#trans youth aren't allowed to just live and be kids

[theissuewithred]

in my trans grief hours *autism yippee*

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David Tennant interview at the British LGBT Awards, June 2024 (x)

Int: You being an ally to the community isn't something new. You've been doing it, but recently you've obviously really stepped up for trans and non-binary people in a time that's so, so needed. What made you do that?

David: I don't know that I feel like I've done anything that I wouldn't just sort of be normally doing. I mean, it's for me it's just common sense that there's there should be any suggestion that people aren't allowed to live the life they want to live and and to be who they want to be with and to express themselves wholeheartedly. I mean, as long as you aren't hurting anybody else, everybody else just needs to fucking butt out. I don't really understand why...

Int: ...it's controversial.

David: Yeah, there is and the thing... the thing, if there's something that's particularly sobering and depressing, it's that certain debates are being weaponized by certain elements of the political class, often for no... it seems it's not ideological so much as opportunistic. And I just think that's pretty disgusting, really.

Int: I couldn't agree more. What message would you like to send out to trans youth?

David: Please don't feel like you're not loved and that you're not accepted and that you're not... you know, most people in the world are good and kind and just want you to be able to be who you are. Most people in the world don't really care. I mean... you know what I mean?

Int: We're all narcissistic.

David: Exactly. Everyone's so self obsessed that really, the sort of noise that comes from a certain area of the press and of the political class is... it's a minority. It really is. And please don't let that make you feel diminished or dissuaded or discouraged, because, you know, you just... you have to be allowed to be yourself, and you are, and you are yourself and you must thrive and flourish, and we're all here for it.

Int: Amazing. I think, yeah, it's so important .I think sometimes it feels like there's so many people, but it is a minority. It's such a minority.

David: It's a tiny bunch of little whinging fuckers that are on the wrong side of history and they'll all go away soon.

Int: Like what happened with gay people 20 years ago.

David: When I was a kid, when I was a kid, exactly. You know, I was at school when Clause 28 came in and it all felt like being gay was something to be terrified of. And gay men in particular were demonised as paedophiles and now that just feels historic and ludicrous and, I mean, I don't see all those... all those battles aren't won, but we're in a very, very different place. And I feel like.I feel like history is on a progressive trajectory and it might get knocked sideways now and again by people for all sorts of reasons, which are often quite selfish and quite, as I say, not coming from a place of any sort of genuine belief system, but other than a place of opportunism. And that's something that we... I hope that in 20 years time, we're talking about, you know, these culture wars as something of the past.

Int: I believe we will. I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, so.

David: Oh, good, me too!

Int: You are my Doctor.

David: Oh, thank you very much.

Int: But recently, obviously, you came back for the 60th anniversary and you got to work with Yasmin Finney.

David: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Int: What was it like working with her?

David: Oh, she's brilliant. She's fantastic. Yeah. And she's in the show again now, she's back in it, so that's fantastic to see. She's lovely, talented, cool as a cucumber, articulate, brilliant. I learned a lot from her as an actor and also as someone who, you know, who's become a sort of de facto activist just because of who she is and where she is, and she becomes a sort of symbol of hope, and she's wonderful.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

I'll repeat this as many times as need be. 99% of this bullshit is ideology pushed my lunatics and is preying on kids. Kids who have no clue who they are, and are just trying to find themselves and fit in. But now, they have a new obstacle. Groomers, Idealogues, and child molesters telling them they are actually the opposite sex, that they need to abandon their parents/family, and that they need to destroy their bodies, sometimes only after they get molested or raped.

Now am I being a bit extreme? Not really no. We've forsaken SO MANY youths who now will no longer be able to have healthy relationships, won't be able to have sex in a lot of instances, won't be able to have kids, won't be able to breast feed if they ARE still able to have kids. And then that's not counting all the life long medical issues that come with detransitioning. Assuming they do and don't of themselves because they think they are far too fine to be saved.

