Natural lifestyles vs. transitioning kids - how are the two reconciled?

[cockblocker]

I’m a little confused by the incongruity between putting a child on a lifetime course of medication as a route which allows them to express their true identity and thus happiness, whilst simultaneously natural remedies and self-acceptance are celebrated. I know someone who is very vocal about the importance of natural ingredients in cosmetics, is vegan, a nature lover with very new agey beliefs and is also a champion of body positivity. Additionally, this person is supportive of gay rights and their daughter, who is autistic, has come out as gay. The child is currently seeking the advice of the gender clinic, and whilst I’ve always considered this mother to be a great parent, I don’t understand how she can elevate the importance of natural purity and self-acceptance in other areas, yet sees a path to medication with uncertain long-term health prospects as the way to deal with gender dysphoria (I admit I don't know this person well and am not trying to judge). Does it all come down to the way in which we have been marketed consumer goods to express our identity, so that any choice which provides self-affirmation is a valid one? Isn’t that just nonsense if so many of these choices then contradict each other? Fast feminists praise those who go on Instagram make-up free and use the hashtag #strongnotskinny to promote healthy fit bodies over starving ones. At the same time, there is also a parallel rise in cosmetic surgery procedures, yet those who follow the natural route to personal acceptance often don't speak out about this. How can choice itself be the ultimate holy grail, when the choice involves spending vast amounts of money and endangering one’s health by submitting to patriarchal ideas of what it is to be a woman? Is choice the reason why such an unhealthy and artificial solution to gender dysphoria is so easily swallowed as a modern-day fairy tale, when the reality is so drastically unhealthy? Furthermore, is this the end result of post-feminism, that it has allowed for a pornographic version of femininity to become the mainstream, and for those young girls who thus feel horrified at the prospect of having to become a sex doll in order to be accepted volunteer instead to be maimed so as to present themselves as men? I’m sure it’s incredibly difficult as a parent to choose how to best deal with a child with gender dysphoria or AGP and I don’t wish to insult anybody for the incredibly difficult decisions they have to make, but I find it hard to understand how anyone can justify these conflicting stances.

When you realise that in this case the various causes and lifestyle choices are a result of a desire to be seen as special and above the common herd, then it makes sense.

I have wondered the same. They also seem ok with putting pink or blue hair dye on young children

What a weird, confused post, OP. Being gay is not the same thing as transitioning.

I agree that this can come from narc parents and it's something I worry about. With this person it's not coming from a sense of self-aggrandisement I think, so much as these causes give her fragile sense of identity and lack of self-esteem a sense of comfort.

Jamdani - I wasn't suggesting it is. I simply meant that she has no homophobic reasons to have her daughter 'converted'.

commercialism
buying identity- 'natural' stuff, which actually costs more, but is easier than growing/making it yourself
= pay money to buy/fix your gender issues, rather than doing the hard work of challenging gender

newtlover - yes, I agree. I suppose there is an ideology behind all her (consumer) interests that bring her comfort too, as there is with trans ideology. I think she's really looking for spiritual consolation.

Jamdani - if it wasn't clear, I mean her daughter has both come out as gay and trans, wanting to be a boy, hence visiting the gender clinic.

I 100% agree with you here and it's also something that I have wondered. It's like the critical thinking has just been switched off in these people. this is such an unhealthy unnatural lifestyle to be promoting.

The Medical Profession are seriously worried about the prospect of not being able to do any operations at all even urgent lifesize saving operations because of the problems with antibiotics becoming resistant. So to be encouraging people down a route where they're going to need unnecessary operations to healthy bodies seems crazy.

Plus of course in order to validate this delusion these people become lifetime medical patients and we don't know what the consequences will be of putting children on puberty blockers and of putting adults on cross sex hormones for the rest of their lives. I have read about men for example who have had to come off them in their 50s because of health reasons who then wake up and wonder what on earth they've done to themselves.

I have a MTF friend who has had a lot of health problems due to taking hormones.

Yes when you look at how the East German athletes from the 80s fared.

There is evidence to indicate that for both men and women, athletes' fertility was affected by the performance-enhancing drugs. A 2008 qualitative study of 52 former East German athletes found those who were able to have children reported a higher rate of disability and chronic disease.

Also the athletes themselves suffered very serious organ damage, mostly of the heart, i.e. calcified heart, coronaries; a large number of dialysis patients, i.e. kidneys or liver are damaged; and many, many psychological illnesses, some of them extreme. Severe depression, heart conditions, degenerative bone disease and infertility.

Yes, it makes me feel sad for my friend, they're only in their late thirties and have a lot of problems. Especially as they're not actually gender dysphoric. I know this person very well and it's more of a kink for them, seems like a big risk for something so unnecessary. But at least they are an adult and can be fully informed of the risks and use their judgement to make that decision, kids can't be expected to do that.

Religions and cults do this. I was brought up a Catholic and from an early age was troubled by the contradiction that the love of God was all encompassing, yet if one could not believe one was condemned to an eternity in the fires of Hell undergoing unimaginable torture, which I was told on a regular basis. Now I would just go WTF, bog off with your bullying nastiness. Then, I became clinically depressed.

I think capitalism is a huge driver of all this. It’s all about consumer choice. Even the natural ‘alternative’ choice generally involves buying a lot of stuff. It also leads to a position in which the self is sovereign, hence the cultish worship of identity above more traditional values of community/ moral responsibility.

When I was younger, almost all of my strictest health food co-op shopping vegan pals had absolutely no problems stuffing themselves full of various ecstasy pills. They would be pretty much the only things they would not require a full ingredients list for. I think the thinking is, they want what they want and will try to get it in as natural and environmentally friendly way as possible, but if it's not possible to go the green route, they're still going to want to get where they're going.

