You are overly simplifying my point. If we are going to treat this as a true disorder, there needs to be criteria. It needs to be persistent. It needs to be lifelong. The child should undergo puberty to ensure the dysphoria remains post secondary sex characteristic formation. Then, you treat when they become a young adult, capable of making the decision that will affect the rest of their life and certainly sterilize them.
This isn’t something you suddenly realize in your 40s. That is something different. I am talking about clinical GD.
I can understand the concern (and i share that concern) when it comes to diagnosing and treating gender dysphoria in children; however, who really cares if an adult whether of any age decides they want to transition to another sex. If they want to endure not only the physical and mental challenge as well as the impact to their families including spouse, children etc what business is it of ours?
Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, recently used my second-place finish in the 1,600-meter run, and that of my teammate in the 800-meter run, to malign Soren Stark-Chessa, the trans-identified athlete who finished first.
One of the reasons I chose to run cross-country and track is the community: Teammates cheering each other on, athletes from different schools coming together, and the fact that personal improvement is valued as much as, if not more than, the place we finish.
Last Friday, I ran the fastest 1,600-meter race I have ever run in middle school or high school track and earned varsity status by my school’s standards. I am extremely proud of the effort I put into the race and the time that I achieved. The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn’t diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race. I don’t feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points.
We are all just kids trying to make our way through high school. Participating in sports is the highlight of high school for some kids. No one was harmed by Soren’s participation in the girls’ track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are.
Anelise Feldman
Freshman, Yarmouth High School
Yarmouth
Fair point. But what happens is that these M to F late converts tend to be highly erratic, attention seeking and divisive. They harm the GD community with their misdeeds, with walking into Women’s locker room, competing against female athletes, screaming at people to call them Ma’am when they are overtly masculine in appearance. They revel in the shock value, but who it harms are those who are truly vulnerable.
In Medicine, you have to have ethics about things. Do no harm. Perform procedures only if they relieve symptoms or prolong life. We don’t do hip replacements in 90 year olds, they’re too old for one. Age does play a factor in medical decisions. Can age play a part here? It is an interesting debate.
She seems very mature, and I admire that. The point remains, if a teen has GD and is undergoing therapy, athletics can be enjoyed without it being competitive athletics. It is divisive and alienates the community for no good reason.
But at that level, it’s the community that is largely dictating the rules around participation in sports. A progressive community/state is more likely to support rules at the local and school level that include trans athletes. While a more conservative community/state might limit or deny their participation. Which I think is how it should be handled. Decisions like this will leave people feeling alienated … but that’s life.
When you get into more organized and competitive sports, that’s being handled by athletic committees and governing boards, outside of community influence. That’s a whole different ball of wax.
If you need it dumbed down that much, then yes, it’s more likely that liberals and progressives support including Trans individuals in athletic competitions.
If you need to create this “LIB’s in charge” boogeyman in order to have someone to blame for making you feel uncomfortable, then fine. Blame “libs” until the cows come home.
A local school board dominated by LIBs is more than likely to allow biological males to compete on the school’s girl’s teams. A local school board dominated by CONs is more than likely not to allow biological males to compete on the school’s girl’s teams.
There aren’t enough of them to do such a thing. Maybe a few per state. Granted, it seems like more because the rare ones that do are so heavily publicized. Here’s the thing, they face a tough road and wanting to compete against biologic girls makes their and other GD’s lives more difficult in the long run.
Nobody is saying that a GD kid’s life is going to be normal. They face a life of sterility, of challenges finding someone to love that will accept them. Competing against biologic girls should fall on the bottom of the list when it comes to goals for their lives, if anything it makes their lives more difficult. Just advocate a healthy lifestyle, enjoy the outdoors and athletics all you wish, but you just can’t compete against girls.
It is sadly the price they have to pay given their disposition.
