Worth noting that the 'crisis' of kids socially transitioning at school without notifying their parents was almost entirely seeded by a NYT article. Even in conservative states, this was nowhere on the legislative agenda a year ago and now it's everywhere.
Missouri HB.1739 contains provisions for the immediate dismissal and 4 year suspension from employment for any nurse, teacher or social worker who calls a student a name other than that which is on their school registration forms, or fails to report a non-cis identity.
legiscan.com/MO/bill/HB17...
It’s also such a bizarre idea to worry about kids exploring identity at any stage in any way. In my middle school I knew a guy who went as Beavis for laughs for years; I still don’t remember his real name. And I knew a FEW people in high school who called themselves vampires. Everyone just shrugged.
I've likened it to how almost none of us ended up doing the thing we wanted to do as kids. At 12, I 100% wanted to play in the NHL. I fell asleep to SportsCenter every night to cultivate jockiness. 2 years later I hated sports and loved Final Fantasy VII and wanted to be a character designer.
I think a lot of the problem is precisely that people know kids/teens are like this. They imagine those two years you spent thinking you were going to be in the NHL you were instead taking drugs that would make you never go through puberty.
There is no drug that permanently stops you going through puberty. There are some that can pause it but it starts up when you stop the drug, and the side effects of the drugs are mild (especially in the context of the risk of restricting them)
I know and I'm supportive of teens having access to treatment, but I'm just speaking to the mentality.
Ultimately the urgency around treating the young is precisely about permanent changes (avoiding bad ones) you need a lot of specific knowledge to see that it's safe
It's not taught in school, so what the average person knows about the differences of specific treatments is down to their media diet... Which is often terrible on the topic, even normally good sources.
There are no permanent changes happening to children on a whim *except for going through puberty itself*.
If people were truly concerned about permanent changes happening to children we would put every child on puberty delaying drugs until they were adult enough to decide they are actually cis.
All children at any age should be able to get gender-affirming care, not just teens, and no amount of handwringing about Irreversible Damage will change that.
There’s a pretty amazing Radiolab about the drugs and their effects, at least on a kid who started puberty extremely early.
Even with the drugs, it’s more like a slowing from what I gather. Anyway, the laws are bad, not sure for the over broad impact.
www.wnycstudios.org/story/boy-man/
The effects of puberty blockers only last as long as you continue to take them.
Please at least try to know the basics of what you're taking about before you go being concerned about how other people live their lives.
