacrificing schooling for a job is another. Sex change body mods is a third.
Tom

Is there anybody on here supporting sex change mods for minors? I don't think so.

The OP regards a new Mississippi law banning surgeries and cross-sex hormones on children. If we could agree that we don’t do this to children, that’d be great.

 

[Jarhyn]

by someone who hates the LGBT community.

As someone who doesn't hate the queers,
There's a bunch of stuff I don't think underage people are in a position to choose, however much they might want it(at the moment).
Sex and babies is one. Sacrificing schooling for a job is another. Sex change body mods is a third.
Tom

Is there anybody on here supporting sex change mods for minors? I don't think so.

The OP regards a new Mississippi law banning surgeries and cross-sex hormones on children. If we could agree that we don’t do this to children, that’d be great.

Ah, special pleading. As if the "cross sex hormones and aurgeryy are any worse or better than "pro-sex hormones and surgery" the law explicitly to holds as legal.

But nobody is asking for surgery for kids, except for conservatives.

You bring it up again and again in bad faith!

It is not up to you or any doctor really to tell kids what their hormones "should" be.

It should be their own right to make those decisions for themselves, under the guidance of people that are not going to tell them they have to be any particular way.

You are spinning it, unethically, as if it is anyone but people doing things to themselves, in those cases defended. I don't defend the augmentation of breasts in children either. If you would support the removal of a 14-16 year old gynecomastic boy's breasts, though, I would say you should be supportive of their removal by anyone in that age range, if the breasts create significant distress.

I reiterate, the law you are defending maintains the legality of child genital mutilation and forced hormone treatments.

 

[Jayjay]

by someone who hates the LGBT community.

As someone who doesn't hate the queers,
There's a bunch of stuff I don't think underage people are in a position to choose, however much they might want it(at the moment).
Sex and babies is one. Sacrificing schooling for a job is another. Sex change body mods is a third.
Tom

Is there anybody on here supporting sex change mods for minors? I don't think so.

The OP regards a new Mississippi law banning surgeries and cross-sex hormones on children. If we could agree that we don’t do this to children, that’d be great.

Ah, special pleading. As if the "cross sex hormones and aurgeryy are any worse or better than "pro-sex hormones and surgery" the law explicitly to holds as legal.

But nobody is asking for surgery for kids, except for conservatives.

You bring it up again and again in bad faith!

It is not up to you or any doctor really to tell kids what their hormones "should" be.

It should be their own right to make those decisions for themselves, under the guidance of people that are not going to tell them they have to be any particular way.

You are spinning it, unethically, as if it is anyone but people doing things to themselves.

I reiterate, the law you are defending maintains the legality of child genital mutilation and forced hormone treatments.

The highlighted part is where the ideal breaks down.

I don't think children should be able to make long-lasting decisions about their bodies, period. Because they can't. They will invariably be influenced by whatever their parents, friends, teachers, or saturday morning cartoons tell them. The notion that a child could be kept somehow in a pristine state of autonomy where they only receive neutral guidance and then make an informed decision is an illusion. Kids can't make decisions about what they should eat for lunch every day on their own, and certainly not about hormones in their bodies.

 

[Jarhyn]

I don't think children should be able to make long-lasting decisions about their bodies, period.

This is one of the most foolish statements you could possibly make on the subject.

Every child ever has long lasting decisions made about their bodies, and those decisions generally have to be made at some point.

Their bodies are not yours. They do not belong to you, or their parents, they belong first and foremost to themselves.

We have observed the outcomes of both testosterone and estrogen exposure (and for that matter a la k of both). We know that both generally "work".

There is no real excuse for denying someone the decision over which of those happen because we accept when each of those happens on its own. We already let children do both of those things, estrogen and testosterone.

This is different from letting kids decide to get tattoos. It's not as if we FORCE kids to get tattoos. Currently we FORCE kids to have a puberty, almost every single one.

If we forced kids to get tattoos, if there was a reason to force every kid to get inked, I would say "let them have agency over the content and nature of the tattoo, within the population of all tattoos given to children".

