Gender Dysphoria in Children: Two Views

[stargazer0519]

And? Is it a good thing when they do so? What exactly are you arguing here?

The fact that people do a thing doesn't mean that they should.

Well, the suicide rate for transgender children whose parents reject their transgender-ness is 8.4 times the rate of straight children. http://www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/facts-about-suicide

So, my argument is that suicide is bad, transgender kids commit suicide a lot more often than straight kids do, and that anything that we can do to reduce the transgender child suicide rate (such as accepting them, letting them have control over their own bodies, etc.) is therefore a good thing.

 

[stargazer0519]

Say your 14-year-old seriously wanted to get married. Would you agree, to protect their mental health?

That's an interesting question.

In most states in America, I don't believe I'd even have the legal option to consent.

But my 14-year-old could go ahead without me, and, for instance, have sex as a 14-year-old male who identifies as straight with a 14-year-old female who identifies as straight.

I could accept my 14-year-old's identity without needing to be involved in their decision to control their own body. I'd certainly get any 14-year-old daughter of mine to a OB/GYN if she wanted to, or was already having, sexual intercourse.

My 14-year-old transgender child can't exist comfortably in the body that they have without medical intervention, which is probably going to require my John Hancock on their medical forms.

My 14-year-old transgender child needs me to be involved to consent to hormone therapy or surgery.

My 14-year-old straight child doesn't need my help or permission or consent to act like a 14-year-old straight child in a 14-year-old straight child's body.

 

[Toke]

There are people who think that their bodies are wrong in other ways, such as thinking one's left arm moves on its own instead of under one's own control, or that their feet aren't really theirs (although typically without any explanation of whose they are). Such people often want the offending part that doesn't belong there amputated. I have never seen it suggested that this was not a mental condition... but I think I have seen it seriously suggested that the best or only way to alleviate the problem might be to do what they want anyway.

From what I have heard a large part of the nervous system is involved with positioning feedback from limbs, e.g. letting you know what your hand is doing without looking.
If that is broken, a limb would not fit in and feel foreign.

So a physical condition. Not that it makes a practical difference.

 

[Aepervius]

From what I have heard a large part of the nervous system is involved with positioning feedback from limbs, e.g. letting you know what your hand is doing without looking.
If that is broken, a limb would not fit in and feel foreign.

So a physical condition. Not that it makes a practical difference.

When it comes to the brain it is hard to separate physical to purely mental, due to the network structure. You can have a perfectly fine link from the limb to the brain, but have a variety of physical change to the brain (like cutting the corpsum callusum) and have the symptom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome