Tattoos don't leave 18 year olds sterilized, shave years off their lifespan, or increase suicidality while being championed as "medically necessary, life-saving care"
Thank you for writing this piece. My favorite parts:
"Gender medicine sees endless interventions in pursuit of a desired aesthetic outcome to be the best treatment protocol for resolving psychological distress, regardless of how many bodily functions must be sacrificed in order to achieve this goal."
"doctors, activists, and medical organizations suppress discussions of regret, complications, and alternative treatments, effectively steering individuals toward transition rather than allowing them to make a fully informed decision."
"The comparison between tattoos and gender transition falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny. Tattoos are a cosmetic, non-medical, and low-risk form of body modification that can be removed or covered up with minimal impact on physical health. Gender transition, by contrast, involves invasive medical procedures, lifelong pharmaceutical dependence, high rates of regret, and significant physical risks that cannot be easily undone, or undone in any capacity."
"Tattoos exist purely within a framework of personal self-expression, whereas gender transition has become an institutionally enshrined and ideologically driven movement with profound social and medical implications."
Your last point is stunning. I thought I understood the basic reasons that transitioning children is a scandal. But I hadn't considered that transitioning children was undertaken in the first place only because the success rate of transitioning adults was poor! Yikes.
This, as you point out, was because they thought regret and failure to resolve gender dysphoria through transitioning as an adult was because the transitioned could never "pass". And, in fact, they cannot. Human beings are evolutionarily designed to detect an adult member of the opposite sex from a minimal number of cues, even from a distance. The "problem" was the physical changes wrought by puberty, so they found a chemical way to eliminate puberty.
The greatest problem with that thinking, is that for nearly all cases of pediatric "gender dysphoria", the issue resolves naturally. Why? Because of puberty. Precisely because the hormonal shifts brought on by puberty are crucial to cognitive maturation -- but also -- duh -- to developing sexuality and sexual pleasure (not possible in those denied their natural puberty).
Essentially, each child is being denied full adulthood. You cannot experience full sexual pleasure if your genitalia never fully develop, and you cannot actually "switch" to the other sex. Not to mention the tiny issue of procreation, which despite recent trends, is still a major part of most people's lives.
Basically, because a mature man's body is both dramatically and subtly different in appearance from a woman's, sexual functionality is being destroyed. All that remains is an ideological fiction. It's not just tragic. It's sick.
Tattoos and piercings are ancient forms of scarification. Anecdotally, people who get multiple piercings and tattoos see it as ritualized self-harm, even if they don't use those terms. Actual tribal tattooing has similar psychological effects on the person as modern machine tattooing. The cultural return of these practices in the last four decades has certainly set the table for the culture of self-harm. The number of alleged adults who let their minor children get tattoos and piercings nowadays is frightening, and it's often the same child-led parenting approach you see in "trans kids." As you say, I'd much rather my child got a tattoo than "gender affirming care." But there is an interesting commonality.
A lot of times, scarification and tattoo had important cultural meanings : used to heal, mark important transitions in life (adulthood, marriage, etc.) or belonging to a group. I think the resurgence of it is due to people seeking meaning, community, reconnection to their bodies and hardship under their control. It can be a good thing. And even if it's not, done right, it's not particularly harmful.
Sex traits modification has similar roots in many cases - but it is extremely harmful. And people go through it not knowing what they truly seek most of the time.
You are right. Many people wrongly use the analogy to tattoos as a libertarian argument. That is, they argue that, if those 18 and over can get tattoos, they should also be able to get any other kind of body modification as our bodies belong to us and we should be able to do whatever we want to them, except when it has a direct effect on others (like how we require seatbelts with the justification that seatbelts keep drivers in control of the car - whether or not that's actually true).