Again, it's not a situation where they are attempting to choose something that we don't allow any child to experience. The ideology of preventing them from making their own choice as to which is ridiculous at its core, especially when one of those available options is "don't like default, can defer until (not child)".

 

[Jayjay]

I don't think children should be able to make long-lasting decisions about their bodies, period.

This is one of the most foolish statements you could possibly make on the subject.

Every child ever has long lasting decisions made about their bodies, and those decisions generally have to be made at some point.

Their bodies are not yours. They do not belong to you, or their parents, they belong first and foremost to themselves.

So a kid wants to eat candy for breakfast everyday, that's a choice he or she can make impartially after guidance from people who say that it's the kids choice, without trying to influence the decision in any way?

Children are poor decision makers. That's why their parents make decisions for them, and we as a society consider this acceptable. When they're adults, they can do whatever they want.

As for the specific question of hormones, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to stop children from growing up. Modern society is more complex than the pre-historic tribal way of living that we evolved to, and it wouldn't hurt to delay puberty by some years to keep kids in school longer. I just don't think it should be up to children to decide that.

I guess on this point we have to agree to disagree. I don't consider children fully human, they're still works in progress.

 

[Oleg]

But nobody is asking for surgery for kids, except for conservatives.

Oh, I wish that were true.

Their bodies are not yours. They do not belong to you, or their parents, they belong first and foremost to themselves.

And not the high school teacher. Not to trans activists. Not to those who would lie that a person can change their sex.

This is different from letting kids decide to get tattoos. It's not as if we FORCE kids to get tattoos. Currently we FORCE kids to have a puberty, almost every single one.

That's dumb. Puberty is a natrual process. Tattoos aren't.

The ideology of preventing them from making their own choice

Is it their choice? Really? There's no social pressure to change if the child is gender non-confirming? How can it be an informed choice if we lie that a person can change their sex? Why do detransitioners exist, anyway?

 

[Jarhyn]

So a kid wants to eat candy

Again, you are making the same fallacious argument I was talking about that you snipped from context. Your faith reeks like yesterday's garbage.

Again, we are not talking about decisions that no child makes and no child is expected to make. Your candy is my discussion on "tattoos".

No kid should be allowed to get optional body modification.

But every child is going to generally get to heir body modified automatically by their body.

The primary difference here, the one you are so loudly being quiet about, is that we do expect children to go through puberty.

The more apt analogy to describe what the right is doing is saying "we won't listen to your input at all as to what to eat. You want to eat hot dogs? Well no, we have burgers and I'm going to force this burger down your throat. You can never have hotdogs, now eat your burger! I don't care that your sister has a hot dog!" *Forces a burger down your throat*

We afford the power and right to grow up with a body formed by primary influences of estrogen through puberty to children.

Therefore we ought afford that right as an option to ALL children.

 

[Oleg]

The primary difference here, the one you are so loudly being quiet about, is that we do expect children to go through puberty.

The more apt analogy to describe what the right is doing is saying "we won't listen to your input at all as to what to eat. You want to eat hot dogs? Well no, we have burgers and I'm going to force this burger down your throat. You can never have hotdogs, now eat your burger! I don't care that your sister has a hot dog!" *Forces a burger down your throat*

Saying that a natrual process is "force" is next level insanity.

 

[Jarhyn]

The primary difference here, the one you are so loudly being quiet about, is that we do expect children to go through puberty.

The more apt analogy to describe what the right is doing is saying "we won't listen to your input at all as to what to eat. You want to eat hot dogs? Well no, we have burgers and I'm going to force this burger down your throat. You can never have hotdogs, now eat your burger! I don't care that your sister has a hot dog!" *Forces a burger down your throat*

Saying that a natrual process is "force" is next level insanity.

An argument of the naturalistic fallacy. Your concept of "natural" is nonexistent. It's a figment.

Yes, it is force to say, when options are available and easily attained to do otherwise, that allowing one process to continue (via gonad release), that the other process be forbidden.

