Gender affirming care for minors

[Del06]

https://fair.org/home/judges-ruling-...rporate-media/

A nice take-down of conservative anti-trans rhetoric (including how the "centrist" press seems to buy a lot of the rhetoric)

[filghy2]

The default tendency of mainstream media is to present both sides of a controversial issue in the name of balance (right-wing media have no such compunction). In addition, most journalists lack deep scientific expertise and are under time constraints (increasingly so with financial pressures on MSM). The easiest way to write a story is to get some quotes from supposed experts with different perspectives and then conclude there are unresolved issues. This has been parodied as "Views differ on the shape of the Earth".

This tendency has always been exploited by bad faith actors like climate change denialists and industries resisting regulation. It's easy to find a handful of 'experts' who are prepared to argue against the scientific consensus, and then rely on media reporting to give the public the impression the science is more contentious than it really is.

If think the other factor at work is the asymmetry in attitudes across the political spectrum. The right have become very invested in trans issues because it's presented to them as a culture wars issue. Apart from those directly involved, I don't think most people on the centre or left are as invested because they see it as an esoteric issue that doesn't affect them. We know from surveys that people are generally less sympathetic to trans if they don't know any.

[Stavros]

Some Courts on the other hand, have not allowed attempts to block health care for Trans Children - in both Florida (as in the link above) and Alabama this week the Courts have not only taken the side of the Parents, Children and Health Care Professionals, but criticized the political -and un-Constitutional nature of the attempt. Marjorie Taylor Greene's attempt to introduce a law in the House to 'protect children' may also fail.

[Luke Warm]

There’s a small group of conservative pediatricians who has been steering the public narrative on medical care for trans youths by getting their version of facts into mainstream media. This fringe conservative group is able to push their slanted views into the news landscape while only having 700 active members (not all of them are doctors) while the mainstream organization for pediatricians has 67,000 members. This is a group with an ideological motivation, more than scientific or medical.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...stian-doctors/

[MrFanti]

Check out Europe
Yes, Europe Is Restricting “Gender-Affirming Care”
https://www.city-journal.org/article...affirming-care

[filghy2]

Check out Europe
Yes, Europe Is Restricting “Gender-Affirming Care”

I assume you've done your usual careful assessment of the issue, so how about you explain to us why this guy from a right-wing think tank is right and why the articles posted by Del06 and Luke Warm are wrong.

[filghy2]

But again, Charlamagne is asking the question of - Why as parents can't we have a discussion about what our children do as minors without being labeled transphobic? And what is wrong with that question in and of itself?

While you are at it, perhaps you could explain how this guy's support for Republican bans (which override parental choice) is consistent with your previous support for parents having a say.

'A good case can be made that Republicans who seek to ban these interventions entirely are being more faithful to the findings of the European evidence reviews. The real debate between red states in the U.S. and European health authorities is not about whether there is good evidence for pediatric gender transition. There isn’t. Rather, the debate is about whether children as young as eight with a strong desire for “gender affirming” drugs have the ability to understand fully and give informed consent to the long-term consequences of these interventions—and even if they can, whether this justifies enlisting them in an uncontrolled medical experiment.'

[Stavros]

Check out Europe
Yes, Europe Is Restricting “Gender-Affirming Care”
https://www.city-journal.org/article...affirming-care

For those interested I have responded to Mr Fanti's link, and a documentary aired on ITVX this week, at length in the Politics & Religion section where Mr Fanti has also provided the above link.

All I will say here, is that of someone under the age of 16 is to be denied Puberty Blockers, what therapy are they going to receive? When a child is in distress, that distress must be dealt with. No parent wants their child to be unhappy, so they address the causes of that unhappiness. If the clinic is not going to offer one form of treatment, what other treatment is it going to provide?

At root, this ought not be a political weapon for anyone. What we are dealing with here is a deeply sensitive issue for families, and it is essential that they work this through with health care professionals, even in a discipline that I suspect is not well advanced, and which, even in rich societies like the US and the UK, suffers from being underfunded, and with a lack of trained staff.

[filghy2]

Some Courts on the other hand, have not allowed attempts to block health care for Trans Children - in both Florida (as in the link above) and Alabama this week the Courts have not only taken the side of the Parents, Children and Health Care Professionals, but criticized the political -and un-Constitutional nature of the attempt.

More on this here. https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/6/...ming-care-bans

"Parts of measures curbing gender-affirming care for trans youth in Kentucky and Tennessee were barred by federal judges on Wednesday, while provisions limiting gender-affirming care in Arkansas, Florida, and Indiana were struck down earlier in June."

"In nearly all the recent cases, federal judges concurred, deeming the core tenets of the laws either outright unconstitutional or likely to be interpreted as such. In Kentucky and Tennessee, the judges also respectively went on to describe gender-affirming care as “medically appropriate and necessary” and noted that targeting trans youth amounted to “disparate treatment on the basis of sex.”

[Fitzcarraldo]

If these cases make it to the Supreme Court, the current Supreme Court will find a bullshit way to support the bans.