However, some people use the idea of tattoos for the opposite argument. That is, how can we possibly be upset about limiting the chemical and surgical alterations that are part of so-called gender affirming care ("GAC") to those 18 and over (which is where the 25 or so states that have limited these interventions have drawn the line) if we are all pretty much on board with limiting tattoos to those 18 and over? [I am loathe to make that argument because I believe many states allow parents to override the 18 and over requirement for tattoos.] I tend to use smoking and drinking alcohol instead of tattoos for this idea. If kids can't smoke or drink until age 18 or 21, respectively (and it might be 21 for smoking as well in many states), why are we so up in arms about limiting steroids or estrogen or other dangerous chemicals, or risky surgeries to age 18?
That having been said, while preventing those under 18 from being harmed is great, I agree that we should not stop there. We should not say - "There will be no GAC for those under 18, but it's totally fine for confused 18-year-olds, many of whom have been convinced from a young age - 12 for my daughter and, as you have said, for you - that this is what they MUST do to ever have any real semblance of happiness or peace of mind or to avoid misery, torment and likely suicide."
I agree with all of your distinctions. In short, tattoos are NOWHERE NEAR AS HARMFUL as the chemicals and surgeries associated with GAC (it's not even comparable given the laundry list of negative health implications for GAC), and nobody in the medical community or in society as a whole is telling kids that tattoos are necessary medical care, or is pushing tattoos on kids the way GAC is pushed!
Personally, I believe no child should ever be "socially transitioned" (aka "lied to). Also, no teen should be chemically or surgically altered based on a poorly understood set of attitudes (which can be caused by many things, from misunderstood internalized homophobia to confusion over homosexuality, non-conforming behavior, trauma, autism, anxiety, and any number of other scenarios that convince a teen who is suffering discomfort of some kind that he or she would be better off living as and looking like the opposite sex, combined with a societal lie that some people are actually in the wrong body).
Nobody under 25 should be given GAC. Nobody who is not mentally healthy should receive GAC. If GAC is made available, it must be clear that it is purely cosmetic and ALL of the many known effects, side effects and risks must be clearly presented. There must be counseling beforehand so that the patients seeking GAC know that they will remain the sex they are, and will not gain any rights to pretend they are the opposite sex, to use opposite sex single-sex spaces or usurp their opportunities or participate in their unisex sports competitions. These patients must be made aware that, if they fail to pass, it is not the job of others to alter their language or behavior to pretend these patients are the opposite sex.
We can't outlaw GAC altogether unless and until we determine that it is so dangerous as to be akin to prescribing crack cocaine, or lobotomies, or ovarectomies (in which case we can make it illegal for medical providers to provide GAC). If we determine that it doesn't meet the threshold of danger to warrant a total ban, we must not lie about it, pretending it isn't dangerous, pretending it is healthcare, pretending it allows people to be "authentic," pretending it is an inevitability for anyone, or pretending it is anything other than extreme cosmetic procedures to alter appearance, with many known and likely many unknown risks to health.
I think that instead of restricting what adults can do we have to change the way that doctors approach this form of medicine. In previous decades patients were told that they were being experimented on, they weren’t told it’s suicide prevention, and most of the other lies they came up with themselves. Most of the people who transitioned weren’t young adults at least in the US- they were middle aged men.
I often compare childhood transition to tattoos because I would never let my kid get a tattoo and in my state no minor can get a tattoo, even if their parent wants them too. It is ILLEGAL. Unlike sterilizing and mutilating my child, which is totally legal and I will be called names and harassed for not doing it.
@Hippiesq got in before I did by pointing out that the tattoo argument can be used against poisoning and mutilating kids. I've used it myself.
So while I appreciate you railing against the ridiculously cavalier attitude of the idiots pushing this crap as "No worse than getting a tattoo," I'll continue to say, "It's not like getting a tattoo. You can get a tat lasered off. You can't reverse a blocked puberty. Have you seen the state of Jazz Jennings? That's the result!"
