Thank you for your response. As you can probably tell, I wasn’t aware of the details of the procedure, and how much the timelines matter. I never felt the need to find out before because in general I trust healthcare professionals (and do support this type of care), but understanding more about it is certainly helpful and educational. Of course I can Google things, but then we miss the opportunity to learn from one another, right?

About your advice of talking to our doctor about when my son says he’s a girl. This is really interesting to me. I had not considered it before at all, didn’t even cross my mind, and I can immediately say I won’t take him now. There’s multiple reasons for that that are of a personal nature that I won’t share here, but I can tell why I’m immediately dismissive of the idea. These are personal beliefs.

He’s still very young and he’s just figuring out that there’s the concept of gender, and that we in general use these labels for one type and other. It’s not something that is currently of any concern to me, not at home, nor the community we live in. All we care about is that he’s happy, healthy, and that he becomes a good person at this stage. I believe that giving this any weight now, will make it into a thing. I don’t want to influence this, he’s just a tiny kid. Of course that would all change if it persists. If the school starts giving signals that something is afoot for example. But I imagine that that will still take quite some time. Again a personal belief here (and perhaps more controversial here): to me it feels like doing this now, in the situation we’re in, feels like a gross overreaction (albeit orders of magnitude less extreme than immediately think about something like conversion therapy!). I think it’s just completely normal behaviour, why consult a doctor? He’s in a safe environment and can figure thing out for himself for now.

If my kid finds himself in this position, I will do everything in my power to make this as smooth as possible. He will not be traumatised by this if he wants this.

I do thank you for the suggestion, I hadn’t thought about it myself and understand it comes from a good place.

I understand what you’re saying, and agree that discouraging young people to exercise is preposterous. But sports and competition do matter to a lot of people (especially in the US I think, which comes across way more competitive than Europe), and it’s not meaningless to them (neither to trans athletes I might add).

So I would say that your comment will be considered quite disrespectful. Would you say that this large group of people are more, or less inclined to agree with you if they’re being called a bigot?

Hey, thanks for your comment and link. I respect that it must be incredibly hard having to suffer so much because of personal experience, and to then be expected to debate about it. I totally get that.

As the article says, there is a lot of misinformation around this, a lot of ignorance, and I do believe that an open debate about this (or anything in general really) is truly important. Way i see it, you’ve got bad actors on one side (opposing trans in this case) who will use anything to further their agenda. And they have an advantage: they can oversimplify a complex process. It’s really easy to shout “They want all your children to be trans!”, and quite a bit harder to explain the reality. That’s what the trans community is up against. It will take a lot of patience and time, decades, to educate the masses unfortunately, and any excesses, like online vitriol, trolling, will be used against you. I’m sorry to say this, but you’re an easy target.

Again, not expecting anyone to debate who doesn’t want to. But I hope that the people who do enter the public debate can be as composed as the author of the article you shared. I believe that’s the only road to acceptance.

I wish you all the best, and hope you can find peace. From the little information I have I can tell, you are beautiful.

The whole idea that transition care is “getting rid” of gay people is ridiculous

I think the ‘dark joke’ is one of those jokes that actually reveals how some people feel about this; what I got the opinion piece is that some folks in the gay community worry that wanting to transition can also mean being attracted to the same sex and being confused about it at a young age.

You are concerned about a child making a decision that they may regret… so you think the decision should be made for them?

Not exactly, a child is a person and should have agency. But at the same time, they’re a child and are less experienced in life. I don’t let my kid eat ice cream whenever they feel like it, and I wouldn’t let him make such a major decision before he knows very sure who he is. Because transitioning is a decision, but who you are is not. And I believe that when you’re so young, it’s really hard to know who you are.

Hey, thanks for this thoughtful response. This is basically what I’m seeing happening; I don’t think it’s a black and white, clear cut situation. On the one hand there’s trans people, who feel discriminated against on this matter, on the other hand there’s women who have similar sentiments on the same. And here I am agreeing with them both. An impossible position. Agreeing with one side is denying the other. I don’t see a solution to this and that really sucks.

I didn’t actually comment to ask questions to be honest, but to comment on the polarisation that is happening, and that folks who are sympathetic perhaps become less sympathetic when immediately being put away as Satan. That’s burning bridges which you can’t afford as a minority.

But, I’m happy I did comment because there’s also some really good insights here and thoughtful responses. I don’t know any trans people IRL, so it’s valuable to me.

Thank you

Thank you for your openness and sharing your personal story. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like, and I’m sorry that you had to experience that.

Also thank you for taking the time to explain. I 100% agree with what you say. You describe a very careful procedure, it being such a delicate matter. This is what I would want for my son if he was in this position. He’s 4 and has said he’s a girl many times lately. That’s incredibly young and probably a phase. I recall myself wanting to be a girl for a bit, at the same age, and my mom gave me a dress to wear (great mum, and a wonderful memory, I was lucky). It didn’t stick for me. But if it does for him, my primary concern is their wellbeing, and that they grow up in an accepting environment (and society). I wish you could’ve had that.

