> A child who insists that he is no longer a male (or never was) is definitely confused.
Circular, self-reinforcing, argument. Invalid.
> If that same child insists that he's black, even though both of his biological parents are white, would you take him at his word or save him from getting Dolezal'ed by an unforgiving woke mob?
Non-sequitur. Dismissed. Child still in need of psychological treatment.
> Children don't make good decisions. Their brains are literally missing the hardware until about age 25. [1] We don't allow them to make permanent changes that they might regret.
Sure we do. All the time. We allow them to grow up - that's rather permanent. You're not upset about that. Of course, it just so happens to be something you don't personally disagree with, unlike the topic of discussion.
> I'd imagine you take the position that a child seeking this care is always confused. Could this be mistaken? I'd conjecture that you believe this to be the case, because you don't address the simple fact that you assume that all children in this circumstance must be confused. If they are not, then they can give informed consent and your claim is void.
A child who insists that he is no longer a male (or never was) is definitely confused.
If that same child insists that he's black, even though both of his biological parents are white, would you take him at his word or save him from getting Dolezal'ed by an unforgiving woke mob?
Children don't make good decisions. Their brains are literally missing the hardware until about age 25. [1] We don't allow them to make permanent changes that they might regret.
And yet, somehow, children across the United States get the exact same gender-affirming treatments (including but not limited to hormone therapy, cosmetic surgery, and yes, even genital mutilation) without complaint only if the gender being affirmed happens to match some evaluation of their biological sex.
Anyway, setting that glaring contradiction aside, your argument fails in the context of social transition (e.g., being called a nickname), which is the much more common form of adolescent transition and still somehow elicits the same overreaction you have demonstrated.
> Personally, I raise an eyebrow when a six year old boy raised by adoptive lesbians decides he is transexual, and I feel like society may be failing that boy.
How do you feel when a 3 year old boy raised by non-adoptive heterosexual parents acts transgendered, regardless of what his parents do to try to get him to be like what people like you think boys are supposed to be like?
> Another one is the question, whether gender dysphoria results from mental illness, or the other way around.
[We have the data](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909367116), being trans is identifiable as early as 2-3yo, from the moment gender differences in behavior become apparent, long before any capacity to comprehend and adhere to complex expectations of boogeyman "transtrender parents".
You want to be treated as arguing in good faith, but fail to research the subject, propose questions that assume the conclusion, bring up vague anecdotes contrary to the statistics you're unwilling to consider, and disregard the fact that transgender children suffer from lack of treatment just as hard as wrongly treated cisgender children.
> As a very crass but serious example of that, when I was growing up no one in a place of authority was trying to convince me that I (a male) was a girl whereas children growing up now are having to deal with that.
I'd like to see some statistics on this. Is this a common thing or just something that went viral once on social media? I know people from all over the political spectrum and I have neither seen nor heard of anyone doing this.
I feel like you're placing far too much weight on an anecdote, and dare I say it appears you're being triggered by it. Liberals fall into this trap too, like pushing to ban plastic drinking straws because a pic of a cute animal damaged by a drinking straw went viral on Facebook. In reality banning plastic straws won't accomplish anything as that's not where 99%+ of ocean plastic comes from. In reality parents forcing gender identities on children that are different from their biological identity is just not a thing beyond an exceedingly small fringe-of-the-fringe.
(I agree that this could well be child abuse, though I'd like to know the details before passing judgement.)
In any case, if this were happening to you today you would have the option of approaching a teacher or counselor and reporting that it was occurring and that you were not okay with it. It's likely that this would get you a visit from CPS, or some other kind of intervention, in most states. Once you were old enough there are options like emancipation available.
Those aren't great options, but options exist.
In the good old days you'd have no recourse. There was no CPS. There was no emancipation. Your parents could have dressed you in women's clothes against your will or just plain kicked the crap out of you and well, they're your parents so shut up and behave. A hundred years ago parents more or less owned their children. While I'm sure forced gender reassignment was rare, physical and sexual abuse were not. They are still far, far more common than weird things like what you mention.
> How does this even work as more and more peoples' gender identities deviate from the classical male and female?
Well. Colour me plain, but I don’t think allowing people to select a gender disparate from their biology is useful, nor is going to help in this regard.
Kids these are getting more confused than ever before, because we as adults are afraid to draw clear lines and put up simple, reliable structures they can relate to.
Being handwavey about something as fundamental as gender is doing our kids a gross disservice.
> For example, a man can wake up one day saying to himself, "Damn, I feel like a woman". If I don't accept that he is, if only for a fleeting moment, a woman, than I'm labeled a bigot.
This comes across as a caricature of a serious issue.
For what it is worth, whether I agree or disagree with you (or anyone), I strive not to mischaracterize your concerns.
I would like to ask a favor. Please read [1] and come back here afterward. Try rephrasing your comment. I hope you are capable of making a good faith attempt at understanding sex (at birth), gender identity, expression, and so on.
> Deconstructing societal norms is just too advanced material for young children. It also directly undermines parents who are trying to instill these very norms.
