Anonymous #2 6d

When I say boob job I mean cosmetic breast augmentation (ie implants) that is not medically necessary. Insurance oftentimes covers breast reductions because there are health implications, the same is not true for boob jobs

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Anonymous #2 6d

In the same way that getting a nose job because you literally can't breathe is different than getting it because you hate your nose, or getting veneers/implants because your teeth have rotted out of your mouth is different than shaving your teeth down for no reason just because you want white shiny perfect fake ones

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Anonymous #4 6d

i also know people who waited until they were legal adults for some or any medical intervention and did so because it was best for them. the problem with saying “you should never give medical interventions to minors” regardless of if you’re talking about trans people not is that it’s not informed by the individual patients needs or professional insight it’s informed by your reaction to the idea of someone else receiving a certain medical treatment

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Anonymous #4 6d

And I'm sure a 16 year old with a boob job is also happy with the results lol that doesn't do anything to counter the point I'm making

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Anonymous OP 6d

you refusing to read fully what i’m saying, think about it and internalize it counters your argument perfectly without me having to try. if you want to talk about this you’re gonna have to either do so in good faith or stop wasting my time

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Anonymous #4 6d

You're talking to me lol I'm not wasting your time because you elected to respond to my post. And no it actually doesn't because my argument was not "you should never give medical interventions to minors" so maybe figure out what I said before writing paragraphs responding to things I didn't say

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Anonymous OP 6d

Is gender affirming surgery not health implications?

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Anonymous #2 6d

Unless you have breast cancer or something that is a reason that makes surgery medically necessary, a mastectomy has nothing but negative health implications because it's taking unnecessary medical risks and we should not be doing that for minors. There's always risk should be no world in which a trans 16 year old dies of sepsis from top surgery just like there shouldn't be one where cis 16 year old dies of sepsis from a BBL. I don't think elective surgeries are beneficial for a persons health

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Anonymous OP 6d

i think what #2 is saying is that you're responding as if there are no known health implications with refusing a patient gender affirming care when that's empirically not the case. there is a heightened risk of self harm & suicide, & a lower quality of life. i guess if you only care about physical harm, the way to determine whether it's good or bad to allow minors these surgeries would be to weigh the odds of risk from mastectomy vs risk from self harm/suicide

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Anonymous OP 6d

you quite literally in your post say “i understand why people are opposed to providing medical transition to minors” and go on to defend that point. so i’m not sure what you mean your point isn’t that we shouldn’t give medical interventions to minors, that’s what the entire post is about. Restricting access to medical care, because it makes you uncomfortable, is bad because it limits the options of professionals and their patients, who are not you and you do not know and you cannot speak for.

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Anonymous #6 6d

thank you just want to add my broader point is you don’t get to weigh those risks based on your feelings about a hypothetical scenario. the risks associated with giving or not giving someone any kind of medical care should be weighed by the treatment team and the patient, not by strangers or law makers

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Anonymous #4 6d

i wish that was how it was, but it just isn't and never has been the way healthcare works in the USA (idk about other countries). there is no law tor constitutionally protected right to one's body and no privacy between doctor and patient (one could argue there used to be but certainly not anymore). law makers are 100% allowed to make decisions about what kind of healthcare a patient can receive, whether or not it's what a doctor or care team thinks is best. (ex. abortion, assisted suicide, etc)

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Anonymous #6 6d

My point is that there are kids who aren't trans who kill themselves over body image issues and how they're treated yet I still don't think an appropriate course of action is to surgically alter your kids appearance during their formative years in attempt to improve their sense of self. Everybody has to learn to live with themselves and if you didn't learn that as a kid, what coping skills does that leave you with if you're still not happy post surgery?

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Anonymous OP 6d

Nobody says "give my kid with body dysmorphia a BBL or she'll kill herself" and gets a doctors recommendation to give their kid a bbl. Nor does anyone say about a kid who committed suicide over body image issues "she would still be here if we let her get a bbl". Are you hearing the point I'm making?

