This is something I know little about and want to be better informed on by anyone willing. Web searches don’t pull up much and I’m hesitant to ask people in my IRL community.
So most kids don’t regret it right? But it seems so iffy to let developing people make decisions like that. I had a three year phase from around 13-16 where I desperately wanted to remove my nose. Completely. (It’s an ugly nose and I was an especially dumb kid). I think I would have done it/had it done if it were easier. And less painful. And maybe I’d still be chill with it if I had but man was I a strange kid. But I’m kind of glad there wasn’t a good way to do it. Is this a false equivalency? And why? What age should they be allowed to begin HRT? What impacts does it have if reversed? Should kids also be allowed stuff like tattoos and alcohol? I don’t like the argument that you can give kids amphetamines or make other life changing decisions for them as I’m pretty against the system that allows it and so I don’t think if that’s the justification I’m on board on that basis necessarily. I’m genuinely asking as I usually don’t engage on this topic because it can get spicy. I’m open to opinions from anyone with one.
So here’s where the whole “but kids shouldn’t make these decisions” arguement kind of falls apart… You are assuming it’s the kids making the decisions.
The reality here is there is a bar that trans kids need to pass to be eligible which requires the signoff of a whole panel of adults based on the observed behaviour, self descriptive process and recorded outcomes of thousands of trans people in the past creating a rubric that professionals draw on. Being trans and the way gender is processed by trans people is actually more different from being cis than a lot of cis people are aware and the presentations of transness are actually pretty consistent. The regret rate is astronomically low - kind of to the point where it is actually unusual because of the level of care taken to predict and assess potential harm.
To get puberty blockers you need first a child who wants them, then all guardians of the child to agree it is worth pursuing. Then you require the endorsement of a psychiatrist with years of consultation and a social worker to make sure the home situation is above board and nobody is being coerced. Then you need a pediatrician to sign off on the standing health of the paitent, and endocrinologist to assess the safety of pursuing blockers…
It’s not a one time thing either, you have to have routine check ins once things start and if any of these adults remove their endorsement of the paitent then it doesn’t matter what the kid wants. It’s not happening.
If anything medical starts going wrong long term health remains priority.
So can we please not pretend it’s dumb children showing up to a tattoo parlor? It’s a panel of professionals working off predictions based off of a nigh century of diagnostic data in conjunction with parents making informed decisions on behalf of their incredibly dedicated child- because these kids need to self advocate like fucking crazy at all points of the process… Which in itself tends to disqualify kids who don’t absolutely need this because it’s a job and a half.
This is designed as ironclad ethical assisted decision-making as can be made and people are being tricked into thinking that somehow this process is not as rigorously checked for flaws or deals with consent of minors differently than any other form of pediatric medicine. Why is that?
Others have given great responses there, but I just wanted to chime in my two cents. The major difference between your example and trans kids is that the latter make decisions in concert with family and medical professionals. Often times, not just a family doctor, but also a psychologist (to discuss feelings of gender incongruence) and endocrinologist (because hormones are extremely powerful, no matter which way you slice it) on top of the regular fare.
These medical professionals are making decisions based on the most up-to-date, widely held medical consensus – which is to let trans kids transition with medical guidance. That doesn’t apply in your hypothetical, because there is no agreed upon medical prognosis on kids going through identity issues (which is a normal part of psychology, whereas gender dysphoria very much is abnormal, divergence from the mean). That also goes for giving ADHD kids medication if that helps them – not all psychs rush to push pills on kids, but if it makes a huge difference and helps a child, who are you as a layman to force them to continue suffering? Being on ADHD medication (or puberty blockers) can be a night and day difference for someone, whether they are kids or not.
Tangent: We in western society infantilize children a lot, I feel. In a lot of eastern/(global) southern culture, kids are a functional part of the household unit, almost little adults. Parents aren’t afraid to give their kids some semblance of responsibility because it helps them grow. From that perspective, it seems almost odd that the west wants to coddle kids so much. Not accusing you of this, just something I’ve noticed.
Not worried about accusations haha. Yeah I’m really guilty of infantilizing children. I also haven’t broken the connection in my brain between gender and sexuality so I’m thinking there’s something in my head saying that kids don’t know their gender until they know what they’re attracted to (which you really don’t know much about before puberty) which is just incorrect probably. Thanks for illuminating that for me, actually.
No pediatrician is going to be giving 10 year old any sort of hormonal therapy unless things are seriously out of whack (ie something like congenital adrenal hyperplasia) however the usual standard of care for children who are experiencing any sort of gender dysphoria is to put them on puberty blockers which simply delays puberty until they are old enough to choose.
The transgender care that children receive gives them a choice in how their body develops they would not otherwise have.
