At what point is this child abuse? Trans kids.

[dharh]

NightlyPoe said:

dharh said:

Yikes.  All sorts of yikes.  People are committing suicide over their sexuality and you reduce it to humoring them.  WTF.

I believe you're the one reducing it to simplicity.  I wrote a long post explaining the wrongheadedness of the groupthink and how it's not a healthy method either.  My goal is to reduce the number of suicides.  In order to do that, I suggest that the best method is to help people deal with and accept the reality of their situation.

I didn't reply piece by piece on your post, because I felt it would probably be a waste on both our parts.  But here, we, go.

NightlyPoe said:

Torillian said:

The psychiatric community appears to think so. I tend to defer to the experts where possible. I haven't spent years studying child psychology so I assume they know more about it than I do. Hopefully if a psychiatrist had a question on bioinorganic chemistry they would afford me the same respect.

The problem is that the psychiatric community is being highly politicized on this subject.  It seems that anything mildly contradictory of the "right" answer on the subject the science is silenced.[1]  We went through the same thing a few decades back when gender roles were marked as completely behavioral because that's where the political winds were blowing back then.  And we found plenty of examples of tragedy emanating from that bit of group think.[2]

I would mark this as a blight on psychology and science in general.  I do not trust them on the subject and find their opinions of little use.[3]

To answer the original poster, yes I believe this is child abuse.  A three-year-old is not capable of making such a life-altering decision and the gender confusion created by parents and psychologists and teachers pretending with an undeveloped mind that doesn't know the difference between real and imagined is just terrible.

My personal view on the trans subject in general is that the common view is misguided.  We should call everyone what they biologically are.  A man can live the socially constructed norms of a woman if he so chooses, but that man also needs to come to grips with what he is, NOT WHAT HE WANTS TO BE.[4]  There's an old psychology story that fits here.  A school was having trouble and decided that they should improve the students' self-esteem.  They praised the students no matter how poor their work.  The idea was that the kids would feel better about themselves and get better grades (self-esteem actually has little to do with success, but that's another matter).  Instead, all they did was increase the number of fights in the school.  See, the dumb students remained dumb, but they were being told otherwise.  It wasn't new that these students were having difficulty in school, but it was new that they were being praised.  There was a conflict where they wanted to keep pretending they were smart, but knew that it wasn't true.  When someone pierce the fantasy, they either went away feeling bad about themselves, or fought to keep their self-esteem up.  In the end, nothing good came of the program.[5]

Everyone pretending that a person is something that they're not doesn't help anyone.  Including the person who we are humoring.  Because there will always be plenty of people who will not accept the fantasy and will say the truth.  We know that trans people are particularly hurt by this.  Well, that's because, like in the example above, they know the truth.  No matter how much social pressure there is, there is no getting around the truth.[6]

E pur si muove (And yet it moves)

If it weren't the truth, then the person would be able to shrug it off.  You can call me a woman all day long, it wouldn't do much more than make me look at you funny.  I'll go home completely unconflicted.  The source of the pain is the loss of the breaking of the fantasy.  We need to help trans people deal with what they are.  Only then will they be able to live healthy lives.  Playing pretend for a lifetime just keeps people running into the same walls as reality keeps intruding.[7]

1) What science?  What actual scientific research has been done that contradicts the current psychological communities view on sexuality?  What is being silenced?  There are plenty of examples of science that is being silenced when it contradicts the common non scientific consensus of certain politics.  Fracking, climate change, mass extinction, etc.

2) This is an example of a poor kid who thanks to botched medical procedure was arbitrarily made to be a girl.  John Money's theories about gender are not the general consensus.  Those parents should have sought a second opinion.  If all that happened was a botched surgery that the child had to live with until they became older and then could make whatever decisions based on sound psychological evaluation I doubt his life would have turned out to be the tragedy it became.  Instead David Reimer had to endure what was clearly child abuse at the hand of John Money.  The dude might be a pedo.  In any event, obviously there is way more research and understanding needed for children born with malformed genitals.

3) Who do you trust then?

4) The common majority view (not the scientific or psychological view) is that LGBTQ is unnatural.  People are being constantly hammered to act within their assigned roles.  Again you are equating this subject to people _wanting_ to be a certain gender.  Completely ignoring Gender dysphoria.  All you end up going by calling 'everyone what they biologically are' is making people experiencing gender dysphoria feel worse.  Possibly leading to suicide as much as miss diagnosing someone as experiencing gender dysphoria.

5) There's tons to unpack with that program.  But yes the participation trophy, you're a winner even though you lost, mentality is often not at all helpful.  Clearly with this program there was an attempt to solve a problem by trying to fix the symptoms but not the underlying cause.  Where was this school?  Was it in a poor neighborhood?  Was the neighborhood in an area prone to violence and crime?  Sounds like the system itself was crap.  Also 'dumb students remained dumb'?  Geese.

6) SMH.  Again as I said before you reduce a very complex issue to humoring them.  Ignoring a person experiencing deep gender dysphoria and enforcing a view of gender specifics on them is what doesn't help them.  It is not a 'fantasy' to not be comfortable with their assigned role.  Trans people are particularly hurt because much of society ridicules them and tries to enforce their views on them.  What you call 'the truth' is really just your opinion.  You have a view of black and white gender specifics and seem to think it will lead to less suicides when I think the evidence says otherwise.

"Youth are generally predisposed to life-threatening behaviors due to a number of conditions, such as self-hatred, victimization via bullying, substance abuse, etc. Transgender youth may also face victimization from peers and family members’ negative reactions to their atypical gender presentation, increasing their risk of life-threatening behaviors. Of the transgender youth who were interviewed and reported an attempt at taking their own life in the aforementioned study, almost all had been verbally abused by their parents, and a significant number had been physically abused as well. In comparing those transgender youth who had and had not attempted suicide, there were significant differences in family relations, peer relations, and school performance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_youth#cite_note-GrossmanII-17

I would assert the high levels of suicide among those who are trans, regardless of whether they have gone through actual hormonal transition or not, is due to their constant struggles to be accepted, the constant abuse their endure from society, from being refused housing to being targeted for hate crimes, and the all around disdain they receive from almost everywhere.

7) *deep, beleaguered sigh*  Of course you can shrug off being called a woman.  You think you have a clear understanding of your sexuality and gender.  Being trans is in no way at all like non-conflicted person being called some gender they are not.  These are not non-conflicted people to start with.  They feel outside the societal norms and are often ridiculed for it.  That is where _some_ of the pain comes from, not living in a 'fantasy' and being called out on it.

Trans do need help dealing with and being accepted for what they are.  Trans.  When society stops trying to hurt them and instead tries to help them understand themselves and make the choices they need to make, only then will they be able to live happy healthy lives.  Pretending to be something they are not just to conform to current unhealthy societal norms just keeps them hitting their heads against a wall, all to often leading to suicide.

Again, all this to say is that we need to continue psychological research and refinement of this process.  Gender and gender roles are not cut and dry, black and white.

Of course children at the age of 3 should not be being coerced either way.  Not to be one way or the other.  Just let them play and stop trying to enforce every single old age norm on them.  Trans children nearing the age of puberty should already have been receiving psychological evaluation and support to then be able to make the decision to make a hormonal transition.