BUT THE CHILDREN

I don't think many people working outside pediatric healthcare really have an understanding about how comfortable healthcare providers are prescribing interventional care.

When diagnosing and treating a patient we come up with a plan of care that is weighted on total outcomes. Now this isn't a perfect system, for example we may not completely understand the potential harm of new medications. However, we are creating the plan of care with the best information we have at the time. Taking potential side effects and weighing it against the potential harm that could occur without any treatment.

I specialize in pediatric orthopedics and rehabilitation....so take anything I say about gender affirming care with a grain of salt. However, the potential outcome for not treating gender dysphoria as I understand it is pretty bad....self harm and suicide are about as bad as an outcome as one could imagine. Now weigh that against the medications that are usually prescribed for gender affirming care which are well known, and most often prescribed without negative effect for a plethora of treatments ranging from precocious puberty, to monitoring rate of which growth plates close.

Hormone replacement therapy has been going on for decades and is very common place at any hospital that atends to pediatric patients. To claim that intervention isn't appropriate for something with a potential total outcome as bad as suicide, based off "kids can't consent" is a ridiculous notion considering that the same drugs are often prescribed to make sure a child doesn't develop a limb length discrepancy after an orthopedic surgery.

Its also worth noting, that kids, especially when they are aware of their condition before puberty, are gonna have a really fucking bad time in puberty. Seeing your body change in a way, that is directly contradictory to what you want can be absolute hell. Theres also the possibility to prescribe puberty blockers and therefore stopping puberty. If a kid then later decides, that it does want to go through puberty they can stop taking the blockers. They won't really have any long term changes from going through puberty some time later, but on the other hand you just made the life of all kids that dont want to go through puberty way better.
Given the prevalence of forced mutilation of intersex babies as well as medically unnecessary circumcisions, I humbly disagree that these procedures are "weighted on total outcomes". Unnecessarily cutting off (part of) a baby's penis is not comparable to being unaware of a new drug's side effects. Every doctor who has performed that procedure was fully aware that it was medically unnecessary and did not have reason to believe the baby would not come to regret not being given a choice years down the road. I'd argue these procedures are institutionalized medical malpractice.
No shade on you personally because you seem to be approaching the topic rstionally, but I think it's critical to acknowledge that the field of medicine still has very strong biases in these matters and is not nearly as Cartesian as it is sometimes made out to be. Especially on sensitive topics such as gender identity or reproductive rights doctors have a lot of latitude to be bigoted and to unilaterally deny necessary care.
- Given the prevalence of forced mutilation of intersex babies as well as medically unnecessary circumcisions, I humbly disagree that these procedures are "weighted on total outcomes".
  As I said, it's not a perfect system. However, a lot of the times the flawed treatments of their times were influenced by how physicians perceived cultural norms.
  As cultural mores are adjusted and education within the medical community improves, treatment options are usually re-aligned to fit the science. For example circumcisions are becoming a thing of the past and intersex operations nare usually conducted after secondary sex organs develop.
  Every doctor who has performed that procedure was fully aware that it was medically unnecessary and did not have reason to believe the baby would not come to regret not being given a choice years down the road. I'd argue these procedures are institutionalized medical malpractice.
  Eh.... Doctors are a slave to social mores as much as anyone is. They are unfortunately just as susceptible to belief as lawyers or politicians. There were beliefs that spouted about hygiene etc, but in reality those were just to validate belief systems held by the vast majority of the population. In the end they believed that the harm was not very significant to the pts overall health.
  but I think it's critical to acknowledge that the field of medicine still has very strong biases in these matters and is not nearly as Cartesian as it is sometimes made out to be.
  I think it's fairly obvious that the medical system has failed several minority groups, most recently trans people. I am proclaiming how medical providers should behave and how we were trained to treat all patients. Unfortunately, as you have stated, beliefs systems unjustly often interjects itself in medical care. Whether that be in prescribing birth control or administrating gender affirming care.
- Yeah, when you live in a society that treats you like shit for an immutable characteristic that tends to happen. It’s called minority stress, and it happens to cis queer people as well.
- That's because of transphobia, not the treatment.
  I'm old enough to remember the same argument being used to "prove" gays were unstable, and it's still utter horseshit
- I made the conscious decision when I was around 14 to not transition, because I knew that it would lead to a more difficult life.
  I could not make it. I would be dead if not for transition in my early 20’s.
  My life is still more difficult, and I struggle with suicidal ideation, but that is entirely related to the way society treats me. I have been chased out of my career field, I have been told I am disgusting, I have been threatened, I have been sexually assault. Those things have happened because I am trans, and they have made me suicidal. But denying me treatment would take away the one aspect - the comfort in my own body - that helps protect me from the decision to commit suicide.
- Even if we are accepting that as true, that doesn't really have anything to do with an individual patients treatment plan. You aren't evaluating risk based on the general population, you are evaluating risk based on patient populations with the same diagnosis.
  If any risk is mitigated with gender affirming care compared to patient populations who aren't receiving care , and the risk of harmful side effects are minimal then the treatment plan is valid.
  I don't really see how you think that comparing them to the general population makes any sense?
  That would be like someone saying that people receiving treatment for HIV are still more immuno compromised than the general population.....well yeah, but treatment vastly improves their total outcomes.

