Rights and Responsibilities

For John, BLUF:  Maturity is awarded at age 16, for driving, but 21 for owning a gun.  We are told the human brain is not fully developed until age 24.  Imposing life-forming decisions at age 8 seems to not be consistent with our evolving culture.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Medical Expert:  Doctors Are Actually Giving Trans Kids a Disease, It's Child Abuse

From Pajama Media, by Reporter Tyler O'Neil, 25 August 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

Children as young as 8 years old are being given untested experimental drugs to verify their gender identity. Activists argue that these drugs are essential for the health of kids who identify as transgender, and many in the medical establishment increasingly agree. Nevertheless, a dissenting endocrinologist explained to PJ Media that these drugs actually give children a disease that could cause heart and bone problems and stunt brain growth, and condemned the transgender "treatments" often carried out on children as "child abuse."

If a girl child identifies as a boy, she may be given so-called "puberty-blockers" to prevent her from going through the natural human process of development. In some cases, she would then be given testosterone in an attempt to make her become a man. The effects of these hormones are not fully known, but some negative side effects have been widely reported.

"I call it a development blocker — it’s actually causing a disease," Dr. Michael Laidlaw, an endocrinologist associated with Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Rocklin, Calif., told PJ Media. The disease in question is hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It occurs when the brain fails to send the right signal to the gonads to make the hormones necessary for development.

I expect most people of my age remember Christine Jorgensen.  Sexual transition is not new.  This is America in the 21st Century.  Adults can be whatever they want.

The question is, at what age is an individual old enough to give informed consent to a transition in their gender identification?  I suspect it isn't 8, and maybe not 18.  Such a change, perhaps not easily reversible, needs to be carefully considered.  Otherwise, it is child abuse.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff