Alberta government thread

[QV]

So yes or no.

Is gender dysphoria a real condition in pre pubescent children?

It can be in some and it isn't in others. You'd only know for sure when their pre-frontal cortex has fully formed.

 

[Altair]

It can be in some.

With this as a baseline, what should be done for those children with gender dysphoria?

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Yet, I find myself taking the the cautious approach. Teens who exhibit gender dysphoria should, indeed, must seek professional counselling and need the support of their parents. But, I remain unconvinced that surgery and drugs are warranted except in the rare case.

The cautious approach you take versus the scenario presented, would fail the individual.

That said, nobody is able to come up with a answer to said scenario that actually exists in the real world. Naturally because, as the rules apply in Alberta, there is zero solutions for the trans kid in this scenario other than

A) stop having gender disphoria

B) Don't live in Alberta.

You think yourself not a zealot. I remain unconvinced.

You think yourself a reasonable, mature adult. I remain unconvinced.

You are absolutely obsessed with this topic, to an unhealthy degree. You firebomb anyone who expresses even mild disagreement with your position. But I am the zealot.

 

[QV]

With this as a baseline, what should be done for those children with gender dysphoria?

Mental health resources until age of consent for more invasive medical procedures.

 

[PuckChaser]

 

[Jarnhamar]

No. It means being an outlier doesn't automatically mean we are wrong. Many, many countries have been outliers.
1893 New Zealand, women could vote. Massive outlier. Should they have changed their policy because of being an outlier? No.

Being an outlier doesn't denote someone being right or wrong, it's just a position worth examining. "Am I the only one in step?"
If Canada refused to allow children to use puberty blockers, and Sweden, UK, Netherlands et el all allowed it you would be pointing out Canada is the outlier and we should be more like them.

Multiple progressive countries with high quality health systems shifted in the same direction, from the position Canada is currently in. It's worth examining why, not dismissing it.

These countries didn’t reverse their support for trans people. They moved from decentralized prescribing toward:

• multidisciplinary assessments
• pediatric endocrinology oversight
• clearer diagnostic criteria
• long-term follow-up
• specialists vs general practitioners.

You want to make this moral. It's clinical.

Yet puberty blockers are being used in cases other than gender disphoria.
So, is it the medication?
This is again, being lazer focused on trans individuals, and a buffet of reasons are being trotted out to justify it as anything other than hate legislation. I'm just calling a spade a spade

Context is important.
In precocious puberty, blockers restore typical development. In gender dysphoria cases, they pause typical development for identity exploration.

Different contexts justify different levels of assessment. The purpose, expected outcomes, and evidence base are different.

If these didn't result in a lot of individuals losing access to these treatments I would be inclined to believe it.
Better oversight while allowing the same amount of access, sure, wonderful. Increased scrutiny with the result of denying individuals access? I see it for what it is.

I'm suggesting a more structured access similar to what countries very similar to Canada moved to. I'm not advocating for losing access.

This is a solution searching for a problem.

Here's some of the problems I've found/read with the current system:

• uneven access to specialists
• variation in clinical assessment practices
• unclear diagnostic pathways
• lack of long-term follow up data
• reliance on general practitioners for highly specialized decisions

It looks like other countries similar to Canada found problems and sought out a solution, which is is the centralized, specialist approach they moved to.

If people wanted to actually bring science and data to the table I would respond in kind.

You mean like someone bringing up Sweden, Finland, UK's approach which is data driven and the response was that they (countries) just wanted trans kids to die?

Asking for specialist oversight is not ignoring data.

Instead we get a lot of
"I feel"
"I think"
"I believe"
"It's obvious"
"In my opinion"
"Just my two cents"

Yeah. This is a message forum full of people with opinions. Two people can look at the same data and have different responses to it.

Because that's what these conversations are. Ignoring the individuals for some overarching, over reaching, narrative. And maybe my work with these communities and at risk youth has lead to me being incredibly pissed off that so many can be so dismissive to the challenges faced by these individuals that I do turn things into a moral accusations. But I think it's also equally likely that people view the trans community, trans individuals as a monolithic and doesn't take into account how these laws hurt individuals, hurts families, and yes, ends up with dead kids.

There's a good argument for trans youth deserving consistent, specialist care rather than a patchwork of approaches. The countries mentioned Wanting stronger clinical standards isn’t dismissing their challenges. We can care about kids without assuming that any call for oversight equals harm or people want them dead.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Some of whom are Doctors and Parents.

That's one of my concerns. There's some wacky parents and doctors out there. The safeguards for kids dealing with them is lacking.

Pre-pubescent children are very impressionable. Ideologically driven adults can take advantage of that. Here is one example:
//
Appropriate?

That's pretty messed up. Probably included in the reason why mqny gay men and women are trying to move away from association with the 2SLBTQIA++ identity crap.