My controversial opinion is that all children should be encouraged to take puberty blockers in addition to having a say in how their body develops it has additional benefits of: significant reduction in teen pregnancies, reduced sexualization of minors, reduced stress during a time when a lot is already changing, etc.
The important thing to remember with trans kids is that there isn’t a ‘do nothing’ option if they want HRT. ‘Nothing’ is actually ‘force them to undergo puberty for the wrong gender,’ which is traumatic and has effects as permanent as taking HRT.
Going through puberty with HRT as a trans person isn’t any more inappropriate than going through natal puberty is for cis kids. Natal puberty is having permanent, unpredictable effects on their bodies as well, except we just call that growing up. Trans teens also deserve to grow up like their peers, without spending most of their waking hours managing their dysphoria because some third party who’s never met them is uncomfortable.
The big things to remember with this discourse is that one, the regret rates for going through transition are exceedingly low. Like so low it’s virtually unheard of for almost any other medical intervention. This heavily implies that not only is the current standard of care very good at weeding out people for whom transition is not the correct treatment, but that it might even be too good and there’s a significant cohort of people for whom transition would be the best treatment but they get filtered out because they don’t present as being trans enough. Furthermore when you dig deeper into those regret and detransition rates you find that most of the time the reason for detransition was external. Meaning things like can’t afford the medication, discrimination, getting kicked out of housing, etc.
The second big thing was already mentioned and it’s that there isn’t a neutral option. Imagine telling a 13 year old girl “how do you know you’re not a boy unless you go on testosterone for a few years?” Just because we’re talking about the puberty that they’d naturally go through without intervention doesn’t mean that it’s good.
But realistically the most any kid younger than ~16 is gonna get when they show up to the gender clinic saying they’re trans is therapy, social transition so things like trying out a new name, pronouns, and/or clothes, and at most puberty blockers. Puberty blockers by the way have been proven safe for trans kids since the 90s. Then if they still want to transition they might start HRT after months if not years of this therapy.
That’s the thing they though don’t have to just “cut off their nose”, there puberty blockers which hit the pause button and prevent going through the wrong puberty, which they give to kids with precocious puberty without any moral outrage.
It’s a very complicated topic where for some kids it’s the right choice, other kids are feeling this way due to social contagion, and it’s turned into a weird culture war. Reductive posts like this (edit: OP’s post) don’t help.
I’m happy to discuss, but I’m curious why you are more interested in discussion than a literature review that summarizes the empirical evidence that answers your questions- is it just not as accessible? You might try reading the Gender Dysphoria Bible, it’s more accessible to lay audiences.
Also, whether kids should be allowed to make those decisions tends to only come up when those decisions are for trans children, nobody is wringing their hands about whether cis children are allowed the exact same consequential gender affirming care, such as puberty blockers for precocious puberty or nose jobs or boob jobs for minors. Trans children don’t even typically have access to the gender affirming surgeries cis children do, so the only relevant debate is whether puberty blockers are acceptable- which isn’t a debate we have for cis children mind you, for some reason we’re only worried when the kid has gender dysphoria (a condition we know is genetic and which has effective treatment through gender affirming care, the science isn’t controversial).
And to answer your question, the evidence we have points to regret rates being low (like, exceptionally low, lower than most medical treatments).
That’s a great answer. Thank you. To answer your question: I find that I can locate a lot of neat and informative stuff online but I’m being a little selfish here. I learn better when asking questions and having people answer in their own words. I know a lot but it helps cement things I’ve already read or heard. Also a lot of what I’m thinking about contains subjective matter. It helps with objective fact to read articles but even armed with a bunch of facts (some conflicting and some from bad sources) I feel my understanding really shines when I’m communicating with real people. I’m also using it as a temperature check for if I can ask these questions normally and how people take it. I don’t mind downvotes or negative reactions online but I mind if I piss off a group of people I know. I really am just kind of an old dunce stumbling around a world I was never familiar with in the past. I’m way better at not deadnaming or misgendering but this kind of discourse really tells me a lot even if it’s all negative.
Oh and last of all I’m happy to read any new material dropped here. I’m really bad at finding good scientific articles. And distinguishing AI. And not getting scammed. I find people here are trustworthy and don’t really lead you wrong all that often.
I get all of that, I’m not here to judge, I was just kinda authentically curious.
Let me know if you have any questions, I have plenty of personal experience as well as facts I’m willing to talk about, this is obviously an important topic to me.
Discourse or an argument, the information you are looking for is accessible in a concrete way based on meta analysis of dozens of studies with an easy to read intro. It’s much easier to put your trust there.
