Prospect Magazine: Kathleen Stock v Robin Moira White

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

Great discussion.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/gender-wars-two-opposing-perspectives-on-the-trans-and-womens-rights-debate

Gender wars: two opposing perspectives on the trans and women’s rights debate
A lawyer and philosopher respond to seven propositions—ranging from single-sex spaces to puberty blockers for children

My belief is that I had all the capacity required to make a choice about my gender aged 12.

To help me to understand this comment, what did you think 'gender' was aged 12? What do you mean by 'gender' now?

My belief is that I had all the capacity required to make a choice about my gender aged 12.

And from where you are now, it is easy to look back on that and decide it was correct. The benefit of time. People do need the time, skills, and life experience to weigh up decisions like this. Something 12 olds do not have. And other adults making this decision for them is always going to be subject to error, as they don't have a crystal ball. Which is why watchful waiting is always the best response. I understand that this means that a minority of people will experience a puberty that they always think they shouldn't have had. But this will not be the case for the majority.

My children have all decided they don’t believe there’s a God in primary school. None of them, including my teenagers, have the capacity to understand a treatment that would leave them without something they’ve never experienced, sex.

It’s not about your capacity to decide your gender. It’s about capacity to consent to the medical treatment that comes with that decision about your gender.

Again, you’re not addressing the fundamental question. How does a child that age have the ability to understand the true implications of what comes with puberty blockers for the rest of their life?

I think many female people here could tell many moving, powerful anecdotes about what formed their views and form a strong part of their adult-chosen narrative of themselves. Their stories, their traumas.

The difference is that they're not using these as a reason to leverage away the rights of the opposite sex. Plus they're female, so no one would care anyway. Something about 'there is no good reason' (any female person could ever share) that would be relevant.

@NotBadConsidering

My children have all decided they don’t believe there’s a God in primary school. None of them, including my teenagers, have the capacity to understand a treatment that would leave them without something they’ve never experienced, sex.

It’s not about your capacity to decide your gender. It’s about capacity to consent to the medical treatment that comes with that decision about your gender.

Again, you’re not addressing the fundamental question. How does a child that age have the ability to understand the true implications of what comes with puberty blockers for the rest of their life?

Its the answer I have. I had that capacity, and I'm not that unusual or remarkable so SOME others will have.

That's my answer. You may not like it, and you are entitled to your opinion about it, but I don't have another answer.

To clarify, your post on the previous page said you had capacity to decide your gender. Are you saying you believe that at the age of 12 you had the capacity to fully understand the implications of puberty blockers, the fact they would leave you without sexual function, fertility, decreased bone density etc? You understood this at 12?

I just want to be clear about what your saying you had capacity of: deciding your gender, or this treatment pathway.

Yes, of course. But for me, and in our family, it was a matter based on a similar level of conviction / understanding / capacity, and I was asked whether I thought I had capacity at 12 - that is the evidence I have.

If you reject religion at 12, you can always change your mind and come back to it later (or not). There is no lasting effect on your health or wellbeing.

If you have puberty blockers at 12, you will be left infertile and with impaired sexual function for life, since we know that it leads to treatment with cross sex hormones (and no natural puberty) in nearly 100% of cases. There's no going back. Do you really believe that a child of 12 can understand what impact a lack of sexual function might have on their life as an adult? Do you believe that a child of 12 is to mature enough to decide that they never want to have their own children?

And that's before we get on to all the other effects of puberty blockers like osteoporosis.

All this for what? A higher pitched voice and (possibly) more feminine looking face for the boys who take these drugs to help with the dubious aim of 'passing'? With the downside that genital surgery will be more complex. And I can't think of any 'benefit' at all for girls who take them. Just appalling effects on their health.

Its the answer I have. I had that capacity, and I'm not that unusual or remarkable so SOME others will have.

That's my answer. You may not like it, and you are entitled to your opinion about it, but I don't have another answer

I would say you didn't have that capacity. The benefit of transitioning as an adult meant that you had the time to weigh up and consider your medical pathway options, based on a feeling that you say you had since childhood. It's at that stage, as an adult, you had the capacity to consent to medical treatment /surgery.

