Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

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> then this opens new doors to examining the behaviour of other illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically over represented. This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want to be another gender.

It's very, very simple. There always have been about 10% of people who are left-handed - but for a time in history, teachers and society (sometimes brutally) repressed that and forced left-handed children to use their right hand. Once that relaxed and children were left to freely be who they were, the left-handed ratio went back to its historic norm [1].

Obviously, it's been the same for gay, trans and other sexuality/gender-nonmainstream people. They have always been part of human history - from the old Greeks [2] to early Islamic and Hindu ages [3], but as long as there was an heir available for a long time many simply didn't bother to care or looked away in historic Catholic regions. The repression only went really bad with the Nazis, who destroyed the Institute for Sexology [4] and later on with anti-LGBT laws still remaining on the books for decades, then the anti-gay panic with AIDS, and only nowadays public opinion is beginning to relax.

The problem is that Conservatives not just don't get that simple historic fact, they actively deny it based on their morals, and as a result young LGBT people have shockingly high suicide rates (in thoughts, attempts and success [5]).

[1] https://www.truthorfiction.com/the-history-of-left-handednes...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greec...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissen...

[5] https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096920693/lgbtq-youth-though...

There's no denying that gender dysphoria exists and has always existed. OP made the claim that it might be statistically over-represented.

Looking at the Hijra example, it looks like the Hijra demographics are around 0.5-1% of the population.

In the latest polls [0], the proportion of Gen Z that identify as transgender is over 2%.

Is there repression/stigma in South Asia keeping some people in the closet? Is the culture difference having an effect on gender dysphoria? Is there a gender dysphoria "contagious" effect? I don't know, but those are interesting questions.

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-tick...

And what the fuck would be the problem if GenZ had an "over-representation" of LGBT?!

We don't live in the dark ages, almost all Western constitutions have some sort of "freedom of expression" on their books. Just let people live their lifes however they want to do it, as long as they don't harm anybody. Trans people or kissing gays on the street don't harm anyone but the feelings of some poor Conservatives who are secretly in the closet and envious about the freedom today's youth has.

Just look how many of the loud pearl clutching Conservatives turned out to be gay or adulterous. It's nothing but projection and pure envy.

One potential danger is that some of the more extreme therapies for gender transition are permanent and work best when used early. If a person's trans orientation is the result of a poorly formed sense of identity, as alleged by the article, there's a stronger chance they may change their mind later, after irreversible harm has been wrought.

In other words, there's a chance that some kids may not be "really" trans, but rather attention-seeking or mentally ill. And for those kids, transitioning would, in fact, be harmful in the long run.

Do we, as a society, have an obligation to prevent these children and young adults from harming themselves in this way?

I don't have a firm answer because it's a difficult and emotional subject, but I think it's extreme to pretend this is not an issue, and equally extreme to encourage kids for whom it might not be safe to transition.

Perhaps the informal controls we have in place prior to gender reassignment surgery are already adequate to filter out these vulnerable kids. Perhaps there are other interventions I'm not aware of that are already in use. But I don't see the harm in discussing and exploring whether there is a proportion of the trans population that is, in fact, suffering from social or mental illness and not actually a more innate form of gender dysphoria.

> One potential danger is that some of the more extreme therapies for gender transition are permanent and work best when used early.

There is virtually only one, and that's puberty blockers, stuff that has been used for decades to treat precocious puberty. We know these medicines are safe and we also know that nature will run its course again all by itself after the medicines are left out.

Genital surgery, the second option, is extremely rare in people under 18, and most of it is done on inter-gender children shortly after birth which is a grave mistake anyway and some countries have banned that as a result [1].

And in any case: Puberty blockers are reversible - puberty itself is not. Some things (e.g. the growth of breast tissue) can be reversed but at a high cost, some like the vocal cords changing for hormonal males cannot be reversed at all. It is way, way better for trans children to not force them through puberty.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-lgbt-health-idUSK...

According to Gallup's poll, which they present as estimates, it is 0.7% in the US. In India, 0.6% people self-identified as hijra (Sahastrabuddhe et al., 2012). In the 2011 census in India, 0.04% answered with "Other" when asked to choose between "Male", "Female" and "Other".

Canada included the question in their latest census. In my opinion, a mandatory government census provides data that is more accurate than Gallup's phone poll.

"In Canada, 0.2% of the population aged 18 and older was transgender in 2021. Belgium (0.5% among people aged 18 to 75 in 2021) and New Zealand (0.5% among people aged 18 and older in 2020) have also published representative survey-based data on their transgender populations."

"The proportions of transgender and non-binary people were three to seven times higher for Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2006, 0.79%) and millennials (born between 1981 and 1996, 0.51%) than for Generation X (born between 1966 and 1980, 0.19%), baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965, 0.15%) and the Interwar and Greatest Generations (born in 1945 or earlier, 0.12%)."

"Other countries have published 2021 data on transgender people using crowdsourcing and non-representative surveys, including Ireland (0.6% among people aged 18 and older), England and Wales (0.6% among people aged 16 and older), and the United States (0.8% among people aged 18 and older)."

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