Trans Teens and Controversy

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From The Atlantic cover story:

[O]ther resources, including those produced by major LGBTQ organizations, place the emphasis on acceptance rather than inquiry. The Human Rights Campaign’s “Transgender Children & Youth: Understanding the Basics” web page, for example, encourages parents to seek the guidance of a gender specialist. It also asserts that “being transgender is not a phase, and trying to dismiss it as such can be harmful during a time when your child most needs support and validation.” Similarly, parents who consult the pages tagged “transgender youth” on glaad’s site will find many articles about supporting young people who come out as trans but little about the complicated diagnostic and developmental questions faced by the parents of a gender-exploring child. …

Some LGBTQ advocates have called for gender dysphoria to be removed from the DSM-5, arguing that its inclusion pathologizes being trans. But gender dysphoria, as science currently understands it, is a painful condition that requires treatment to be alleviated. Given the diversity of outcomes among kids who experience dysphoria at one time or another, it’s hard to imagine a system without a standardized, comprehensive diagnostic protocol, one designed to maximize good outcomes.


More.

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Mission Creep

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More. On HRC’s overheated response to the public-sector unions and mandatory dues collection case, I’m reminded of this, via Politifact: “All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,” FDR wrote. “It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.”

FDR felt that compensation for federal employees should be set by Congress and the president, not through bargaining with unions, since public service as part of government is different from working for a profit-driven private enterprise. That policy was changed by JFK and ever since Democrats, who receive massive funding from public-sector unions, have put government workers’ interests ahead of taxpayers’.

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Florist Case Sent Back for Rehearing

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More. Tyler O’Neil at PJ Media writes:

It appears Stutzman will have to show what Phillips showed — that anti-Christian bias was fundamental to the original ruling against her. This will prove more difficult than in Phillips’ case, and the odds are good that the Washington Supreme Court will reissue its old ruling, again prompting a Supreme Court appeal.

Perhaps in 2020 or 2021, the Supreme Court will finally defend free speech and religious freedom, explaining that a Christian florist’s decision to opt out of serving a same-sex wedding is fundamentally different from refusing to serve all LGBT people. Only at that point will justice truly have been served.

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Putting the “T” in Perspective

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Andrew Sullivan blogs (second item):

Children and adolescents are subject to a myriad competing impulses — hormonal, social, familial, psychological — and some early identities wax or wane away as maturity arrives. And so the movement to assign a trans identity to children who exhibit gender dysphoria has some great benefits, in relieving acute psychic pressure, but also inevitably, has some drawbacks. If a gay or a straight kid happens to show signs of behaving as or identifying with the other gender, they can be prematurely defined as trans, and start on a track that will not work for them. …

We should be attentive to gender dysphoria, and watch for signs of a kid being genuinely trans, and care for him or her. That’s been a big and hugely welcome change from the gruesome past. But to automatically equate non-stereotypical gender behavior with being trans is a dangerous overreach. Gender dysphoria affects countless young gay boys as well as lesbian girls, along with straight boys and girls who don’t fit gender stereotypes but are nowhere near being trans or gay. Keeping that in mind is also essential. And that, to my mind, requires an abundance of caution and patience, which is why I favor a ban on irreversible sex reassignment surgery and hormone blockers until the age of 18. I’m all for supporting trans youth in their identity and dignity. But if you’re not regarded as mature enough to vote, you should not be regarded as mature enough to alter your body and your gender irreversibly.

The danger in the alternative is that gay boys and girls can actually be mis-defined as trans by well-meaning parents or therapists. Which, it seems to me, is as homophobic as defining us as straight.

More. Sullivan makes this point as well:

There’s also the reactionary element in prematurely defining gay people as trans. There’s a reason why one of the countries with the most sex reassignment surgeries is Iran. For the mullahs, it is homosexuality or ambiguous sexuality that is the problem. Surgically reassigning gender is the solution. Of course there’s a world of difference between forced sex reassignment surgery in Iran and voluntary transitioning in the West. But for some reactionaries, trans people who adhere to gender roles are preferable to gay people who don’t.

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Pride Month Dissidents

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Once I attended Pride events religiously, but I’ve felt this way for many years.

Satire from The Onion the isn’t far from the mark:

Not a satire:

More. Another testimonial:

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The Varied Experiences of the LGBTQ “Community”

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More. A tenuous “community” at best, with 46% of LGBTQ people identifying as bisexual (vs. 32% gay and 16% lesbian). A political movement, albeit one that is now an arm of general progressive leftism, and a cultural identity. But “community” is more of a stretch than ever.

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The Pronoun Controversy and Compelled Speech

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Over at Reason, John Stossel writes:

“Shame on you! Shame on you!” chanted protestors after psychology professor Jordan Peterson said he’d refuse to obey a law that would require everyone to call people by the pronoun they prefer—pronouns like “ze” instead of “he” or “she.” …

The pronoun controversy seems silly. “If somebody wants to be called ze or zir, why not?” I ask him for my next online video.

“I don’t care what people want to be called,” he answered. “But that doesn’t mean I should be compelled by law to call them that. The government has absolutely no business whatsoever ever governing the content of your voluntary speech.”

What if I politely asked him to call me ze?

“We could have a conversation about that,” says Peterson, “just like I would if you asked me to use a nickname. But there’s a big difference between privately negotiated modes of address and legislatively demanded, compelled speech.”

That sounds like a reasonable, libertarian take on the issue, but for comments like that, Peterson is called “bigot,” “Hitler,” “transphobic piece of s—.”

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