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Anonymous #4 6d

My post literally doesn't say that

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Anonymous #7 6d

The government is the reason you can't beat or starve your kids. Obviously not equating gender affirming surgery to that, but just making the point that not all parents are suitable for deciding on what's good for their kids. Even in the best case parents may not provide the perspective their kids need bc they wanna be supportive. Kids don't always think things through thoroughly. At least if they wait until they're a legal adult, there's more time and consideration that goes into the decision

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Anonymous #7 6d

Even in less extreme cases, some states have laws that say minors can't get tattoos. Another example of not being able to permanently alter your body as a minor. Maybe it's fine but probably better for a kid to have to wait til 18 when they're in college or working to get a tattoo than to get a face tat as an idiot 14yo

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Anonymous OP 6d

“it’s not that hard to follow the logic on why people are against medical transition for minors”

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Anonymous #4 6d

Yes, that is literally what I said. Good job on learning how to quote. Now tell me the bounds you had to leap for that to translate to "we shouldn't give medical interventions to minors" when I've already explicitly stated that medically necessary interventions are fine

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Anonymous OP 5d

You’re arguing that the government gets to make choices for people who make bad decisions, yes? Here’s another example of that and I wonder what you’ll think: vaccine mandates. Not getting vaccinated is a dumb decision. Therefore, by your logic, the government should be able to compel you. You OK with that one too?

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Anonymous #7 5d

Yes? I'm not an antivaxxer lol the government already does do this, you can't go to public school without certain vaccines unless you have like a religious or health exemption

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Anonymous OP 5d

Aight, 1 more and then I swear I’ll make my point. Should the government make choices about abortion?

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Anonymous #7 5d

This case is not like the other because you're more likely to suffer medical consequences from continuing with a pregnancy than from ending it. If a government is gonna rationally intervene and decide what people can and can't do, it's generally based on cost benefit analysis. Dying in childbirth or from an ectopic pregnancy has a much higher cost than getting an abortion. Preventing 100 ppl from dying of disease is greater benefit than 1 person not dying from a poor reaction to a vaccine. Etc

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Anonymous #7 5d

The cost of not being able to get a job is greater than the benefit of having a cool design on your face. See the point I'm making?

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Anonymous OP 5d

You’re likely to suffer medical consequences if you can’t get treatment for gender dysphoria. That treatment is gender reassignment surgery.

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Anonymous #7 5d

Well neither of those sentences are true

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Anonymous #7 5d

There is not direct physical consequence of not getting gender reassignment surgery. I think you're claiming maybe if people harm themselves because they have gender dysphoria, but the physical injury is not a result of not getting surgery, it's a result of whatever tool they used to cause that harm. Unless you die of a broken heart or something. And gender reassignment is not THE treatment for gender dysphoria, some people are fine with nothing but counseling or an understanding community.

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Anonymous #7 5d

Anyway, my point in asking these questions is to illustrate that it’s absurd to hold individual bodily decisions to identical standards across the board. Different bodies require different decisions to be made. That’s my point about gender reassignment surgery; a one-size-fits-all government regulation is not gonna fit every situation. That’s why the decision lies between the teen, their parents, and their doctor.

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Anonymous #7 5d

Yeah but that point isn't really relevant because I never claimed that individual bodily decisions should be held to identical standards across the board

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Anonymous #7 5d

And I also explained, using your examples, how my logic doesn't suggest that there should be uniform standards across the board. My whole point is there's no use in taking unnecessary medical risks with children where the direct potential costs are death or disability

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Anonymous OP 5d

The claim that you previously affirmed you were communicating: government gets to make choices for people who make dumb decisions My point: Government is arbitrary about the places they step into on the issue of body autonomy. Between arbitrary blanket decisions and possible dumb individual decisions, I choose the latter.

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Anonymous #7 5d

I’m not really making any assertions about the actual surgery process. Not my business, that’s up to doctors and patients to hammer out. My argument is about legislation.

