I was in a Facebook discussion the other day when I ran across this comment from a self-described moderate Republican.
“I don’t care what adults do, but I have a problem with minors having hormones and surgery, especially at a young age. Top and bottom surgery is permanent.”
On the surface, this sort of statement seems like the reasonable middle ground of the subject of transgender youths, but in reality, it’s part of the widespread campaign to deny trans people exist.
For decades, trans people have been treated as adults participating in either deviant sexuality or extreme body modification. Acceptance from the center or the right has always come from a vaguely Libertarian stance of leaving people alone if they want to do some weird thing. “I don’t care what you’re into, just don’t do it to me,” is a pretty common way of phrasing it.
This is only helpful in theory because being trans is not something people “do”; it’s something people “are,” same as cisgender folks. Framing being trans as a sexual fetish or lifestyle kink means an existence of marginalization because trans people don’t stop being trans when they have to live their lives. They have to go to work, buy groceries, get healthcare, etc., and they want to do it as who they are. They cannot hide their transness without considerable emotional damage to themselves, and there’s no reason they should.
Likewise, trans children exist. The idea that children are being corrupted by social media trends to come out as trans for some sort of community validation is largely a myth cooked up by one very irresponsible journalist. Every major national medical group, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledges children can be trans and that gender-affirming care is associated with better outcomes and more happiness. It’s not just some weird game their playing or liberal cult they’re indoctrinated in.
The idea of gender affirming care has been corrupted by the right-wing into grisly images of school-aged children undergoing brutal vaginoplasties against their best interest as their “woke” parents look on with pride. This is complete and utter nonsense that ignores how doctors treat trans youth.
The vast majority of gender affirming care is social in nature. Children are allowed to use different names, pronouns, and manners of dress. These might include a chest binder or other equipment, or it may not. A prepubescent trans child might go on puberty blockers, medicine that has been used for a variety of conditions for decades and is wholly reversible.
In some rare cases, minors might begin hormone replacement therapy. This would only happen after years of consultation with a doctor and is restricted to older teens who have parental consent. While HRT does have more risks than puberty blockers, it’s still an area of medicine that has been used for a variety of conditions for decades and is generally considered safe.
As for the dreaded top and bottom surgeries, the idea that these are being performed at will is just silly. Cis girls often can’t get breast reduction surgery even when the size of their breasts is a significant health problem because of reticence of surgeons to perform the surgery before breast growth has stabilized. Bottom surgery is a major operation that no doctor is going to perform without extensive consultation, and even then, the handful of doctors who actually do such surgeries almost never perform them on minors. Seventeen seems to be the minimum for the procedure.
All this background is to show that the gender affirming care is not a fad or an LGBT plot to corrupt children. It is a long, often hard path to a person’s true identity and personal happiness. Continuously pretending that being trans is an affectation to be squashed instead of a legitimate gender is just another way to deny them legal protections and access to care. That delusion is being extended to children, who are portrayed as unwilling victims in a vast leftist conspiracy to eradicated traditional gender norms.
It’s ridiculous. Trans people are valid, including the little ones. It is not a costume to try on and treating it that way only contributes to trans people’s pain and misery. Framing transness as an activity is a backdoor to oppression, and it’s being used to endanger trans children even more than they already are from the bigoted world around them.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