The fact that bad shit is normalized isn't a great argument in this instance.

Yes it is. The argument is that people having a moral panic over kids getting gender affirming care (which they erroneously believe to be bottom surgery, that's another can of worms), which is shown to be safe and effective, are not having the same moral panic (and even are likely to be the same demographic enabling this behaviour) over actual, proven to be a disaster for your health activities, shows that all these people are simply transphobes.
- It's not transphobic to recognize a bad argument against trans hate. There are plenty of good arguments against it
- Except it's a strawman. Plenty of people are upset about over medication of children. As one of those children, kindly STFU and don't speak for us.
you missed the point. children can give informed consent to things that might prove harmful down the line, like ballet.
not so much for ADHD meds, because parents often force these on them to make them compliant and as punishment.
there is no medication without side effects. ADHD meds can have bad consequences, but we should still allow people to take them based on informed consent. apply the same logic to kids on HRT.
- I hate to break it to you about how many children are forced to do things like youth football and youth ballet...
  Children can give informed consent? We've agreed pretty unilaterally as a society that that is fundamentally untrue. Especially at the ages where children are taken to ballet classes.
- there is no medication without side effects. ADHD meds can have bad consequences, but we should still allow people to take them based on informed consent. apply the same logic to kids on HRT.
  People aren't put on ADHD medications or on hormone therapy because of any ability of informed consent. They are prescribed because a medical professional has evaluated that the outcome of their overall health with treatment is improved when compared to not being treated. The parents and the patient have a say....to a point. However a medical professional can be empowered by the courts to supercede the consent of the PT or the parent if and when deemed necessary.
  Medications have the potential of negative side effects, it's not guaranteed. Those potential side effects are weighted against the potential negative effect of inaction.
- parents often force these on them to make them compliant and as punishment.
  That sentence is doing a LOT of heavy lifting. Why do you believe this?

actually i've heard from a ton of people that youth ballet training is apparently problematic to them

but not because of the medical complications that certainly do arise with it. instead, because of supposed youth sexualization.

