this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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So there's the rub. Are puberty blockers treatment for the mind or body? If it's a "body" treatment and therefore the "wrong place to start" should children not have access to this treatment until they are 18? It does reduce morbidity of the condition.
You get shit on for your opinions because they are both uninformed and callous. You are also missing the point of the healthcare by focusing on elective cosmetic surgeries.
The way you talk about this subject is just awful.
I don’t consider cosmetic surgery ‘health care’. Gender reassignment surgery is cosmetic surgery. It’s not like a knee replacement or a quadruple bypass surgery.
Everything I’ve said has been to the adult population and that adults can make their own decisions.
Children cannot make those decisions for themselves. And in those cases, I think they need to be taken on a case by case basis and taken very seriously.
I don’t have much of an opinion on puberty blockers, other than to say that if the body is healthy and normal, I wouldn’t choose to medicate or mess with my child’s natural process of growing up into an adult.
Those are my personal beliefs and they apply to any ‘health care’ my kids would receive. If there is nothing wrong with the body’s process, I don’t see any reason to interfere.
Now if other parents don’t think that way, they can parent their kids however they see fit.
Being a parent is a difficult thing. All parents want what’s best for their kids, and no matter how hard we try to be the best parents we can be, I don’t think any child makes it out of childhood without some for of trauma, unfortunately.
I carry trauma from childhood, I’m sure my children will as well. I’m sure you do, as well as all of your friends.
You can assert that I’m ‘callous, uninformed and awful’ as much as you want, I’m used to much much worse. But I know myself (you don’t), and I know how empathetic I am to everyone’s unique situations.
My personal beliefs don’t really apply to anyone else. I just hope everyone ends up happier tomorrow than they were yesterday, and one size isn’t going to fit all.
That’s why I need to trust you to make the best life decisions for yourself. I’m not equipped to make those decisions for you.
I’m also not going to go out of my way to fix your mistakes though, either. Not because I’m callous, but because I think we are all on our own journey, and there is no safety net out there.
Life is very dangerous, you have the ability to really fuck it up. So take care of yourself, make good decisions, be strong, be independent, and have faith in yourself
The surgery is not only cosmetic, it has several health benefits.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/mental-health-benefits-associated-with-gender-affirming-surgery/
It seems like you are selectively uninformed. You put breast argumentation in the same basket as extreme body mods.
Your choice to deprive your children of medication that would reduce their rate of suicidality is concerning. Would you let your son wear a dress?
Breast augmentation is a body mod. It’s putting silicone under the skin to project a certain aesthetic, same as similar body modifications.
The mental health benefits of cosmetic surgeries aren’t what I would consider ‘health care’ either. Like I said, some people get tattoos all over their faces. I’m sure that improves their mental health. I wouldn’t say that makes it a recommended health care service for people with low self esteem or anything.
If someone is unhappy and it is causing them mental health distress and they feel like cosmetic surgery will make them happy, and they receive the cosmetic surgery that makes them happy, how is that ‘health care’?
If someone is happier with bigger breasts, that’s consider health care? This is so stupid
If a dude injects synthol into his arms so his muscles appear bigger and that makes him happy, that’s just him practicing health care on himself?
Like what are we even talking about here?
As far as I’m aware, there is no mental default for ‘healthy’. Not like there is with the body. The brain functions in a much different way than the body does. What makes one person feel happy isn’t going to make another person happy. This is called personality and emotion.
The medical field can sometimes return a defective body to a working state through medical intervention. I haven’t seen medicine be able to make someone ‘happy’ though.
It sounds like a lot of this argument revolves around making someone feel happy. I just don’t see how happiness is considered health care, in any serious sense. Happiness is up to the individual, has a lot to do with how someone feels, and is not directly tied to a medical process that can augment someone’s base happiness.
These kinds of studies are always done through surveys, because there is no medical test that defines a persons level of happiness. All it is is filling out survey questions.
“On a scale of 1-10 how happy do you feel?” “On a scale of 1-10 how happy do you feel now?” “Do you have more or less suicidal ideation today?”
It’s not very scientific, people aren’t very good at quantifying their own happiness and there is no objective testing to give you a reliable score.
You can try to medicate the chemistry in the brain to try to affect someone’s mood or happiness level, but even now studies are coming out saying things like depression aren’t tied as much to brain chemistry as they thought 20 years ago.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/what-causes-depression
This is to say that what we might considered correct today, isn’t necessarily correct. The right thing never changes, as the absolute truth remains constant, but our perception of and uncovering of what that truth is, changes.
They did lobotomies on people, ffs.
Sounds like this should be something that is discussed and decided upon by a medical professional and their patient. Mr. conservative over here wants big government intervening in peoples lives. weird.
When did I say that?