Comparisons in that way do make sense- to show that even a less impactful body modification is still age restricted for a reason. So long as one discusses the obvious differences between transition and tattoos, this argument can be used, though probably as a jumping off point and not as the whole argument
Thank you for writing this piece. My favorite parts:
"Gender medicine sees endless interventions in pursuit of a desired aesthetic outcome to be the best treatment protocol for resolving psychological distress, regardless of how many bodily functions must be sacrificed in order to achieve this goal."
"doctors, activists, and medical organizations suppress discussions of regret, complications, and alternative treatments, effectively steering individuals toward transition rather than allowing them to make a fully informed decision."
"The comparison between tattoos and gender transition falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny. Tattoos are a cosmetic, non-medical, and low-risk form of body modification that can be removed or covered up with minimal impact on physical health. Gender transition, by contrast, involves invasive medical procedures, lifelong pharmaceutical dependence, high rates of regret, and significant physical risks that cannot be easily undone, or undone in any capacity."
"Tattoos exist purely within a framework of personal self-expression, whereas gender transition has become an institutionally enshrined and ideologically driven movement with profound social and medical implications."
Thank you again and keep writing!
Thank you for reading!
Your last point is stunning. I thought I understood the basic reasons that transitioning children is a scandal. But I hadn't considered that transitioning children was undertaken in the first place only because the success rate of transitioning adults was poor! Yikes.
This, as you point out, was because they thought regret and failure to resolve gender dysphoria through transitioning as an adult was because the transitioned could never "pass". And, in fact, they cannot. Human beings are evolutionarily designed to detect an adult member of the opposite sex from a minimal number of cues, even from a distance. The "problem" was the physical changes wrought by puberty, so they found a chemical way to eliminate puberty.
The greatest problem with that thinking, is that for nearly all cases of pediatric "gender dysphoria", the issue resolves naturally. Why? Because of puberty. Precisely because the hormonal shifts brought on by puberty are crucial to cognitive maturation -- but also -- duh -- to developing sexuality and sexual pleasure (not possible in those denied their natural puberty).
Essentially, each child is being denied full adulthood. You cannot experience full sexual pleasure if your genitalia never fully develop, and you cannot actually "switch" to the other sex. Not to mention the tiny issue of procreation, which despite recent trends, is still a major part of most people's lives.
Basically, because a mature man's body is both dramatically and subtly different in appearance from a woman's, sexual functionality is being destroyed. All that remains is an ideological fiction. It's not just tragic. It's sick.
I’m glad this point was made clear! It’s really at the crux of this entire issue
Tattoos and piercings are ancient forms of scarification. Anecdotally, people who get multiple piercings and tattoos see it as ritualized self-harm, even if they don't use those terms. Actual tribal tattooing has similar psychological effects on the person as modern machine tattooing. The cultural return of these practices in the last four decades has certainly set the table for the culture of self-harm. The number of alleged adults who let their minor children get tattoos and piercings nowadays is frightening, and it's often the same child-led parenting approach you see in "trans kids." As you say, I'd much rather my child got a tattoo than "gender affirming care." But there is an interesting commonality.
A lot of times, scarification and tattoo had important cultural meanings : used to heal, mark important transitions in life (adulthood, marriage, etc.) or belonging to a group. I think the resurgence of it is due to people seeking meaning, community, reconnection to their bodies and hardship under their control. It can be a good thing. And even if it's not, done right, it's not particularly harmful.
Sex traits modification has similar roots in many cases - but it is extremely harmful. And people go through it not knowing what they truly seek most of the time.
You are right. Many people wrongly use the analogy to tattoos as a libertarian argument. That is, they argue that, if those 18 and over can get tattoos, they should also be able to get any other kind of body modification as our bodies belong to us and we should be able to do whatever we want to them, except when it has a direct effect on others (like how we require seatbelts with the justification that seatbelts keep drivers in control of the car - whether or not that's actually true).