The religious analogy doesn’t work. From early childhood onwards, children experience religion. They are exposed to it at many schools, holidays like Easter and Christmas, and so on. Children, like mine and and you when you were a child Robin, rejected it and are/were able to have the capacity to do so because they experienced it, formed their opinions on it, apply their logic and intelligence to it, and reach a decision.

With puberty blockers we are talking about children making decisions about things they haven’t yet - or should not have lest they’re being abused - experienced. How can a child, even a bright, intelligent child, have the capacity to prospectively reject something they know nothing about?

My two teenagers are highly intelligent and could not form an opinion based on fact in this matter.

I believe that you believe Robin, that you think you would have been able to adequately consent to puberty blockers at the age of 12. I believe you are wrong, so wrong, and I suspect deep down you know that you wouldn’t have fully understood at all. Anyone who knows any 12 year olds, even the brightest, will not know a 12 year old that can give up a future sex life.

And I wouldn’t mind so much if you were just kidding yourself Robin, but you’re not; you’re putting this idea out there in a position of influence to the detriment of children who are gender non-conforming, and I find that unforgivable.

Its the answer I have. I had that capacity, and I'm not that unusual or remarkable so SOME others will have.

So with the benefit of hindsight, you have decided that you had the capacity to have your sexual function removed and to be sterilised at the age of 12. Very precocious.

But I wonder how you had gained that understanding of adult sexual relations at that age? I don't believe it is possible that you had. If a child has had a sexual experience at that age, it is, by definition, abusive, since children of that age cannot consent to sex. This is a legal argument, but it is based on what children of that age can know and understand about sexual activity. And children cannot understand how adults experience sexual activity because they are not adults.

It sets a dangerous precedent to suggest that children can consent to treatment which impairs their sexual function as adults, because it implies that they have an adult understanding of sex between consenting adults. If they can consent to having their sexual function removed, some people might argue that they can also consent to sex.

And I wouldn’t mind so much if you were just kidding yourself Robin, but you’re not; you’re putting this idea out there in a position of influence to the detriment of children who are gender non-conforming, and I find that unforgivable.

Yes I agree with this and find it unforgivable too.

I wanted to be a nun when I was 12. Good thing I didn't sign up because it turns out I quite like cock.

I had that capacity

Even if you’re 100% retroactively correct about your thoughts and feelings and mental capacity at age 12 - and this is not the kind of thing that human beings get right about themselves - you still weren’t equipped to make that decision with informed consent. You lacked the relevant information.

You can look back on it now and say avoiding male puberty would have been worth sacrificing your sexual pleasure as an adult. But that’s a retrospective judgement. 12 year old you had no way of knowing how important your adult sexuality would or would not be to you. And of course even now you don’t know what health effects you’d have experienced in this counterfactual. You don’t know whether you’d still have had the mental capacity to become a barrister, for example, if you’d blocked the brain development that comes with puberty. (Never mind the effects of sacrificing male privilege, which others have already touched on.)

I don’t want to pile on but it’s so irresponsible to confidently assert a statement like this, which is basically just wishful thinking, when the health and well-being of children are on the line.

The thing you're missing Robin is that you will never go through menopause and so you can't possibly understand the impact that has on a person's life. Not just their sex life but every aspect of your mental and physical health is altered by menopause.

Anxiety
Depression
Brain Fog
Panic attacks
Loss of confidence
Weight gain
High Blood Pressure
Palpitations
Skin irritations and sensitivity
Osteoporosis
Insomnia
Vaginal atrophy
Low Libido
Headaches
Body aches and joint pain

These are some of the side effects of menopause. Now its one thing as an otherwise stable middle aged woman with friends and peers who have gone through the same thing. Its an entirely other thing as a late teen or 20 something with other complex needs to deal with and you expect a 12 year old girl to understand that this is what to expect and deal with it?

You do a great disservice to gender confused children and young people to tell them that becoming medically dependant for the rest of their life is no big deal.

Good of you to come back and continue to engage, Robin.

So, could you answer my question, please?

Why does your desire to use women's spaces trump my desire to have a single sex space?

Why does your wish trump mine?

Statistically speaking, women are at a far, far greater risk from males than transwomen are from other males.

So why does your safety, privacy and dignity matter more than mine?