The irony is astounding isnt it? Comitting themselves or their children to a lifetime supply of hormones and other medications straight out of the door of the pharmaceutical companies they would normally shun.

I think you all make some fantastic points, very interesting and thought provoking. Perhaps the emphasis coming from various different angles: healthy eating, New Age spirituality, popular psychology, and then social media all encourage an idea that there is a “real”self, an “ideal self” lurking, waiting to be discovered or revealed and almost any method is acceptable in the quest to discover that self. That self for some young people has taken on the concept of a “Gender Identity”.

(After rereading I realise I am close to just expanding upon what Blanketbox has already said, pointing the finger at capitalism.)

I think that explains the cognitive dissonance, especially in the young. All these vastly different ideas and ideologies are all presented by YouTube as equal in merit and Instagram in a never ending stream of the quest for perfection and meaning - but quickly. So the gentler tropes of “do no harm”, caring for the environment and compassion line up with radical body modification, if necessary, to reveal the “real” you. Depression and anxiety is apparently rising in the generations under 35 and so that may also explain their willingness to take drugs for pleasure as well as to medicate.

What interests me is the kids that are resistant to mental health issues and decide not to change themselves radically. I have three teenagers. So far I only know of a few teens with mental health struggles and no trans kids or kids that are following any radical ideologies or struggling with drug or alcohol problems, So they are not all buying what the world is selling, that is very interesting to me. Especially as I am hoping to raise healthy young adults who are critical thinkers. Seeing as they are on their phones so much, I would think the brainwashing would be much more successful, personally.

Perhaps the often mentioned fact that a majority of kids that decide to transition already have a history of anxiety and/or depression, autism, ADHD, eating disorders, being bullied, trauma, being a victim of sexual assault and a host of various issues which perhaps create a vulnerable young person, that previously we would support through their adolescence with talk therapy and ADs. Now, however, we as a society are willing to be complicit in a serious situation which if it includes drugs and surgery is supporting self-harm in my opinion, especially as in the past most of these kids would have eventually identified as homosexual.

I think you can see the appeal of changing gender and your identity pretty radically, as a creative escape route that has a huge cheering section on-line. The final part is that at least with the study coming out of Brown University in the USA one finding was that a majority of these kids were identified as Gifted and Talented by their schools and were above average in academics. This points to me to CLASS. As we know, kids in the middle and upper classes are more likely to be identified as G & T and it is the upper classes that will be more likely to have the time, money and resources to faff around with all the fads, be it dietary, technological, fashion etc.

The study also found students of color who had been adopted by white familes were over represented. Kids of color raised in their biological families were under represented, I think they most likely have some protective factors, only just because anecdotally (I am in the States) of my kids friends who are from those communities, Gender ideology just doesn’t seem to have made the same in-roads. They are GC, although also respectful of those who are questioning.

In the same way Eating Disorders were shown to be socially contagious amongst friendship groups (especially the wealthy white girls). It would be very interesting to study (if you were ever allowed to) if transition is a middle/upper class movement, at least in the USA. I am not suggesting that working-class kids are not deciding to transition, just that, for various reasons the numbers are tilted toward a wealthier contingent with kids and parents who have more time and money on their hands to explore gender in this way. Maybe the pro-trans parents have also been through college and believe they are on the “right side of history”. Another clue is the incredibly lucid and analytical comments from parents on 4th Wave Now and Transgnder Trend who are gender critical. These are families (on all sides) who are practiced at using their brains a lot!

Borntobequiet has put her finger on it, I think: just look at religion. Millions of people accept equally contradictory beliefs when it comes to religion, without any problem or suffering from cognitive dissonance. So I don't think it's necessary to involve capitalism in an explanation.

The whole "purity" thing is clearly related to religion: it's something religions tend to be preoccupied with. "Becoming your true self" could arguably be seen as related to purity as well: metaphors like 'stripping away the layers of corruption to reveal the pure soul beneath' come to mind here. Or the Christian belief in "mortifying the flesh" to become more pure and spiritual.

Also, I suppose the medically ill-informed could argue that hormones are "natural"???? Because bodies produce them?

A clarification for my post above: I was using the phrase cognitive dissonance in its original meaning: "the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values." I am old enough to have learned that meaning at uni! I do know it has come more recently to be used to mean just having conflicting beliefs, rather than discomfort experienced over this.

Didn’t quite realise how massive my post had got till I posted it! I just had my last chemo and the prednisone I took at home is keeping me wide awake on the West Coast next to snoring DH!

Ida - I just read your post now and found it very interesting, so please don't apologise!

What you say about it being mainly a middle class phenomenon is interesting, but also worrying as it may then come to be seen as something to aspire to amongst wider society, as you say, tied into this notion of revealing the real self.

Congratulations on your last chemo!

I think it is tied to ultimate end point of Western thought being centred around the individual, and a drive to be the most unique and special individual, who is so different from everyone else that they couldn’t possibly understand. Hence the co-opting of identity politics by middle class white males, who don’t like being told that they are doing life on Easy Mode and that many of the attributes they thought they had by virtue of innate intelligence and hard work, are actually due to a society which grants them immense and unchecked privilege.

I would bet the farm on Japanese and (South) Korean communities having a much, much lower incidence of transactivism, as the cultural drive there is one of group harmony and benefits to the group, rather than being special as an individual. This is despite those communities being more attached to traditional sex roles.

Tl;dr - if your culture prizes the individual above all else, don’t be surprised when people go increasingly bonkers trying to out-individualise everyone else.