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BUT THE CHILDREN (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by Stamets@lemmy.world to c/tumblr@lemmy.world
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[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 26 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago

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.

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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.

[-] bountygiver@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

the right wingers don't see any problem with this.

[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

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[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 4 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 1 week ago

Dexies != meth.

[-] seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 week ago

Amphetamines is not the same as meth.

[-] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] Soup@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

No, but my Vyvanse does specifically say “Methamphetamine…” on the bottle sooo…

Of course the dose is different, and the context too, but still.

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[-] entwine413@lemm.ee 12 points 1 week ago

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

[-] themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] Wilco@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago

I'd like to bring circumcision into this discussion.

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

[-] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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"

[-] Wilco@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

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 ✂️

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[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

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

[-] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

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

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[-] Rachelhazideas@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[-] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

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 :(

[-] burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] molten@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] DrivebyHaiku@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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?

[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] EmptySlime@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[-] Echolynx@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

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[-] TheKingBee@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] Katrisia@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

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.

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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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