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Anonymous #7 5d

I literally just explained to you the basis on which it's not arbitrary. The trump administration doesn't count they just are dumb lol but generally speaking, it's all based at the simplest level on cost benefit analysis. Every policy. The value of the benefit weighted by the likelihood of its success compared to the value of its cost weighted by the likelihood of incurring those costs. It's not arbitrary, I explained that using your examples

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Anonymous #7 5d

Policies are informed by experts and research (unless it's MAGA). Parental decisions aren't necessarily

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Anonymous OP 5d

Are you arguing in favor of rational actor theory? …the government /can/ be rational, sure, but you’re really tweaking if you think every policy is created like that.

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Anonymous #7 5d

I am arguing in favor of that, that is how policies are made, even if more flawed in reality than theory

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Anonymous OP 5d

Rational actor theory is useful in economics, but fails to take account of emotions, biases, social structures, and the difficulty of implementation in policy studies. The first three of those four have very strong implications with regard to trans issues, so rational actor theory is an absurd standard to apply in this scenario.

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Anonymous #7 5d

It's not though. I've hustled from a rational standpoint shown my thought process on why I think it makes sense to not allow minors to have elective cosmetic surgeries and there's no emotional or biased implication beyond the generally well regarded sentiment that we shouldn't unnecessarily endanger children, and death is always on the table when it comes to surgery

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Anonymous OP 5d

*I've just

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Anonymous OP 5d

And I’ve shown that you’re wrong to impose your random perspective on other people’s individual medical cases.

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Anonymous #7 5d

No you haven't lol, you've stated your opinion and havent said anything to substantiate it for me to be convinced it's the "right" opinion

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Anonymous #7 5d

You're speaking from a normative standpoint. I'm speaking from a positive. You've taken an Econ course it seems, you know why one is better than the other

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Anonymous OP 5d

Aight, I’ll give you one more summary then I’m gonna be done shouting into the void. The government isn’t a rational actor on this one — I’ve illustrated that by pointing out all the ways that policy can be arbitrarily decided by emotions, biases, and social institutions, especially on this issue. Any legislation the government passes flattens all those complex, shifting cultural values that don’t fit into a clean “rational-irrational” or “cost-benefit” binary. 1/2

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Anonymous #7 5d

You just made a statement, you didn't provide any evidence, though I do agree. That doesn't take away from the fact that cost benefit analysis is used and works. sure it has its failings because humans aren't perfectly rational and don't have perfect foresight, but it's generally useful and effective. Ignoring culture, it is a greater cost to society for a person to die in surgery than it is a benefit for a person to feel good ab their body after surgery. Do you disagree?

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Anonymous #7 5d

You listed valid reasons not to get gender reassignment surgery as a teen. But different people make that decision drawing on different reasons, different social values, and different biases. Your view should not be written into law to overpower theirs in this personal decision making capacity. Other people should be involved — parents, doctors — but your view shouldn’t be imposed by legislation under the guise that it’s the one scientific conclusion. TLDR: mind your own biz

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Anonymous OP 5d

Doesn’t matter what I would do; matters what the patient and their doctor would do.

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Anonymous #7 5d

So do you think a dysphoric 16 year old and their mom who just wants to be supportive are taking a wholly objective approach and appropriately weighing the decision on a rational basis without bias? And that the way they present to medical professionals, knowing that they want the surgery and must frame it a certain way, is completely unbiased and it's all an objective assessment? Because I don't think that lol but I think more time for more consideration gets you closer to that

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Anonymous #7 5d

There's a lot of kids out there who would rather kill themselves than go to school where they're bullied because all they can prioritize is their current and limited lived experience. They don't even have the perspective yet to know you can just move away when you graduate and your quality of life drastically improves. That doesn't mean what they're feeling in the moment isn't valid, it means limited experience can cloud judgement

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Anonymous OP 5d

…yeah, ok. Case 1: a supportive mom, her teenager, and a doctor will make a decision that makes sense in the context their lives and medical history Case 2: a stranger from the Internet’s opinion is imposed via law …do I even need to answer that?