That's forcible prevention of a process, and in fact prevention of the process of the exercise of free will.

The only insanity is the insanity fostered by belief in the support of "nature's God".

It is making children become trapped in a developmental pattern against their will, in the presence of the power to easily do otherwise.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yes. They should, especially when the way that they are offered to do it, under their own request, following a long period of counseling, is still reversible.

What exactly do you think is reversible?

Puberty blockers.

Puberty blockers are not reversible. If they're used for an extremely short time period, say around 3 months, the effects are minimal. But they're not reversible.

 

[Emily Lake]

So? Tomboys are tomboys. Masculine desires doesn't mean they wish to be male. You're trying to bin everybody into "male" or "female", reality is nuanced. It's only the ones with major mismatches that actually want to change.

Well, unfortunately evolution is immune to wishes. NOBODY gets a choice in what sex they want to be - that's determined at the point the sperm breaches the egg wall, and is solidified very early in pregnancy.

Additionally, everybody IS male or female. There are only two sexes. How someone wants to dress and act, what kinds of social roles they're interested in is irrelevant when it comes to sex.

Humans cannot actually change sex. Calling it a "sex change" is a euphemism, it's figurative language to describe attain the surface-level facsimile of being the opposite sex. There is no way to literally change sex.

 

[Emily Lake]

by someone who hates the LGBT community.

As someone who doesn't hate the queers,
There's a bunch of stuff I don't think underage people are in a position to choose, however much they might want it(at the moment).
Sex and babies is one. Sacrificing schooling for a job is another. Sex change body mods is a third.
Tom

Is there anybody on here supporting sex change mods for minors? I don't think so.

Jarhyn supports mastectomies for minors.

 

[Emily Lake]

Seek to change only that of your body which is absolutely necessary for your own happiness, and learn to make peace with as much of it as you may.

I am not against an adult doing what an adult wants to do with their body. I get that body dysphoria is a thing and comes in many different variants. But there seems to be a forgetfullness about adolesence. It is absolutely normal for a young person to feel awkward and weird. Nearly all of us go through some sort of phase. But before that phase meant certain clothes, music, hair style, slang, etc. We grew out of it. Now it's injections and irreversible surgeries. You're stuck. Doing this to a child is not "affirming," it's mutilation.

And who on here is supporting surgery or injections for minors??

Jarhyn supports mastectomies as well as cross-sex hormones for minors. As well as puberty blockers, which are frequently injections.

 

[Emily Lake]

You know, one of the most common questions I've gotten during my own process has been when I bring up testosterone to a new doc, whether I wanted to increase my dosage of testosterone. Doctors are really OK with freely prescribing more testosterone to those who produce it, young teens, as this question came up when doctors noted my own slow puberty. I turned them down.

I have questions. I know this is extremely personal, so you by no means have to answer. But I truly do not understand your position at all.

If you're going forward with an orchiectomy, which I believe you have shared previously... why would you be taking testosterone at all?

Additionally... aren't you like forty-ish? Or at least mid-thirties? Were doctors offering you testosterone a couple of decades ago when you were gong through puberty?

 

[TomC]

Jarhyn supports mastectomies for minors.

"They" support letting kids make permanently life changing decisions, provided the decisions are inside "their" ideological bubble.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Seek to change only that of your body which is absolutely necessary for your own happiness, and learn to make peace with as much of it as you may.

I am not against an adult doing what an adult wants to do with their body. I get that body dysphoria is a thing and comes in many different variants. But there seems to be a forgetfullness about adolesence. It is absolutely normal for a young person to feel awkward and weird. Nearly all of us go through some sort of phase. But before that phase meant certain clothes, music, hair style, slang, etc. We grew out of it. Now it's injections and irreversible surgeries. You're stuck. Doing this to a child is not "affirming," it's mutilation.

And who on here is supporting surgery or injections for minors??

Jarhyn supports mastectomies as well as cross-sex hormones for minors. As well as puberty blockers, which are frequently injections.