the right wingers don't see any problem with this.
And then let's not forget beauty pageants and professional kids sports in general. All of it in my eyes is extremely unethical. Kids should be doing their own growing up and their own clubs focused on meaningful growth not entertainment.
This is actually one of real problems of capitalism that no one is talking about. Since early investments are incredibly valuable in capitalistic societies kids with early entertainment training have advantage but using kids for entertainments is in practice simply unethical. This is equivalent of sexualizing kids early so they become sexy adults. Nasty stuff when you spend a minute actually thinking about.
- Add in the fact that by tying athletics to universities many children are pressured into at the very least dedicating enough to compete on a university level in order to get scholarships.
  Hell, in some cases that's one of the concerns people have with trans athletes, and while I do have that concern in the atypical direction (there's a large category of scholarships young trans people are increasingly being barred from, and some young trans people are being given a particularly harsh manifestation of the financial disadvantages associated with transition), but there's also intense ablism and a strong absurdity to all of it.
  The fact that its just normal in America that some teenagers will lose a scholarship because they get injured and that that will have a drastic change to their long-term finances is both on brand and fucking insane.
Generally all peak athletes started very young, probably because of the parent's dreams and not the child's. I would have a problem with a lot of those situations.
- Yeah, my daughter had expressed interest in doing competition dance. She just had a recital this past weekend, after which she was like, you know, I don't want to give up my weekends and all my time to competition stuff. I'll still dance, for fun, but I don't need the competition. I said hell yeah, because I also don't wanna do it. I'm glad she doesn't feel pressured to be ultra competitive, and can still get enjoyment from an activity.
I mean, a big component of professional ballet involves the use of beta blockers to prevent girls from showing the signs of puberty.
Some of that is on athletic grounds - maturity brings changes to the body that impede the performance of the ballerina. Some of it is purely aesthetics. In fact, until fairly recently, women professional Olympians would avoid puberty to maintain the lean look that judges preferred. Only in the mid-90s/early-00s did we begin to see the power figure skaters and gymnasts who took advantage of the increased mature muscle mass to outperform their younger peers. Someone like Simone Biles would never have moved passed the preliminaries in an 80s-era Olympic competition.
But you could play the same game with male athletes and steroids/HGH/etc. Practically every professional uses some kind of performance enhancing medication of nebulous legality. And the younger you start, the greater the benefits over your career.
I gotta ask, if we're so worried about this, do we need to get rid of professional athletics entirely? Or are we going to accept some degree of young body modification and parental control over their bodies?

Invalidating ADHD doesn't make trans people feel better, it only perpetuates ableist and medically misinformed views on ADHD.

Particularly women, minorities, and non-binary people, who have historically been severely underdiagnosed and neglected as is. Girls are 16 times less likely than boys to receive an ADHD diagnosis and treatment.

Women who speak out about their ADHD are often dismissed on social media as ‘self diagnosed pick me girls’ just seeking attention. In reality, many are speaking up against the ongoing crisis of medical neglect.

Untreated ADHD can put already vulnerable people into higher risk of developing clinical depression and other comorbid mental health issues. ADHD medication can be life saving, and calling it meth only serves to stigmatize the mental health issues ADHD patients go through, as well as discourage them from getting the help and medication they need.

If you call yourself an ally to trans people, that includes trans people with ADHD. There is no need to add to their intersectional struggles when they already have so much on their plate.

I don't think the point was to put down people with ADHD, I think it was to point out the hypocrisy in not letting people control their bodies. I agree with your point though, getting my sister diagnosed was really frustrating for her :(

I'd like to bring circumcision into this discussion.

Any Healthcare provider that performs this on a child should be arrested for child abuse.

I like how the biggest reasons for it are either "I can't spare the moisture for cleaning it, so it's better to cut it off" and "the guy who invented corn flakes said foreskins are Satan's eyelids"
- I know! The idea that circumcision was introduced as a way to curb masterbation may or may not be true ... but one has to admit the entire procedure and culture around it is a bit sketchy.
  Little boy ... you have been pre-emptively convicted of not washing your dick ... in the future. You are dirty, you will get an infection ... in the future ... you nasty little shit ... so we are going to cut you ✂️
There are a number of reasons why one could be medically necessary. I agree that medically unnecessary surgical procedures to infant genitals for purely cosmetic or cultural reasons are pretty unjustifiable, but "any healthcare provider... Should be arrested" is either a bit ill informed, or a wildly extremist position.
- If we're banning purely cosmetic or cultural changes to a child's body, are we throwing out ear piercings and back braces and dental work, too? How about haircuts and hair dyes? How about vaccines, since these are now fully included in culture war politics? So much of this seems to boil down to a naturalist attitude towards children. "Just don't change ANYTHING! Changing things is wrong!"
  And the fact that its coming from people - like Elon Musk - who paid top dollar for IVF doctors to guarantee his children conform to his consumer preferences (you'll notice he's exclusively had male infant children) is even more obnoxious.
  It's very obviously just pot-stirring. Resent your parents for changing you. Resent your children for changing themselves. Medicalize resentment of everyone.
That topic is far more nuanced and complicated than the naturalist cults like to portray, and I will aggressively reject any and all “appeals to nature”.
The human body is not remotely perfect, which is why the entire field of medicine exists. When it comes to circumcision there are legitimate health and hygiene considerations to be made. It is not arbitrarily “cultural” or “cosmetic”, though it is often portrayed as such.
- I love how you've looked to dismiss the idea that cutting skin off of a babies genitals is damaging and inherently wrong, outside of medical emergencies, as an appeal to nature fallacy. Even if that was how it worked, it's an informal fallacy.
  will aggressively reject any and all “appeals to nature” as to the health effects of someone being beheaded!
  If my foreskin was pulled back over the head of my penis, due to the sensitivity of the head, that would be quite uncomfortable for me. If I wanted to walk, I would have to adjust myself or I would be in a lot of discomfort. Yet, that's how it is for someone who was circumcised without their consent.
  The only conclusion is that there would have to be a significant desensitisation of that part of the penis. That desensitisation would also have to apply to the feeling during sex.
  How is it that people in the 21st century still need to be told to leave babies genitals alone and not to cut bits off of them? Bonus points if you did it because yahweh like the smell of them rotting.
- The only health reasons given are "In the future you are going to be too dirty to wash your dick and you will get an infection. We are gonna cut that dick ... you filthy unwashed animal"

