Quote (pwb3 @ Nov 15 2022 05:38pm)
I am fine with transgenders in general. I firmly believe that their feelings about their own gender are real and valid, and they deserve to love and be loved just as much as anyone else, and deserve to be treated equally as anyone else.
That said, I do not support trans folk participating in sports. Reason is simple: is isn’t fair to the other competitors.
I also do not support trans children undergoing body changes until they’re at least 18 and have talked to professional therapists and doctors for a while to make sure they’re absolutely certain about what they want to do. Honestly I think it would be smarter to wait until later, like 25 at least. 18 is still very young. But this is just my personal opinion.
Bathrooms: I have mixed feelings about this. I’m not comfortable to be honest about it, especially where children are present such as in elementary schools. Mainly due to a few incidents where molestation had occurred thanks to perverted men dressed as women to take advantage of this. But those are bad apples. Otherwise I’d be fine with it.
The sports issue is actively being navigated, with most sports following IOC recommendations that stem from research among transgender athletes--predominately transgender women athletes. As more data becomes available, and as the average age of transition lowers (and thus, the average length of puberty exposure), I think we'll continue to see these recommendations become refined. It's definitely a challenging area of this whole conversation, for sure.
Most gender-affirming care, in terms of bodily modifications, are reserved for those only over the age 18--top surgery being an exception where I've seen the technical age floor be ~16, but the actual floor being used by providers ends up being 18 as we're still pretty early in collecting data on the outcomes of such relatively early interventions. More data will better inform long-term standards of care.
Personally, I think the bathroom issue could be "easily" resolved if we just didn't have communal bathrooms to begin with. I quote "easily" because it would be a massive infrastructure undertaking that is unlikely to ever manifest--at least, anytime soon. I've always thought it odd that we have communal restrooms. Single-occupancy restrooms have always been based.