Amal Jasentuliyana
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read
  1. Children do not have sex changes. That is against medical practice. What you advocate (that trans children wait till 18) is exactly what happens, with one possible exception: post-pubertal children may be given medication to delay or minimize puberty until such time that they are adults. One reason for this is that the effects of puberty can be irreversible (ie bone structure, voice changes, breasts, etc).

2) There is a fair amount of science and clinical practice guidelines on this that you seem to be unaware of. If you are claiming there is an activist agenda, then it is one that the American medical assoc, psychological assoc, and psychiatric assoc all agree on. If you disagree with mainstream clinical practice guidelines that’s fine, but it’s hard to call it an agenda.

3) The issue at stake is that these kids are at high risk for suicide if their concerns are not taken seriously and conversely if they are not forced to supress their gender identity, the risk of suicide goes down.

4) It is not a first world problem. Trangender people exist in many cultures including communities living in poverty, and in societies where being transgender carries extreme legal and extra-legal consequences.

5) You are mistaking sexuality and gender dysphoria. This has zero to do with choosing sex partners and everything to do with a child’s internal sense of being male or female or perhaps neither. You refered in your comments to the lgbt community. This is not about L, G, or B. It is about trangender people.

In one of your comments you mention that “truth exists”, and that you are dismayed at the relativism of the day. Well, why then have you bothered to express an opinion without having examined the evidence for and against it? It is perfectly fine to be critical of a scientific finding once you have done the work to understand it (and this is exactly what Serrano’s original article does). But if you want to live in a truth-based world, then we need to be aware of meticulously collected peer-reviewed evidence before disagreeing with it.

Here is a pretty readable scientific review which takes a balanced view (ie it’s not always pushing one point of view, and which is transparent when evidence for something is ambiguous or disputed). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4955762/

“Treatment with pubertal suppression in transgender adolescents improves psychological functioning and decreases depressive symptoms, however it does not seem to eliminate gender dysphoria.72 Long-term outcomes data from the Netherlands suggests that transgender persons treated with pubertal suppression, followed by cross-sex hormones and finally gender affirmation surgery in young adulthood yields positive outcomes with none regretting starting gender affirming medical treatments.73 In a study primarily sampling from the US, FTM individuals reported diminished quality of life compared to cisgender males and females, however, those who have received testosterone report significantly higher quality of life compared to those who have not.89”

    Amal Jasentuliyana

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