How to ensure your children will hate and abandon you.
“I just don’t understand why none of my kids talk to me!!”
Why do you have braces? Are you saying god made a mistake?
I like the glasses example whenever possible
As a glasses wearer, I approve :P
I like calling braces a gender affirming procedure
Moral monsters Dan and Jennifer Mead
Lol that’s how you should describe all the Christian hypocrites.
So “All lives matter” was yet another Christian right wing bullshit. Who would’ve guessed?
The title made me think that the school was being transphobic and the parents were sticking up for their kid. Nope, they’re just bonkers
why has that egg donor had orthodontic work done? such a sign of disrespect for her perfect and all-knowing creator.
Loving and supportive partners would already know everything about their kids. These people are just mad that they are not loving and supportive, and now are punishing the school for filling that role.
“My children are my property and NOT humans. They are my playthings to do with as I wish, and nothing more. Any attempt to treat them or refer to them as individuals, humans, or anything more than my ‘belongings’ violate my God given property rights”
-Every conservative, full stop.
As a preface, I absolutely agree that the parents here are very likely to be wrong in that it seems like they were ideologically opposed to their son’s identity.
HOWEVER. I find it difficult to trust the validity and/or truth in the details given about this particular story as the article and title are both blatantly biased. On top of that, the claims made about the intentions and motivations of others are aggressively ignorant and just insanely unhelpful. You want people to double down on transphobia? Tell them they’re a terrible person and they’re only transphobic because _____. I get it, conservatives, Christians, etc should respect Trans people and their autonomy, but it’s better for literally everyone to find the best way to reach these people in a way they’d actually be receptive to, rather than trashing and dehumanizing them as monsters. If they’re conservatives, it shouldn’t be surprising when they act like it. We should also recognize that they’re people who are capable of learning to be better.
I used to be homophobic. I was a fairly conservative Christian back in the day and the justification came via biblical principles. I didn’t learn to be better by being characterized as “he only hates gay people because he’s secretly gay himself” or “he just wants to control what other people do in the bedroom”, but rather by actually engaging my own rationalizations. I would have rejected the premise that I hated anyone who was homosexual, so any rhetoric that mirrors the dishonesty of this article would have been a non-starter. In fact, it would have seemed to me that there were no legitimate arguments to be made against my position, so I would have felt more justified with the given approach above. Being in a few opposing positions on the topic, I never believed that my concurrent position was morally wrong, even though I would strongly submit today that my position before as a conservative Christian absolutely was immoral and extremely uninformed. The takeaway I’m trying to emphasize is that going on the offensive for any such position is not only ridiculous, but very counterproductive.
While I understand the frustration with what this article appears to portray, the added dishonesty is harmful in that we’re dehumanizing two parents who probably legitimately believe what they are doing is justified and moral. Attacking them would make them double down on their beliefs and who would directly suffer for it? Their son. So where I always found the blatant bias of articles or the always ridiculous non-argument “you just believe _____ because _____” inherently dishonest and icky, I think we should definitely take better stock of how we approach these topics for more than just the intellectual honesty, but also to recognize the second, third, and even fourth order effects our method of approach manifests. Outrage, especially about something moral, feels good, but what good is it when directed the way it is in this article? I could accuse them of being blind and only utilizing outrage as a clickbait tactic, and I have a chance of being correct, but I’m not arrogant enough to assert that I know for a fact what they believe and intend and post that on the internet.
Let me be clear in saying I think the school did the moral and sensible thing. And yes, the parents are fucking monsters. But the age range of the child got me thinking.
When I was young, had I been exposed to homosexuality or the idea of transsexuality, there were times I might have identified as such. Played girl stuff with girls, hated sports, had far fewer boy than girlfriends, stuff like that.
There was a time when I thought maybe it would have been better to have been born a girl instead, felt more “right”. I could relate to girls my age far more so than the guys. LOL, figured I must have been a woman in a past life.
Late teens, I even had a few gay fantasies, though I wouldn’t have been turned on by another guy IRL. Never experimented, though I’ve always been a horn dog.
In the end, I turned out strongly heterosexual and more than happy with my masculinity. So is it possible some young people are merely trying out options? Lord knows we all tried different ideas growing up. Some people swapped them like clothes.
But here’s the crux of the matter; Who gives a shit? Biology and brains are going to work out one way or another. No one chooses attraction or gender, it just is. Leave them alone and they’ll work it out eventually.
If either of my small kids told me they might be gay or trans, I’d say, “Cool. What makes you think that?” Have a talk, maybe share some of my experiences above. In any case just them know that we grow and change, maybe you’re gay or trans, you’ll work it out and those sorts of things aren’t “bad” or harmful.
Transsexuality is one thing I have zero experience with. Not even any friends. I’d want to identify it for certain so my child could get hormone treatments ASAP. But what does that look like IRL? Again, there were times when I felt like I would be more comfortable in a woman’s body, but for me, that was just youthful confusion. Love to hear from actual trans people, not merely allies like myself.
Hey! Actual trans person. I want to start by saying please use Transgender, not transexual. It’s a dysphoria around gender and the outdated transexual term ties it to sexuality. In reality, those are very different, even if they may be closely associated in general thought.
Some of what you are describing you did when you were younger was exploring your gender. I personally think that’s great, and I think everyone should at least ask themselves how they feel about their identity and try things out if they find themselves curious. Like you, they might not find that they are trans and that’s ok! That actually happens a lot, though most cis folks don’t tend to question or think about their gender much.
As for me, when I was a kid, I just felt wrong whenever I was strongly gendered as male. I felt how you feel about your masculinity when I could get away with feminine choices. The Internet was an escape where I could be anonymous and I clung to it since it let me be more myself. If you’d like to learn more or learn signs that you or others might be experiencing gender dysphoria, I highly recommend https://genderdysphoria.fyi.
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is it possible
very, very, very possible
Middle school
Oh, that’s why.
What is this comment supposed to mean?
Right at the start of puberty we need to be really fucking careful letting kids decide their gender. As an atheist and a skeptic I remain skeptical of early transitioning.
Yes, because referring to a child by the name and pronouns they have requested will irreparably damage them. /s
It has been proven time and again, study after study, that acceptance and support for trans people of all ages improves their quality of life. In this case simply using the requested pronouns and name can have only positive effects on the child’s life. Further gender affirming care has also been proven safe and effective. Hormones are generally not prescribed until after 16, and until then puberty blockers are proven to be both effective and completely reversible and 100% safe. They have been regularly prescribed to cis-children to manage conditions such as precocious puberty for decades. Their application to treat gender dysphoria is no different.
There is no good reason to withhold gender affirming care from a child that is showing signs of dysphoria. Witholding treatment only leads to greater risks of selfharm or suicide.
The younger generation are much more open about sexuality and gender.
Just because we didn’t talk about it and express it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
This has literally nothing to do with being an atheist or a skeptic. The evidence is pretty clear about all this.
Your just a bit of a bigot actually. You should do some reading on the topic.
They also aren’t transitioning.
