(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Gender Affirming Care: a sober reconsideration [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-29 Gov. Gianforte modestly covering his glans majora with stylish cap Look, no one is more liberal and compassionate than me, but every so often you get a wake-up call from the heartland. You gotta admit, these people sometimes have a knack for simplifying the most basic stuff. Case in point: a statement from moderate, humanist Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte crystalizes the main reason to ban gender-affirming care among minors. The state’s new law "protects Montana children from permanent, life-altering medical procedures until they are adults, mature enough to make such serious decisions." This is mature and sober-sounding to anyone outside the liberal-media bubble; even well-educated, enlightened Hollywood types like J.K. Rowling would probably consider this abundantly reasonable. Look, the Montana law is actually quite modern and sophisticated. For example, health professionals who provide gender-affirming care to minors would NOT face capital punishment or even imprisonment — they would simply have their medical licenses suspended. But here’s a really clever wild card: they could also be sued for 25 years if any patient reports any physical, psychological, emotional or physiological harm during that period. Look folks, here’s the bottom line: even with reasonable measures like this, it takes a lot of balls for any state to police family matters and intimate stuff — but if parents are bad, the long-term physical and psychological consequences can be profound, and this is why, as a last resort, a caring state reluctantly tucks its balls and steps up to the plate. And that’s when it struck me: These states not only have big enough balls to ban hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical procedures, their balls are descending by the day, and soon these balls will hang low enough to tee up the truly big battles for the very soul of our children’s bodies. To wit: there has been a disturbing push in recent millennia to expose the glans of billions of minors who were born with male genitalia. Many of these minors — some as young as eight days old — endured painful circumcision procedures to permanently expose the glans before the life-altering implications were even explained to them in plain English. Now that Red states are leading the battle to better define the humanistic reasons for protecting kids against self-change, I predict we will soon witness a wave of legislation banning genital mutilation until a child is at least old enough to join the military. There’s no lack of data on the topic. Here are just a few examples of real-life psychological harms of foreskin-abatement procedures (as featured on the website of the National Organization of Restoring Men): When we men discuss our feelings about circumcision, no one listens, not even doctors. I’m one of the millions of men who doesn’t like being circumcised. I wish I had been able to scream at the doctors, “Hands off, its mine!” This may seem obvious to a lot of people here that missing a very pleasurable and essential part of the human body can be depressing. I could have dealt with being born without it, but knowing that some doctor robbed me of it and that my parents allowed it to happen is what made it difficult. ...probably the largest wound in my life, a wound that up until a few months ago I never knew existed. My intact friend made me aware of my mutilation… [and] the trauma of the circumcision. If legislation could protect even one person born with male genitalia, it would be well worth the inconvenience; those who wish to display their penis tips would be perfectly free to do so upon reaching the legal age of maturity. Yes, there are a few crude methods to reverse a circumcision, but they are tedious and unpleasant. Even so, the fact that so many men attempt such reversals, or undergo epispasm surgery, is testament to their lasting wounds. Those who succeed in restoring their foreskins often speak of their restoration in almost religious terms. (Plus, the sex is better.) I can only describe the restoration process as a METAMORPHOSIS of body, mind, heart and soul. The changes to me as a person have been dramatic – I am not the same person as I was when I began this process. I have been given the opportunity to heal probably the largest wound in my life, a wound that up until a few months ago I never knew existed. Look folks, there is every reason to feel confident that the coming movement to ban circumcision among minors will begin imminently, with Red States taking the lead. (And no, I simply cannot believe this debate will trigger any religious arguments; after all, reverse-circumcisions have been happening since at least the time of Christ, when circumcised people sought to cover their glans in social/political settings where nudity was expected but where exposing the glans was considered vulgar.) Here’s the thing. None of this is about intruding on anyone’s bodily autonomy. No one cares about your sexual preferences or your gender. That would just be silly. Maybe you’re picking up on a few harmless microaggressions here and there, but as you can tell from Governor Gianforte’s moderate statements, the name of the game is “compassion.” Just bear in mind this basic rule of thumb about politicians: whatever they are saying or legislating, they really only want to protect your precious children. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/29/2166594/-Gender-Affirming-Care-a-sober-reconsideration Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/