281 Comments
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Free Thinker's avatar

Quit being such a leftist that you deny personal freedom to adults!

Kids below the age of 20 should have their freedoms curtailed in recognition of their still developing brain, but after that age they have the right to fail and succeed however they best see fit.

If you care for them so much then donate to mental health organizations for those who seek its help. But for those who choose different and decide to do something stupid like follow the trans cult into the oblivion doom of despair, it's good to know that nobody forced them to go there, and that it was ultimately they who made the choice for themselves so there's noone to blame but the person they see in the mirror each morning.

Individual freedom only survives by strictly Enforcing an onoing ABSENCE of government that would tell adults what they can and can't do with their lives. Telling government to interfere with that is someone who wants to leave the right behind and become another dreaded leftwing conservative, which is exactly what you're proclaiming to be with your stance here. Yuck

Muzical's avatar

We replaced liberty with license and made that and "consent," (which no one seems to be able to define the same way year-over-year...) our new gods. There are plenty of things we don't let grown adults do, like heroin, and I don't consider "transition" to be any less harmful than LSD or shrooms.

Gary Mullennix's avatar

GAC has many heads and it’s seems impossible to fight each one. In the meantime, in addition to listening, we could join Moms For Liberty and attack the political underpinnings. I did today.

Shannon Thrace's avatar

The focus on the young is a pragmatic matter. We can already legally prevent kids from doing things: drinking, buying cigarettes, getting tattoos. We can't legally prevent adults from doing those same things. It's within reach to ban kids from accessing certain things. It is less likely we'll ban them for adults who want them, whether it's cigarettes or elective surgery.

The medical industry offers things that aren't medicine, like ordinary plastic surgery. We'll have a hard time banning this now that it's been going on for decades. We'll have an even harder time banning it in some cases (gender dysphoria) but not others (feeling old).

Adults make bad decisions all the time, and while that's often worthy of private condemnation, it's not easy to build policy around it. Many of us don't concern ourselves with adults who transition, not because we think it's a great idea for them, but for the same reason we don't concern ourselves when adults get a face tattoo: not much can be done.

Some things that _could_ be done: Taking it off the table for the young, as they'll be less likely to focus on it as they age. Holding medical entities responsible for their mistakes and the injuries they cause. Publishing objective data on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) and side effects of this, and _all_ treatment protocols, and fostering a culture who thinks critically instead of blindly trusting authority. Admitting as a society that this is an aesthetic pursuit rather than a health need.

Stefanie's avatar

"We got into this mess by making freedom, specifically an incredibly broad conception about what personal freedom should encompass, the value that trumps all others. But freedom, while important, is not the only value that matters. And living a life dedicated primarily to personal freedom does not appear to create much long-term or sustainable joy."

THIS. Liberty is freedom to do what we ought. Our modern conception of "freedom" is poison, to individuals and to society itself.

Neil Dorin's avatar

As a personal friend of the individual you mention attempting to access MAiD in Canada, I would strongly agree.

I used to have the opinion that adults could make their own decisions, which I suppose I still do. But I’m not sure our medical system should go along with their desires.

Akin to the concept of Body Integrity Identity Disorder, just because and adult with this disorder wishes to have a limb amputated does not mean doctors should affirm or perform and amputation.

Lida H.'s avatar

I think that when you have seen (or perhaps even heard and read about) enough real people whose lives have been so severely impacted by this ideology and it's professional proponents, you can see just how evil it actually is. That's not a term that I use lightly, either. Have you ever noticed how few "trans" of the most virulently activist type, ie AGP seem to have the horrifying amputating surgeries, or detransition? Compare that to the many gays and lesbians who end up minus body parts only to realise they're just same-sex attracted and made a mistake - you can't tell me that homophobia and the fetishes of activist doctors and surgeons are not a significant factor in this. It's so tragic. It's a human rights atrocity being carried out against the gay, the neurodivergent and the mentally ill. The lives of kids and young people from First Nation groups and the Care system are massively disproportionately affected in both of our countries, too.

The "genocide" that so many of them seem to fantasise about is just more DARVO from them.

MH's avatar

We go out of our way to discourage smoking in all age groups because of the cost to the public purse. Imagine how much the post-transition health burden will cost the taxpayer.

Ellen Highwater's avatar

Totally agree, I don't think anyone should have these surgeries.

Free Thinker's avatar

You're the worst kind of white knight there is.

You want the world to revolve around YOUR rules, what YOU deem to be proper and allowed and for no one else to make their own mistakes unless YOU can first approve them as reasonable.

When adults make a mistake, they have to live by them, regardless of what they are. If someone tries to commit suicide, yes you can help them, but you're not responsible for their action either. However your decision is that we should all be accountable for their choice as an adult, like they don't get to decide for themselves how to screw up their life.

You perfectly fit the definition of what a hardcore Leftist is because you want to remove the option of choice from people and hand all decision making power over to the government. That's exactly the way the church used to work to control people, and now you just want to replace that decision making body with government. It's also how Socialism snd Fascism both work.

