A federal judge says that DeSantis was spreading lies when he called gender-affirming care "mutilation...
A federal judge says that DeSantis was spreading lies when he called gender-affirming care "mutilation."
This year has been all downhill for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. His presidential aspirations are going up in smoke thanks to his complete lack of charisma and general campaign incompetence. His losing war against Disney is costing Florida taxpayers millions of dollars. Now a federal court all but called DeSantis a liar for the way he justified his ban on medical care for trans youth.
DeSantis repeatedly claimed that the law was necessary to prevent youth from being “mutilated.” In just one example, he went after one reporter who questioned him about it when he signed the bill last May.
“And when you talk to people and I know, like people in your industry will dress it up with a euphemism, and they’ll say it’s health care to cut off the private parts of a 14 or 15 year old,” DeSantis said. “That is not health care. That is mutilation.”
I think it's wrong and bizarre that we cut the private parts of babies just because of a social trend started by a bunch of weirdos. That's why medically unnecessary circumcision before the age of 18 should be regulated.
This is consistent with the tiny minority who view the practice as a covenant with God because you're not allowed to enter into a contract as a minor in the US.
Tbh, I think that irreversible sex change surgeries shouldn't be allowed until the age of 18 (circumcision included). There's a reason that we don't let children do a lot of things, and that's because their brain isn't developed enough to make informed decisions.
There are a lot of things that I personally thought were a good idea in my teens that I definitely wouldn't in my mid 30s, and I'm sure that's true for most people.
This is the lie that is being told. No reputable doctor is doing this. You are right, a teenager can't reliably make those sorts of decisions.
The optimal treatment is a combination. They give drugs that delay puberty, combined with intensive mental health care.
The drugs are because reversing the effects of puberty is hard and invasive. By delaying puberty, they can sidestep a lot of these issues. If the patient decides they were wrong, they can stop the drugs, and puberty will kick in normally.
The mental health care is to help them get a handle on what is actually wrong. It filters out those with other mental health issues, that could be helped better in other ways. It also allows those who want to go through with it to firm up their understanding of what it will entail, and what they need to do prior.
If, after all this, they still want to transition, they can start the process. They are at least now aware of what it will entail, and don't have the baggage of their body lurching in the opposite direction to their mind.
Okay, can we just take a minute to acknowledge that the ONLY gender affirming surgery legally on the table before you are 16 is for breasts?
It also requires the sign off of a legal guardian and there are a bunch of recommendations in place from therapists about how to make good long term decisions so it's not like minors are making uninformed decisions on their own.
You have fallen for the grift... "conservative" doesn't refer to money conservation or a cautious disposition towards taking measures. Oftentimes Conservative ideology and politics is neither of those things beong actually more wasteful and sporadic than other political parties ...
At it's core Conservatism believes in a heirachy that requires effort to conserve from the forces which scatter power horizontally. Social welfare programs, debt relief, market protections, union power and democratic elections are all things which upset the "naturally" forming heirachy like one might conserve a nature preserve. That the heirachy they are fighting is actually fairly artificially enforced isn't something you are supposed to think about. Originally they were post revolution pacts conserving the power of the old powers... rich land owners , the lords, monarchists, the industrialists, the capitalists, colonization and imperialist powers... And they still kind of are.
In this instance Disney essentially has power it was granted outside the Conservative veiw of "efficient" heirachy. Disney was fine until they started doing things that conflicted with party directives and exercising their power autonomously. It's not doing what the officers who veiw themselves as rightful weilders of power want them to do so it must be busted to conserve the food chain.
Should Disney have that level of sovereignty? Probably not, but watching snakes try and swallow each other starting at the tail is fun.