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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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According to NPR, 43% of Americans support criminalizing gender-affirming care and 54% oppose it, whereas two years ago, 28% supported it and 65% opposed it. What caused the surge in opposition? Did people just not know what gender-affirming care was two years ago? Did they assume that psychological evaluations of trans kids were more thorough than they actually were?

I remember sitting at the table with an M.D. who's doing some kind of fellowship at Harvard and hearing her say airily, "Yeah, blockers are safe and totally reversible." Even with my rudimentary freshman bio understanding, this never sounded plausible to me.

Indeed, this is extremely implausible a priori, and so people repeating this must have crimestop in their mind preventing them from doing any thinking on the subject at all.

The image I have in my mind is this: we have someone who is taking “puberty blocker” from age 10 to age forty 50. He never went through puberty as a teenager (or at least, I am led to believe this is the outcome of taking these drugs). Because of this, he now looks and behaves as… well, definitely not a middle aged male. Am I really expected to believe that once he stops taking these drugs, he goes through normal puberty at 50, and his body ends up the same as if he never took these drugs, and went through puberty around 15? This is simply ludicrous on its face.

Or, even better, consider a woman in post menopausal age, who finally gets off puberty blockers. Will she now finally begin menstruating, and be able to bear normal children? Highly unlikely.

I would expect the typical retort to this from pro sex modification side to be “but you are not supposed to take this drugs for so long”, which is a tacit admission that the effects of these drugs are only reversible for so long, until they aren’t. This much makes sense, but then repeating the mantra that they are reversible without saying loudly that this is true only if you stop taking them until they are no longer reversible (which might very well only be a couple of doses!) is criminally deceptive.

"Extremely implausible a priori, crimestop" is going way too far, it's basically "boo outgroup". Evolved mechanisms can be surprisingly flexible in some ways while being totally inflexible in others. How 'plausible, a priori' are XY females? The 10 vs 50 comparison is just dumb, nobody who claims blockers are reversible would claim they're reversible after 50, they're claiming blockers are reversible within the bounds of normal use, delaying puberty for a few years. And more directly - a few years of puberty delay is (probably) within the natural variation of puberty among human populations. I think 'puberty blockers are reversible' ends up being true for >75% of people who take them?

  • -10

They're claiming blockers are reversible within the bounds of normal use, delaying puberty for a few years.

They would not work as a cure for precarious puberty if they were reversible.

It'd be nicer to get these nested comment threads on my more interesting posts, instead it's when i nitpick claim about gender or trans stuff

anyway, not sure what you mean. 'reversible', as far as I know, basically means 'when you stop blockers, you'll go through puberty normally, and grow up normally, with no negative health effects'. Precocious puberty itself causes health issues, so blockers, so they'd say, moves puberty from 'too early' to 'normal', while gender related blockers move puberty from 'normal' to 'later, but still fine'.

It'd be nicer to get these nested comment threads on my more interesting posts

Maybe they're not that interesting :>

anyway, not sure what you mean. 'reversible', as far as I know, basically means 'when you stop blockers, you'll go through puberty normally, and grow up normally, with no negative health effects

Under that definition they are not reversible, and if that's how they worked, your precarious puberty would catch up to you the same way normal puberty would to trans / gender questioning kids.

And if you want to "what are you talking about? Puberty doesn't catch up to you once you stop taking blockers", that's exactly my point.

Certainly more interesting. Anyway, 'reversible' is just a stand-in here for direct claims of harm. It's likely imo that puberty blockers have some risk of stunting growth / reduce height, risk of osteoporisis, etc. But those are risks, with specific probabilities and intensities. I think that - if people were 'really trans' and really trans people transitioning was important to them, the risks of puberty blockers in trutrans would be worth it, although existing practices might not identify the trutrans kids. But 'trutrans' doesn't exist (i'd argue) so...

Anyway, 'reversible' is just a stand-in here for direct claims of harm.

From the way I saw it used, "reversible" is a stand-in for reversible. As in: parents are freaked out about giving their kids HRT because they know estrogen will make boobs grow, and testosterone will cause voice and body shape changes, so you offer them blockers, and claim they're reversible so they believe there's nothing being done here that can't be undone, complete with a cutesy analogy to a pause button in your music player

they're claiming blockers are reversible within the bounds of normal use

Which is for fixing early onset puberty, not this off-label use of indefinitely delaying normal puberty.

To clarify, I meant normal use for temporarily (not indefinitely) delaying normal puberty so a trans child can have time to settle into their 'gender identity' or desist. Someone who says 'blockers are reversible' means they're reversible within the bounds of that, not precocious puberty.

Someone who says 'blockers are reversible' means they're reversible within the bounds of that, not precocious puberty.

While pointing at literature and studies showing to long term effects from their intended use of precocious puberty and hoping you don't notice the sleight of hand.

temporarily (not indefinitely) delaying normal puberty so a trans child can have time to settle into their 'gender identity' or desist.

Blockers inhibit desistence. So saying that is another attempt at sleight of hand. Yes, they COULD desist... but they won't. Because of the blockers.

There are a decent number of studies claiming blockers are safe for trans children? iirc (didn't look) they weren't good studies. But those claiming blockers are safe generally reference those, afaik.

blockers inhibit desistance

Maybe, but I'm just clarifying a misinterpretation of the trans side, not claiming blockers are good.

Blockers cause early onset osteoporosis, and increase the risk of cancer, diabetes. And that's off the top of my head. What definition of "safe" are they using?

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nobody who claims blockers are reversible would claim they're reversible after 50, they're claiming blockers are reversible within the bounds of normal use, delaying puberty for a few years.

No, that’s not what they claim. I address that down the comment. They claim that it is reversible, full stop. They do not claim that they are reversible for a while until they aren’t, and if you miss this highly vague moment, your maturation will be screwed up forever.

You are of course welcome to point out to me explicit examples of messaging coming from pro child sex modification activists that taking puberty for longer than.. what exactly? (nobody really knows) will cause irreversible damage to the maturation process of your body. I have never seen this.

No, all terms' meanings are situated within 'normal situations'. Everyday statements are intended to be useful, not universally true. "A human has two arms" is useful, but one-armed people exist. If a doctor claims a drug is "safe and effective", that doesn't mean "safe and effective if you take 50x the recommended dose", or "safe and effective if you take it for ten years straight", but "safe and effective if taken at the recommended dose for the recommended course". As an analogy - an antibiotic's gut-bacteria-decimating effects are mostly reversible if you take it for a few weeks. But it'd be bad to take that antibiotic for 20 years straight.

I know that. Do the victims of the trangenderists know that? Can you point me to an example or two of clear messaging, saying that you can only take “puberty blockers” for a limited period of time before it will lead to irreversible outcomes, with some clarity on how long is this limited period?

Can you give an example of someone who took puberty blockers for 'too long' and was left with side effects due to taking them for too long? I don't think 'puberty blockers are safe for two years, but BAD if you take them for eight years' is relevant to the general issues with puberty blockers?

Can you give an example of someone who took puberty blockers for 'too long' and was left with side effects due to taking them for too long.

Yes? Just look at the studies where they're linked to osteoporosis, if nothing else?

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You are evading my repeated question, and unlike me, who asks for public messaging, instead ask me to give you an example of some private person’s tragedy, of a kind that mainstream media would not want to cover, as it goes against the narrative. This is in itself very telling.

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