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Like climate change? Like support of masking up when COVID was killing more than a 1000 people a day? Like believing "conversion therapy" doesn't work and is actually harmful? Like understanding sex and gender and two things even though we use the same words to describe both? Like voter fraud is minimal (pop question: after the 2016 election Trump claimed there were more than 3 million illegal votes cast. As president he had all the resources in the world to investigate it, had a personal reason to identify it, had the duty as president to root it out. He formed a commission ... and nothing. Was was because he was negligent in his duties, tried but was incompetent, or was simply lying?)

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NeutralCrane 7 days ago | parent [-]

> Like believing "conversion therapy" doesn't work and is actually harmful? Like understanding sex and gender and two things even though we use the same words to describe both?

Like believing puberty blockers are an effective treatment for gender dysphoria despite historical evidence being extremely weak, ignoring or condemning more modern, rigorous studies [0], and refusing to publish your own studies when they don't confirm your preconceived position [1].

You don't need to convince anyone that Republicans don't care about science. But many of us also see the ways in which the "trust the science" crowd throw actual science out the second it contradicts their position.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/health/hilary-cass-transg...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/science/puberty-blockers-...

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thefaux 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

The science of puberty blockers is clear to me: they prevent the unwanted development of secondary sex characteristics in adolescents and have a number of side effects that may or may not be tolerable for any particular individual.

What would you suggest is the proper treatment for trans children suffering gender dysphoria if they are denied puberty blockers and/or hormone replacement therapy? Do you think that forcing them to develop unwanted secondary sex characteristics is going to reduce their dysphoria? Do you think that you should be responsible for telling another a parent what they should or should not allow their child to do? By what criteria should you or the state be able to overrule a parent? Should a child be allowed any agency at all over their own body? And if not children, should adults?

I don't think that science can even begin to answer these questions and that it is a red herring to frame this debate in utilitarian scientific terms (e.g. science shows that puberty blockers don't statistically improve mental health and therefore should be banned). With this kind of science, we lose the unique individual human being which for me is the loss of everything that truly matters.

	▲	aorn 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Many adults desist and detransition so why wouldn't children, if left to develop normally? The problem with blocking these dysphoric childrens' puberty, putting them on cross-sex hormones and, in some cases, surgically removing body parts, is that they're never given a chance to explore how they would feel as fully developed adults. Even referring to them as "trans children" comes with the assumption that this is some inherent and unchanging quality rather than a temporary state. Why assume this without evidence?

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unethical_ban 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Were you to read the comments of that article about the unpublished research, You could see that many people who I am sure identify as liberals agree that the scientists took the wrong action.

Though I admit that I understand why a researcher would hesitate, knowing that bigoted politicians and Evangelicals would use it as a cudgel against trans rights and trans people themselves.