This is something I know little about and want to be better informed on by anyone willing. Web searches don’t pull up much and I’m hesitant to ask people in my IRL community.
So most kids don’t regret it right? But it seems so iffy to let developing people make decisions like that. I had a three year phase from around 13-16 where I desperately wanted to remove my nose. Completely. (It’s an ugly nose and I was an especially dumb kid). I think I would have done it/had it done if it were easier. And less painful. And maybe I’d still be chill with it if I had but man was I a strange kid. But I’m kind of glad there wasn’t a good way to do it. Is this a false equivalency? And why? What age should they be allowed to begin HRT? What impacts does it have if reversed? Should kids also be allowed stuff like tattoos and alcohol? I don’t like the argument that you can give kids amphetamines or make other life changing decisions for them as I’m pretty against the system that allows it and so I don’t think if that’s the justification I’m on board on that basis necessarily. I’m genuinely asking as I usually don’t engage on this topic because it can get spicy. I’m open to opinions from anyone with one.
So here’s where the whole “but kids shouldn’t make these decisions” arguement kind of falls apart… You are assuming it’s the kids making the decisions.
The reality here is there is a bar that trans kids need to pass to be eligible which requires the signoff of a whole panel of adults based on the observed behaviour, self descriptive process and recorded outcomes of thousands of trans people in the past creating a rubric that professionals draw on. Being trans and the way gender is processed by trans people is actually more different from being cis than a lot of cis people are aware and the presentations of transness are actually pretty consistent. The regret rate is astronomically low - kind of to the point where it is actually unusual because of the level of care taken to predict and assess potential harm.
To get puberty blockers you need first a child who wants them, then all guardians of the child to agree it is worth pursuing. Then you require the endorsement of a psychiatrist with years of consultation and a social worker to make sure the home situation is above board and nobody is being coerced. Then you need a pediatrician to sign off on the standing health of the paitent, and endocrinologist to assess the safety of pursuing blockers…
It’s not a one time thing either, you have to have routine check ins once things start and if any of these adults remove their endorsement of the paitent then it doesn’t matter what the kid wants. It’s not happening.
If anything medical starts going wrong long term health remains priority.
So can we please not pretend it’s dumb children showing up to a tattoo parlor? It’s a panel of professionals working off predictions based off of a nigh century of diagnostic data in conjunction with parents making informed decisions on behalf of their incredibly dedicated child- because these kids need to self advocate like fucking crazy at all points of the process… Which in itself tends to disqualify kids who don’t absolutely need this because it’s a job and a half.
This is designed as ironclad ethical assisted decision-making as can be made and people are being tricked into thinking that somehow this process is not as rigorously checked for flaws or deals with consent of minors differently than any other form of pediatric medicine. Why is that?
Others have given great responses there, but I just wanted to chime in my two cents. The major difference between your example and trans kids is that the latter make decisions in concert with family and medical professionals. Often times, not just a family doctor, but also a psychologist (to discuss feelings of gender incongruence) and endocrinologist (because hormones are extremely powerful, no matter which way you slice it) on top of the regular fare.
These medical professionals are making decisions based on the most up-to-date, widely held medical consensus – which is to let trans kids transition with medical guidance. That doesn’t apply in your hypothetical, because there is no agreed upon medical prognosis on kids going through identity issues (which is a normal part of psychology, whereas gender dysphoria very much is abnormal, divergence from the mean). That also goes for giving ADHD kids medication if that helps them – not all psychs rush to push pills on kids, but if it makes a huge difference and helps a child, who are you as a layman to force them to continue suffering? Being on ADHD medication (or puberty blockers) can be a night and day difference for someone, whether they are kids or not.
Tangent: We in western society infantilize children a lot, I feel. In a lot of eastern/(global) southern culture, kids are a functional part of the household unit, almost little adults. Parents aren’t afraid to give their kids some semblance of responsibility because it helps them grow. From that perspective, it seems almost odd that the west wants to coddle kids so much. Not accusing you of this, just something I’ve noticed.
Not worried about accusations haha. Yeah I’m really guilty of infantilizing children. I also haven’t broken the connection in my brain between gender and sexuality so I’m thinking there’s something in my head saying that kids don’t know their gender until they know what they’re attracted to (which you really don’t know much about before puberty) which is just incorrect probably. Thanks for illuminating that for me, actually.
No pediatrician is going to be giving 10 year old any sort of hormonal therapy unless things are seriously out of whack (ie something like congenital adrenal hyperplasia) however the usual standard of care for children who are experiencing any sort of gender dysphoria is to put them on puberty blockers which simply delays puberty until they are old enough to choose.
The transgender care that children receive gives them a choice in how their body develops they would not otherwise have.
