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...
Remember too that this entire panic is predicated on the idea that kids are getting irreversible hormones and surgeries before anyone confirms that they're 'really' trans.
If that were a real concern then schools should make social transition as easy as possible! This is all just bigotry.
one line I've seen, I think maybe specifically pushed by Jesse Singal, is that social transition isn't irreversible because kids who socially transition usually go on to medical transition
which is to say: these kids are trans! they'll stay trans unless you do conversion therapy to them!
lol I guess Singal was pushing this line specifically in response to you
his "I'm not a hack" T-shirt is raising lots of questions etc. etc.
nitter.net/jessesingal/...
Exactly, he wants easily reversible treatments to be treated as irreversible. The fact that most people who socially transition eventually pursue medical transition is evidence that they're doing it with a lot of forethought, not that it's being pushed on them!
Also, underlying this whole "debate" is the unspoken assumption that transitioning is a bad outcome to be avoided if possible, and therefore any action or policy that results in more people transitioning is inherently a problem and should be viewed with suspicion.
I would argue that transitioning is a desirable outcome that vastly improves one's quality of life if one is a trans person, which is true for the overwhelming majority of people who pursue transition.
indeed! Singal (and Zucker, and many of the other people he reports on) are pretty much explicit that they view transitioning as a last resort, only suitable for treating life-threatening dysphoria. as if "making people happier" is not a consideration
This is what makes me so angry about this. I didn't transition until I was almost 40, partly because I was in a lot of denial about how my dysphoria was manifesting itself. I wouldn't have classified it as life-threatening but that doesn't mean it hasn't been an improvement of my quality of life.
That was also an attitude of transition care providers who wished a return to classic gatekeeping standards. What you said about viewing successful transition as a bad outcome was my observation of my expeirences with several Drs and therapists in the US throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