No. I support self-determination of sex hormones, which will generally be preventative of the desire for mastectomy.

Again, the bill you tote doesn't outlaw mastectomy for teens. Just for "those teens".

Nor does it outlaw child genital mutilation. It specifically makes carve-outs for the legality of child genital mutilation, but the sort that IS forced on children.

Your faith is rotten.

 

[Emily Lake]

Ah, special pleading. As if the "cross sex hormones and aurgeryy are any worse or better than "pro-sex hormones and surgery" the law explicitly to holds as legal.

Ah yes... the "special pleading" that exists between
a) Addressing an actual medical problem with an appropriate treatment and
b) Using drugs and surgery as a means to deliver a placebo for a mental health condition

You're effectively arguing that an appendectomy for an infected appendix is totally the same as liposuction for an underweight teen with anorexia.

 

[Emily Lake]

We have observed the outcomes of both testosterone and estrogen exposure (and for that matter a la k of both). We know that both generally "work".

We know what the effect when males are exposed to testosterone during puberty. We know the effect of females being exposed to estrogen during puberty. We know how it works when a child of a specific sex is exposed to the hormones that they evolved to be exposed to.

There is no real excuse for denying someone the decision over which of those happen because we accept when each of those happens on its own. We already let children do both of those things, estrogen and testosterone.

I genuinely cannot even understand where you're coming from, and how you can possibly think this is a rational and reasonable place from which to develop policy.

Taking large doses of opposite sex hormones does absolutely NOT result in the individual having the puberty of the other sex.

Humans do not change sex. Giving a young girl high doses of testosterone will NOT give her a "male puberty". She will NOT develop into a male. She will not sprout a penis and find her testes descending, she will not have wet dreams or surprise boners, she will not being producing sperm. Her pelvis will not change shape and her vaginal canal won't seal itself shut. She won't even grow to be any taller than she would have with her natural hormone complement, and her feet and hands won't get bigger. Rather, she gets locked into a pre-pubertal body state, and develops some characteristics that are associated with males - a beard, body hair, and a male-typical distribution of fat and muscle density.

Giving a young boy high doses of estrogen will NOT give him a "female puberty". He will NOT develop into a female. He will not grow a vaginal canal from nothing, he will not start having periods, he will not begin releasing eggs. His pelvis will not change shape, his penis won't fall off, and his testicles won't move out of their inguinal canals (assuming they haven't already descended). hw won't end up being shorter than he would have been with her natural hormone complement (unless he's taking puberty blockers, which will reduce his bone density and impede height while inducing osteopenia), and his hands and feet won't stop at a female-typical size. Rather, he gets locked into a pre-perbutal body state, and he doesn't grow a beard or body hair. He will have a higher fat density, and it will be distributed in more female-typical locations, and he will gain fat deposits in the breast region - but he won't sprout any more lactation glands than the handful of residual ones that are typical for males.

Your whole premise is magical thinking. We don't "let" kids experience a natural puberty, it is not a choice that anyone gets to make. We don't "let" kids choose their eye color, we don't "let" kids pick whether or not their a red-green colorblindness carrier! There is no such thing as "letting" a kid have the puberty that they have evolved to experience as a fundamental aspect of becoming a mature member of the homo sapience species!

You keep approaching this topic as if adults have somewhere along the way "decided" that we are going to "force" kids to mature. We don't - that's simply how it works, and it works that way for all humans. Hell, it works that way for all mammals - all mammals go through a pubertal process where their bodies develop from a juvenile state to an adult state.

The only "decision" involved here is the "decision" of some well-meaning but woefully misguided adults to hijack and interrupt a very important and necessary aspect of human development in order to support the ideological wishes of other adults.

 

[Emily Lake]

As for the specific question of hormones, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to stop children from growing up. Modern society is more complex than the pre-historic tribal way of living that we evolved to, and it wouldn't hurt to delay puberty by some years to keep kids in school longer. I just don't think it should be up to children to decide that.