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Anonymous #7 5d

What the fuck you guys

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Anonymous #3 5d

Honestly #3 is 100% right for this

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Anonymous OP 5d

Op I think you’re incredibly misinformed about what’s actually happening behind the scenes when a trans teen gets a gender affirming surgery. First of all, it’s a lot less likely to be a boob job because hrt does stimulate some breast growth and most insurances do not generally cover gender affirming surgery for teens if it doesn’t seem entirely necessary. Second of all, any surgery for teens generally will come after transitioning in all other possible ways and a gender therapist determines

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Anonymous OP 5d

That this child is still suffering enough from this specific type of gender dysphoria to warrant surgery. That’s why top surgery for teenage trans boys seems so prevalent because it is very commonly a major cause of dysphoria. Teens aren’t getting BBLs as gender affirming surgery, they may be getting double mastectomies and bottom surgery and sometimes even boob jobs after years of wading through red tape about it

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Anonymous #3 5d

This is not new, they’ve been letting minors get boob jobs. Usually though it’s teenage cis girls getting boob jobs not trans girls. Boob jobs for teenage trans girls are banned in multiple states.

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Anonymous #7 5d

Well no, it's not a stranger from the internets opinion, it's the conclusion that policymakers, experts, and researchers come to whatever that may be

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Anonymous #8 5d

Any mention of boob jobs and bbls was reacting to cis teens. Do you support cis teens getting bbls as a treatment for body dysmorphia? If so, why? If not, how is it different than trans teens getting mastectomies?

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Anonymous #8 5d

And maybe a more important question is do you not think it's important to teach all kids not to reduce themselves to their bodies and appearances when forming their sense of self? And specific to gender identity, you don't need to reduce yourself to sex organs to be valid in your identity. A flat chested boxy cis girl shouldn't walk around feeling like she needs surgery and procedures to be seen as a woman and you shouldn't reinforce that to them by taking them to be operated on.

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Anonymous OP 5d

Idk sorry that I think cis and trans teens are more alike than similar and everybody has body image issues whether it be dysphoria or dysmorphia or whatever else lol you have to learn to be able to live with yourself as you are and make do with what you have and maybe as an adult you decide you really can't, but at least there's been further consideration

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Anonymous #3 5d

You can turn off post notifications

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Anonymous OP 5d

Ah ok I see. In the case of surgery for dysmorphia that is very much so not recommended by any mental health professional because it is known to only maybe relieve symptoms temporarily. Generally if someone is seeking cosmetic surgery because of insecurity in their body (not dysphoria) there is a huge element of pressure from cultural beauty standards and advertising. Mastectomies for gender dysphoria however very definitely do reduce depressive and suicidal thoughts in trans teens in a way

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Anonymous #8 5d

In both cases, there is a huge element of cultural beauty standards and insecurity. There is a reason why bottom surgery is more common in some cultures than others and that's because in some cultures there's not the societal pressure of "straight men think it's gay to be with anyone who has a penis or has masculine features so if I get bottom/facial feminization/etc surgery, that will help avoid the issue and help me maintain my safety in the event that I don't wanna disclose that I'm trans"

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Anonymous #8 5d

I'm not disagreeing that cosmetic surgeries can reduce depression and suicidal thoughts, I'm just claiming that's not exclusive to trans kids. There are also suicidal cis kids who are depressed because of how they're treated in society based on their body and how they look.

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Anonymous OP 5d

Teaching them to accept their body never will. There are a lot more barriers in place for a trans teen to get a mastectomy which probably influences the regret rate, but the regret rate for mastectomy as gender affirming care is less than 1% for a reason(Regret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence). Mastectomies for trans teens genuinely help their mental health, and they don’t get them unless a gender therapist believes it will.

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Anonymous #8 5d

I never said anything about regret lol we're talking past each other. My argument was never that you should wait because you might regret it because I don't believe that

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Anonymous OP 5d

Sorry I am commenting things before I see your replies. In that case though I have looked it up and found nothing to suggest that plastic surgery is being recommended as a treatment for depression or dysmorphia for non-gender-affirming reasons. Like if someone really wants it I wouldn’t judge them but yeah it is better to start with old fashioned therapy about it. Your comments in this chain before me tho do make it seem like you’re also against gender affirming surgery for teens.

