The right in the US - especially conservative Christians - are whipped up into a frenzy now over the thinking literally any acceptance or encouragement of trans kids is "grooming". And I think they've been able to accomplish this by taking the word "children" and completely warping it in order to create a narrative that is so incredibly divorced from reality.

So what's the reality regarding trans youth? I'm not an expert so comrades please correct me if I'm wrong but in the US it generally follows this shape:

  • Social transitioning for pre-pubescent youth (clothes, pronouns, etc). No medical interventions are done at this stage.

  • Puberty blockers at the onset of puberty (maybe right before? I'm not clear on this one).

  • Hormones can be taken after puberty blockers if the person eventually chooses. Puberty is different for everyone but I guess this would be around age 14 or 15? Specific ages I'm not sure about but we're not talking little kids here.

  • Then actual surgical interventions are pretty limited for under 18s. I think I've only really heard about top surgeries for trans men who are like 16 or 17. Of course cis teen women have long been able to get breast reduction surgeries and no one complains about that. But AFAIK that's about the extent of surgeries for under 18 folks - extremely limited, for good or ill.

So what has the right done? They've completely twisted this narrative into that doctors are performing bottom surgeries on like 5 year olds across the country. I once saw a meme that compared Boston Children's Hospital to the Island of Dr. Moreau. They are utterly convinced that every year there are thousands of little grade school age kids getting gender affirming surgeries. What they're actually doing is taking that very small number of surgeries done on older teens and putting it under the blanket of "children". The people who are leading this charge and might know better (like Matt Walsh) are purposefully pulling this little trick to try and get people enraged.

Not that hypocrisy ever mattered to the right, but I bet you these same people who talk about "children are being mutilated" will think it's super important to clarify "those aren't migrant children crossing the border! They're like 16, they're basically adults! The media calls them 'children' to gain sympathy!" Or encourage their 14 year olds to join ROTC and basically be the little Hitler Youth in order to pave the way to join the imperialist crusading US military at 18. Whatever.

And even when it's not about surgeries, the evangelicals especially talk about children being "tricked" into being trans. This is because theologically they have to believe that being trans isn't real. That being trans is not something inherent but is instead a trick of the devil.

And where are the libs to push back on all this? Of course they're silent. The left can push back as best we can but we simply don't have the numbers to try and show a significant push back (so far at least). The libs do have the numbers. They could be pointing out this little trick the transphobes are trying to pull with the word "children". They could point out the completely unscientific assumptions made by people who by and large think the universe is less than 10,000 years old and evolution is a lie. But no, they'd rather sit on their hands and pretend nothing's happening. Or that voting is the solution.

Goddamn liberals. We're on our own on this.

  • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    My point was to establish that gender is something that is real and innate, even beyond the strictest medical aspects of treating gender dysphoria. I believe that overall your stance is ideologically correct, but factually incomplete: gender is real in some fashion, even if we can say that people should be liberated from all the baggage that has gone along with it historically.

    Correct the body or correct the brain. Correcting the body in this case is much safer on countless levels, therefore that is virtually always the best solution.

    I'd caution against using this particular rhetorical framing because it comes with unfortunate implications. Like imagine talking like that about a broken arm, how the brain is saying "ow that hurts" and "that really shouldn't be bending that way" so you can correct the flesh or correct the brain, but it's better to set the bone because of course it is. It becomes comical, like there cannot be a question that the brain might be wrong about whether the arm should be bending that way or not so it's weird to think of it in terms of choosing what to "correct." It's the same with gender, like you can't "correct" the brain here because that's the person, that's the bit that matters.

    Even as a rhetorical device to emphasize that making the body align with the brain is possible and safe in a way that literally rewriting someone's identity cannot be, it comes across as conceding that the brain is other than correct. I'm not going down to jump down your throat about it and I am taking pains to explain this as softly and neutrally as I can, but it is something that will strike a nerve for some people.