WHY A CHILD REQUESTING TRANSGENDER HEALTHCARE MUST NOT BE DENIED  IT IN THE NAME OF PROTECTING THE CHILD

Transkids are a growing reality in our world of today. Transgender people say they have known who they are since they were toddlers. Awareness of how many children know at two or three who they are is increasing.

Gender is the sex you are in your head. It is your gender identity. Biological sex is distinguished by many from this.

Despite the gender and biological sex narrative, we must start to realise that biological sex is like gender a social construct. Transgender people may say they have a biological sex yes but their gender is innate and they sense it.  It is not in line with that sex. Trans children however tend to reject such distinctions. The child born "female" keeps it simple - "she" is a boy. The child born "male" keeps it simple - "he" is a girl. Children who know they are a boy today and a girl tomorrow and a boy the day after and so on need to be affirmed too.

The child may suffer from dysphoria not because they think their gender is different from their sex but because they feel they are in the wrong sex for life no matter what hormones or treatments they take to change the birth body.  Being transman as in wanting to be cisman is real.  Being transwoman as in wanting to be ciswoman is real.  It is very cruel.  They are hard to help so all that can be done is one's best.

The debate rages today about how to approach matters when children report being born in the wrong body or wrong biological sex.

Some children do not use the born in the wrong body narrative. They will simply settle for saying a male body does not make you a boy and a female body does not make you a girl. These will believe they are assigned the wrong gender or biological sex at birth.

They suffer on two levels.  First nature has caused a mismatch.  Second society reinforces that mismatch and thus may be even worse than what nature has done.  The transgender children debate is important for in all cases, the child is being oppressed by parents and doctors who assign the wrong gender at birth. Society and religion pile on that abuse as do friends.  A child is given civil and religious paperwork that does not affirm their true identity.  Rites of passage such as registrations and baptisms are clearly trying to impose the wrong sex or gender.

How can the trans child be helped?

One model is to help the child discern her or his own path which means being prepared to affirm the transgender identity.  In practice if the child says they are not the sex their body says you have to agree.

Another is to help the child stay in their birth sex or birth gender and give every available treatment for dysphoria. This approach is considered abusive for dysphoria can be worsened or exacerbated by failing to affirm the child in her or his own true gender. It is akin to conversion therapy. Many Christians have subjected transgender children to it.  Most upbringings pressure the child.

The child is being denied the choice to change the body. There are gender expectations as well.

Bodily autonomy is a fundamental human right. Not giving a child the right to line up the body through medicine and surgery to the true gender can cause grave distress for each person knows this is a right even if they cannot articulate it. That distress may be a part of the dysphoria or a different issue. Or both.
 
Children mean what they say. A child claiming to be born a boy despite seeming to be a girl by the body that he has, knows he is really a boy literally. He is a natural born boy and nature has violated him by making the female body an accident. Same obviously with a child who sees that nature has accidentally given her the body of a boy or vice versa.

Trans is just a descriptor, just like tall, short, white, black, long haired, short haired, blonde, brunette. The important thing is what the descriptor relates to. In that sense there are no transgirls only girls. In that sense there are no transboys only boys.

If there is a disconnect between gender and biological sex if you are a child you will be discovering yourself as transgender. Cisgender is when gender and sex line up.

Gender dysphoria torments the person until they transition. Social transition is living as the gender you truly are in our mind and medical transition is treatments so that you become physically like the sex you feel you are.

The transgender experience is that your inner sense of self that biology gave you does not match the body and the gender role expected of you in society. People say this is religious and Gnostic. It is not. Some trans confuse the inner sense of self with a soul but there is no need to bring ghosts into it. Doing that just threatens trans rights by giving the impression it is just a form of spirituality or religion. In a secular world, that is unacceptable.

Why do some men not report gender dysphoria for being what they see as the 'wrong' kind of man? Maybe a man wants to be more bulky and stronger looking or wants more bodily hair? Hormones will help.  Why do some women not report gender dysphoria for what they see as being the 'wrong' kind of woman? Why are they not using hormones and surgeries and suffering terribly? To me, this suggests there are many suffering dysphoria and doing nothing about it or pretending it is depression or something else.

People who affirm transpeople may still argue that there is no such such thing as a trans child! They may qualify this by saying that you only know if you are trans at puberty or after!  This goes with the idea that a child claiming to be trans cannot really be sure and cannot consent to puberty blockers, can't consent to hormones and can't consent to surgery. It makes no sense for even if you cannot make an informed choice to have transhealthcare for you may be too young, it is the case you you may still be trans.

Nature is nothing special. Rather than alter nature we add to it. It is natural to intervene. Get that? So now that you understand that, how do you deal with the argument that a child cannot validly consent to puberty blockers, hormones and even gender affirmation surgery? The permanent and irreversible changes of puberty are consented to and that seems fine with everybody. To do something to stop or pause puberty with consent is objected to. But nature is not something we have to respect or go along with. So for that reason we regard the choice to let your puberty proceed or to arrest it as having equal validity.

A poorly understood choice by a child is better than nothing. Even this choice by a child concerning their own body even if inadequate will have to do for it is better than anybody else choosing. Nobody can make choices for the body of the child but the child. If the consent is not mature all we can do is try to inform it. None of that changes the fact that we have to live with the choice and respect it. This is simply about not imposing. Imposing is denying the child’s inner sense of self and that is abuse. Not to mention how much the child will love her or his or their inner being. It degrades and hurts them in two horrific ways.

There is no middle ground. If those who want the child to wait, the 'watchful waiting' model, if they are wrong they are abusing children and contributing to the suicides of some of them.

If trans is not a choice, then the child knows who they are and that is what matters.



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