Gender-critical conservatives must seek to protect parental right to medical decisions
Americans must pay attention to legal precedents & what's going on in Australia
There is a faction of conservative right who unwittingly argue in favour of diluting parental rights. These people are opposed to Trump saying “we don't want transgender operations without parental consent”. The gender-critical conservative activists argue that such procedures amount to mutilation and child abuse, and, as such, parents have no right to consent to it. They further claim that this is a “dangerous cult, and parents are in it, and often they are the ones pushing this on their kids.”
Conservative Americans, please pay attention. Once you take away the agency of parents and dilute parental right to make informed decisions about medical interventions for their children, there is absolutely no going back. I am not arguing in favour of transgender procedures for children, or for that matter, for anybody. I am pointing out that it is dangerous to use the “parents do not know any better” argument to advocate for a ban. Conservatives need to tread carefully and be aware of the pitfalls when they advocate for laws targeted at children by framing parents as uneducated, too ignorant to make decisions for their children, or “being in a cult”. Advocate for a ban on gender reassignment surgeries because they are harmful, not because “parents are dumb and don't know what's best for their children”.
Blaming parents, accusing them of belonging to a “dangerous cult” and arguing against parental right to make medical decisions for their children is a slippery slope because there is an insidious school of thought that parents who do not vaccinate their children are subjecting their children to abuse. Some states have legal precedent for considering parental refusal of childhood vaccinations as neglect. This is not just in the case of the US, but also in Australia where such an argument is used to justify mandatory vaccinations for children.
Once you advance a narrative that parents are captured by an ideological cult, that they do not know what is best for their children and that the state, advised by their hand-picked “experts”, knows better, you have already given up on your rights. It may come as a surprise to Americans, but it was this argument that led the nanny state of Australia under the so-called conservative Christian government to abolish all conscientious objections and religious exemptions for mandatory vaccinations. No Jab, No Play and No Jab, No Pay is the norm in Australia.
“Parents do not know better” is the same argument that is used to prevent parents from seeking alternative treatment to childhood cancer. If parents reject chemotherapy and radiotherapy, they are framed as abusing their child. Parents in Australia no longer have the right to reject “life-saving” treatment for their child against the directions of “experts”.
In 2016, Perth doctors sued the parents of a six year old boy with malignant brain tumour when they refused chemotherapy and radiotherapy because of the profound suffering their child would have to endure from the side effects of the treatment. The court overruled the parents’ decision. There are numerous such cases in Australia where doctors and courts have overruled the right of parents to choose palliative home care for their child. Recently, the New South Wales Supreme Court ruled that a severely disabled 14 year old should be shackled and forced to undergo chemotherapy despite her parents pleading with the court to let her die peacefully. Since faith in God, religious and cultural beliefs are seen as “dangerous cult” by the “educated” ruling elite class, parents are forced to prove that their decision is not based on any such beliefs. It is cruel to subject parents with seriously ill children through torture and lawfare, but this is what happens when you solidify the narrative that parents do not know what is best for their children.
Conservative Americans who are criticising Trump need to consider the risk of parents losing their liberty and right to make their own medical decisions for their children. Trump's focus on parental consent is to rebut draconian laws in states like California where refusing transgender surgery for a child is framed as child abuse and is grounds for losing custody of their child. He is specifically addressing the case where parents lose the right to direct “gender-affirming care” of their children and when parents resist gender transition, the child is removed from their custody to undergo “gender affirming care”.
What can be done?
The “transgender agenda” in the west flourishes mainly because of funding, incentives, academic grants that promote the ideology, celebrates it and even enforces speech. The right way to go about this is to first stop the gravy train that feeds, funds and incentivices gender transition and sex-reassignment surgeries, both within and outside USA. Cut-off the supply of taxpayer money towards these programs. Stop incentivising gender indoctrination at schools. Scrap government programs that promote gender transition, including USAID which burns taxpayer money and promotes gender transition programs overseas. Cancel the State Department LGBTQIA+ envoy who gets a 183K pay package and pushes this ideology overseas. You cannot justify ending these programs within the USA whilst funding it overseas.
Strike off laws that penalise parents for refusing to allow transgender surgeries.
Provide honest, exhaustive and accessible information about the causes of gender dysphoria, alternative diagnoses, non invasive treatment options, alternatives to “affirmative care”, pros and cons of each approach to parents. Educate parents about the harms and irreversible nature of gender transition surgeries, long-term medical complications and mental health impact of such permanent changes.
Prohibit schools from secretly putting the child on a pathway to gender transition. Schools should not be allowed to conceal such information from parents.
Finally, strengthen patient and parental informed consent laws and remove any indemnification that allow immunity to doctors who perform these surgeries on children.
Trump is on the right path on the issue of transgender treatment when he centers parental consent. Activists must consider wider legal ramifications of their narratives that remove the agency of parents to decide what is best for their children.
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— The Solitary Reaper