Ok but let's not further the anti adhd meds bandwagon. I'd be a high-school dropout instead of a college graduate without them

I've been without my ADHD meds for a couple days since II ran out and since I was changing the dosage I decided not to get a refill until then, and my God i am so annoying without them.
anybody who claims to not want to put people on ADHD medicine should have to sit next to me explaining F1 drivers and shit at a restaurant where I'm not getting the social cues to shut up
update: saw a lady at work with a CSX shirt and I said "I love trains 🥰" my autistic masking flew out the fucking window.
- anybody who claims to not want to put people on ADHD medicine should have to sit next to me explaining F1 drivers and shit at a restaurant where I’m not getting the social cues to shut up
  Gestures to the entirety of my personality and all of the Star Trek within
  Mood
- We could put on a track of me repeating words so I don't forget the thing I'm trying to do, get, or find. You can only hear the word keys repeated until shit shoes, shoes, shoes… so many times before going insane
Yeah, that rubs me the wrong way. I've never been diagnosed with anything because that costs money, but if you told me there was a pill I could take that would make my brain work something close to normal, I'd trade almost anything for it
Like yeah there's obviously nothing wrong with having ADHD or depression or autism, and also your quality of life is significantly worse if you can't bring yourself to make phone calls or wake up before noon or remember to brush your teeth every day

First case of stage 2 CTE diagnosed in teenage football player

Who cares?! All I wanna know is which bathroom they use!!!
- and you better have gametes to prove you can pee there

Dexies != meth.

Let's play youth football. CTE is even worse for children than adults, but hey sign this waiver for your kid.

I hereby declare that I shall not sue for damages in the less-than-likely event that my child's skull cracks open

many intersex people had impromptu surgery performed on them after being born because the doctor determined that their genitalia did not conform to their standards of male or female. this typically happens with no parental support or consent, but even if the parents are made aware, it isnt exactly made apparent the ramifications of what will be done.

Amphetamines is not the same as meth.

No, but my Vyvanse does specifically say “Methamphetamine…” on the bottle sooo…
Of course the dose is different, and the context too, but still.
- It should say lisdexamphetamine on it.
- The Portion Makes The Poison
  Almost as though there's some kind of merit to professionalization of pharmacology.
- No, but my Vyvanse does specifically say “Methamphetamine…” on the bottle sooo…
  It most certainly does not.
- If it says "methamphetamine" you should get a new pharmacist, because it's an amphetamine, but not every amphetamine is methamphetamine.
  Just like "root beer" says "beer" on the can, but it's not the same as Guinness.
Not the same, but according to wikipedia it is also sometimes used to treat ADHD
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine
Its literally the first sentence of the "use" section.
- Sorry i had no idea it was a thing in the US
It's not, but there is an FDA-approved drug with Desoxyn.
I don't think the poster got that specifically, from my understanding that prescription is very rare compared to say Adderall which is an amphetamine but as you correctly point out not methamphetamine; but it can't be ruled out that they actually got prescription meth.
- I didn't know you had that in the US. Here in france the only allowed adhd medication is methylphenidate

Then there's kids playing contact sports. Rugby is fucking brutal.

This is something I know little about and want to be better informed on by anyone willing. Web searches don't pull up much and I'm hesitant to ask people in my IRL community.