Adults need to live and die by their own good or bad personal choices. If you want to stop people then convince them, don’t force them.

Jessica's avatar

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

User's avatar
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Jul 24, 2023
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Free Thinker's avatar

Socialism can't exist without a Police State to enforce the rules that keep people enslaved. It's more akin to the Southern Confederacy that kept blacks in chains than real capitalism, which itself could be seen in what the Northern States had.

Socialism doesnt work because its economy can't survive. Even the Soviet Union had to sell oil in the free market to hold together otherwise it would have collapsed in the early 70's. When collectivism has been tried, those countries were eventually forced to switch to a semi-capitalist model just to keep its leaders fed and to buy the guns they needed to keep the starving people from revolting.

Just remember, it was the leftists who enslaved the black people of America, rightwingers wanted to free them. That's why racism is more prevalent among Democrats even today, only the skin color they direct their hate toward has shifted.

User's avatar
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Jul 25, 2023
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Free Thinker's avatar

Your idea that Democrats dropped their racist undertones is wholly unmatched with reality, they've only traded in their racism against blacks to direct their latest vitriol against whites, and increasing including the populations of Asians and Jews. In particular that last race is what equates them closer to the ideology of the nazis than republicans who support all races but only want them to fail when they don't try and succeed when they endeavor to find success.

Thats a good reason why sanctuary cities and states deserve to receive bused in migrants because it shows how little they actually want to live amongst the problems they create when they're forced to experience the consequences. That's why New York and Chicago are begging for it to stop but should get the bulk of the illegal migrants to prove their not just virtue signaling.

As for what defines left and right, institutionalized slavery can only exist through the intervention and provocation of government. Without that power behind the drive to enslave, there is only pockets of human trafficking but not wholesale national enclaves of it.

Rightwing government means putt8ng limits on the power of government to prevent any restriction of people's personal freedoms, which includes the right to decide who and where to work. Slavery simply cannot exist under a rightward government because the moment it does, that government has switched to the tutelage of the Left, which believes in authoritarian government control over the populace. Many leftists believe such a system can be made benevolent with technology, but it's a falsehood proven tie and again, the latest example being China when it uses its tech advantage to capture and enslave its own people. That's a socialist-marxist state showing us what true leftwing dominance looks like.

If you want to educate yourself about the difference between left and right, this is a good short essay with pictures to help you along in understanding where you misunderstand the proper positions of ideologies on the political spectrum.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180924185116/thedailyjournalist.com/thethinker/fascism-is-far-left-not-far-right-on-political-spectrum/

Jason's avatar

I like the author’s passion, and agree with the author’s main points that these procedures are barbaric. That said, I’m on the side of adult freedom. We cannot legislate how people think, and anyone can choose to harm their own body at any time. What we should have, IMO, is the option to sue the living crap out of the doctor if it can be proved I’m court that said doctor did not obtain 100% fully informed consent based on accurately advising the patient of the physical and mental side effects of these procedures. Rather than legislating, allow natural incentives to weed out the profit-motivated scumbag doctors doing this harm.

Orange Joke 🍊's avatar

The issue here is not a medical one but a legal one. As a fifty-something, 18yos are still children to me. But they are given the right under the law to make their own choices, even if they might regret it later.

I can see no other way but to allow legal adults to make their own choices.

But that is also why it is so important to let parents have a say in the medical treatment of their children absent documented abuse.

Sometimes, we just have to let people make mistakes and watch from the sidelines. For children, we can and should intervene. For legal adults, we have to leave it to them.

Free Thinker's avatar

Letting parents make the decisions is no panacea to the problem.

Many are so caught up with the prominence that having a trans kid brings from their peers, their inner attention whore blows up into high gear and they push their kids into seeking the treatment.

The only solution I see to this is for these kids being abused into doing it to seek out revenge against their parents, teachers, therapists and doctors after the fact if they come to realize their immature minds were abused and manipulated into changing.

If their lives are already ruined, then perhaps shortening the lives of their abusers will scare others away from pushing kids to do things they're not ready for, if they might one day turn around and seek the same revenge on them.

Orange Joke 🍊's avatar

This is the point where we just do not know what truly works and what does not.

I am highly critical of gender medicine. But without good studies, everyone is guessing and stabbing in the dark.

This is not a good solution, but the best we can possibly hope for in the short term is to make safe spaces for parents who want to resist this ideology to do so.

In the long term, good data will eventually come in and that will pave the way for more regulation and restriction of care or (less likely in my opinion, but I have to be at least be open to the possibility) it will show that the treatments work with good long-term mental health outcomes.

The political space is divided and that means that everything that comes out on both sides has a clear agenda and no one has much trust.

I am gender critical, meaning that I am all for letting adults and kids express themselves how they wish to, that it is okay to have effeminate and/or gay boys and it is okay to have butch and/or lesbian girls and that none of that means they are innately trans.

