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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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I'm not entirely certainly this post is just straight up trolling giving how far I had to read into it before it being clear whether you were pro- or anti-trans.


What are you going on about? Gender-affirming surgeries on trans minors are exceedingly rare (that data does show a small upward trend, even controlling for population). That data gives under 30/year genital surgeries and under 300/year top surgeries on a population of about 40 million children. In comparison, gender-affirming surgeries on cis minors are about 20 times more common.

I'm not sure why any children are getting cosmetic surgeries; that seems like it's probably best left age-gated to adults. But they're rare enough that it sounds to me more like there's a handful a weird special cases, not that there's an epidemic of unnecessary harmful surgeries.

I think describing breast reductions as "gender-affirming surgeries for cis minors" is a bit misleading. This procedure is sometimes medically indicated rather than elective, as in this case of a teenage girl whose breasts were so large and developed so quickly that it caused permanent deformation to her spine.

What are you going on about? Gender-affirming surgeries on trans minors are exceedingly rare (that data does show a small upward trend, even controlling for population). That data gives under 30/year genital surgeries and under 300/year top surgeries on a population of about 40 million children.

Well first it is worth pointing out, that trans activists started off by saying they don't happen at all. That all is ever done to kinors is reversible puberty blockers. As it turns out puberty blockers are not reversible, and surgeries do happen. Trans activists should not be allowed to move the goalposts to "they're rare though".

And like I said in the another comments, the numbers blow the Tuskagee experiments out of the water. Can you link to yourself making a similar argument about them, before we give this any more credence?

The original question was "why do neutral people not care?" not "is it good or bad". I think it is right to say that people do not care as it happens only to a small number of children, and also that it doesn't happen to children without their parent's consent. Which means that it may happen to children, but not to those of neutral people. That is why they don't care.

The original question was "why do neutral people not care?" not "is it good or bad.

The original question was more "how can people be neutral". Not caring was taken out of the scope of the question when he said "I can understand apathy".

In some ways trans, at least in adults, is peripheral - an increasing number of trans, or for that matter lesbian, gays, intersex people share the feeling something is awry.

Rareness doesn't exonerate wrongness. And the enabling environment and other ideas (pregnant people, pride months for LGBT though actually mainly T these days) are ubiquitous, or haven't you noticed?

What's the number of kids who are put on puberty blocking or cross-sex hormones?

In comparison, gender-affirming surgeries on cis minors are about 20 times more common.

Do these surgeries prevent the child from ever becoming a breast-feeding mother?

What's the number of kids who are put on puberty blocking or cross-sex hormones?

Those numbers were also in the article I linked: about 3.5 in 10 000 or 0.035% which is also about a tenth of the diagnoses of gender dysphoria. Looking more closely, according to that data, hormones are about four times more common than puberty blockers, which surprised me as I'd expect the relative prevalence to be reversed. Which I think shows that I'm not very familiar with medical interventions for gender dysphoria.

Do these surgeries prevent the child from ever becoming a breast-feeding mother?

A quick web search found articles like this one suggesting breast reduction very frequently (the author quoted their surgeon as giving them 50/50 odds; in my quick search I haven't found better numbers) prevents breastfeeding. The article I linked explicitly says "mastectomies" under the top surgery section although I know trans adults who have chosen breast reduction instead of mastectomy for their top surgery specifically with the goal of being able to breastfeed. (The internet also suggests breast augmentation rarely impacts breastfeeding, but usually only a short-term impact, so probably not relevant here.) In other words, around 10 times as many cis children as trans children will find themselves unable to breastfeed later in life due to gender affirming surgeries... but both numbers are pretty small.

Calling mastectomies for cancer treatment "gender-affirming surgery" so you can lump them in with cosmetic surgery goes so far beyond disingenuous that I'm actually shocked you're trying it.

None of my sources mentioned cancer. You just made that up. The only "mastectomies" mentioned were gender-affirming care for trans teenagers. They were being compared to breast reductions for cis teenagers and adults for the purpose of appearance and/or back pain.

And, @Gdanning, while I appreciate your attempt to defend me, you accepted @Tyre_Inflator's completely made-up attack on my argument as a given.

That is not remotely what @token_progressive is doing. Rather, s/he is using evidence from mastectomies for cancer treatment to cast light on the likely outcome of similar surgery performed for gender reassignment purposes.

What it is is unfortunately ambiguous punctuation…

In other words, around 10 times as many cis children as trans children will find themselves unable to breastfeed later in life due to gender affirming surgeries

pro- or anti-trans

I think framing the debate like this is unproductive. It's turning it into a meaningless argument in the Scott sense of the term.