So most kids don't regret it right? But it seems so iffy to let developing people make decisions like that. I had a three year phase from around 13-16 where I desperately wanted to remove my nose. Completely. (It's an ugly nose and I was an especially dumb kid). I think I would have done it/had it done if it were easier. And less painful. And maybe I'd still be chill with it if I had but man was I a strange kid. But I'm kind of glad there wasn't a good way to do it. Is this a false equivalency? And why? What age should they be allowed to begin HRT? What impacts does it have if reversed? Should kids also be allowed stuff like tattoos and alcohol? I don't like the argument that you can give kids amphetamines or make other life changing decisions for them as I'm pretty against the system that allows it and so I don't think if that's the justification I'm on board on that basis necessarily. I'm genuinely asking as I usually don't engage on this topic because it can get spicy. I'm open to opinions from anyone with one.

The important thing to remember with trans kids is that there isn’t a ‘do nothing’ option if they want HRT. ‘Nothing’ is actually ‘force them to undergo puberty for the wrong gender,’ which is traumatic and has effects as permanent as taking HRT.
Going through puberty with HRT as a trans person isn’t any more inappropriate than going through natal puberty is for cis kids. Natal puberty is having permanent, unpredictable effects on their bodies as well, except we just call that growing up. Trans teens also deserve to grow up like their peers, without spending most of their waking hours managing their dysphoria because some third party who’s never met them is uncomfortable.
- The big things to remember with this discourse is that one, the regret rates for going through transition are exceedingly low. Like so low it's virtually unheard of for almost any other medical intervention. This heavily implies that not only is the current standard of care very good at weeding out people for whom transition is not the correct treatment, but that it might even be too good and there's a significant cohort of people for whom transition would be the best treatment but they get filtered out because they don't present as being trans enough. Furthermore when you dig deeper into those regret and detransition rates you find that most of the time the reason for detransition was external. Meaning things like can't afford the medication, discrimination, getting kicked out of housing, etc.
  The second big thing was already mentioned and it's that there isn't a neutral option. Imagine telling a 13 year old girl "how do you know you're not a boy unless you go on testosterone for a few years?" Just because we're talking about the puberty that they'd naturally go through without intervention doesn't mean that it's good.
  But realistically the most any kid younger than ~16 is gonna get when they show up to the gender clinic saying they're trans is therapy, social transition so things like trying out a new name, pronouns, and/or clothes, and at most puberty blockers. Puberty blockers by the way have been proven safe for trans kids since the 90s. Then if they still want to transition they might start HRT after months if not years of this therapy.
So here's where the whole "but kids shouldn't make these decisions" arguement kind of falls apart... You are assuming it's the kids making the decisions.
The reality here is there is a bar that trans kids need to pass to be eligible which requires the signoff of a whole panel of adults based on the observed behaviour, self descriptive process and recorded outcomes of thousands of trans people in the past creating a rubric that professionals draw on. Being trans and the way gender is processed by trans people is actually more different from being cis than a lot of cis people are aware and the presentations of transness are actually pretty consistent. The regret rate is astronomically low - kind of to the point where it is actually unusual because of the level of care taken to predict and assess potential harm.
To get puberty blockers you need first a child who wants them, then all guardians of the child to agree it is worth pursuing. Then you require the endorsement of a psychiatrist with years of consultation and a social worker to make sure the home situation is above board and nobody is being coerced. Then you need a pediatrician to sign off on the standing health of the paitent, and endocrinologist to assess the safety of pursuing blockers...
It's not a one time thing either, you have to have routine check ins once things start and if any of these adults remove their endorsement of the paitent then it doesn't matter what the kid wants. It's not happening.
If anything medical starts going wrong long term health remains priority.
So can we please not pretend it's dumb children showing up to a tattoo parlor? It's a panel of professionals working off predictions based off of a nigh century of diagnostic data in conjunction with parents making informed decisions on behalf of their incredibly dedicated child- because these kids need to self advocate like fucking crazy at all points of the process... Which in itself tends to disqualify kids who don't absolutely need this because it's a job and a half.
This is designed as ironclad ethical assisted decision-making as can be made and people are being tricked into thinking that somehow this process is not as rigorously checked for flaws or deals with consent of minors differently than any other form of pediatric medicine. Why is that?