Well, the first thing to say is that my 58 year old self's view of my capacity at 12 may not be the most reliable piece of evidence, but...

... at 10 and a half, as a member of a strong church-going family in a Somerset village where my father was Chairman of the Parochial Church Council, and the vicar led a bible study class for the senior class in the village school, I decided that I did not have religion and was able to express that conviction with sufficient cogency and conviction that I was allowed not to attend chuch again. And I have never waivered in that conviction. Were this not social media, I would tell you the tale of that fateful Sunday morning, which I look back on with enormous respect for the way my father handled it, and even more respect for the Reverend Luxmore-Ball.

My belief is that I had all the capacity required to make a choice about my gender aged 12.

Which does not mean, of course, that anyone else does or does not have that capacity or that it is, or is not right for a parent to give that consent, all of which depends on the facts of the particular case and, to some extent, the treating clinician.

Declaring atheism within a church-going family at age 10 to 12 is a classic (that is, bog standard normal) developmental step for bright children at that age. It fits perfectly the 'hyper-rational, emotionally undeveloped' immediately pre-pubescent phase I described upthread.

It doesn't indicate any capacity to make decisions about things you have yet to feel, experience or understand.

It is one of the earliest baby steps on a long, long journey towards cognitive, social and emotional maturity, that takes place over the following 12-15 years. It signifies the first inkling of self-realisation; 'I dare to say that God is not actually watching me, so I can say what I like about God'.

I went through the same renunciation of religion at that age. At the same and immediately following pre-pubescent developmental stage, I thought that people should decline medication for mental illness and overcome it through power of will instead. I could not comprehend suicide (remember this from a TV drama), thinking an unhappy person should just move away from the source of their unhappiness, move to Australia for example and create a new life. I had no emotional or social comprehension of why that might not be possible.

All very juvenile, very power of the will, deeply immature, utterly unequipped to make adult decisions.

My belief is that I had all the capacity required to make a choice about my gender aged 12.

Why are you arguing with a person's belief? This is what they believe. It is a valid as their belief that they are a woman. Debating it is like debating how many angels can dance on the end of a pin.

It's pointless.

It is what a 58 year-old believes.

One who clearly knows little about developmental psychology and is telling a story made linear only through the 20/20 lens of hindsight.

Maybe blocking puberty would have been right for this person (as it turned out in a counterfactual world, where that, blocked person now has the benefit of hindsight). That does not mean that this person, when aged 12, actually had the mental capacity or knowledge required to make such a decision.

Or that any other 12 year-old has that capacity.

Why are you arguing with a person's belief? This is what they believe. It is a valid as their belief that they are a woman. Debating it is like debating how many angels can dance on the end of a pin.

One would think that to arrive at a belief, there must be some process of thought to get to that point. Asking someone to consider this process of thought and try to explain why, is not unreasonable.

The value of this debate is for the lurkers.

@JellySaurus

The value of this debate is for the lurkers.

Indeed.

One would think that to arrive at a belief, there must be some process of thought to get to that point. Asking someone to consider this process of thought and try to explain why, is not unreasonable.

But you're unlikely to gain any useful information about their process of thought. It's like asking a religious person why they hold their beliefs.

Another day, another lack of defining what a 'female diaspora' is.

I mean RMW, you are the one that used it so put your money where your mouth is and tell us what you meant.

Unless the answer is too vile, even for MN???

@Shedmistress

Another day, another lack of defining what a 'female diaspora' is.

I mean RMW, you are the one that used it so put your money where your mouth is and tell us what you meant.

Unless the answer is too vile, even for MN???

Hmmm, I don't think anyone is obliged to answer every question put to them. I am learning a lot from the latest exchanges regarding the abilities of 12 year olds to make momentous and irreversible decisions.

I think when I was that age any little bit I knew about sexual activities made me feel icky and I was sure I wouldn't want to ever be part of them. And I definitely did not want to wear dresses. All water under the bridge.

But you're unlikely to gain any useful information about their process of thought. It's like asking a religious person why they hold their beliefs

Maybe so. Maybe that is it. It probably is similar to a religious belief. So asking people why they believe in gender ideology, as I have been doing for years, actually is pointless. And probably shows why there's never been a satisfactory answer. 🤔 💡