Kids crossdress in kindergarten; I don't know at what age discussion of why one does or does not do that is appropriate, but I can tell you that absent some rules it's just yet another fun game they play.
> Gender itself is not a plain fact about objective reality (like sex is).
That implies that when a boy picks up the feather boa in kindergarten the appropriate response from public education is to do nothing, right?
> Being racist doesn't stop you from judging what will secure or endanger your freedom, you may just reach different conclusions than other people.
Ah, but here's the rub: we had a whole fight about that topic specifically and decided to kick it out because of the damage we observed it doing. Separate but equal and its ilk didn't work; we have a cultural narrative of "all men created equal" (for temporally-expanding definitions of 'men') that is incompatible with racism.
On that issue, the nation (as a cultural construct) is pretty decided.
There are plenty who would love to reopen the question. The public education system is not obligated to give them a line-item on the SOLs. They can and will try to seize one, of course, via the democratic process (as is their right, and those who disagree with them must be aware that this is their intended design).
> If you allude that it's problematic to let children change sex, you are painted as anti lgbtixxxx.
I think you well know the debate is not that simple. Certainly there are well-meaning people against procedures to change gender for kids, but i’m not sure it’s an exaggeration to say the majority are transphobic or bigoted.
What’s the problem with just leaving it for families and healthcare providers to decide for themselves?
> girls separately from the boys. What is your take on this arrangement?
That it’s irrelevant to the definition of a woman. That’s the strength of fuzzy definitions.
When separating the kids, did anyone formally define what a girl or a boy is? Did every parent in that room need to resolve every edge case to their implied definitions ex ante? Could you guarantee conflict by forcing a formal definition on that group, even if it results in the same practical outcome the implied, unsaid definition yielded and which was peacefully accepted by the group? No, no and, of course, yes.
> ... had mind-bogglingly idiotic parents who raised him the wrong gender ...
Though uncommon, XX children can have ambiguous genitalia at birth. Today (1) we have some idea on what it is and we can deal with it at various stages of growth in-utero, at birth, during infant development, at adolescence or even later? Faced with a similar situation the past, parents gambled (aided with biases and superstitions). Is that sufficient to call it idiocy, I do not think so.
> My claim, backed by science, is that this child was a biological male:
This is actually a nice way to reinforce my prior statement, so thanks. You're claiming someone was "biologically male" but hey that person didn't even express a penis until age 7-12. They're not even really intersex people, it's just the traditional definition of "biologically male" is comically incapable of dealing with this.
What's more, before that change most (there is other documentation of this) of the people you would have lectured about being biologically female felt a very strong affinity to the male identity. By happy coincidence, their hormonal cycle gifted them with anatomy they felt more comfortable with.
> he had male hormones and male chromosomes
Well, he specifically lacked some hormones, but...
Look, trans advocates for the most part don't disagree that a trans man and a person born to the traditional definition of men are exactly the same. They're obviously not precisely the same. What trans people want is an opportunity to be trans people without violence, discrimination, and fearmongering.
Trans activists tend to object to the biological essentialism argument not because it is founded on an observation of scientific facts about DNA (which, btw, a lot of people get wrong). They object to it because it's often used to justify acts of violence or discrimination by appealing to defending a biological norm that needs no guardians.
> First of all, documents only offer 2 checkboxes (Boy/Girl) because this is the sex of the kid they want you to fill out and as far as I know there are only 2 sexes.
There are more than two sexes. Even if you stick to chromosonal definitions of sex there are more than XX or XY.
You claim that they want to know the sex, but then say that other forms ask for gender but that those forms are wrong.
The forms are asking about gender because that's the important part for most of these forms.
> Kids don't have to define their gender identity, they're just kids. Can we just let them be without asking them to place themselves on a gender spectrum or whatever the F?
You make the mistake of thinking that children have no clue about gender identity. From the little bits of reseach we do we know that many children have firm ideas of what they consider themselves to be. Why can't we respect that, and allow them to live their lives free of oppression?
Children know what gender they are and learn gender norms from a young age, in fact.
> If they express gender issues, work on it using therapy to find what the cause is. I don't see the need to make them crossdress etc. at such a young age.
Nobody is being forced to "cross dress" (I put this in quotes, since I would argue the term doesn't really fit in the context of trans children). This is something kids do for themselves, along with expressing such thoughts as what gender they are, what toys they prefer to play with, what other kids they like playing with.
And then people like Zucker tell them they mustn't, because it puts them "at risk of homosexuality or transsexuality" (this is me paraphrasing, but it's very close to what he's said), instruct their parents to force them not to, and they end up with psychological issues for the rest of their life.
Circular, self-reinforcing, argument. Invalid.
> If that same child insists that he's black, even though both of his biological parents are white, would you take him at his word or save him from getting Dolezal'ed by an unforgiving woke mob?
Non-sequitur. Dismissed. Child still in need of psychological treatment.
> Children don't make good decisions. Their brains are literally missing the hardware until about age 25. [1] We don't allow them to make permanent changes that they might regret.
Sure we do. All the time. We allow them to grow up - that's rather permanent. You're not upset about that. Of course, it just so happens to be something you don't personally disagree with, unlike the topic of discussion.
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