Persuading a TA to change her mind

The situations are very different. Both terminating and keeping the pregnancy will have profound effects on the mother so support will be needed whatever is decided. With transgender medicine, not intervening with drugs or surgery is by far the safer option.

If sterilization is the biggest concern, do members of this board also oppose young mothers having the right to keep accidental pregnancies?

Rates of complications that lead to death/permanent sterility are very high in 12-15 year old mothers, so should they be forced to abort pregnancies because of that risk? Should it be their parents' decision? Or should Guillick hold and the decision be up to them?

I think you're the one who doesn't understand the consequences of filling a young person with wrong sex hormones. (They're not replacement hormones. What are they replacing?)

To add, @Glitterknickerbockers

You say you’ve not endorsed or condemned medical mutilation of children, but you have said “perhaps not EVERY SINGLE transgender child or person is irreparably harmed and live happy lives.”

This suggests you think that there is such thing as a transgender child and also that some children remain unharmed by being labelled transgender.

I disagree with both of those things.

I think I see why we are disagreeing @Glitterknickerbockers but please correct me if I am wrong :

You seem to think that transitioning a child is a valid medical treatment.

I think it’s child abuse.

Oh good, you're here to add the characteristic sarky HTH to comments as usual.

Once your posse turn up to bring the sark and performative camaraderie over how everyone else is stupid and wrong and the FWR crew are superior intellectuals I'm out. It's just a bin fire from there.

Bringing forced sterilisation and CSA into a conversation about gender affirming care is wild and inappropriate. It's basically trying to lump in anyone who doesn't think everyone who transitioned as a minor is not permanently damaged and living a terrible life and paedophilies. And is absolutely DARVO. HTH.

I genuinely don't understand the anger directed at women raising concerns about life-changing hormones and surgery in children were the risks are so high and benefits are unclear.

Why isn't everyone on both sides advocating for a therapy solution? If the problem is distressed feelings then this should be the focus, surely?

If a child can live a happy life without hormones and surgery, in a gender non-conforming life style, why wouldn't we want this for them?

Ears piercing is hardly comparable to organs being removed. I know here in the UK that's not happening, but I've read of 13 year old having their breasts removed in the USA. I don't understand how anyone could ever compare ear piercing or cyst surgery to the removal of healthy organs. That's such a bizarre juxtaposition. Jarring, actually. 10p versus £1 million.

Exactly. Look past the "you lot" bluster and it's just a bizarre, special pleading DARVO post.

Ears piercing is hardly comparable to organs being removed. I know here in the UK that's not happening, but I've read of 13 year old having their breasts removed in the USA. I don't understand how anyone could ever compare ear piercing or cyst surgery to the removal of healthy organs. That's such a bizarre juxtaposition. Jarring, actually. 10p versus £1 million.

We are not saying the two scenarios are identical, we are saying that both are wrong. They are comparable because of the devastating and permanent impact of the treatments and procedures. Children (and, as Cass has identified, young adults) cannot consent to losing their sexual function and more.

This.

At 10 years old I was perfectly capable of consenting to getting my ears pierced but my mum had to sign the form.

Not really comparable with allowing yourself to take hormones that will mean you will be sterilised, is it? Practice what you preach analogy-wise.

Your views about the agency of children for "gender affirming care" are very much fringe ones, hth.

Thankyou! Some common sense!!

I seriously can't believe people are comparing minors giving consent on how their future is going to be (bearing in mind they are giving consent to something they have actually asked for, not something someone decided they should have and just needs a signature to get their way with them) to CSA and forced sterilisation.

This is why the GC can't have a reasonable conversation with anyone who is actually transgender, or people who even know transgender people just in passing, or actually even just people who have experience things like FGM, CSA or have living memory of people who were forcibly sterilised by oppressive regimes. Because it's heinous to compare the two and shows a failure of logical ability.

To back track by saying "it's not exactly the same we're just saying it's similar" does not make the original statement that transitioning as a minor and forced sterilisation really aren't that different correct or acceptable.

BECAUSE CONSENT MATTERS.

At 10 years old I was perfectly capable of consenting to getting my ears pierced but my mum had to sign the form. At 12 I made my own medical decision to remove a cyst, but my mum still had to sign the form. I had gynae procedures at 14 which I consented to, but mum had to sign the forms. It's just a legal requirement, it doesn't mean I couldn't make my own decisions. To compare medical decisions like these to CSA just shows the tactics GC posters use as a blunt hammer to bash people over the head with until they agree or give up. Of course a 12 year old can't consent to sex. That's completely irrelevant as to whether a 12 year old can consent to their own medical choices. It's also quite telling that you see me pointing out a failure of logical and false equivalences as being desperate to defend the medical mutilation of children @Leafstamp I haven't endorsed or condemned this so I don't know where you got this from. You're just seeing what you want to see.

