In all my years of visiting Audioholics, this is by far the most disappointing thread full of nothing but bigotry. I had noticed USA's descent into fascism but I thought the folks here were better than to be fascists themselves.
You are correct. We took the Dutch protocol, which itself is already flawed, and advocacy org WPATH loosened it up further for our for-profit health system, and cultivated a false consensus with professional orgs like the AMA, AAP, APA, etc. via a bunch of circular references between them and WPATH's evolving standards of care that were driven by advocacy rather than evidence. That's what was exposed in the Alabama case, and in more granular detail in Cass. It punches a big hole in the argument "Who am I to question thousands of doctors?"
The risks associated with PB and hormones are far greater than you give credit for. They are unjustified and extremely heavy handed medical interventions that are wildly inappropriate to treat psych problems.
BS. Gender Affirming care saves lives. Lives of children. Period.
A 2021 survey-based study of 34,000 LGBTQ+ youth (12,000 trans/nonbinary, ages 13–24) found GAHT recipients had 27% lower odds of recent depression (adjusted OR [aOR] 0.73, 95% CI 0.62–0.86), 26% lower odds of suicidal ideation (aOR 0.74, 95% CI 0.63–0.87), and 40% lower odds of past-year suicide attempts (aOR 0.60, 95% CI 0.47–0.77) vs. those wanting but not receiving it. For under-18s, benefits included 39% lower depression and attempt rates.
Green, A. E., DeChants, J. P., Price, M. N., & Davis, C. K. (2021). "Association of Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy With Depression, Thoughts of Suicide, and Attempted Suicide Among Transgender and Nonbinary Youth." Journal of Adolescent Health, 70(4), 643–649.
A 2023 narrative review of 20 studies (including RCTs and cohorts) concluded GAHT/puberty blockers decreased suicide/self-harm odds by 53% (aOR 0.47, 95% CI 0.26–0.86), with stronger effects in youth; no evidence of regret or increased harm.
Tordoff, D. M., Wanta, J. W., Collin, A., Stepney, C., Inwards-Breland, D. J., & Ahrens, K. (2023). "Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Nonbinary Youths Receiving Gender-Affirming Care: A Narrative Review." JAMA Pediatrics, 177(6), 577–585.
Same sex attraction does not require extreme body modification, nor does it compel everyone to participate in any delusional metaphysical belief system lest they face a puritanical authoritarian backlash for heresy from those convinced it is they who are on the right side of history. ("Transphobe! Bigot"="Sinner! Heretic!") Same sex attraction is about who you want to wake up next to, which requires no diagnostic tests whatsoever. Gender identitarianism is about requiring everyone else to affirm your delusion, and access to medical interventions based on such beliefs rather than evidence. Not the same, not by a country mile.
The "delusional metaphysical belief system" you refer to is called "being kind to people who are different from you" also known as "don't bully people based on a social construct".
And yes, gender is a social construct and is not the same thing as sex. Historically it has been driven by commercial interests (i.e. which demographic it is more profitable to market something to became the gender it was associated with).
Dresses once upon a time used to be mens clothing. In scotland they wear skirts and call them kilts. Wristwatches used to be exclusively womens' clothing and it was drag for a man to wear one.
Some languages have pronouns for inanimate objects, for example the moon being masculine in German and feminine on French - this is how broadly subjective and socially dependent the concept of gender is.
Gender is a lived experience. It is separate from biological sex.
Beyond that, sex itself is not binary as there exist countless permutations of development to the point where around 1.7% of the human population is genetically intersex. There are people born with testicles and penises who literally need gender affirming hormone therapy to grow up to be men (yes, some men with penises need gender affirming therapy to not end up presenting as women) because of genetic variations.
Puberty blockers are also not sex change operations. They exist, as their name suggests to delay puberty until a person is an adult able to consent to and make an informed decision on the right gender affirming therapy. And gender affirming therapy itself is not some haphazard amoxicillin prescription, it involves years of psychotherapy, analysis, and observation.
It's being attacked not because it is unscientific but because of transphobia being rampant.