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Anonymous #8 5d

I know that that lmao that's my point. It's recommended as treatment even if someone is suicidal and depressed about how they're treating in life based on how they look and because they have such a low view of themselves. Would you give a kid ozempic because they think they're fat and might otherwise kill themselves intentionally or as a consequence of an eating disorder? Would you expect that to be the recommendation from a medical professional? That's my point lol like it's the same thing

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Anonymous #8 5d

My comments have explicitly stated I am against elective cosmetic surgeries for all teens whether it be gender affirming or for other body image issues

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Anonymous #8 5d

The ozempic case a bad example maybe but the sentiment is there. Every kid is uncomfortable in their body, it might be better to let kids know they're in the same boat even if for different reasons rather that isolating trans kids into believing they are alone in what they're feeling and that the experience is wholly unique and nobody could understand any aspect of it

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Anonymous OP 5d

Unfortunately I think the ozempic case is way more likely to happen than any of the other cases we’re talking about but that’s another conversation. I will go back to my original comment tho I think you are extremely misinformed about what’s actually happening when trans teens get surgery. Because of how many barriers are up, they first have to see a gender therapist and be recommended gender affirming surgery because of how severely the dysphoria is affecting them.

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Anonymous OP 5d

And there is no isolating trans kids into believing they’re alone in feeling discontent in their body or that surgery is the only solution because other possible solutions have to be attempted first. Like binders and hormone therapies and general therapy and all that. The teens getting mastectomies have already been wearing binders, which can have worse long-term health effects if worn improperly which is unfortunately extremely common.

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Anonymous #8 5d

I know the barriers that are up, that still doesn't counter my point. Also, obviously it's more difficult for gender affirming surgery than for other cases, but I am someone who has used diagnoses as a means of getting my way on several things and what I know is a lot of it is narrative. If you can be convincing about how much you're suffering, you can get what you want even if you're exaggerating. Nothing is unbiased in medical care, they're just people

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Anonymous #8 5d

Sure but I'm saying *only* other solutions are available for other teens with other body image issues. No therapist is says "we've tried everything, makeup, counseling, journaling, affirmations etc. the only remaining solution for this 16 year old is a nose job". That's not a thing

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Anonymous OP 5d

Ok on that you’re right. There should maybe be more done to help teens feel more secure in their bodies before getting cosmetic surgery. But by including gender affirming surgery in your statements you are also including cases where the teen has gone through all the other options and barriers and the cosmetic surgery actually does help with their mental health issues. Which is why gender affirming surgery is considered life-saving care

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Anonymous #8 5d

I think you're still missing the point. My point is teens with any other body image issues could have gone through all the same avenues as a kid with gender dysphoria, and yet elective surgeries are not presented as a last effort treatment option even if letting your kid get gastric bypass surgery when they don't medically need it would end up being life saving. Are you seeing what I'm saying or are we still talking past each other

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Anonymous OP 5d

I see what you’re saying but even then I don’t think the solution would be restricting cosmetic surgery for last resort because sometimes it’s not essential but it can still improve quality of life, like #2’s point about breast reduction. Preventing cosmetic surgery for teens who would be better served by therapy isn’t going to properly happen though unless cultural beauty standards are given less importance and less imposed on teens. Also advertising for cosmetic surgery is severely regulated.

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Anonymous #8 5d

*wouldn’t be restricting cosmetic surgery for last resort

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Anonymous #8 5d

I think you should read what's already been said because we're rehashing things I've already stated my view on multiple times. Once again, my issue is with elective cosmetic surgeries. Breast reductions are not cosmetic at the first level, they're done for health reasons mainly to help with back pain (I've said this already). That said, it is a great example of how narrative is the thing in healthcare. You could have no pain at all but you tell your doctor that you do and insurance will cover it

4