Which is a REALLY sad reality. Because modern radical trans activists LIE about the stats. Why! Because they say, "oh it's because they weren't accepted". I don't believe that at all. I believe a lot of kids/teens have been trying to find who they are, and rather than looking for that answer, they are handed a platter saying, "Hi. Are you lgbts2++8745z? No?! That's bad. That means your a bigot. Are you white? That's even worse. However, if you want to be inclusive, your should consider if you are REALLY these things at all. Are you a girl but your play with action figures? Well damn you're probably ACTUALLY a boy. Are you a boy but you like to show your emotions? Well damn you're so girly. You MUST be a girl. Btw we're going to tell you every way you're ugly and could be better as not you. Just to reinforce what we told you before".

And here's the shit part. People think none of this is happening. And it is. And you might say, "Well it can't be happening that much". Oh? So what you're saying isn't that this is bad. You're just saying it's not enough for you to care. Well at least you're honest about it. But thing is, it IS happening at an alarming rate. How many kids/teens have to deal with the consequences of none of your asking questions. "No no see people under 16 aren't getting their breasts removed we don't allow that!" Yes. Apparently we do. And it's happened to girls as young as 8. There was a doctor on fucking TikTok known as Dr Yeetus, who BRAGGED and sang "cute" songs about the 13-14 y/o's who's breasts she removed. Then complained in a video saying she had not performed more at one point.

I'm gonna need moderates, liberals, and Leftists to take a step back and look at logic for a second. And for at least 1 of these groups, I know that's gonna be really really hard. How many kids/teens lives and bodies do you have to ruin before we start looking at safety measures? "Oh no guns are killing kids we should ban those".......... Oh? Then let's ban transitions for minors fully since you claim to care about kids? Oh that's right. Leftists don't care about kids. They don't care about anyone. Everyone is a shield to hide behind or a bludgeon to be used against those who are not for the narrative.

Moderates. You desperately need to wake the hell up. Old school liberals? So do you. You are being silent while kids lives are being destroyed. And I wonder how often this story has been a reality. And frankly I'm likely to be disgusted with the answer.

Do trans people exist? Yes. But it's a fraction of a fraction of the population size of the world. Most issues I've seen stem from depression, anxiety, dysphoria brought in by puberty WHICH IS COMMON!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and a society that tells them to hate their own bodies. Imagine growing up as a girl and you get on Instagram only to see people with caked on makeup, who are great with photo editing, and you think "wow she's so pretty, I'll never look like that", then internalize that and think you're ugly because you don't look like the fabricated images online that these people who post them HEAVILY curate and edit more often than not.

Imagine being a boy and told your the problem with the world. Just by existing your a monster, a rapist, a toxic THING, and you should apologize that you even exist. Sports? Disgusting toxic masculinity you mean.

If I was growing up in this culture? I'd be dead. I grew up with a lot of moderately feminine traits. I'd have probably fallen for this propaganda hook line and sinker, JUST to be accepted by my friends in school. Then probably killed myself when I realized it was all a lie, also having lost my support group because I'm a "traitor" and "transphobe" for trying to detransition. All the while they never gave a damn. Because of course they don't.

I've ranted long enough. At this point I'm just making myself angry.

I am Sage's mother, better known as Nana. I adopted Sage after my son died when she was still a baby. She's been through six foster homes by then, but we loved her and she blossomed into a joyful, lively girl who made music and art.

Puberty began and COVID hit, and she was treated for depression and anxiety, at times very severe. Her teachers shared any concerns with me so her treatment could be adapted.

The transparency ended in August of 2021 when Sage started high school. She started a public high school and she told me that all the girls there were bi, trans, lesbian, emo and she wanted to wear boy's clothes and be emo. Because I saw it as just a phase, it was fine with me.

But at school, she told them something different: she was now a boy named Draco with male pronouns. Sage asked the school not to tell me, and they did not tell me even though I informed them of her mental health history and medication. If I had known, this would be a much different story.

She was terribly bullied. No one told me. But boys followed her, touched her, threatened violence and rape. Something happened in the boy's bathroom but for two days, the school told me nothing. They kept meeting with Sage alone and she became so distraught they called me to pick her up.

That evening, I found a hallpass labeled 'Draco' and Sage told me she was identifying as a boy, and that her counselor said she could use the boy's bathroom. She'd been jacked up against the wall by a group of boys. She was crying, terrified. I said just stay home, we'll figure it out. That was my last conversation with Sage for five months.

