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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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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