However, some people use the idea of tattoos for the opposite argument. That is, how can we possibly be upset about limiting the chemical and surgical alterations that are part of so-called gender affirming care ("GAC") to those 18 and over (which is where the 25 or so states that have limited these interventions have drawn the line) if we are all pretty much on board with limiting tattoos to those 18 and over? [I am loathe to make that argument because I believe many states allow parents to override the 18 and over requirement for tattoos.] I tend to use smoking and drinking alcohol instead of tattoos for this idea. If kids can't smoke or drink until age 18 or 21, respectively (and it might be 21 for smoking as well in many states), why are we so up in arms about limiting steroids or estrogen or other dangerous chemicals, or risky surgeries to age 18?
That having been said, while preventing those under 18 from being harmed is great, I agree that we should not stop there. We should not say - "There will be no GAC for those under 18, but it's totally fine for confused 18-year-olds, many of whom have been convinced from a young age - 12 for my daughter and, as you have said, for you - that this is what they MUST do to ever have any real semblance of happiness or peace of mind or to avoid misery, torment and likely suicide."
I agree with all of your distinctions. In short, tattoos are NOWHERE NEAR AS HARMFUL as the chemicals and surgeries associated with GAC (it's not even comparable given the laundry list of negative health implications for GAC), and nobody in the medical community or in society as a whole is telling kids that tattoos are necessary medical care, or is pushing tattoos on kids the way GAC is pushed!
Personally, I believe no child should ever be "socially transitioned" (aka "lied to). Also, no teen should be chemically or surgically altered based on a poorly understood set of attitudes (which can be caused by many things, from misunderstood internalized homophobia to confusion over homosexuality, non-conforming behavior, trauma, autism, anxiety, and any number of other scenarios that convince a teen who is suffering discomfort of some kind that he or she would be better off living as and looking like the opposite sex, combined with a societal lie that some people are actually in the wrong body).
Nobody under 25 should be given GAC. Nobody who is not mentally healthy should receive GAC. If GAC is made available, it must be clear that it is purely cosmetic and ALL of the many known effects, side effects and risks must be clearly presented. There must be counseling beforehand so that the patients seeking GAC know that they will remain the sex they are, and will not gain any rights to pretend they are the opposite sex, to use opposite sex single-sex spaces or usurp their opportunities or participate in their unisex sports competitions. These patients must be made aware that, if they fail to pass, it is not the job of others to alter their language or behavior to pretend these patients are the opposite sex.
We can't outlaw GAC altogether unless and until we determine that it is so dangerous as to be akin to prescribing crack cocaine, or lobotomies, or ovarectomies (in which case we can make it illegal for medical providers to provide GAC). If we determine that it doesn't meet the threshold of danger to warrant a total ban, we must not lie about it, pretending it isn't dangerous, pretending it is healthcare, pretending it allows people to be "authentic," pretending it is an inevitability for anyone, or pretending it is anything other than extreme cosmetic procedures to alter appearance, with many known and likely many unknown risks to health.
I think that instead of restricting what adults can do we have to change the way that doctors approach this form of medicine. In previous decades patients were told that they were being experimented on, they weren’t told it’s suicide prevention, and most of the other lies they came up with themselves. Most of the people who transitioned weren’t young adults at least in the US- they were middle aged men.
I often compare childhood transition to tattoos because I would never let my kid get a tattoo and in my state no minor can get a tattoo, even if their parent wants them too. It is ILLEGAL. Unlike sterilizing and mutilating my child, which is totally legal and I will be called names and harassed for not doing it.
Thank you for this piece.
@Hippiesq got in before I did by pointing out that the tattoo argument can be used against poisoning and mutilating kids. I've used it myself.
So while I appreciate you railing against the ridiculously cavalier attitude of the idiots pushing this crap as "No worse than getting a tattoo," I'll continue to say, "It's not like getting a tattoo. You can get a tat lasered off. You can't reverse a blocked puberty. Have you seen the state of Jazz Jennings? That's the result!"
Comparisons in that way do make sense- to show that even a less impactful body modification is still age restricted for a reason. So long as one discusses the obvious differences between transition and tattoos, this argument can be used, though probably as a jumping off point and not as the whole argument
Well, yes. You're right.