The night she ran, she thought, to a young friend she'd met online, she left a note saying she was scared of what would happen if she stayed. The sheriff, FBI, search dogs were called in. I dropped to my knees in prayer. Nine days later the FBI found her in Baltimore. My baby had been lured online, sex trafficked by DC then Maryland. She was locked in a room, drugged, gang raped and brutalized by countless men. It was night. The FBI told us to pick her up in Maryland the next morning.

We packed our cars with blankets and stuffed animals and arrived by 8 am, but we were told we couldn't see her, and were summoned before Judge Robert Kershaw late that afternoon. They didn't even tell Sage that we came for her. We finally entered the courtroom and Sage appears on a huge Zoom screen from a prison cell. She looks tiny and broken, and I cry out 'I love you Sage.' Sage responds 'I love you too, Nana.' But attorney Anisa Khan rebukes us. She is a 'he' and his name is 'Draco' not Sage. We were floored.

Khan accuses us of emotional and physical abuse, that we are misgendering her, even though we just learned she claims to be trans and we're willing to use any name and pronouns to bring her home. My husband was so tearful he kept forgetting the new pronouns, so the judge had the bailiff remove him from the courtroom. I was pleading for my child to be returned and treated for her unspeakable trauma. Judge Kershaw told me, if I use the word 'trauma' again, he would throw me out too.

For over two months, he withheld custody. He housed Sage in the male quarters of a children's home. Sage told me she was the only girl and repeatedly assaulted. She was given street drugs by the other kids and Khan told her she didn't care. She just wanted to win the case and all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. Khan tried to prove abuse, but we were eventually cleared by both states of all charges.

Sage later told me Khan had told her to lie that we hit her. Khan even had Sage's school counselors testify against us, though they barely knew Sage and they didn't know us at all. Khan told my precious child I didn't want her anymore. I found out Sage never received any of the letters I sent her.

Sage ran from the Children's Home and disappeared for months. They told me she might already be gone forever, but I couldn't give up and I finally found a tip on her social media that led the marshals to her in Texas. She had been drugged, raped, beaten and exploited. This time I was able to be with her for the traumatic rape exam, and to bring her home.

Back in Virginia, she entered the mental health facility that Judge Kershaw had ordered, as it would affirm her as a male. The therapist began pressuring her to have her healthy breasts removed. Sage was too scared to protest, but she asked me to secretly buy her girl's clothes because she wanted to be a girl, but keep them in the car. It took a kind lawyer, Josh Hetzler to secure her discharge.

After almost a year. Sage was finally home. Safe. Alive. Sage is receiving professional trauma care. The first trafficker has already been convicted. Sage has nightmares, panic attacks, rape-related medical issues, but there's hope. I tell her she's not broken she's just scarred. And part of that hope is that in courageously sharing her story, others will be saved.

Sage said she doesn't know who she was back then. She wasn't a boy, she just wanted to have friends. But her school, the judge, the attorney and the doctor were all blinded by their ideology. The consequences for Sage were unspeakable.

Please don't let ideology harm another child. Let parents do our jobs. We know our children best and we love them a million times more.

Thank you.

==

Jesus Christ. This girl was exploited by everybody, except for her parents, who were villainized for literally nothing. It's opposite world.

And the fact that everybody with authority prioritized stupid shit like pronouns and trying to coax her further down into a fake identity, even against her will, and other ideological bullshit over her actual wellbeing is disgraceful.

The judge and attorney need to be disbarred, the therapist stripped of their license, and everyone who conspired to separate Sage from her parents fired.

[deadcitygazette]

I remember the summer of 2015 very well. I was working at Whole Foods that summer & had good times & good friends there. I remember the day that SCOTUS declared that gay marriage had been legalized at a federal level, thereby allowing millions of gay & lesbian couples to finally be able to get married. It was a wonderful & exciting time to be alive & I will always remember the smiles on everyone's faces. A truly monumental & joyous occasion.

