dogcows

Yes, let’s get all the info out there, so parents and doctors can make informed decisions.

You seem to think you are more qualified to make medical decisions for somebody else’s kids than their parents. Or is it even worse? You think red state governments should make the decision for them. Maybe you are a closet Russian? I promise you, a parent going through this type of issue with their kid doesn’t give a Fock what you or the government thinks. They want what’s best for their kid. Inserting the knee-jerk reactions of ideological lawmakers into the process is a huge mistake. Doesn’t the right like to spout about “parents’ rights” all the time? What happened to that?

They’re not your kids. Shouldn’t their parents and doctors be responsible for their care? Why are you even worried about it? From my perspective, I see it like this: I don’t think people should get tattoos or tongue or nipple rings, but I don’t try to pass laws preventing them from doing so.

Hey look we agree. I don’t think politicians should be passing all sorts of laws banning care for transgender people. Leave them alone.

The type of oversight matters. My point is that instead of politicians overreacting to hot-button healthcare issues… we should look towards agencies like the FDA, with panels of doctors and scientists instead of politicians. That COULD (not saying it definitely would) address both the transgender medicine concerns AND many other medical concerns. To rebut my own argument, we don’t have any agency that approves surgeries, but I seldom hear of surgical procedures that do great harm to people. So perhaps the surgeons are doing an OK job of policing themselves. Even the example I saw of an ineffective knee surgery being done for years… didn’t seem to harm the patients, although they wasted lots of money on nothing.

I was referencing the quote you posted from the Merck guide, which specifically referred to prepubescent kids.

All media is biased to some degree. NY Times gets plenty of criticism from the right and left. But regardless of their choice of what to report on, they are very rarely incorrect when it comes to reporting facts. Problem today is a lot of people get “news” from social media, podcast personalities, and opinion shows on “news” networks. I miss the pre-Murdoch Wall St Journal. If you had that and the Times, you had accurate news from the right and the left, but both pretty close to the center.

The thing is, I think the Merck guide is representative of what is happening 99% of the time. Doctors are very cautious prescribing gender care for prepubescent kids. Most things in medicine don’t have conclusive research. Did you know we have an FDA for Drugs and medical devices… but no such controls for surgery? There is no literally no formal approval process for surgical procedures. Even the FDA process is more about safety than effectiveness. A drug only needs to be marginally more effective than a placebo to be considered “effecfive.” And then there’s off-label use which is essentially unregulated. Interesting article here about how less than half our medical treatments are truly evidence-based: https://www.brown.edu/news/2017-10-16/patashnik Thing is, we probably can’t prove the effectiveness of every medical treatment. We educate our doctors as well as possible, give them all the resources we can muster, and trust them to behave ethically. I don’t like it when politicians come in and try to dictate otherwise. Because although doctors aren’t perfect, they are much more knowledgeable than lawmakers, especially ones playing games for votes. I think a better solution is to disseminate as much information about transgender youth care as possible - good and bad. So that parents and doctors can make informed decisions. On a more general medical level, I think it would make sense to set up an agency, staffed by medical professionals and scientists, to study and approve surgeries, much like the FDA for drugs and devices.

Regarding the Merck guide, I posted it because I think it is likely to be the most conservative (medically, not politically) of any guide. If they say some areas need more research? They are going to say so, and I think that’s a good approach for such a general medical publication. As for terminology, gender-modifying seems like it would be more accurate. I am sure there is a transgender person who might be able to explain why “affirming” is better than “modifying” but doesn’t seem like it should be too polarizing to me.

Fun fact: they change the front page of The NY Times every day. I saw the story on their homepage over the weekend. Funny enough, they have today’s news on there now instead.

The first link is a summary of best practices for dealing with the condition. It reflects the latest research, and is heavily footnoted with said research. If you want to know what the medical consensus is on something, the Merck guide is the best resource I know of. ACOG’s guidance on gender care is not political; it’s pretty standard. Look at other industry association websites and you will see many similarities. It’s just that the right has decided to politicize this issue. Therefore, any organization that doesn’t agree with them is suddenly political. If the right-wing wasn’t playing anti-trans songs all day every day, none of what’s on the ACOG site would even be controversial. Nobody uses the term “gender destroying medicine” unless they’ve got a pretty strongly biased opinion on the topic, for example. I listened to about 20 minutes of the podcast. So far, I learned that the Tavistock clinic was almost criminally mismanaged. I’m waiting to see how they get from one bad clinic to questioning all gender care in the world. I will say that “we should follow the UK’s example” is not a very convincing argument on its own. So hopefully by the conclusion of the podcast they will have put some better points forward.

See, you never really listened to the warnings. Your glib statements prove it. Nobody said the world would end in 2000, except some weird cultists I recall, and I think they were saying 1998 that aliens would come or something, The actual warnings were of exactly what we’re seeing today. You don’t even understand the concept of head buried in the sand. If you want to call somebody out for being an alarmist, the proper insult is Chicken Little or the Boy who cried Wolf. I was hoping you could at least insult a person properly, but you can’t even manage that.

LOL an honest mixup. You really have your head up the orange man’s arse.

Let’s start a pool. How long until League Chump posts pictures of naked men in this one? I give it 15 minutes.

The stuff scientists warned about 50 years ago is happening now; look around. But I am impressed with this bit of writing. 3 full paragraphs written with your head firmly buried in the sand is impressive.

Did you just wake up from a years-long coma? Try reading about Jan 6 2021.

In response, Democrats are going to re-animate Hitler’s corpse in an attempt to siphon off Trump voters.

Well, he can’t run away to Israel. Are MAGAts ever going to catch on that their orange messiah is a criminal? Or do they just not care?

Here’s another example of why we need to teach a more accurate history of America.

That story got a lot of attention in the “mainstream” press. Do those who mainly watch right-wing media just never check out “MSM” sources at all? I swear, every single time I see on this forum “You won’t see the MSM covering THIS!” I look at the front page of The NY Times website and there it is.

Your purchase of a Supreme Court Justice is 100% tax-deductible! https://www.propublica.org/article/harlan-crow-slashed-tax-bill-clarence-thomas-superyacht

Whataboutism - the religion of those attempting to defend the indefensible.

Somebody please call the waaaaaaambulance. We’ve got a life-threatening case of butthurt here. Nick Fuentes is a focking Nazi. He’s not some victim being singled out by mean ol’ liberals. Are you saying it’s not the Nazis who are bad, it’s those who call them out? Do you really think a guy calling for a “holy war” against Jews is simply misunderstood? The liberals are being too harsh on him? REALLY? I was taught as a kid - you will be judged by the company you keep. The GOP could easily push these extremists to fringe status. Instead, they are featured speakers at CPAC, College Young Republicans, etc. Plus, we’ve now got a crazy like MTG acting as McCarthy’s right-hand man. If you don’t want to be lumped in with the Nazis, then kick them out of your club.

The “Biden is a pedo” nonsense is just puerile and stupid.

I recently saw a clip of Jimmy Carter from the 70s suggesting that the Attorney General be appointed for 5-year terms, overlapping between Presidents. Considering the GOP is currently running a very serious investigation about “weaponization” of the government... maybe they would support that idea too? All the proposals being put forward by Trump on this front would truly run the risk of weaponizing the government for one party. He’s talking about taking thousands of non-partisan jobs and making them political appointees instead.