you missed the point. children can give informed consent to things that might prove harmful down the line, like ballet.
not so much for ADHD meds, because parents often force these on them to make them compliant and as punishment.
there is no medication without side effects. ADHD meds can have bad consequences, but we should still allow people to take them based on informed consent. apply the same logic to kids on HRT.
I hate to break it to you about how many children are forced to do things like youth football and youth ballet…
Children can give informed consent? We’ve agreed pretty unilaterally as a society that that is fundamentally untrue. Especially at the ages where children are taken to ballet classes.
Children can give informed consent? We’ve agreed pretty unilaterally as a society that that is fundamentally untrue.
In every context? About everything? No, we have not. Just because a child isn’t old enough to consent to sex doesn’t mean they can’t give consent to anything at all. Maybe in the US, the only country that has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, where parental rights are so extreme and out of control that parents can hire people to abduct their child in the dead of night off to a Holes-esque labor camp, if not a “conversion therapy” brainwashing camp. But in more civilized countries, there’s more of a balance where children are gradually given more autonomy and rights appropriate to their age.
But even in the US, I’ll give an example. When I was in middle school, we were assigned to dissect frogs. I believed that the assignment was morally objectionable, and said that I would refuse to participate - I withdrew my consent. Most of the rest of the class did consent to the activity. My teachers accommodated me and a few other students by letting us do a computer simulation of it. But both my teachers and my parents wanted me to do it, the only objection came from me, expressing my own will and my own convictions.
In the US, there seems to be this neurosis that the parent-child relationship is something bordering on ownership, and there’s a corresponding fear of, “If I don’t own my child, then who does? The state?” This is why there is a preconception, especially among conservatives, that if a child comes out as any form LGBT+, they must have “gotten it from someone,” often, they assume, through abuse. In reality, teens are capable of making their own decisions regarding how to identify, as expressions of their own will - a teen can say “I’m not into girls” in the same way that I, when not even a teen, could say, “I’m not into dissecting frogs.”
Whether, and at what age, children can consent to things like ballet classes, Adderall, puberty blockers, and other forms of gender affirming care are valid questions to examine, they are not resolved by this oversimplified way of thinking that the ability to consent to anything flips on like a light switch at age 18. In the case of gender affirming care, not only have these questions been examined, and generally answered more in favor of the child’s autonomy, but they are also reexamined for each individual child on a case-by-case basis. Doctors are both careful about and (generally) supportive of gender affirming care.
where parental rights are so extreme and out of control that parents can hire people to abduct their child in the dead of night off to a Holes-esque labor camp, if not a “conversion therapy” brainwashing camp.
The key you, (and many people in this thread, I can only reply to one person) are missing is the difference between consent and informed consent.
Children can consent to literally anything, and withdraw their consent at any time. In almost every case, you should respect the wishes of the child. Most of that consent or withdraw is harmless and helps the child establish boundaries and even learn about themselves.
A child is able to consent to participating in ballet classes, however, depending on the maturity of the child, they may not be able to grasp that they are doing irreparable damage to their feet; they might not know chronic illness, they usually don’t have a concept of just how long a human life is. So even if they are told directly, the “informed” part of informed consent needs a deeper understanding of actions and consequences than many children have.
With our current medical understanding (and it will probably be this way for a long long time) the line between being able to give informed consent and uninformed consent is blurred and is straight up different for different scenarios someone is in. We chose 18 in our society by basically picking a number out of a hat. It’s different in different societies and we know for a fact that it’s different person to person.
Consent when it comes to trans or questioning kids has been co-opted by the right so when you question how much someone should be allowed to go on HRT or get gender affirming surgery when they’re young, the knee-jerk assumption is that they’re completely anti-trans. If you look into the trans community there’s still a lot of healthy debate about what lines to draw. We have a lot of research on the effects of something like hormone blockers and it’s generally agreed that they are an effective treatment to young kids questioning their gender that only delays whatever puberty they choose until they can give their full informed consent (ideally after many hours of therapy). When people can give that informed consent is still up in the air.