Flash forward to now, the summer of 2023, 8 long years later. The Before Times ended over 3 years ago. Now we no longer talk about LGB, now we only talk about TQIA+. Specifically, we talk about the T. A lot. At least Conservatives are. Especially on Twitter. Except for this time, the latest rainbow campaign isn't promoting sexuality & marriage equality. No, this time they are promoting trangenderism & sex changes for kids.

To be extremely clear, I have been Queer-identifying my whole life. I've identified specifically as gay, bisexual, & pansexual at varying times throughout the 4 decades of my life so far. I also have an affinity for trans women if we're being completely honest here. So I have skin in the game & a right to say something when it comes to LGBTQ issues since I've been Queer longer than a lot of these young people have even been alive.

That being said, although I do support trans people & their rights to live, love, & exist in our society, I have to draw the line at involving kids in such matters. A lot of these surgeries, procedures & treatments provided as a part of gender-affirming care are irreversible & have the potential to sterilize their recipients, as this type of care is still experimental for the most part.

There's also the "social contagion" element to all this. While I believe there is such a thing as a trans kid, I believe that "trans" is also in vogue right now amoungst our nation's youth, especially in the big cities & especially in Blue states like California. So clearly there's a social contagion element where kids just want to be cool, or fit in, or receive special attention. I was a Queer teen once & I remember feeling all that.

So I know that a lot of these so-called trans kids aren't trans at all. 4 out of 5 of them are probably just gay. But an ideology & adults with agendas pressured them into thinking that the only thing that will "fix" them is to change genders. Because then they won't have those "shameful" gay feelings anymore because they'll have transitioned genders to be straight. And that is exactly what has become so chic nowadays amoungst the youngest & most vulnerable in our society.

Bottom line: We simply must do our best to protect our kids & youth from exposure to aggressive ideological movements that seek to indoctrinate the vulnerable with all sorts of extreme ideas about gender, race, sex, sexuality, religion & so on. There are people in this world that want to harm children. They are predators & they must be stopped.

But ultimately, I would have to say that people should be placed before ideology. People matter. Trans lives do matter. Black trans lives do matter. And these are real people who exist & live & breathe the same air as every other American. We must show humanity to our fellow humans.

So I would say the answer is to support transgender adults' rights to make adult decisions about their own bodies but protect "under 18s" from potentially harmful ideologies that can oftentimes confuse & irrevocably change them, oftentimes for the worse.

I don't know how you, the reader, will receive this. Hopefully, you understand that I fully support LGBTQ, especially when it is involving consensual adults & their rights to live & love how they see fit. I'm totally down with all of that as I am a part of the Queer Community myself. And trans men & trans women should be afforded the same rights as everyone else.

But, please leave the kids out of it. Kids are under immense pressure as it is from their own culture & peers. We don't need to be further trying to influence or manipulate them or worse, *groom* them into something they are not. Let gay kids be gay. Just because a boy likes other boys that doesn't necessarily mean he's a girl. Just because a teen girl likes dressing & acting "boyish" doesn't mean she should get her breasts removed at age 15.

Let gay boys just be gay.

Let gay girls just be lesbians.

Let children grow up free from ideological influences of ALL kinds.

We were born this way, remember?

Let humans just be themselves.

Show love.

Fight for equality.

Protect the vulnerable.

Learn to live free of ideologies.

Peace. Love. Tacos.

[stormsbourne]

what's WILD to me about posts like that one su one you reblogged is i do not understand how these like.... discourse people i guess. are so homophobic when so many of them aren't straight like??? i know i had a LOT of internalised homophobia when i was younger but it never came out like the stuff i see so often from people who are super into The Discourse.

There’s a few elements I think contribute here, some of which were around when I was a kid and some of which were not. Allow me to disclose my theories of what’s involved:

1) Internalized homophobia, absolutely. These kids see bits of themselves as being disgusting and want to ensure that they aren’t like the GROSS gays (rsug, bryan fuller, other various gay individuals they describe as just “having a creepy vibe” for no apparent reason) so they go to efforts to make it clear how much they hate the Gross Gays. How those gays don’t really count, because they’re bad. Not like us enlightened people on tumblr dot hell.

