Arkansas and he Politics of Hate

[Milchshake]

If you’re wondering why vulnerable minority people have no use for the Just Asking Questions approach toward their medical care, taken by so many online contrarians, well here you go:

Amid a nationwide conservative effort to chip away at transgender rights, Arkansas lawmakers have passed one of the most restrictivepieces of anti-trans legislation yet, denying transgender youth access to essential gender-affirming care. Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU, called the bill “the single most extreme anti-trans law to ever pass through a state legislature.” The legislation now only requires the signature of Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican.

The measure, named the Arkansas Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, would ban doctors from providing gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormones, to trans people under the age of 18, or else risk losing their license. The legislation is rooted in a host of misinformation about gender-affirming care,with proponents of the bill arguing forits necessity under the guise of protecting kids. One of the bill’s Republican sponsors described gender-affirming treatments as “at best experimental and at worst a serious threat to a child’s welfare.”

But LGBTQ advocates and major medical organizations agree that denying trans youth access to this type of crucial and comprehensive care poses a much more serious threat to their health. “Affirming health care can literally be life or death for anyone, but particularly for trans youth,” Raquel Willis, a Black trans activist and writer, told CNN. “People think that’s an exaggeration. It’s not. People think you can just discipline identity out of someone, and that is not true and in many ways is torture.” Following the bill’s passage, Dr. Lee Beers, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, decried the “dangerous” effort to “politicize medical care.” She continued: “This is discrimination by legislation and transgender children and all children deserve better,” adding that such measures put “politicians rather than pediatricians in charge of a child’s medical care.”

[GreenGoldSharpie]

This will get shut down, but let's make use of our time.

Conversion therapy doesn't work on gender identity according to the APA.

From the same guidance, every major medical and psychological association in the country is against this crap.

The American Psychological Association (APA), as well as other healthcare organizations, (e.g., American Counseling Association, World Professional Association for Transgender Health) have established empirically supported practice guidelines that encourage clinicians to use gender-affirming practices when addressing gender identity issues (ACA, 2010; APA, 2015; Coleman et al., 2012). Additionally, a number of national and international professional healthcare organizations have publicly warned against the harmful effects of GICE and SOCE (Sexual Orientation Change Efforts) by endorsing the United States Joint Statement Against Conversion Efforts (USJS, n.d.), including the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Nursing, American Association of Sexual Educators, Counselors and Therapists, American Counseling Association, American Medical Association, American Medical Student Association, American Psychoanalytic Association, The Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists, Society for Affectional, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities, Clinical Social Work Association, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, The Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Addiction Professionals and their Allies, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. A growing number of states and municipalities have enacted laws that prohibit licensed mental health professionals from engaging in sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts with minors (Movement Advancement Project, n.d.)

Affirming therapy towards trans youth is the recommended treatment pathway as dictated by the AAP.

[Masark]

From the same guidance, every major medical and psychological association in the country is against this crap.

Presumably they are only interested in listening to the american college of pediatricians, the name of which is probably at least two lies and possibly three.

[Endus]

Really, this doesn't go any deeper than people who feel a need to victimize and abuse others to feed their own personal urges towards sadism for sadism's sake. They'll keep shifting the focus targets to locate a group to victimize, and it really doesn't much matter to them who that is, as long as they can designate it as "other" and implement abusive and hurtful legislation against them.

Just raw, petty, unadulterated sadism. Enjoyment of the suffering you inflict upon others. That's it. That's the reason.

[Mihalik]

I wonder.... What would the conservative types do if they had no minority group who they can torment and whose lives they can make miserable?

Will they go back to torturing animals for kicks or something?

[Yadryonych]

Good to know Akansas conducts politics of hate against children abusers who torture and and maim children to their own perversive liking

[Endus]

Good to know Akansas conducts politics of hate against children abusers who torture and and maim children to their own perversive liking

Just gonna let the transphobic bigotry fly right out in the open, eh?

[s_bushido]

Good to know Akansas conducts politics of hate against children abusers who torture and and maim children to their own perversive liking

I suppose this is one (the only?) way to rationalize away the inhumane and damaging policies that are the hallmark of conservatism: Convince yourself you're actually being altruistic when you're denying people rights and/or proper healthcare.

[Yadryonych]

you're actually being altruistic when you're denying people rights

Denying crooked croakers and pervert parents the rights to maim children, any time of the day sir. Has nothing to do with a consented transition of an adult person

[GreenGoldSharpie]

Denying crooked croakers and pervert parents the rights to maim children, any time of the day sir. Has nothing to do with a consented transition of an adult person

I, for one, am totally shocked that you think your opinion outweighs medical experts. SHOCKED I TELL YOU.