I think it’s just a miscommunication/misunderstanding in that case. From my perspective, the level of information required to provide “informed consent” depends on the severity and importance of the decision, and the level of information a child can understand also depends on their age. I think we’re on the same page conceptually and just using different terminology.
I apologize for jumping to conclusions, that’s my bad.
This thread is about kids medically transitioning, by the time they’re undergoing puberty they’re teens or preteens. Not like six year olds who want to do ballet or whatever.
The point is people will allow (force) their children to do ballet, even at young ages, despite the consequences. Those same people will also say that older children can’t consent to gender affirming care. It’s hypocracy.
No, that was me giving them the chance to clarify what they meant if their comment wasn’t them huffing about how preteens/teens can medically transition but not have sex with adults.
Anyway, as someone who is trans and used to be a kid, knowing your gender isn’t really anything like having sex.
Wtf? The fact that you are comfortable conflating those two wildly different topics is concerning.
First of all, being put on hormone therapy isn’t a child deciding their own gender. It is pausing puberty until they are old enough to make an informed decision about their own health and identity.
Secondly, what does gender identity have to do with pedophillia? Gender affirming care is all about harm reduction, not sexualizing literal children…
If kids can give informed consent doesn’t the entire argument for not fucking kids cause they can’t consent go right out the window? I do not believe kids can give informed consent because they don’t have the capacity, context or knowledge to foresee the consequences of their actions
Personally as a nearly 40 year old I would be horrified by 12 year old me making irreversible life changes for current me
If kids can give informed consent doesn’t the entire argument for not fucking kids cause they can’t consent go right out the window?
What is with people being absolutely unable to reconcile ‘children should have some input over their own healthcare decisions, actually’ with ‘grown adults should not be able to sexually prey on children’?
Knowing your gender is so different to having sex that I’m having trouble believing anyone is bringing it up sincerely.
there is no medication without side effects. ADHD meds can have bad consequences, but we should still allow people to take them based on informed consent. apply the same logic to kids on HRT.
People aren’t put on ADHD medications or on hormone therapy because of any ability of informed consent. They are prescribed because a medical professional has evaluated that the outcome of their overall health with treatment is improved when compared to not being treated. The parents and the patient have a say…to a point. However a medical professional can be empowered by the courts to supercede the consent of the PT or the parent if and when deemed necessary.
Medications have the potential of negative side effects, it’s not guaranteed. Those potential side effects are weighted against the potential negative effect of inaction.
frankly medical processionals should have no say over whether a trans person gets HRT or not.
they should warn you of what might happen if you have health conditions but frankly those interactions aren’t common enough to justify this level of draconian gatekeeping in most societies.
this is why trans people on a DIY regimen often do much better than by asking for “professional” help because most cis doctors are evil, gatekeepers or too ignorant to know what’s good for us.
While I don’t agree that medical providers shouldn’t be involved in important healthcare decisions. Unfortunately, at this point I agree the American healthcare system has largely failed the trans community, among others.
I think medical providers should be doing their jobs and keeping their personal beliefs to themselves. If a patient is wanting to transition they should have access to a provider who can make that transition as easy and safe as possible.
I don’t know about them, they may have personal experience, but there was definitely a period in the 90s and 2000s when doctors were prescribing Ritalin as freely as opioids and it was advertised by some as a treatment for hyperactive kids. Kids won’t sit still in class? Just pop a pill and watch them become model students!
I didn’t even know that Ritalin was a stimulant. It makes sense as an ADHD med that it would be, but I just knew how easily kids were buying it at school (even middle school, not just high school) because it seemed like practically anyone could get a prescription for it.
you missed the point. children can give informed consent to things that might prove harmful down the line, like ballet.
not so much for ADHD meds, because parents often force these on them to make them compliant and as punishment.
there is no medication without side effects. ADHD meds can have bad consequences, but we should still allow people to take them based on informed consent. apply the same logic to kids on HRT.