I do think it's a bad idea to stop children from growing up. Contrary to the narrative that has been fed on this, puberty blockers are NOT a "pause button" than can just be turned back on again.

Puberty is a multi-system process. It involves several different systems undergoing changes within a certain time frame, and those changes happen in tandem. While there are several elements involved, the two largest contributors to puberty are those governed by the adrenal gland and those governed by the pituitary gland. The pituitary controls hormone production within the body (lots of hormones, not just sex hormones). The adrenal controls bone growth and density and a portion of body hair, among some other things.

During a normal puberty, those two glands work in tandem with each other. The adrenal causes the long bones in the body to lengthen, and when they've reached their full adult length, the adrenal also triggers the growth plates to close, which results in less elasticity in the joints. More or less, the adrenal is "cooking" the "bone dough". As those plates close, the adrenal also triggers the growth of fine leg and pubic hair, and a slight thickening of arm hair - it does this in both sexes. Consider this akin to a juvenile wild boar losing its racing stripes and developing adult fur patterns.

In tandem with these changes, the pituitary kicks off the process of sexual development. The majority of those developments differ by sex. the pituitary uses sex hormones (testosterone in males, estrogen and progesterone in females) to turn a juvenile into a sexually mature adult. The few things that are the same for both sexes is the thickening and coarsening of pubic hair. The other thing that is shared between sexes is the accretion of bone density. This happens during the tail end of the lengthening of long bones triggered by the adrenal, but before the complete closure of the growth plates. Almost everything else differs by sex - not only by the hormones that are produced, but by the affect those hormones have on the reproductive and somatic organs of the body.

In females, the uterus enlarges. Ovaries begin to release the eggs that have been there since infancy, and the menstrual cycle begins. Breast development begins - not just increased fat deposits in the breast region, but also the maturation of lactation glands. The pelvis widens and tilts, in order to accommodate gestation and childbirth. The internal organs of females develop more elastic connections, which allows them to be moved out of the way of a fetus during gestation.

In males, the penis lengthens and the testes descend from the inguinal canals. The prostate begins producing carrier fluid as the testes begin producing sperm (which were not present prior to puberty). The adam's apple enlarges and the voice drops. Males develop chest hair, and their arm and leg hair thickens much more than in females. They begin to produce facial hair, and they develop dense musculature.

Both of these happen within a closed window of time. While the exact length of that window varies from person to person, what does not vary is that the window closes.

If puberty blockers are employed, the pituitary function is halted. This interrupts the sexual development of the individual. One of the most immediately notable impacts of puberty blockers is that they interrupt the maturation of the skeletal structure - specifically, if they're used for more than just a very, very short period of time, it gets in the way of bone density accretion. This is a problem, because once the bones have grown in length, and the plates begun to process of closing - that fast accretion cannot happen. This means that a child put on puberty blockers for more than a few months ends up without the adult level of bone density - they can end up with osteopenia while still a teen, and that cannot be fixed later in life, because the window for that accretion to adult-typical levels has closed.

Additionally, because the entire process is time-bound, a delay at the front end of the sexual development process results in a shortened window for development over all. Lets say that for a given child, Alex, they would naturally begin puberty at age 12 and complete puberty by age 16. If they take blockers for a year, that doesn't shift their puberty to be from ate 13 to 17... it just shortens it. So instead of having 4 years, they only have 3. That means that some of the later elements of their development won't occur or won't be completed.

The only thing that is actually "reversible" for puberty blockers are the distribution of fat on the body, the degree of muscle density, and the thickening of leg and pubic hair. Those will "start up" once the blockers are removed, because they're an ongoing process of sex hormones.

That's the problem with puberty blockers. Outside of the specific scope of precocious puberty, they don't "delay" puberty, they interrupt it. Using puberty blockers in a pubescent child for more than just a few months results in that child never being able to attain compete sexual maturity. They may still be fertile, but they won't have completed the process, they won't be as far along the process as they would be without the interruption.