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I suppose this is one (the only?) way to rationalize away the inhumane and damaging policies that are the hallmark of conservatism: Convince yourself you're actually being altruistic when you're denying people rights and/or proper healthcare.

But, we should listen to him! He has THOUGHTS on the matter. I mean, they run against every major medical and psychological organization of note in the Western world, but he has OPINIONS!

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More data because, apparently, we need it.

Socially transitioned transgender children who are supported in their gender identity have developmentally normative levels of depression and only minimal elevations in anxiety, suggesting that psychopathology is not inevitable within this group. Especially striking is the comparison with reports of children with GID; socially transitioned transgender children have notably lower rates of internalizing psychopathology than previously reported among children with GID living as their natal sex.

Link

Using information from the Australian Court, 96% of all patients who were assessed and received a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria by the 5th intervenor (the Royal Children's Hospital) from 2003 to 2017 continued to identify as transgender or gender diverse into late adolescence. No patient who had commenced stage 2 treatment had sought to transition back to their birth assigned sex.

A summarization on all people treated in Amsterdam from 1972 up to 2015 (abstract) , which treats more than 95% of the transgender population in the Netherlands, found that out of those referred to the clinic in before the age of 18 and treated with puberty blockers, 4 out of 207 trans girls (2%) stopped puberty suppression without proceeding to HRT and 2 out of 370 trans boys (less than 1%) stopped puberty suppression without proceeding to HRT

A study of 143 youth receiving puberty-blocking medication in the Netherlands found that 3.5% chose to discontinue puberty blockers without seeking any further transition treatment.

A William's Institute report finds that there is no significant difference between the number of trans teens and the number of trans adults (0.7% and 0.6% respectively). The slight decrease in the oldest age group could be down to rejection from peers, as older generations are much less likely to support trans rights than younger people.

Also, trans kids are not ‘going through a phase.’ First of all, an article from a magazine from the American Academy of Pediatrics mentions how that by age 4, children have ‘stable sense of their gender identity.’ And a study on trans and cis kids found gender identity — the concept of knowing whether one’s self is male, female or non-binary — is as strong in trans kids as it is among those identifying as cis. Similar results are found in this study.

[Twdft]

Has nothing to do with a consented transition of an adult person

Do you think a child can be gay? Do you think a child can be trans?

[GreenGoldSharpie]

Do you think a child can be gay? Do you think a child can be trans?

I don't see why you think you're going to get an answer here. Dude is all up in his feels and opinions. He's a very emotional creature in that regard. You won't get a satisfactory answer while he's in this state.

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A bit more from a Katelyn Burns article.

“In the past, doctors thought that gender diversity was a pathology, something that needed to be fixed,” said Jack Turban, a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he researches the mental health of transgender youth, in an email to Vox last year. “They would try to push kids to be cisgender. A recent study from our group found that transgender people exposed to attempts to make them cisgender had greater odds of attempting suicide.”

Nowadays, doctors recommend taking a humane and affirming approach when a child expresses that their gender may not match their assigned sex at birth. This affirmation includes allowing trans kids to socially transition (i.e., use whichever name, pronouns, and clothing make them comfortable). Medical interventions — like puberty suppression or gender-affirming hormones like estrogen or testosterone — are only recommended for adolescents who have been insistent, persistent, and consistent in their gender identity over long periods.

The affirming model has been recommended by nearly every major American medical association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and many others.

While the affirming model is often willfully misconstrued as instructing parents to accept a child’s gender identity and rush them off into medical interventions, it’s really more about creating a space for trans kids to explore their own gender expression and more thoroughly understand their dysphoria before deciding on whether to transition or not. Allowing a trans adolescent to go on puberty blockers is a decision most parents don’t take lightly. Transitioning is a slow, deliberative process for minors.

Puberty blockers merely act as a pause on an adolescent’s natal puberty, so that adolescents ages 9 to 14 can be more mentally mature before deciding on the course of their permanent treatment when the time comes, according to Safer. Cross-sex hormones, which would be used later in the teen years, would mean testosterone injections for trans boys and a combination of a testosterone blocker in addition to estrogen for trans girls. Safer says it’s a careful and cautious system that also respects the autonomy young trans people should have over their lives and bodies.