If I may ask you a question, I honestly don’t know this. Puberty is a natural process that everyone goes through under normal circumstances. But children who transition and take puberty blockers don’t, I assume (or do they but after transitioning?). If they don’t, that’s an experience they will never have, is there any issue with that?

Thanks again for your thoughtful response. It’s really helpful to understand.

PS I wanted to clarify that my worry on this issue is primarily with doing away with a careful process, as I’ve heard sometimes being voiced. I’m not saying it should be made more difficult, but it is a delicate process, with young children, and I feel what you described is a proper way of handling it. I think many folks (the majority really) who consider themselves a bit more neutral on the matter think this way, and being called transphobe for even the slightest deviation from the opinion of some folks does the trans community more harm than good.

With irreversible changes do you mean puberty?

How is anyone supposed to show empathy, let alone learn anything when even the slightest hint of wanting to have a conversation is met with this kind of reaction? I’m the villain? OK, but then you’re an extremist.

I made it clear in my comment what I support, and it was certainly not denying anyone’s right to exist. None of what I said supports the claim you made. What I pointed out is a major problem is exactly what you illustrate with your comment. It’s impossible to discuss anything when 2 sides are so entrenched and unwilling to debate. I get the urgency and gravity of what is happening right now, but for people like me, who consider themselves very sympathetic to the trans community, you’re making it very hard to help. It’s either support everything we say, or shut the f up. That’s never going to work.

And on the data you’re referring to around gender-affirming care, show me. Latest I heard, this is a very young field of study, and data, if any, is inconclusive. And yet here I am, supporting gender-affirming care, having to defend the position that please can we tread with care. Insanity!

As you (seem to) point out, trans people in sports is a different conversation. The science is clearer, but now we have a group of formerly (and frankly, still) marginalised people (women at birth, biologically) who fear unfair advantage. Much more political, philosophical even, a much harder debate. I empathise with both sides, how villainous of me.

So, showing empathy to you is hard. You reap what you sow.

You should probably not use words that you don’t know the meaning of.

I was only reacting to the title of the post, and I stupidly said ‘this meme’, that was a mistake. The content of the meme on it’s own I fully support. Apologies, thanks for pointing that out!

I rest my case.

It’s not 2014 and yet this is a post about not supporting the trans agenda makes one a “fucking psychopath”.

I think this ‘meme’ the title of this post is a great example of what the problem really is. I do not have any issues with trans people. What I have a major problem with is that voicing an opinion, or have any form of meaningful debate, is met with immense aggression, trolling, cancelling, intimidation.

I am for example not completely convinced about trans women in female sports and am sympathetic to arguments from both sides. Even voicing that will cause me to be vilified by one side.

Another example is transition care for children. I believe that at a young age making an irreversible choice is dangerous and we should be careful. Not saying care should abolished, just saying that such a big life decision needs extreme care because it can cause irreparable harm later in life. Again a reasonable, well willing position that will cause this to be downvoted into oblivion.

So, trans people, I support you to exist, be happy, live a meaningful life. But unfortunately there’s a group of loud people who are honestly behaving like psychopaths who are making it hard to stay sympathetic. Wake up.

(Edit) Wanted to share this NY times post that puts thing much more eloquent than I ever could: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/gay-lesbian-trans-rights.html

I was watching this youtuber called Charles Veitch and now I’m addicted. That’s a first. He’s a right winger who makes long videos walking the streets of Manchester commenting on anything from protests in support of Palestine to drunks and addicts in the streets. There’s just so much to unpack in those hour long videos.

I’m left wing, but he’s not wrong about everything. He has to walk around with multiple bodyguards for his own safety because he’s being physically attacked by what he calls ‘Balaklava boys’, young men, mostly Muslim, dealing drugs and in other ways showing criminal tendencies, being intimidating. Smack dap in the very center of Manchester.

Anyone has the right to free speech in the UK without fear of being physically attacked. The open display of alcoholism, drug abuse, lewd behaviour, intimidation, physical violence, and more, is really distopian and a problem regardless of which side on the political spectrum you are. Although I disagree, I can see where some of the right wing ideas come from, and that’s sobering.

Anyway, I guess I should share a link here, this is from Saturday: https://youtu.be/9B34WgDI718

Thanks!

Things that I really like about Zen:

• New tab URL input, it’s a dialog overlay
• Tabs opening as the first instead of the last in the sidebar
• the tab sidebar
• opening external links is magic, they open in an overlay with the option to expand in a tab. This is probably my favourite, because often I need to open a link from an email, do one thing, then go back to the email. This feature keeps me in the context of what I was doing.

I don’t get it

Lovely!

Oof.