I hate to break it to you about how many children are forced to do things like youth football and youth ballet…
Children can give informed consent? We’ve agreed pretty unilaterally as a society that that is fundamentally untrue. Especially at the ages where children are taken to ballet classes.
In every context? About everything? No, we have not. Just because a child isn’t old enough to consent to sex doesn’t mean they can’t give consent to anything at all. Maybe in the US, the only country that has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, where parental rights are so extreme and out of control that parents can hire people to abduct their child in the dead of night off to a Holes-esque labor camp, if not a “conversion therapy” brainwashing camp. But in more civilized countries, there’s more of a balance where children are gradually given more autonomy and rights appropriate to their age.
But even in the US, I’ll give an example. When I was in middle school, we were assigned to dissect frogs. I believed that the assignment was morally objectionable, and said that I would refuse to participate - I withdrew my consent. Most of the rest of the class did consent to the activity. My teachers accommodated me and a few other students by letting us do a computer simulation of it. But both my teachers and my parents wanted me to do it, the only objection came from me, expressing my own will and my own convictions.
In the US, there seems to be this neurosis that the parent-child relationship is something bordering on ownership, and there’s a corresponding fear of, “If I don’t own my child, then who does? The state?” This is why there is a preconception, especially among conservatives, that if a child comes out as any form LGBT+, they must have “gotten it from someone,” often, they assume, through abuse. In reality, teens are capable of making their own decisions regarding how to identify, as expressions of their own will - a teen can say “I’m not into girls” in the same way that I, when not even a teen, could say, “I’m not into dissecting frogs.”
Whether, and at what age, children can consent to things like ballet classes, Adderall, puberty blockers, and other forms of gender affirming care are valid questions to examine, they are not resolved by this oversimplified way of thinking that the ability to consent to anything flips on like a light switch at age 18. In the case of gender affirming care, not only have these questions been examined, and generally answered more in favor of the child’s autonomy, but they are also reexamined for each individual child on a case-by-case basis. Doctors are both careful about and (generally) supportive of gender affirming care.
this reminds me of when I sat down and read this:
https://elan.school/
some of these camps are just so fucked up
The key you, (and many people in this thread, I can only reply to one person) are missing is the difference between consent and informed consent.
Children can consent to literally anything, and withdraw their consent at any time. In almost every case, you should respect the wishes of the child. Most of that consent or withdraw is harmless and helps the child establish boundaries and even learn about themselves.
A child is able to consent to participating in ballet classes, however, depending on the maturity of the child, they may not be able to grasp that they are doing irreparable damage to their feet; they might not know chronic illness, they usually don’t have a concept of just how long a human life is. So even if they are told directly, the “informed” part of informed consent needs a deeper understanding of actions and consequences than many children have.
With our current medical understanding (and it will probably be this way for a long long time) the line between being able to give informed consent and uninformed consent is blurred and is straight up different for different scenarios someone is in. We chose 18 in our society by basically picking a number out of a hat. It’s different in different societies and we know for a fact that it’s different person to person.
Consent when it comes to trans or questioning kids has been co-opted by the right so when you question how much someone should be allowed to go on HRT or get gender affirming surgery when they’re young, the knee-jerk assumption is that they’re completely anti-trans. If you look into the trans community there’s still a lot of healthy debate about what lines to draw. We have a lot of research on the effects of something like hormone blockers and it’s generally agreed that they are an effective treatment to young kids questioning their gender that only delays whatever puberty they choose until they can give their full informed consent (ideally after many hours of therapy). When people can give that informed consent is still up in the air.
I think it’s just a miscommunication/misunderstanding in that case. From my perspective, the level of information required to provide “informed consent” depends on the severity and importance of the decision, and the level of information a child can understand also depends on their age. I think we’re on the same page conceptually and just using different terminology.