But if the political right is not making space for such arguments, then in many respects they are reinforcing the false binary choices the trans movement is pushing but from the other side.

Bluejay's avatar

Thank you for writing this. I’m crushed that my eighteen year old daughter can destroy her healthy body with the help of the medical field. Do no harm went out the door. We’re all drowning in the Trans tidal wave of ideology. It’s everywhere and it’s getting pushed beyond boundaries. I wish this could just go away, it’s like a never ending nightmare. I want to wake up from it!

BrownWoolHat's avatar

I'm sorry Bluejay. This is so terrible.. it's suffocating...

Michele a/k/a Nana's avatar

Oh, I agree with you 100%. But it seems that the LGBT+ crew does not. So, we have to start somewhere. We cannot stop the adults. If the doctors persist in not being honest with them, it becomes the adult's choice. I wish every adult would do their homework by researching what happens to their body once they agree to be changed surgically and/or medically. It's not pretty, but it's their legal decision. However, children do not deserve these severe consequences and in my book, it is child abuse. If I can save one child by speaking up, then I will continue to voice my opinion with love, compassion and deep concern. My heart breaks for all the adults and children that are being brainwashed. Now just convince the LGBT+ crowd and maybe we can save adults, too.

Free Thinker's avatar

Detransitioners as Adults had their opportunity to learn all the problems that would arise from their decision.

If those chose to be delusional, that's a bad reason to feel heartbroken for them.

User's avatar
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Jul 24, 2023
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Free Thinker's avatar

Compassion is a choice!

And if I can't make you work it selectively, you don't get to force me to employ it universally.

User's avatar
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Jul 6, 2023
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Jessica's avatar

Yes, GAG exists. That is great. But, the idea that that most LGBs agree with GAG, imo, is very wrong. Go to TikTok. Go to YT. Watch the protests and other gatherings. There are masses of ppl who are just LG or B there cheering on the T and fighting for it.

Glad there's some pushback, but that isn't the norm.

Jane Says's avatar

To me, the whole concept of surgical intervention for a cognitive distortion is barbaric for kids and adults as well. I think the idea that adults can do what they want is an attempt to start turning the ship around. I see extremists on both sides digging into their positions and a mental compromise of "lets just stop mutilating kids" might be a tiny crack into changing minds. This issue of bodily autonomy is so complex and it is frustrating when people speak of a one size fits all solution. Vaccines, abortion, cosmetic surgery, tattoos, piercings, medical implants, all could fall under that umbrella. The little conspiracy theorist that lives in my head warns me of letting any government entity have too much say over what I can and cannot do with my body, and yet I might sell my soul to the institution that would refuse to allow my beautiful daughter to mutilate her body.

Jessica's avatar

That's why we have to not make it illegal to do, not ban it, but allow Drs, therapists, etc to be sued into oblivion. Once those lawsuits start rolling, they'll change tune.

I recently read the TX abortion law. It is absolutely geniusly written. It can't be stopped by the courts because it doesn't ban it. It just allows a private citizen to sue anyone who does or aids in an abortion. It doesn't even have to be the woman who got the abortion. Anyone can sue them. Now, the Drs won't do it.

Maybe a law like that is how this is done. It doesn't ban it. It just incentivizes Drs, therapists, etc to not do it. This is happening because they're making huge bank. Make it a risky move.

Jane Doe's avatar

Salem witch trails. A bill like that ensures that people are punished because of subjective truth.

Caroline Kemball's avatar

The Cass review excludes people over the age of 18. In the UK teens over the age of 18 are not receiving mental health care unless they come forward, and commonly you do not seek help when you have a serious mental health issue.

Jeremy Wickins's avatar

Quite correct. There are some things that a civilised society should not allow individuals to consent to. At the very least, there should be the requirement for consent to be confirmed/denied by a third party. Technically, lobotomies are still legal for treatment of mental illnesses in England and Wales, but they require the consent of the patient plus approval from a judge based on reports from psychiatrists and a social worker. This is the model that should provide the starting point for discussing what should be the pathway for gender identity/dysphoria.

It strikes me as wrong that courts over here, based on rulings from the European Court of Human Rights, deny applications for non-consensual reversible contraception, or sterilisation, of people with severe learning disabilities when the reasons for doing it are very good, but remain (and have remained silent for a long time) about sterilisation of people who cannot possibly consent to medical and surgical interventions (I refuse to call them "treatments") that have *exactly* the same results. The lack of consistency is striking, and should not be allowed to continue.

TJ37's avatar

Absolutely. I've been waiting what feels like forever for people to notice – let alone care about –the sterilising and maiming 'treatments' implemented on autistic young adults (and older) in the name of 'gender-affirming care'.

People on the autism spectrum form a hugely disproportionate percentage of those lured to misinterpret 'gender' as the cause and cure for their sense of difference or mismatch with social expectations. Yet the National Autistic Society has been an absolute disgrace, captured by the gender pushers, conniving in the harming of those they should be protecting.