2) A lot of people haven’t learned yet that homophobia has a lot more to it than calling people slurs and voting against gay marriage. Obviously both of those things are homophobic, but it’s sort of like thinking misogyny is all catcalling and harassment and not recognizing things like the glass ceiling, gendered advertising, gender essentialism, compulsory femininity for women who don’t want to perform it, etc. So they imagine homophobia as the obvious bads, but miss the less obvious ones.

3) “How can you say I’m a homophobe, I’m gay/bi/pan/queer/etc” which is just, uh, naivete. Women are routinely misogynist to each other, gay people have all sorts of intercommunity discourse, remember the days of “monosexual privilege” implying that gay people had it ten thousand times easier than bi people, etc

4) And honestly this is the big one. Tumblr is an echo chamber. People shout their opinions into the void, but because of who’s following them and who they’ve chosen to follow, the void echoes back with “you’re so right!” and clap emojis and statements about how anybody who disagrees just isn’t a Pure SJ Powerhouse figure. And, uh, this is dangerous. The far left isn’t as toxic as the far right, but “everyone who disagrees with me is a false flagger idiot who eats soy” is sure all over the place in the right, and how they keep people from questioning or maybe changing their own views. “Everyone who disagrees with me is a problematic racist abuse fetishizer” is tumblr’s version. Maybe some of the people disagreeing with you really are terrible people, but this is the goddamn internet, you will find literally every kind of person here. Tumblr’s version of identity politics is so deeply settled because every time they say something like that they get feedback telling them they’re right, and every time they get someone disagreeing with them, the echo chamber ensures they dismiss it as bad and wrong. They’re not really gay or poc or trans or whatever, they’re pretending. That person with our views who said a bad thing once is actually a false flagger by our opponents.

I think all that stuff in 4 is also how we’ve gotten to this terrible fucking place where people are whining that tumblr banned a bunch of literal russian psyop trolls. What do you mean those people were political state-funded propagandists paid to cause divisive behavior and thoughts? well, what about SomeFuck2018 who once made a post I didn’t like? Tumblr will ban these state-funded propagandists who agree with me, but not the random weirdos that said things I don’t agree with?

(disclaimer tumblr please ban the fucking nazis but I seriously saw a post like “why does tumblr take this russian thing so much more seriously than randos pretending to be lgbt/poc/etc” and fam! the answer is that state funded propaganda is a more serious fucking thing! you’ll live if a rando is wrong but when a government is deliberately trying to mess with your thought processes it’s a whole other kettle of fish)

anyway yeah. It’s a nasty maelstrom of youth, naivete, misunderstanding of what oppression really is, and the biggest factor, which is that tumblr just cycles everything back to the start to tell you how right you are and how everyone who doesn’t agree with you is just a stupid idiot, or a false flagger from people you hate, or whatever else. 

[cleverthylacine]

People do things that we know they are going to regret all the time.

They are still allowed to, and sometimes we're wrong.

Sometimes people who get married while blind drunk in Vegas are happy together for the rest of their lives.

Sometimes people who have jumped through all the hoops we would like them to jump through and made carefully considered decisions end up miserable.

Also, I really enjoy watching Botched.

That's not schadenfreude, there--it's really interesting. And the point of bringing it up is that actually, we DO allow people to get surgery just because they're vain, or want to look like elves and Barbie dolls, even if there's a good chance that they will regret it.

What people are not so secretly arguing about here is whether or not we should all (as a Society) have to pay for other people's medical care if we don't approve of it.

My answer is always going to be yes, because: 1. many people disapprove of abortions and gender confirmation surgery because they're assholes, yet that they're actually critically necessary health care.

2. nobody should have to put whether or not they can have surgery up to a vote.

3. when medical treatment isn't covered by health care payors (and we should only really have one--society itself), people result to buying their drugs on the street and getting their body mods in other people's homes, and the people who sell the drugs and do the surgery aren't necessarily competent to do those things

4. insurers are actually really fucking mean about plastic surgery. If you have breast cancer, you should not have your breast reconstruction after surgery denied because "it's cosmetic". You can live without boobs, or with only one, but nobody should have to do that just because they're poor. Poor people who get in accidents should have the right to all the facial reconstruction surgery they need. People who get weight loss surgery (and I could rant about that for days--there are a few situations in which it might be warranted, but just 'being fat' is not one of them) should not have to be stuck with their loose skin as punishment for having been fat but poor.

