Treating people as 'a politically losing issue' is weird to me. There are certainly some nuances to <18 transgender care, but that statement doesn't address any of them and just suggests we embrace political cowardice.

> When policies around it changed, that tipped the scales from the public ignoring trans women or seeing them as victims, towards many members of the public seeing them as monsters who are out to get their children.

This is worse. It wasn't because politics around it changed, it was because republicans (upset that they could no longer target gay people), reused the same crappy arguments against trans people, and then wrapped it in a pedophilic flag.

The change in policy is just effective propaganda making people concerned that random doctors are allowing their children to get sex change operations without consent, when that isn't how ANY of this works. Children <18 can socially transition, get puberty blockers, and MAYBE get hormone treatment. WITH parent consent.

The fact that the media and comments like yours continues to pretend its a reasonable 'discussion' perpetuates the nonsense.

Imagine trying to make the same argument about forcing cis women to go through male liberty to "understand men better". It's ridiculous.

Further, studies show that the main predictor of bone structure is whether you started HRT before or after the beginning of puberty, and that outcomes get worse the more it progresses. At 18 you still get some change, but you really need to either block puberty or start HRT before it for optimal outcomes.

And if you don't want to give HRT to trans children, at least get them on puberty blockers. There's pretty much zero evidence suggesting they do anything worse than temporary and reversible reductions in bone density.

The effects are only partially reversible, and only after tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in surgeries, hair removal, voice training, other treatments.

I understand it's a politically losing issue now, but I believe it's due to misinformation, outrage porn, and unfair application of rigor, from mostly the anti-trans side but even allies and trans folk themselves sometimes. To that end I hope this does not feel like an attack - let me know if you have any questions that you think my perspective would help.

This is the key point, imho.

In the transgender rights discourse no margin for error is admitted, but there is like in any other human field (of course).

There have been several cases of people being given a "gender disphoria" blanket diagnosis (eg: the case of Chlementine Breen[1]), which later caused issues. And of course some of those people are transitioning back and started doing activism against the trans rights movement.

It's weird that minors are not allowed to do something trivial as drinking a beer or driving a car yet they're allowed to take on irreversible changes (sometimes involving surgery) to their bodies.

This is hurtful to all people involved, and until this point is not understood, the attrition will continue.

[1]: that case is a textbook example of "no margin error admitted" because in order for their voice to be heard they had to resort to talking to the extreme opposite political side.