Maine lawmakers consider transgender surgery for minors
Earlier this month, Maine lawmakers gave medical providers permission to perform transgender surgeries and other gender-related procedures on 16- and 17-year-olds without the approval of their parents.
Now, Democratic representatives have proposed a bill that would enable doctors to provide these services to all children, extending to minors from out of state. The bill would also protect Maine healthcare providers from any external legal resistance.
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Portland’s local news broadcast, WGME, says the bill “would allow the state to take temporary emergency jurisdiction over minors who can't get gender-affirming care in other states. The care would have to be considered medically necessary.”
We might ask: What designates a gender emergency? How could gender surgery ever be a “medical necessity”?
With all that we know about the repercussions of transgender operations, the dozens of traumatic stories from de-transitioners about the irreversible truth of the process, can’t we conclude that these medical procedures may be the opposite of “care?”
We can understand the situation by looking at the modern libertarian view of children.
When asked what she thought of the bill, Aspen Ruhlin, who works at a feminist-focused women’s healthcare clinic in Bangor, Maine, stated that “children are people, they are not property, they deserve to have autonomy over their bodies and gender-affirming care is again, not only life-saving, but we know that it is safe care.”
Advocates of transgender surgery think transitioning is the only cure for gender dysphoria.
Young men and women should not be reminded of their inherent value and reassured of their worth. Instead, they should have their insecurities affirmed by adults who don’t know them behind the backs of the adults who do know them.
In other words, if our youth are suffering from severe mental illness and want to change the nature of their bodies, they should not have to answer to parents who have cared for them their whole lives and who love them the way they are.
Children are just like adults. They have rights. They know themselves.
This logic ignores both biological and social reality. Children are called “minors” because they do not have the same rights as grownups. They are legally defined by their age because they are not allowed to participate in society the same way adults are. Society rightfully establishes these boundaries because children are dependent on others to survive due to developmental and physical limitations.
This idea, that we can safely ignore biological and social reality, epitomizes the modern libertarian notion that people exist in a vacuum. It appears that children should exist in a vacuum, too, despite depending on the continual care and instruction of their guardians.
Leaving children to fend for themselves and make major decisions about their bodies without a qualified hand in the process is cruel. And no, shrinks and surgeons are not qualified. The qualified adult is the one who clothes, feeds, and daily protects his child — the parent who knows his child’s behavior and psychological tendencies.
Maine resident Abigail Beal remarked, “Children aren't allowed to be given aspirin in school without permission, go to a tanning salon or buy cough syrup over the counter as a minor. So what are we thinking? How can we permit them to make their own decisions regarding irreversible, life-altering hormones and surgeries?”
You have to wonder if people like Ruhlin remember what it was like to be a child.