My controversial opinion is that all children should be encouraged to take puberty blockers in addition to having a say in how their body develops it has additional benefits of: significant reduction in teen pregnancies, reduced sexualization of minors, reduced stress during a time when a lot is already changing, etc.
The important thing to remember with trans kids is that there isn’t a ‘do nothing’ option if they want HRT. ‘Nothing’ is actually ‘force them to undergo puberty for the wrong gender,’ which is traumatic and has effects as permanent as taking HRT.
Going through puberty with HRT as a trans person isn’t any more inappropriate than going through natal puberty is for cis kids. Natal puberty is having permanent, unpredictable effects on their bodies as well, except we just call that growing up. Trans teens also deserve to grow up like their peers, without spending most of their waking hours managing their dysphoria because some third party who’s never met them is uncomfortable.
The big things to remember with this discourse is that one, the regret rates for going through transition are exceedingly low. Like so low it’s virtually unheard of for almost any other medical intervention. This heavily implies that not only is the current standard of care very good at weeding out people for whom transition is not the correct treatment, but that it might even be too good and there’s a significant cohort of people for whom transition would be the best treatment but they get filtered out because they don’t present as being trans enough. Furthermore when you dig deeper into those regret and detransition rates you find that most of the time the reason for detransition was external. Meaning things like can’t afford the medication, discrimination, getting kicked out of housing, etc.
The second big thing was already mentioned and it’s that there isn’t a neutral option. Imagine telling a 13 year old girl “how do you know you’re not a boy unless you go on testosterone for a few years?” Just because we’re talking about the puberty that they’d naturally go through without intervention doesn’t mean that it’s good.
But realistically the most any kid younger than ~16 is gonna get when they show up to the gender clinic saying they’re trans is therapy, social transition so things like trying out a new name, pronouns, and/or clothes, and at most puberty blockers. Puberty blockers by the way have been proven safe for trans kids since the 90s. Then if they still want to transition they might start HRT after months if not years of this therapy.
That’s the thing they though don’t have to just “cut off their nose”, there puberty blockers which hit the pause button and prevent going through the wrong puberty, which they give to kids with precocious puberty without any moral outrage.
That’s actually pretty neat. Thanks.
It’s a very complicated topic where for some kids it’s the right choice, other kids are feeling this way due to social contagion, and it’s turned into a weird culture war. Reductive posts like this (edit: OP’s post) don’t help.
It’s all in the thread already.
https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/
I’m looking for discourse more than a webpage.
I’m happy to discuss, but I’m curious why you are more interested in discussion than a literature review that summarizes the empirical evidence that answers your questions- is it just not as accessible? You might try reading the Gender Dysphoria Bible, it’s more accessible to lay audiences.
Also, whether kids should be allowed to make those decisions tends to only come up when those decisions are for trans children, nobody is wringing their hands about whether cis children are allowed the exact same consequential gender affirming care, such as puberty blockers for precocious puberty or nose jobs or boob jobs for minors. Trans children don’t even typically have access to the gender affirming surgeries cis children do, so the only relevant debate is whether puberty blockers are acceptable- which isn’t a debate we have for cis children mind you, for some reason we’re only worried when the kid has gender dysphoria (a condition we know is genetic and which has effective treatment through gender affirming care, the science isn’t controversial).
And to answer your question, the evidence we have points to regret rates being low (like, exceptionally low, lower than most medical treatments).
That’s a great answer. Thank you. To answer your question: I find that I can locate a lot of neat and informative stuff online but I’m being a little selfish here. I learn better when asking questions and having people answer in their own words. I know a lot but it helps cement things I’ve already read or heard. Also a lot of what I’m thinking about contains subjective matter. It helps with objective fact to read articles but even armed with a bunch of facts (some conflicting and some from bad sources) I feel my understanding really shines when I’m communicating with real people. I’m also using it as a temperature check for if I can ask these questions normally and how people take it. I don’t mind downvotes or negative reactions online but I mind if I piss off a group of people I know. I really am just kind of an old dunce stumbling around a world I was never familiar with in the past. I’m way better at not deadnaming or misgendering but this kind of discourse really tells me a lot even if it’s all negative.
Oh and last of all I’m happy to read any new material dropped here. I’m really bad at finding good scientific articles. And distinguishing AI. And not getting scammed. I find people here are trustworthy and don’t really lead you wrong all that often.
I get all of that, I’m not here to judge, I was just kinda authentically curious.
Let me know if you have any questions, I have plenty of personal experience as well as facts I’m willing to talk about, this is obviously an important topic to me.
Discourse or an argument, the information you are looking for is accessible in a concrete way based on meta analysis of dozens of studies with an easy to read intro. It’s much easier to put your trust there.