Why is transphobia so rampant today? Because your USA's fascist overlords own and control your conservative media and they need an easy target or two to pick on because their classic 1935 target "Jews own everything" is no longer socially acceptable, and trans people are such a minority that so few people even know a trans person and could empathize compassionately with one.
If you're not compassionate enough to realize that it actually is not remotely difficult to walk up to a trans kid or adult, and either say nothing about their gender or be a warmhearted person and affirm their stated identity, then move on with your life instead of misgendering them for no reason other than your own satisfaction, then that's actually a you problem. That's not an ideology problem and it's not a woke problem and it's not a liberal problem. It's just an empathy problem.
Do better. There are people in society who are trans and passing that you would never notice, and they are productive members of society who cause harm to no one and bring joy to their friends and families living their authentic lives.
If a person who was born female was distressed by having breasts, and thus elected to remove those breasts, grow facial hair, and develop a deeper voice, and that is all it takes for that someone to live a happy life as an autobody mechanic who spends his Saturdays listening to hi fi and his Sundays volunteering at the homeless shelter then yea, I am gonna call you a bigot and a bully for calling that person delusional and for insisting that person needs to be treated as a woman. That person is well aware they are a female at birth - moreso than any passerby who doesn't pat down their crotch. He just chooses to live the life that doesn't fill him with dread, anxiety, depression.
And you know what's sad? The people who don't "pass" are the ones who were denied gender affirming care during puberty. They are women who grew chiselled jawlines and developed deep voices that could have been avoided if they weren't systemically oppressed. They are men who are short and treated as short men. For the next fifty years of their lives because they were not allowed to transition soon enough.
And yet they still bravely go out and live their authentic truth in a society that cruelly mocks them and villainizes them. They are the ones who deserve even MORE empathy, not more ridicule. Because society let them down. They are not "delusional".
You too, TLS Guy:
They need to stop it, totally. These people who think they are in the wrong body are just delusional, in other words JPN.
You know who I think are totally delusional, Dr Mark? People who believe in "God". And you know what I still have the capacity to do? Respect their ability to think ideas as delusional as their one religion from that one little region of inquisitionists from that one planet in that one solar system of that one galaxy is the place where that God decided to have a patriarchal slaveowning society be the chosen one to pass "Her" contradiction-laden, nonsensical messages about not wearing synthetic fibres and bizarre unnecessary tangents about daughters procreating with their drunken fathers... are still allowed to exist in all their delusion.
Because those delusions let those silly people sleep peacefully at night. Even though I personally think they are far less intelligent than trans people who just want to live pragmatically in society in a way that is true to themselves, whereas the other group does all their actions in order to attain what I see as a nonexistent afterlife, and feel they need that religion to guide their morality because they themselves cannot critically arrive at a moral code due to their lack of empathy. In fact, it's usually those same people who can't even process the following words of their Saviour:
"Love your neighbor as yourself"
and how that might need to apply to a vulnerable segment of society that is under attack by a malicious organization that politically benefits from the promotion of cruelty in order to amass influence and power en route to an authoritarian takeover A segment of society that has existed since the dawn of humanity, across countless cultures throughout history, and who was also one of the documented groups victims of the holocaust for the same reason that is pretty much reflected in this thread, eighty years later.
On the actual topic of mass school shootings in USA? 97.5% of perpetrators being cisgendered males is somehow buried by the propaganda. 70% of them being white.
They want you to talk about trans people because otherwise you'd talk about gun control and the danger that cisgender white males pose to children. And this thread tells me their propaganda is winning.
Fascism and its propaganda is winning over logic, science, and unity. On Audioholics, a board i always believed to be focused on logic and science rather than snake oil and propaganda. From TLS guy, a person who I always believed to be sensible and objective, rather than easily manipulated by irrational subjective feelings. I don't believe you as a person are inherently a fascist. I think you're way too intelligent for that. So identify the fact that you're falling into the fascist trap if you're "othering" groups like trans people, immigrants, or Antifascists. You're one of the people I still visit Audioholics because of. Don't disappoint me.
Because I know you are better than that.
So do better.
