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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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Some schools secretly socially transition children. Some locales will take children out of parents' custody if they fail to support transition. This is not all right wing paranoia.

Some schools secretly socially transition children.

Can you provide a source for the claim that schools are forcing uninterested, non-consenting children into transition? Or are you just searching for the maximally inflammatory way to say "some kids don't trust their parents not to disown them"?

Some locales will take children out of parents' custody if they fail to support transition.

Really? "Fail to support" transition, or "try to block their kid from accessing the relevant medical treatments"?

This is not all right wing paranoia.

Neither of those is an example of "mutilation"

  • -20

I was thinking, gun to my head, I'd rather my daughter was molested by a catholic priest (unlikely as that is, being a girl and all) than fall in with your ilk. But that got me thinking... what if the Catholic Church leaned into LGBTQ+ shit 30 years earlier than they did?

What if, instead of covering up the priest abuse scandals, they leaned into it. Claimed they were just protecting young gay boys. In fact they had a moral duty to keep these young boys sexual behavior a secret from their parents. They might not accept them after all. Furthermore, the Catholic Church should probably just take custody of them from those bigoted parents.

It's preposterous and totally insane. But that's what you sound like.

It's preposterous and totally insane sounding because you analogized a situation where a child is raped without consent to one where the child willingly undergoes a medical procedure (regardless of whether you think it's warranted or not). That is a preposterous and insane analogy to make so it's no wonder that's what your conclusion is.

  • -13

That is a preposterous and insane analogy to make so it's no wonder that's what your conclusion is.

Frankly I find it more preposterious and insane that you don't see removing parental authority as the salient category.

What's your position on castrati? Willing undertaking of medical procedure or abduction of minors for sinister purposes?

Can you elaborate on what you want me to respond to? Are you referring to singers who in the past were castrated for their singing voices? I don't think that was a morally good practice.

I obviously would agree that 'abduction of minors for sinister purposes' is bad, you literally put sinister in the description. I suspect we disagree on what sinister purposes refers to, so you need to describe something more specific if you want to prompt my thoughts to see our differences of opinion.

Comment on the obvious parallels between castrati and trans children. The glaring, obvious parallels, and why one would be not morally good while the other is somehow more morally good.

suspect we disagree on what sinister purposes refers to

Castrating boys is what we're referring to, and what is being called sinister.

I laid out the differences in another comment, the distinction is the reasoning and intent behind the act.

Society deems that killing is murder unless you kill the right person in the right context (self defense). Cashing a check that you stole from someone is fraud/theft, while cashing a check that you were given legitimately is a business transaction. I believe that the vast vast majority of doctors providing gender affirming care through therapy, puberty blockers, and in very rare cases surgery, are doing so with the best interests of the child in mind, which was not the case for castrati historically as I understand it.

The parallels may seem glaring and obvious, just like a self defence killing might look like murder, but there are quite substantial differences.

I inquired about what OP meant by sinister purposes, your answer refers to an act and not a purpose and does not reference abduction. I am still unclear what they meant by abduction for sinister purposes.

what OP meant

I didn't mean more or less than the common definition.

sinister /'sɪnɪstər/ adj.: stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable.

the distinction is the reasoning and intent behind the act.

Solely intent based moral (or legal) system are rare for good reason. Not only are we not mind readers, evil has a pernicious tendency to believe itself righteous and we ultimately have to live in consequence, not in intent.

In any case, any such coherent deontological system that would base itself on intent (such as Kantianism) would still have to recognize parental authority as it has to deal with the subhuman quality of children and appoint someone to protect them against themselves and the world.

Institutions such as the State, Church or any other large scale administration with no ties of blood is inherently unable to provide the same incentives as family, and is therefore only recognizable as legitimate in edge cases of parental tyranny.

The only debate being had here is if making certain medical decisions for your children can be such a tyranny and which specific circumstances trigger it.

Any reasonable answer to this question must remember the initial incentive base and can not be tantamount to seizing decision power from parents altogether, as that would simply be seeing them supplanted by a worse protector.

There are essentially two ways of thinking about transgenderism. Either it is a medical condition, for which there are medical interventions available, or it is a lifestyle choice.

Let's immediately evacuate the second one. If your child is tucute, you have full authority to deny them this choice by the same justification you can deny them tatoos or particular forms of dress.

What if your child is trutrans, however?

The problem then is one generalizable to many decisions about mental illnesses: treatment decisions can not be vested in the patient (for many reasons, and even more in this case) and we must then decide whether the family or medical experts prevail if there is a strong disagreement.

Since the legitimacy of family is to be defaulted to for reasons we discussed earlier, we are left to ask one question: do experts know this disease well enough to make decisions that have levels of confidence high enough to override personal knowledge of the patient. It is not right that a child would have his TB prayed away if antibiotics are available.

And here (as in, for GD) the literature is quite clear for whoever dares look: the confidence that was had in the Dutch protocol was very much unearned and our understanding of GD is ridiculously primitive. To the degree that none of the available procedures and treatments provide such obvious benefits that a person of sound mind wouldn't seriously consider the very significant side effects. And that medical decisions in this case are not obvious medical questions but rather important life choices.

It seems then, to me, that "good intentions" in removing parental authority from such decisions would be more negligent than it would be reasonable. Which is thankfully now the position of basically every medical authority on the matter outside of the Americas.

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