Others have given great responses there, but I just wanted to chime in my two cents. The major difference between your example and trans kids is that the latter make decisions in concert with family and medical professionals. Often times, not just a family doctor, but also a psychologist (to discuss feelings of gender incongruence) and endocrinologist (because hormones are extremely powerful, no matter which way you slice it) on top of the regular fare.
These medical professionals are making decisions based on the most up-to-date, widely held medical consensus -- which is to let trans kids transition with medical guidance. That doesn't apply in your hypothetical, because there is no agreed upon medical prognosis on kids going through identity issues (which is a normal part of psychology, whereas gender dysphoria very much is abnormal, divergence from the mean). That also goes for giving ADHD kids medication if that helps them -- not all psychs rush to push pills on kids, but if it makes a huge difference and helps a child, who are you as a layman to force them to continue suffering? Being on ADHD medication (or puberty blockers) can be a night and day difference for someone, whether they are kids or not.
Tangent: We in western society infantilize children a lot, I feel. In a lot of eastern/(global) southern culture, kids are a functional part of the household unit, almost little adults. Parents aren't afraid to give their kids some semblance of responsibility because it helps them grow. From that perspective, it seems almost odd that the west wants to coddle kids so much. Not accusing you of this, just something I've noticed.
- Not worried about accusations haha. Yeah I'm really guilty of infantilizing children. I also haven't broken the connection in my brain between gender and sexuality so I'm thinking there's something in my head saying that kids don't know their gender until they know what they're attracted to (which you really don't know much about before puberty) which is just incorrect probably. Thanks for illuminating that for me, actually.
That's the thing they though don't have to just "cut off their nose", there puberty blockers which hit the pause button and prevent going through the wrong puberty, which they give to kids with precocious puberty without any moral outrage.
- That's actually pretty neat. Thanks.
It's all in the thread already.
https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/
- I'm looking for discourse more than a webpage.
Puberty blockers WERE the compromise between the trans community and "just asking questions" folks like yourselves. Now I'm just going to advise any teen that asks to go straight to full DIY hormone therapy ordered off the internet.
- Seems like there's a stigma against "just asking questions" folks. Could you explain that? I don't think a compromise is needed so I may be being miscategorized?
  For the record I've always been pro trans across the board and just want to understand things a little better and present some of the opposition I understand. It's a bad look when I don't fully understand the things I advocate for.
  Are the DIY internet kits relatively safe?
No pediatrician is going to be giving 10 year old any sort of hormonal therapy unless things are seriously out of whack (ie something like congenital adrenal hyperplasia) however the usual standard of care for children who are experiencing any sort of gender dysphoria is to put them on puberty blockers which simply delays puberty until they are old enough to choose.
The transgender care that children receive gives them a choice in how their body develops they would not otherwise have.
My controversial opinion is that all children should be encouraged to take puberty blockers in addition to having a say in how their body develops it has additional benefits of: significant reduction in teen pregnancies, reduced sexualization of minors, reduced stress during a time when a lot is already changing, etc.
- Frankly, at this point, I am done with the hand wringing of cis conservatives and centrists. All these points have been asked and answered a hundred times. We have documented existence of trans people going back three thousand years. I am done with pandering to these willfully ignorant fucks.
  Puberty blockers were meant to the compromise. We agreed to force trans kids to wait until they're done with high school to experience puberty, all to assuage the hand wringing of bad faith ignorant assholes. Puberty blockers WERE the compromise.
  I'm done. I am fucking done. If I know any trans kid in need of HRT, I'm going to give them all the information they need to DIY and order the full hormones they need directly off the net. I don't care if their parents approve or not. I've run out of patience for these motherfuckers. People can take their concerns about "unsupervised medical treatments" and shove them up their ass. They lost the right to complain about such things when you turned their back on trans kids.
It's a very complicated topic where for some kids it's the right choice, other kids are feeling this way due to social contagion, and it's turned into a weird culture war. Reductive posts like this (edit: OP's post) don't help.
- other kids are feeling this way due to social contagion
  Citation needed.
- Is it though? Is there a single decent source to back up the idea that there's a social contagion of trans kids?

