Compared to the rest of the analysis, the "I don’t think children should make functionally permanent medical decisions until they are an adult" seems superficial and lacking to me. Because either choice (HRT or no-HRT) will be permanent. And in either case, the wrong choice has (potentially) extremely negative effects on the well-being of the patient. I also think you would not stand by that conclusion if a child had a necrotic limb that needs to be amputated. Since I also value genuine freedom quite a bit, that part just seems odd to me.
I've given this essay some more thought, and I've reached the conclusion that what I find frustrating is how you seem to suggest that you're a sort of "voice in the wilderness", when in fact many of the ideas you express here are actually quite uncontroversial among the people you purport to criticize and have indeed been made many times over the decades by queer-identified people, usually with significantly less bile.
The idea that you are expressing an unpopular void of reason more than anything suggests an unfamiliarity with the source material outside of the bubbles of various online social networks, which, as you have described in the past, deliberately cultivate division for profit. And many aspects of the tone you adopt do, indeed, suggest closer familiarity with the rhetoric of "certain people" in the media and on the internet—whether or not you agree with them!
I started putting together a list of examples and references in my head, but I'm hesitant to dive into things because I don't want to flog you to death over this, and, well, your initial reaction before has left me legitimately apprehensive. So please let me know if you'd like me to drop a sort of abbreviated bibliography here; otherwise I shall not trouble you further.
> I don’t think children should make functionally permanent medical decisions until they are an adult and have more life experience building their capacity for critical reasoning
Sounds like a great argument for puberty blockers! (Going through puberty—whether “standard” or “non-standard”—definitely fits the definition of “functionally permanent”, and certainly less so than the relatively minor side effects of puberty blockers!)
Compared to the rest of the analysis, the "I don’t think children should make functionally permanent medical decisions until they are an adult" seems superficial and lacking to me. Because either choice (HRT or no-HRT) will be permanent. And in either case, the wrong choice has (potentially) extremely negative effects on the well-being of the patient. I also think you would not stand by that conclusion if a child had a necrotic limb that needs to be amputated. Since I also value genuine freedom quite a bit, that part just seems odd to me.
I've given this essay some more thought, and I've reached the conclusion that what I find frustrating is how you seem to suggest that you're a sort of "voice in the wilderness", when in fact many of the ideas you express here are actually quite uncontroversial among the people you purport to criticize and have indeed been made many times over the decades by queer-identified people, usually with significantly less bile.
The idea that you are expressing an unpopular void of reason more than anything suggests an unfamiliarity with the source material outside of the bubbles of various online social networks, which, as you have described in the past, deliberately cultivate division for profit. And many aspects of the tone you adopt do, indeed, suggest closer familiarity with the rhetoric of "certain people" in the media and on the internet—whether or not you agree with them!
I started putting together a list of examples and references in my head, but I'm hesitant to dive into things because I don't want to flog you to death over this, and, well, your initial reaction before has left me legitimately apprehensive. So please let me know if you'd like me to drop a sort of abbreviated bibliography here; otherwise I shall not trouble you further.
> I don’t think children should make functionally permanent medical decisions until they are an adult and have more life experience building their capacity for critical reasoning
Sounds like a great argument for puberty blockers! (Going through puberty—whether “standard” or “non-standard”—definitely fits the definition of “functionally permanent”, and certainly less so than the relatively minor side effects of puberty blockers!)