So yeah, I'm comfortable with someone using my tax dollars to get "stupid" surgeries.

Also, I'm going to pick a bone here.

Transness is not a medical condition that requires treatment, but gender dysphoria is.

That is why bans on health care for trans youth are so absolutely crucial to their survival. Some kids will weather going through opposite sex puberty and having a harder time transitioning later okay, but many won't; for those with severe dysphoria, denying social transition as well as hormones is likely to cause deep depression, which leads to self-harm, risk-taking behaviour and sometimes suicide.

if trans people ought to receive whatever reconstructive medical procedures they desire, and indeed they ought, then this cannot be specifically because they are trans, nor even specifically because they are the gender that they are—first, because this would reify transness as a medical status that demands treatment, which is an unacceptable concession to the authority of pathologizing narratives; and second, because there is no tenable argument that can be given for helping a trans person receive the medical intervention(s) they may desire that would not spill across the boundaries of both whatever gender the intervention is "supposed" to be for (why shouldn't a cis man be given a breast augmentation if he wants one?) and what are considered "gendered" physical traits in the first place (why shouldn't a trans woman get to have a surgically produced tail if such technology exists one day INSHALLAH).

[la-knight]

It's a case-by-case basis. At least, that is what it says on the Church website and I believe in the standards for the strength of Youth pamphlet but I could be wrong on that second part. But on the Church website it says that if you are already transitioned or in the middle of transitioning, then you are going to be evaluated by I believe an area 70... which is like two steps up from a bishop. But it is not a definite no, and it's not a definite yes. Although, it's not a definite no or a definite yes for literally anybody except if you're under 18 and don't have parental consent or if you're under 18 and you come from a polygamist family or if you live in a household where your main parent role models are in a non heterosexual relationship, because apparently a lot of kids who join the church who were in that situation had to deal with a lot of crap when they got baptized and it was a whole big thing and that was one of the things that led to that whole thing that happened. Anyway not the point. Point is, if you are transgender then I believe all that means is that instead of having your intake interview done... Or baptism interview. That's what it's called. Instead of having your baptism interview done by a stake president, which I believe is standard for cisgendered people, you have it done by an area 70, I think. Maybe it's a stake president anyway. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it's an area 70. But again, it also just depends. For one thing, you could run into a completely asshole Bishop who's like, no, I'm not going to even ask my boss if you're allowed to get baptized because I don't think you should. I have never had that happen to me or anything but I am cisgendered and also I was 17 when I got baptized and most grown men aren't going to talk to a 17 year old girl like that, but they may talk to an adult like that. I have had my share of Bishops who were dicks about lots of things, like about me being bisexual and my roommate being disabled. And I've met really really nice Bishops. I've met really dickish leaders, like Elders Quorum president and things, and I've met really nice ones. So really it just depends. The church is true, but the people aren't always. In fact that people aren't most of the time, in my experience. So it could be as easy as getting the interview with the right person or as difficult as continuously running into the wall of people being assholes and transphobic. It really just depends. I'm sorry if that is not more help. But the rule on the Church website is that you are supposed to get an interview so that they can evaluate your situation. And it's not the bishop who should be doing that, it's either the stake president or an area 70. And if there's any kind of contention from the bishop or anyone else, about you getting baptized I mean, then it may go as high as the Quorum of The Twelve, but apparently that's not very common from what I understand. So yeah, the answer is kind of sort of maybe. Sorry. One of the most important things though, when dealing with assholes in the church, is knowing how to get around them. Which is why I mentioned who exactly you're supposed to be talking to if you want to join the church, because that way if some dickwad wants to get in your way you have the means of circumventing them and pissing them off. Also, if you are already a member of the church but you are trans and are wanting to start transitioning, again, that is evaluated on a case-by-case basis as well. It is not an automatic no or considered an automatic sin. Our church leaders have said that they don't know enough about being transgender to have a set of hard, concrete rules, which is why they do case-by-case evaluations.

If someone who is trans has transitioned before they want to join the church able to join?

Any takers on answering?