This is a lie. The moral panic is about pronouns, puberty blockers, about mental health counselling.

The moral panic is trying to make books about transgender and gay banned. It is about closing libraries when they refuse to comply.

You are the liar here. And btw hormone blockers are not harmless.

There are also no book bannings. There are books considered to be inappropriate to children. You can still buy those books.

> And btw hormone blockers are not harmless.

Untrue. We’ve been using them for more than 30 years for kids who start puberty at a super young age (it’s called precocious puberty). And as best as science can tell, those kids are healthy when they grow up

You don't know how to science. Using hormones on people with an abnormal hormone system does not prove it is save to use them on everyone.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggests the medical profession is doing a bit more science than the people who've roped arguments about detransitioning into their campaigns to ban drag shows to stop the "demons and imps" prevailing...

You don't think medical misconduct exists?

Well, it does exist. You are incredibly naive. There is also a long history of misguided medical interventions.

Some of them even condemned by your crowd, like attempts to cure homosexuality.

Suuuuure, the legislators prattling about demons and imps and banning drag shows are the ones doing dispassionate scientific research and the medical practitioners calmly doling out or denying regulated courses of treatment who are swept up in a moral panic.

You only pick some strawmen to support your own bias.

Of course there are doctors who are critical of the yrans hype.

And people calmly cutting off children's (teenager's) sexual organs or sterilizing them, denying them ever having an orgasm are probably evil psychopaths who belong in prison.

Nothing screams "moral panic" quite like people bringing up their own orgasm-deprivation fantasies to explain why the medical profession isn't doing science as well as they are.

MY fantasies? It is a possible side effect of the transitioning methods. You seem completely unaware of any actual facts regarding the whole topic.

Ah bless. The person who waded in to deny that there was any moral panic amongst the book-banners and explain that the real problem was doctors being evil orgasm-denying psychopaths for performing the operations their patients demanded wants to talk about awareness of facts.

You're the one who is trying to rope different arguemnts into the discussion here. That some people you detest who argue B also argue A is irrelevant when it comes to arguements for/against A.

Nope. In case you haven't noticed we're replying to an article about "moral panics". Somebody upthread pointed out that there is currently a moral panic centred on transpeople. Politicians talking about "demons and imps", banning drag shows and "eliminating" trans identity or introducing the felony offence of having the wrong books in the classroom examples of this phenomenon. Despite the OP's denials, this phenomenon is very much in evidence; the scientific research concluding the net harm of any and all forms gender-affirmative care recently criminalised by the same politicians isn't (and even if it existed, that still wouldn't mean moral panics over transpeople didn't exist)

I've never heard demons and imps as an argument.

Can you explain to me why children need to see drag shows, which are about sexual attraction, and why they need porn in the classroom?

It was an argument from one of the definitely-not moral panicking Florida legislators whose legislation you're defending. Sounds super scientific to me!

Drag shows aren't necessarily about sexual attraction and most the definitely not moral panicking laws in question makes being a "male impersonator" or "female impersonator" in the presence of children (or in some cases within quarter of a mile of them!) a felony rather than the actual content, which would be a shame for the pantomimes I used to attend as a kid. And strangely, there wasn't much porn in classrooms before the definitely-not-moral-panicking parent vetting organizations started picking titles like Anne Frank's Diary as "sexually explicit"

I never mentioned any specific laws or senators, you did.

But I have seen videos of such drag shows with kids, and examples of the debated books.

So stop bullshitting me. It is absolutely about sexualization and pornographic content. That other examples may exist is besides the point. Specific laws may be badly written, but the intent is certainly not to make Ms Doubtfire illegal.

And even Anne Frank may not be appropriate for children of all ages. Afaik it does contain passages about sex.

haha, the person arguing that laws which explicitly don't mention sexualised behaviour and explicitly do call out such horrors as "sings, lip syncs and dances" whilst being "a performer which exhibits a gender identity that is different than the performer's gender assigned at birth" is really all about sexualization and pornography whose legal status is unchanged is accusing me of bullshitting. Funny how they're all so badly written that Mrs Doubtfire would have to avoid singing, but a red blooded alpha male can tell all the smutty jokes to an audience of minors he wants! What next? It's "beside the point" that black people were targeted by Jim Crow laws because it was absolutely about efficient use of bus space?

There's no moral panic here, actually it's entirely normal to make it a criminal offence to have Anne Frank's diary in a classroom if a parent complains!

Puberty blockers are not safe. That's true. Their relative risk is judged against suicide, an all too common outcome among untreated trans kids (and adults).

There are also suicides among treated "trans kids". Don' just use the selective statistics the trans lobby throws around. Or look into the details when they cite actual studies.

To judge that, we would have to have some idea whether they actually reduce the risk of suicide.

"...a negative association found many years after treatment is compatible with three scenarios: puberty blockers reduced suicidal ideation; puberty blockers had no effect on suicidal ideation; puberty blockers increased suicidal ideation, albeit not enough to counteract the initial negative effect of psychological problems on eligibility. Turban et al. (2020, p. 7) acknowledged that “the study’s cross-sectional design…does not allow for determination of causation.”"

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-020-01743-6

So you cite an letter to the editor from a well-known transphobe not in the field (Michael Biggs is a sociologist), rather than the peer-reviewed research said letter disagrees with but fails to provide evidence to counter. Why should we take this seriously?

Sociologists seem perfectly suited to that kind of study.

What makes Biggs a "known transphobe"? Sounds like mere ad hominem.

Peer review doesn't automatically mean much.

Even I can immediately spot a flaw in the study: they made a survey with self-selected respondents, and asked about suicidal ideation. That way, they missed people who already committed suicide, or who may be too depressed to respond.

Oh, look, instead of looking for actual evidence, you double down on trying to justify the choice of a known transphobic activist. Google a bit deeper. Of course, given your growing number of comments in this thread flagged for your own transphobic responses it's not surprising.

The only evidence YOU have given is "x is transphobic", and I gave you arguments why that isn't even true.

Can you give any actual arguments against Biggs criticism?

My comments being flagged is merely a good indicator for what the real mass hysteria is. Ironic, given that "they ban books" is one of the most prominent arguments by the trans ideology crowd.

There are plenty of info in Google results. The fact that you claim to have done Google searches while coming up with one you chose to dismiss and have ignored all the others makes it clear you are committed to ignoring it and not actually trying to learn anything.

Your comments are being flagged because you're contributing to hysteria and bigotry. This will be my last response to your bigotry.

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> The moral panic is about pronouns

Yes, about forcing other people to use various imaginary pronouns and chancelling those who don't go along. Naturally there is pushback to this moral panic.

> puberty blockers

Which are not irreversible so shouln't be given to children on a whim.

> mental health counselling

When it doesn't even include the possibility of questioning peoples thoughs about themselves then it is not mental health counselling.

> make books about transgender and gay banned

No books about transgender and gay have been banned in western countries in recent years. No libraries have been closed for carrying such books.

On the other hand, many books, movies and games have had transgender ideology forced into them. Some have even been edited posthumously to not be "offensive" the ideology. It is pretty clear who is trying to do the censoring here.