In what sense can children consent to genital mutilation, since they do not understand at all human sexuality and the human sex drive, since the have had absolutely no experience with it? Virtually all other forms of body modification are also not legal for children.
As far as parents forcing children into genital mutilation, this is actually very popular and common elective medical procedure, but the word you're looking for is circumcision.
Please don't derail the discussion: murder and bank robbery are also quite rare. That does not make them acceptable!
Neither male nor female circumcision affects the ability to have children. Female circumcision is forbidden almost everywhere. Male circumcision is mostly still around for historical reasons.
@dang can I suggest closing down this thread? Too much apologia of child abuse!
Calling out the fact that the majority of sex change operations happen at the behest of an adult who elects to have the operation is not derailing the discussion, but inserting a rather critical point of context when examining the issue broadly.
That doesn't mean the concern about minors is not legitimate, but clarifies that the conversation is much broader than this subset.
> Neither male nor female circumcision affects the ability to have children.
Why is this relevant? I have not been mutilated, but I choose not to have children either. I haven't yet undergone a vasectomy, but plan to do so at some point in the future so I don't have to worry about it. But this seems like a non-sequitur, unless you're implying there is some moral compulsion to procreate.
> Female circumcision is forbidden almost everywhere.
It's estimated that ~200 million girls/women alive today have undergone FGM, and a significant number still undergo this yearly. While the practice is in decline in many places, there are countries where no such decline has started.
But regardless of that, it's an orthogonal issue, and no more belongs in a conversation about sex change operations than bringing up ritual organ harvesting in a conversation about appendectomies.
> Too much apologia of child abuse!
Again, acknowledging that surgery is often necessary is not the equivalent of apologizing for non-consensual ritual sadism.
Aside, your user name here is after an organisation founded by one of world history's worst mass murderers. Can I suggest to show empathy with his victims, and not use this term? Using it trivialises his crimes.
I'm just being generous, I'm not technically aware of a single instance.
> even for adult
Is this a theocratic totalitarianism thing or a hatred for humanity and hatred of personal freedom thing?
First, I think it’s important to draw a distinction between the practice of genital mutilation - a practice that is alive and well in various cultures and maims significant numbers of kids every year in the name of religious superstition - from sex change operations.
Regardless of what you think about the appropriate age for such a decision, reducing this to “genital mutilation” trivializes the issue and tries to draw a comparison with a barbaric practice despite there being no connection between the two.
Almost all forms of surgery would appear barbaric on the surface if not for the significant utility of undergoing those surgeries. That doesn’t mean we should equate cutting someone open and removing their appendix with a ritualistic religious practice that appears similar at face value.
That said, I made no claims about the appropriateness of these surgeries for minors, nor do I believe someone at that age is mature enough to understand the implications of such.
That doesn’t change anything that I wrote though, even if it’s an important factor to consider for a subset of potential patients.
(2) the purpose of modern genital mutilation for the mutilatee is to facilitate sex fraud, and for the mutilator is, one imagines, money.
(3) if believe someone at that age is mature enough to understand the implications of modern genital mutilation, you will have to face the question why you trivialise it. Your writing here may, directly or indirectly lead to more modern genital mutilation. Speech has consequences.
That is true whether you're taking advil for your headache, anti-depressants to help you through PTSD, or the removal of body parts that have become toxic to your existence (e.g. your gall bladder).
That doesn't mean that all mind-altering treatments are created equal, and hormonal changes result in fundamentally different outcomes than changing (destroying) the underlying physical structures those treatments are operating on.
Put another way, lobotomies alter the hardware that all of these subjective experiences run on. Other forms of treatment are effectively modifications to software, or modifications to accommodate existing software. Drawing analogies between lobotomies and other forms of treatment is interesting as a thought experiment, but means little in practice.
But the real issue is that lobotomy just doesn't work. If lobotomy worked, it'd still be in the modern doctor's repertoire along with bloodletting and other practices. It's used here to represent a "Bad Idea", and we know far too little about gender dysphoria to relegate existing treatments to the same category.
I'm not attacking your point on whether a lobotomy worked or not. Or whether transitioning works or not. I simply find your point that transitioning is not permanently changing the brain very silly.
Of course it's not like silicon, and that's why it's an analogy. Neither is a lobotomy anything like a sex change operation.
The basic structure of this particular analogy is highlighting that:
- Solution A: Literally destroys the machinery
- Solution B: Brings about changes in how the machinery operates by altering the processes running on that machinery
That these processes are further self-modifying is interesting, but irrelevant to the point.
The implications of these outcomes are meaningfully different whether we're talking about silicon or organic brains.
> I simply find your point that transitioning is not permanently changing the brain very silly.
This is not the point I was trying to make, and as I pointed out in the beginning of my comment, the entire point of any medical operation is to "change the brain", either directly or indirectly.
My point was more about the nature of the change, and how the literal destruction of a brain is a very different kind of change and is therefore an even more problematic comparison to make in the original comment.
Going on a road trip also permanently alters the brain.
> 2. The outcomes of these procedures are in different stratospheres, and gender surgery doesn’t involve changing the makeup of one’s brain and the fundamental structures through which one experiences subjective reality.
And transitioning for sure changes the makeup of one's brain. You can backpedal all you want now but your own words are very clear.
From my perspective, physical destruction was the primary point, and I was very specifically calling attention to how that destruction is meaningfully different from other kinds of changes.
That the brain is self-modifying was assumed, and self modification becomes a moot point when the brain is no longer capable of the traditional processes of self modification due to physical destruction.
> And transitioning for sure changes the makeup of one's brain.
A point that I acknowledged explicitly above. That doesn't mean that attacking a region of the brain with a metal spike and hammer is somehow the same thing.
> You can backpedal all you want now but your own words are very clear.
Obviously my words were not very clear since you've taken some meaning from them that I never intended.
Hopefully this comment clarifies the original intent sufficiently (which, incidentally is not back pedaling, since nothing about my position has changed).
1. Lobotomy was generally not voluntary on the part of the patient.
2. The outcomes of these procedures are in different stratospheres, and gender surgery doesn’t involve changing the makeup of one’s brain and the fundamental structures through which one experiences subjective reality.
3. Given what we’re learning about the fluidity of sexuality and gender dysphoria, there’s at least some argument to be made that these surgeries have at least the potential for net benefit, even if the jury’s out on the actual degree of benefit or the specific circumstances under which benefit is experienced.
With all of that said, encouraging these surgeries nonchalantly and without regard for their permanence and real world impacts is hugely problematic. The problematic parts are amplified when the patient is too young to legally make other life changing decisions.
But to me, comparing these surgeries with lobotomies reduces issues of dysphoria and its potential remedies to a caricature of the situation and shuts down lines of thinking regarding potential benefits.
After all, if these are truly as problematic as lobotomies, all discussion should turn to how we should campaign against said surgeries. Reality is not nearly this simple.
I’m curious how you feel about other forms of body modification, from the routine (nose job, breast augmentation, etc) to the more extreme (extreme jewelry/piercings, tattoos, etc).
It seems to be culturally acceptable (for the most part) to modify one’s body based on other characteristics of one’s identity that are arguably far less innate than sexuality.
It’s puzzles me that people see gender surgery so differently.