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fpbhttp://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?
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?
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-17 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-17 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-18 07:52 am (UTC)I wonder how many of the problems of the modern West can be traced down to this screwy attitude towards childhood? The mess of an education that leaves us with no connection to our past (I was rather lucky, having the right combination of exceptional teachers at the right moment; but that has made me rather an alien in my generation) and prolongs dependence and 'childhood' to ridiculous ages; the destruction of family or the idea of any obligations relating to the next generation...
The modern concept of adolescence is IMO itself suspect.
this is where I said it, in a comment:
Date: 2011-04-18 08:16 am (UTC)Re: this is where I said it, in a comment:
Date: 2011-04-18 07:04 pm (UTC)Re: this is where I said it, in a comment:
Date: 2011-04-18 07:04 pm (UTC)