Dear God.... (glad I'm going AWOL next week)

[moonshadow]

There is a difference between tolerance and indoctrination.

I've got absolutely no issue teaching children not to bully and to show respect and kindness for all people, and I get the sense that I'm being painted in a different light and frankly I find it offensive, the responses are getting somewhat condescending.

After eight years of posting here, one thing should be obvious, I'm not in on either side. I've been burned by them all. I have indeed seem stories by respected outlets regarding LGBTQ indoctrination going all the way through to pre-K.

I suspect you all aren't even trying to understand what I'm getting at. No... I'm just out of touch, and so I need to be proven wrong no matter what.

You know we found ourself in agreement when the hard righters on this site would back Trump come hell or high water. We patted ourselves on the back and claimed we'd never make such a mistake as to blindly follow an ideology no matter what.

I can remember being chastised on this site for claiming that kids probably shouldn't be on puberty blockers, as we didn't really know the long term effects. Now we learn that there are indeed long term effects and I hear crickets. I'm no Sabine, I may not be able to carefully articulate sources and speak with a high level vocabulary, but I do know that whenever man plays God, it tends to blow up in our face.

There's just something wrong with this. I doesn't seem right.

I will post the stories as I find them. I already found a few, but they were from Fox News and the New York Post, and I already know they will be dismissed because those outlets are right leaning.

But there is indoctrination... we can cover our eyes and stick our fingers in our ears all day long, it doesn't change the facts of the matter.

Transgender children have existed for ages and schools dealt with it, why is now such a big deal?

That's true. And suicide and acts of violence are through the roof... yet twenty years ago, this was a non-issue. It's almost like the more the public school system tries to help the issue, the worse it gets.

We have a saying over here in the 'states.... beware the man who says "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help".

[Coder]

There is a difference between tolerance and indoctrination.

I've got absolutely no issue teaching children not to bully and to show respect and kindness for all people, and I get the sense that I'm being painted in a different light and frankly I find it offensive, the responses are getting somewhat condescending.

Amen!

I wish we could have these discussions without misunderstanding, but since "we" can't I keep my mouth shut at home, at work, and avoid those topics here as much as possible.

One clear takeaway is that everyone has a different idea where the line gets drawn - and which ideology should be allowed to brandish its own form of activism.

[Uncle Al]

We have a saying over here in the 'states.... beware the man who says "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help".

By all means yes, RUN for your lives

Uncle Al

[rode_kater]

After eight years of posting here, one thing should be obvious, I'm not in on either side. I've been burned by them all. I have indeed seem stories by respected outlets regarding LGBTQ indoctrination going all the way through to pre-K.

I suspect you all aren't even trying to understand what I'm getting at. No... I'm just out of touch, and so I need to be proven wrong no matter what.

Clearly we're not understanding each other properly, but I really don't see what else could have been meant by "pro-trans". And words like "indoctrination", which are fairly serious statements, are bandied about everywhere. I don't even know what "LGBT indoctrination" would even look like, so I find it hard to understand how it could be happening and when I google it I get "LGBT indoctrination is a myth". So... is there some value-neutral definition of what it actually means?

I can remember being chastised on this site for claiming that kids probably shouldn't be on puberty blockers, as we didn't really know the long term effects. Now we learn that there are indeed long term effects and I hear crickets. I'm no Sabine, I may not be able to carefully articulate sources and speak with a high level vocabulary, but I do know that whenever man plays God, it tends to blow up in our face.

There's two aspects to this, First, as Sabine points out, it used to be that people entering transgender care were children who "knew" they were transgender from around the age of 5, and so were already years into the process before puberty. Recently however, there is a new group of children, mostly girls, who around puberty suddenly consider themselves trans. This is super-sus, Nobody really understands what's going on here, but this is new category. And there were a few places in the world that threw this new category in with the original category while having no actual idea what was going on. And that blew up in some cases. These two categories should not be conflated.

However, it's still none of my business what a doctor discusses with their patient. IMO under no circumstances should the government be sitting in the doctor's chair. We have medical ethics boards, the whole jazz for this. It is neither my, nor the government's business. Politicians sitting in doctor's chairs is IMO even worse than man playing God.

We have a saying over here in the 'states.... beware the man who says "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help".

And yet all I'm hearing is various US governments talking about how they need to introduce masses of legislation to "help" solve this problem. It would be better if they just shut the f*** up and let scientists actually figure out what was going on.

[Myopic Bookworm]

It used to be that people entering transgender care were children who "knew" they were transgender from around the age of 5, and so were already years into the process before puberty. Recently however, there is a new group of children, mostly girls, who around puberty suddenly consider themselves trans. This is super-sus, Nobody really understands what's going on here, but this is new category. And there were a few places in the world that threw this new category in with the original category while having no actual idea what was going on. And that blew up in some cases. These two categories should not be conflated.

I tend to agree, while pointing out that until recently most trans people (generally recognized as transsexual, not transgender) were mainly adults who had spent along time living in the gender assigned to them with their birth sex. (I'm thinking of people like Wendy Carlos and Jan Morris.)

Part of my take on MIS is that, while there is pressure for ordinary (i.e. cis) folks to conform to their assigned gender stereotypes, there is also pressure for trans people to conform outwardly to the stereotypes of their chosen sex, and society is challenged by the presence of people who don't fit neatly into the stereotypical binary. In wearing a skirt as a man, I am aware that I might risk being misidentified as transgender. But I consider that the more that people become accustomed to the more or less dissonant appearance of a man in a skirt, the less pressure there might be for people near the middle of the gender spectrum (or their advisers) to think that cross-dressing requires surgical intervention, and the less social negativity there might be towards trans people who do not "pass" as the biological sex corresponding to their gender expression (particularly trans women who have been through male puberty).

And yet all I'm hearing is various US governments talking about how they need to introduce masses of legislation to "help" solve this problem. It would be better if they just shut the f*** up and let scientists actually figure out what was going on.

The American system seems to generate a great body of people who think that government should get out of people's way and let them be free, until they step half an inch over the line of conservative social and religious norms, at which point intrusive big government is suddenly flavour of the month. People with bulging wallets should be free of government interference, they say, but not people with vaginas (or people who wish they had vaginas). (People who educate children must be closely monitored and regulated, but people who shoot children can't have their rights infringed.)