Gender as something you choose: the result

[fpb]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8454002/Puberty-blocker-for-children-considering-sex-change.html
This strikes me as one of those things of which people should say that just because you can do it, it doesn't mean you should. In fact, you shouldn't. The amount of things that could go wrong, and that will, is so enormous as to immensely outweigh any potential good that could be done to any child who was, ex hypothesi, so uncharacteristically clear about such things, and so open about the mattter, as to give a trustworthy answer to the question. This seems to me like an invitation to children to treat their own body and identity as something to play games with, to follow adult suggestions (the idea that all adult experts will be honest and trustworthy,clear about themselves and about their reasons, and not out to prove personal theories or indulge hobby-horses, is nothing except laughable), to receive and seek suggestions they would never have received, and, in the upshot, to have their lives ruined.

Let me be clear: I know that such things happen. As it happens, and by pure chance, I have had more experience of real transsexuals than almost anyone who is not a professional in the field. But one of the things I have seen at close hands is that twelve is much too early to know. The TS I have known have made their decisions well into adulthood - one, indeed, in his/her fifties. To give a child a choice in such a matter is criminally dangerous. And yes, I know that children who become TS often have a hard time: two people have told me so, independently of each other, with long stories of their grim times as children. But does anyone know how many OTHER children have hard times? A happy childhood is by no means the norm, and what is more teen-agers are inherently self-dramatizing and tend to treat their lives as miserable even when they aren't. You want to give a child whom you would not trust to vote which corrupt politician should steal your money, or to drive a goddamn car, with a decision that could ruin every living moment of his or her remaining life? Are you quite demented, good people and ruling classes of Britain?

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I already dealt with the issue of severely disabled children, though I'm not sure I can find the post. If I can, I'll link you. meanwhile, I will underline the "even if you can, you shouldn't" argument. Quite frankly, every precedent in the UK - including the monster-mother of them all, abortion - gives one absolutely no confidence that supposedly extreme measures would be handled with any responsibility. My guess is that within a decade there will be one such clinic in every county; and that one decade after that, we will begin to hear a chorus of howls by people whose lives have been ruined by careless procedures in ways we cannot even imagine now. Ever heard of unintended consequences? And quite frankly, you seem to be taking the idea of altering the natural development of human bodies rather more coolly than it warrants.

All the same, and though I am confident I will not even begin to make you reconsider this, may I say that it's a pleasure to hear from you? You turn up so rarely, even on Facebook.