Yes, this is a major downside of the current medical and legal approach to minors (similar problems are found with abortion services, e.g. laws requiring parental consent for a minor to receive an abortion).
However, this article seems to have an intention and rhetorical goal of setting the record straight on the reality of trans gender affirming care in the context of a moral panic generated through misinformation and manipulation. The article’s intended audience is likely skeptical of trans identity and reflexively against gender affirming care for minors, and so it makes sense they emphasize how careful and conservative the current medical approach is to such care.
It’s a political asset that the gender affirming care is broken this way because it makes trans-skeptical people more comfortable with it, which should allow it to continue to exist in a world where people operate with the actual facts about the situation, even when they are ignorant or skeptical about the reality of trans identity.
Ultimately the medical establishment does have to be sensitive to the political and cultural context to avoid being shut down, so sometimes it’s a matter of making compromises to provide what they can even if it falls short of the ethical and clinical ideal (and let’s not mince words, this does mean people will die for political convenience, but the question is how many more would die if they were not conservative in their approach and were shut down completely?)
Naturally a common response to this is to reject the whole project of supporting or depending on the medical establishment’s flawed programs, but I think this critique tends to be hyper-individualist and assumes every trans person can overcome the social and financial context they are in and provide their own gender affirming care (or that alternatives to the medical stablishment would be able to fill everyone’s needs). Needless to say, rejecting gender affirming care from the medical establishment leaves behind the majority of people needing that care, and has obvious limits and problems such as not being able to realistically offer surgeries and risks legal trouble for everyone involved.
We need to realize how important this fight is for the long-term future of trans people and their health, and how that requires working with the medical establishment and investing in those compromised projects.
Yes, this is a major downside of the current medical and legal approach to minors (similar problems are found with abortion services, e.g. laws requiring parental consent for a minor to receive an abortion).
However, this article seems to have an intention and rhetorical goal of setting the record straight on the reality of trans gender affirming care in the context of a moral panic generated through misinformation and manipulation. The article’s intended audience is likely skeptical of trans identity and reflexively against gender affirming care for minors, and so it makes sense they emphasize how careful and conservative the current medical approach is to such care.
It’s a political asset that the gender affirming care is broken this way because it makes trans-skeptical people more comfortable with it, which should allow it to continue to exist in a world where people operate with the actual facts about the situation, even when they are ignorant or skeptical about the reality of trans identity.
Ultimately the medical establishment does have to be sensitive to the political and cultural context to avoid being shut down, so sometimes it’s a matter of making compromises to provide what they can even if it falls short of the ethical and clinical ideal (and let’s not mince words, this does mean people will die for political convenience, but the question is how many more would die if they were not conservative in their approach and were shut down completely?)
Naturally a common response to this is to reject the whole project of supporting or depending on the medical establishment’s flawed programs, but I think this critique tends to be hyper-individualist and assumes every trans person can overcome the social and financial context they are in and provide their own gender affirming care (or that alternatives to the medical stablishment would be able to fill everyone’s needs). Needless to say, rejecting gender affirming care from the medical establishment leaves behind the majority of people needing that care, and has obvious limits and problems such as not being able to realistically offer surgeries and risks legal trouble for everyone involved.
We need to realize how important this fight is for the long-term future of trans people and their health, and how that requires working with the medical establishment and investing in those compromised projects.