I apologize for jumping to conclusions, that’s my bad.
This thread is about kids medically transitioning, by the time they’re undergoing puberty they’re teens or preteens. Not like six year olds who want to do ballet or whatever.
The point is people will allow (force) their children to do ballet, even at young ages, despite the consequences. Those same people will also say that older children can’t consent to gender affirming care. It’s hypocracy.
Removed by mod
Uh, do you want to rephrase that, because it sounds like you’re mad you can’t fuck kids.
you distorting the comment xd
No, that was me giving them the chance to clarify what they meant if their comment wasn’t them huffing about how preteens/teens can medically transition but not have sex with adults.
Anyway, as someone who is trans and used to be a kid, knowing your gender isn’t really anything like having sex.
Wtf? The fact that you are comfortable conflating those two wildly different topics is concerning.
First of all, being put on hormone therapy isn’t a child deciding their own gender. It is pausing puberty until they are old enough to make an informed decision about their own health and identity.
Secondly, what does gender identity have to do with pedophillia? Gender affirming care is all about harm reduction, not sexualizing literal children…
You seem so disappointed that statutory rape is a crime.
Republicans are opposed to gender-affirming care for teenagers because it makes some of the teens they want to fuck unfuckable in their eyes.
If kids can give informed consent doesn’t the entire argument for not fucking kids cause they can’t consent go right out the window? I do not believe kids can give informed consent because they don’t have the capacity, context or knowledge to foresee the consequences of their actions
Personally as a nearly 40 year old I would be horrified by 12 year old me making irreversible life changes for current me
12 year old you (unknowingly) made the irreversible life change of going through the default puberty. Plenty of people regret making that choice.
What is with people being absolutely unable to reconcile ‘children should have some input over their own healthcare decisions, actually’ with ‘grown adults should not be able to sexually prey on children’?
Knowing your gender is so different to having sex that I’m having trouble believing anyone is bringing it up sincerely.
People aren’t put on ADHD medications or on hormone therapy because of any ability of informed consent. They are prescribed because a medical professional has evaluated that the outcome of their overall health with treatment is improved when compared to not being treated. The parents and the patient have a say…to a point. However a medical professional can be empowered by the courts to supercede the consent of the PT or the parent if and when deemed necessary.
Medications have the potential of negative side effects, it’s not guaranteed. Those potential side effects are weighted against the potential negative effect of inaction.
frankly medical processionals should have no say over whether a trans person gets HRT or not.
they should warn you of what might happen if you have health conditions but frankly those interactions aren’t common enough to justify this level of draconian gatekeeping in most societies.
this is why trans people on a DIY regimen often do much better than by asking for “professional” help because most cis doctors are evil, gatekeepers or too ignorant to know what’s good for us.
While I don’t agree that medical providers shouldn’t be involved in important healthcare decisions. Unfortunately, at this point I agree the American healthcare system has largely failed the trans community, among others.
I think medical providers should be doing their jobs and keeping their personal beliefs to themselves. If a patient is wanting to transition they should have access to a provider who can make that transition as easy and safe as possible.
That sentence is doing a LOT of heavy lifting. Why do you believe this?
I don’t know about them, they may have personal experience, but there was definitely a period in the 90s and 2000s when doctors were prescribing Ritalin as freely as opioids and it was advertised by some as a treatment for hyperactive kids. Kids won’t sit still in class? Just pop a pill and watch them become model students!
Ok, so… you know that happens when you give a normal child a stimulant? The same thing that happens to adults.
If you give a kid Ritalin and they don’t bounce off the walls, that’s a pretty good indicator they’re ADHD and you made the right choice.
I didn’t even know that Ritalin was a stimulant. It makes sense as an ADHD med that it would be, but I just knew how easily kids were buying it at school (even middle school, not just high school) because it seemed like practically anyone could get a prescription for it.