Even career choices are altering people's lives. Even if I have my guitar, sometimes I regret putting so much time, energy, and money into it, partly because of a very depressive period in my life, partly because some potential medical conditions I have make bending strings upwards on the fretboard extremely painful as it feels like my nail wants to separate from my skin, partly because my taste in music shifted a lot away from metal music. I wish I was spending that on art or something else, IDK. Still I don't want to introduce a bill that would forbid people learning the guitar before the age of 25.

I get the point, but it's not a good way of defending it. The ADHD medication might be okay, but here is framed as an exaggeration, and the other one is not good.

Furthermore, many of those interventions are detrimental or at least dangerous. Mine was orthodontics and it ended terribly; today, I would need a surgery to correct all the damage caused. While I was a difficult case, it's not uncommon. In recent years, braces are being reconsidered as they alter a developing skull, often atrophiating something while repairing something else. Sports in childhood can have an impact in adulthood. This one I'm also living it closely as my mother was one of those girls inspired by Nadia Comăneci to start gymnastics. Today, she's living a hard late adulthood.

We've normalized not listening to children and thinking of them as our properties. Medical interventions (I literally pointed out the problem with my treatment and I was ignored) or the lack of them can be a sign of this. We need to balance their developing cognitive abilities with their autonomy, not shadowing their autonomy all together. That's the argument. Telling people "things are already done, so what's the problem?" is fallacious at best and counterproductive at worst.

It's just "muh parental rights" and people clinging onto their power over others.

Essentiallly, if you're not excercising overt control over your children, then you're showing to those children that do get that kind of overt control, that there's an another way of life. You have to essentially micromanage your children's life well into their adulthood, just because some scummy adults that managed to steer their children into unwanted relationships and/or shitty jobs, and you'd offend them for it.

I kind of got that kind of treatment when it comes to jobs. My stepmother really wanted me to have a "manly job" instead of becoming a programmer, because she was "concerned of me" that I will end up too weak, and also she hated working on computers because they crashed thus she believed they're "just a fad" (until facebook came). All while being too disabled to do said jobs. Things that shouldn't hurt at all are really painful for me, likely due to a mixture of pain hypersensitivity (due to then undiagnosed autism) and some skin/collagen condition. But all of these did not matter, because parents even have the right to make mistakes from time to time, and they can't be right all the time unfortunately. Result: starting college with minimal programming knowledge, while others already dabbled into OOP by that time.

For the reactionary, a parent's horrible mistake is million times more important than the child's own will, that could sometimes even save them.

To be honest idk about that, kids are pretty fucking stupid in general. Not sure if they should be allowed to do whatever they want before legal age

Adults are pretty fucking stupid too
- yea, there are adults that wanna change kids genre and compare it to take ballet classes. lmao
If you are arguing against trans kids being allowed to go on puberty blockers, the impacts of going through the wrong puberty can be traumatic and have lasting effects on trans kids. Puberty blockers are safe, and it's not like you can just decide to take them anyways; there are processes that you need to go through with the medical system to make sure it's actually a decision you want to make, even with any potential side effects.
Edit: Good video on the topic, by a trans teen
- I wouldn't trust myself on that either when I was a kid tbh. Like right now I may be dosing estrogen left and right but then? I don't know really. I don't remember it that well though. It's a blur
But gender dysphoria is feeling something is wrong, that has nothing to do with intelligence
- that's actually a good point, what is relevant for a clinican to evaluate a child's self awareness about their gender? Is being younger than 18 actually empirically relevant to that awareness?
  Regardless, let's say we don't trust a kid's self knowledge, how does a cis child know they are cis? Should cis children be forced to take puberty blockers because they don't really know their gender until they are 18? What is the relevant difference for a trans child?
Trans kids don't have access to surgeries, so we are talking about taking puberty blockers - which are low risk and reversible, and have been used for nearly half a century.
Even if you still think they can't choose, are you saying kids shouldn't be allowed to consent to other consequential medical decisions? What about the same exact treatment, but for cis kids? Nobody seems upset that cis kids are taking the same puberty blockers for precocious puberty let alone that cis girls can have breast reduction or augmentation surgeries (treatment trans kids don't have equal access to).
So what's the difference, why is it only suddenly a problem when the gender affirming treatment is trans?
Adults aren't any smarter, bud. If you stand on a kids neck and they ask you to move that's a legitimate request. It's no different when the kid doesn't feel "right" in their skin.
- ‘no different’