However, conservative legislators with their bills to ban transition care have other ideas for trans children’s futures. They appeal to the fallacy that natal puberty is natural and therefore necessary for all kids.

But this approach would force trans girls into male puberty and trans boys into female puberty without their consent, and brings along its own permanent changes, which could only partially be reversed through painful and expensive medical treatments in adulthood. Trans women forced through male puberty would then have to undergo painful and expensive electrolysis to remove facial hair and may be left with a body frame (shoulder and hip width) that would be unchangeable by any surgeries. Trans men would have to have surgery to remove their breasts and, like their trans female counterparts, be forced to live in an unwanted body frame for their entire lives.

B is already experiencing anxiety over her impending puberty as she watches her 13-year-old brother go through it himself. “She came to me the other day and she said, ‘Mom, I’m really worried. Am I going to get an Adam’s apple? Because I don’t want that,’” said Dennis. “I said, ‘Sweetheart, I will do everything in my power. I will go to the ends of this earth to protect you.”

Link

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A bit more. Here's the result of one conversion therapy attempt. Leelah Alcorn smeared herself all over the front of a semi due to her parents attempts at conversion therapy. This is part of the suicide note she left on Tumblr that's been archived in a few places. Also, here's the link to the wiki page about her suicide.

If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.

So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.

That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a shit which one. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.

Goodbye,
(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

Good parenting here.

[Edge-]

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/03/...-use-bathroom/

Hardly just Arkansas, because Republicans apparently think trans folks, who are actually more likely to be victims of violence than cis folks, are all just so rapey.

[GreenGoldSharpie]

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/03/...-use-bathroom/

Hardly just Arkansas, because Republicans apparently think trans folks, who are actually more likely to be victims of violence than cis folks, are all just so rapey.

This is the sort of overreach that will inevitably get these guy creamed. This is a tangible policy that is going to drive the sort of out-in-the-community and court fight that is far more tangible than healthcare at this point. I mean, it's so obviously a dick move.

They went overboard faster than I thought they would. Fucking idiots.

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Positive outcomes so far.

“We need to correct the record,” said Dr. Michele Hutchinson in one recent hearing, “because the folks that spoke before got an awful lot of time to tell you a lot of inaccuracies.” She went on to cite the standards of care for trans youth, which are recognized by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Pediatric Endocrine Society, among others. But underneath her appeals to the evidence, Dr. Hutchinson was upset, and she said so. “I’m doing everything I can to maintain my sanity here … just after this bill passed the house, these kids heard about it. I’ve had multiple kids in our emergency room because of an attempted suicide. Just in the last week.” If this bill passes, she said, children will die. “And I will call you guys every single time one does.”

Link

[TexasRules]

This will get shut down, but let's make use of our time.

Conversion therapy doesn't work on gender identity according to the APA.

From the same guidance, every major medical and psychological association in the country is against this crap.



Affirming therapy towards trans youth is the recommended treatment pathway as dictated by the AAP.

This will get shut down because the mods here are hypocritical and abhor having actual conversations. Hypocritically, I mean ironically, Edge chimes in even though mods know you can't have trans discussions. And edge did not shut this down until getting opinions in.I just want to know when politics designated itself as he/him?

[Felya]

This will get shut down because the mods here are hypocritical and abhor having actual conversations. Hypocritically, I mean ironically, Edge chimes in even though mods know you can't have trans discussions. And edge did not shut this down until getting opinions in.

Edge can’t close the thread on a forum they are not moderating. It gets repeated daily... and you have been here long enough...

I just want to know when politics designated itself as he/him?

If you are talking about this site... when ever the mods chose to have the site in English? Would you prefer Russian? On... that’s it... oh... I can see how that can be confusing. Off is not she... that’s ona... silly rabbits...

[GreenGoldSharpie]

This will get shut down because the mods here are hypocritical and abhor having actual conversations. Hypocritically, I mean ironically, Edge chimes in even though mods know you can't have trans discussions. And edge did not shut this down until getting opinions in.I just want to know when politics designated itself as he/him?

Aw, cute, you you’re pretending I care. I’m in favor of trans threads being shut down. Both of the conservatives who popped in here (yourself included) lack the basic maturity to deal with the subject in any real way.

I mean whining about an unrelated mod in a thread where one dude was all up in feels and didn’t engage with anything while being a child?

C’mon....

[minteK917]

Medical research and science has a left bias, so its clear they are doing the right thing!

[Rozz]

This is closed.