Minors and Politics
Probably inspired by the above article or one like it, someone asked today: Why is trans care necessary for minors?
Medicine has a standard of "First, do no harm." We don't adequately know how to define that with trans individuals and this issue isn't being adequately framed as a medical issue, which helps keep it controversial.
My kids were seeing an orthodontist in elementary school because they had unusual dental problems and it was deemed to be essential preventative care that would make things easier later a la "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
We need greater medical research into exactly what physiological details "make" someone trans. If we had hard data saying "If you have x physiology thing happening, you need these hormones for medical reasons including but not limited to it's critical for your immune system to function properly." this would be much less controversial.
There's far too much emphasis put on the social transition which keeps this controversial in part because it's seen as "That's just your opinion, man!"
I heard of the concept that gender is a social construct as a feminist concept long before I heard of trans anything. I've been given crap my whole life for being too tall, too athletic, too opinionated, having the wrong hobbies etc etc etc and I wondered did that mean I'm not really a woman or something.
Reading comments by people online helped me realize I'm a woman and I just object to a lot of social BS and stereotypes and pressure to put up with garbage etc. I don't really want to be a man or something like that.
I think the trans community is making a mistake to approach it this way. I think they should be pushing for studies to help identify with medical testing currently unrecognized syndromes that create a mismatch between the hormones the body needs and the hormones the body produces.
If it is possible to fairly clearly establish medical testing to identify such people, the risk of a teenager getting trans care when that isn't really what they need can drop to near zero and it can be argued for on grounds largely unrelated to gender identity.
I believe there is substantial EVIDENCE that being trans causes a compromised immune system as well as serious mental health issues of a sort only resolved by appropriate MEDICAL care. Talk therapy can be useful but it's not enough if your depression or whatever has CHEMICAL causes, such as an unrecognized hormone syndrome.
This gets treated like it's a weirdo sexual fetish or something and I believe that is a disservice to this population.
These days, women can wear jeans and flannel shirts and you go on Reddit and people will describe that as butch or lesbian style and I have no idea what they are talking about. I have seen trans discussions where MTF trans people were critical of TERFs for not dressing femininely.
Granted, I took an online test years ago and could identify gay men in the test fairly reliably but I was TERRIBLE at identifying gay women. I have no idea why that is.
But I was a full-time homemaker and mom for a lot of years. With short hair, no makeup and having not worn a dress in years, people consistently assume I'm a heterosexual woman and that's close enough to the truth to essentially be correct.
I haven't had a girlfriend in decades and don't expect to ever again have a girlfriend. My decision to be open about not being exactly straight is a political position intended to make life easier for people less able to pass for "normal."
I think the trans community should place more emphasis on establishing medical testing and medical data and medical need for hormone therapy for their health and less emphasis on dressing x way. Women have fought for decades for the right to wear pants etc. and this argument harms women's rights, thus alienating a lot of cis women, while making this issue excessively controversial for no real reason.
You can already to a large degree dress how you want. Male rock stars frequently have long hair and wear makeup without anyone suggesting this means they are gay or transgender or whatever.
Some subcultures are more accepting of "edge case" style choices but rock stars are hardly some little known obscure population. They are frequently extremely famous while doing a lot of things not acceptable in conservative corporate jobs, appearance wise.
So it's a form of picking a fight or looking for trouble unnecessarily. And I think it is holding back progress on this issue.