Can't let those pesky facts get in the way of the outrage though can we! However would you feel superior then!?

Minors offering consent isn't a binary though. It's always contextual. So, no, a 12 year old can't consent to sexual contact with a 30 year old, but a 15 year old can consent to being on the Pill. 16 and 17 year olds would normally make a bunch of decisions about medical treatment, and can do when younger. My sister had a lot of very invasive medical treatment between the ages of 13 and 15 and the doctors and our parents really tried to make sure she had as much control as possible and made a lot of her choices. That's why Gillick competence is a thing.

Damn those pesky facts huh?!

We are not saying the two scenarios are identical, we are saying that both are wrong. They are comparable because of the devastating and permanent impact of the treatments and procedures. Children (and, as Cass has identified, young adults) cannot consent to losing their sexual function and more.

As a thought experiment do you think it matters if a 12 year old gives “consent” to an adult to perform a sexual act on them? Do you think a 17 year old can “consent” to a tattoo?

If the person lacks the capacity to understand just what they are consenting to, that consent is meaningless. How do you not see that?

My four year old would have consented to swapping our house for a month at Disneyland. That doesn’t mean he understood the housing ladder.

Even with all those big opinions and facts you all can't understand the difference between consent + replacement hormones and forced sterilisation with no replacement hormones?

There's something wrong with you all. Whether you think the consent is misguided or not, having to give consent first is important.

Yes. What @MissScarletInTheBallroom said.

I happened to just see this on X/Twitter:

x.com/journalismseen/status/1893187263787331940?s=46

I don't believe there is any kind of counselling which can establish that a minor has capacity to consent to destroying their healthy body in pursuit of an impossible goal. Even if the counselling were realistic and fact based, how can a teenager understand the consequences of ruining their future fertility and sexual function, and drastically reducing the number of people who would be interested in having a relationship with them? And that's before you even address the fact that in the last few years almost all counsellors have adopted an "affirmation only" approach to gender confused children (essentially predetermining the outcome of the counselling) and that nobody appears to have explained to these children what biological sex actually is and the fact that you can't change it.

Most egregious of all are the cases of children being socially transitioned as young as 4 or 5. If you tell a 5 year old girl she is a boy, she will believe it. And then by the time she is 10 or 11 the idea of letting her start her periods as nature intended has already become unthinkable.

As for waiting periods, most detransitioners will tell you that they were approved for hormones after one or two appointments. Even on the NHS, people like Sinead Watson walked away from her first appointment with a prescription for testosterone in hand. And if a child is unfortunate enough to have had woke parents who contacted those ghouls at Mermaids or Gender GP, there really is no such thing as mandatory counselling or waiting periods.

No, you get a grip. Why are you so keen to defend the mutilation and artificial hormone treatment that has been used on vulnerable children, most of whom were one of autistic, victim of trauma or growing up to be same sex attracted and ‘transing away the gay’?

You clearly haven’t read about cases like Ritchie Heron, and the greater number of female detransitioners.

You are aware that puberty blockers for gender issues are now banned in this country because of the horrors that have gone on?

Decisions made by an individual after mandatory counselling and waiting periods are absolutely different to things being done to them against their will. Get a grip.

@HalfArsedTerf It is one of the saddest things about this: that women are being driven apart by this, friendships affected, misunderstandings, suspicion, accusations…. I also live in a small town and absolutely recognise your fears. Are men equally affected? Seems not. So why is this “our“ problem to solve. I wish you the best and hope things work out somehow.

Boys and young men have been given puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and had their genitals removed without evidence that it would help their condition. This has happened under the banner of “transgender”.

This is not informed consent - not so very far away from “against their will” really.

Wtf do young boys castrated against their will and not given any replacement hormones have to do with transgender people? That's a whole leap of logic there.

What do you think about these guys -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato

Irreparably harmed or not?

Just to move away a little from transphobia, I think to a certain extent this is also just part and parcel of sharing your political/religious/whatever views with 2000 of your closest friends and acquaintances. Someone is periodically going to not like what you say. That might be your views on abortion or immigration or COVID etc etc. We won't agree on everything and everyone has different deal breakers.

If you don't want this to happen, you kind of have to stick to silly memes and even then someone will probably block you at some point because they find memes irritating. It's social media.