Dependent on a child’s changeable feelings

About that custody battle over the kid whose mother wanted to trans him while his father did not

The Younger case has gained much media attention, in the U.S. and beyond. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the BBC all seem to cast the father as the villain, in particular for his refusal to agree that his child is transgender. Rolling Stone opines that the Younger story has become a “terrifying right-wing talking point.” Vox is worried about Republican state legislators’ trying to introduce bills prohibiting chemical and surgical interference with the sexual development of children who say they’re transgender, and “what [this] could mean for families nationwide” when “legislators want to have a say in whether Luna Younger should be allowed to socially transition.” For the Left, the Younger story is a tale of backwards attitudes victimizing a child.

Not the whole left though – there are quite a lot of us who think it would be victimizing the child to let this fantasy ruin his life before he’s old enough to understand what people are doing to him.

Since there are no objective tests to confirm a transgender diagnosis, all of this is arbitrary and dependent on a child’s changeable feelings. To make aggressive treatment more acceptable, its advocates have come up with a media-friendly euphemism, “gender affirmation.” If it’s affirming, activists say, it’s also kindness, love, acceptance, and support. The opposite, trying to help a child feel more comfortable with his body, is a rejection: abuse, hatred, “transphobia,” or “conversion therapy” likely to lead to child suicide. This is a lie — a lie designed to obscure a critical truth: that neither a child, nor his parents on his behalf, can truly consent to experimental, life-altering, and irreversible treatments for which there is no evidentiary support.

More.

Comments

10 responses to “Dependent on a child’s changeable feelings”

  1. Ben Avatar

    Ah yes. The conversion characterized by not changing something.

  2. Blood Knight in Sour Armor Avatar
    Blood Knight in Sour Armor

    I’d actually applaud Republicans banning surgery and chemical interference (for those under the age of 18/21)… I hate that “conservatives” have it right for once.

  3. Richard Powell Avatar
    Richard Powell

    There’s a very relevant crowd-funded case coming up soon in London. Same legal team as in the Harry the Owl case Ophelia mentioned in a recent post.

    https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/protect-children/

  4. John the Drunkard Avatar
    John the Drunkard

    We have ‘ages of consent’ about sexual activity for a reason. And…we DON’T have any such protection for drastic hormonal or surgical interventions?

  5. Papito Avatar

    You know, John, beer is more dangerous than Lupron…

    Say, I wonder if a kid declares himself a beerosexual if the bar will have to serve him or be prosecuted for a hate crime.

  6. iknklast Avatar

    Papito, he could just declare himself a trans-adult, right? Because if he says he’s an adult, he must be an adult. Just like the trans-youth that claim to be younger than their actual age.

  7. Sackbut Avatar

    Debbie Hayton has a great article on this topic posted recently at Unherd.

    https://unherd.com/2019/11/a-boy-in-a-dress-is-just-a-boy-in-a-dress/

  8. Blood Knight in Sour Armor Avatar
    Blood Knight in Sour Armor

    I read this in that NR article:

    “Georgulas testified that she felt justified in socially transitioning James into Luna by her own experience as a pediatrician, by researching the medical literature on the subject, and by the support she has received online from similarly situated parents.”

    Tell me that doesn’t look like an anti-vaxxer…

  9. iknklast Avatar

    by the support she has received online from similarly situated parents

    I think this is a huge part of the dynamic. Someone has some issues, maybe depression or anxiety or just ordinary everyday stress. They research online; they find a site that lists every symptom they have (and every symptom everybody has, including many things that aren’t symptoms), and they think, hey, maybe that’s me. They enter the community, tentatively, and are welcomed with effusive warmth and fawned over and told how no one has ever understood them, but we do, and you are welcome here, and the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate the specialness of you. They wrap them in a cocoon and suggest they ignore all opposing views, because those people hate them, and don’t want them to express their really, really true selves. They stroke them and pet them and make them feel like they finally belong, here in this place, and that means they must be whatever this place says they are.

    It’s similar to how church brings you in, welcomes you, tells you how you are one of god’s children, etc. It can really do a piece on your mind.

  10. Acolyte of Sagan Avatar
    Acolyte of Sagan

    iknklast, what you have just described is possibly the primary way that people deal with the cognitive dissonance brought on by believing something that is clearly not true, be it gods, vaccines are bad, boys are girls, the earth is flat, etc. Find a community of like-minded people who will reinforce that false belief. The more people who validate the belief the less the dissonance bothers the believer.