chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
To some extent, gender is a social construct. There's some limitation to that concept, but the process of transition largely seems like a social/cultural one, though we focus on the physical. The person assumes a constructed template of <gender> first, before anything physical manifests. It's really interesting, actually, and cool in that maybe people who otherwise would have been unhappy and ostracized can find some acceptance and happiness. But this business of diagnosing children, sending kids to psychologists based on nebulous "gender behaviors", that's not cool.Gosh, I'm sorry, Vanessa, I had thought you were advocating for puberty blockers, but it seems you're just insisting that people should consult medical professionals who specialize in gender issues for guidance? I think at face value under most conditions that approach makes a lot of sense, but I also think it is vitally important to look at the research onself, especially with an issue as politicized as transgenderism. And as that study i linked indicates (along with others), a lot of perceived gender dysphoria resolves following puberty.
Intentional or not, your argument is a clever way of getting people to indirectly adopt the position of "gender is a social construct." I think it makes more sense to consider prepubescent children as somewhat genderless though with regard to expected behavior. Certainly they've undergone a level of differentiation in vitro, giving them natural inclinations toward things or people for example. However, they are not subject to the wild hormonal disparities of adult males and females and associated tendencies.
I also don't want to discount the idea that some of what we consider as manly or ladylike is learned behavior. Some of it very much is, but the idea that a majority of it is or that all associated tendencies should be observable in children who aren't completely developed is a little silly.
My understanding of Vanessa's position is (hoping to fastrtack this convo...) that she acknowledges the reality that 80% of these kids with gender dysphoria will grow out of it, while NOT acknowledging the harm that could come to these children if they were put on puberty blockers. But she states that the treatment should only be applied to "the real trannies", so the 20% I am assuming she means, and acknowledges that there is no objective way to really test this. But again, does not seem to believe that applying puberty blockers to the 80% would be harmful. Broad strokes, anyway.