If you aren’t aware, there is a big debate within the Mises Caucus right now over who will be the Vice Chair candidate with the Mises Caucus endorsement. I am not writing this to pick a side. And even if I was, it would be just my opinion, and not that of that caucus at large. Instead, I am writing this because I hate people being wrong and misinformed.
This post was shared in 2021 by Erik Raudsep (Josh Smith is the other VC candidate, who I am mentioning purely in the pursuit of fairness). It has been used to smear him as woke, and antilibertarian, and there have been many misinterpretations of the bill.
I am here to clarify the law in question, what it means, and what it doesn’t. And to make the case that even if you don’t like it, it is a libertarian take, and not even one that should be controversial.
Before I start, I am going to give some background on myself, to hedge off accusations that I am a wild woketarian, don’t know what I am talking about, or whatever else. I am a researcher for Freedom Toons (which only rarely gets accused of being a left wing YouTube channel), and have specifically researched the trans issue due to it effecting my family. I have read Irreversible Damage cover to cover, I have listened to experts like Dr. Erica Anderson, I have read the big pieces on the subject of trans children as a social contagion and the issues with detransitioning, among many other pieces, studies, and podcast. I am not some world class expert, but for a person in the Mises Caucus, I am the closest to an expert on the subject you will probably find.
With that said, what does the science say? That’s hard to say since it is up in the air, there is a lot of controversies around it, and the science is always changing. But if you take a look at just the whistle blowing on the topic, here is what scientists can probably agree on:
Hormone blockers seem likely to cause permanent changes to the body, but it is not well studied. However, you should dismiss anyone claiming that ‘we are sure that putting a child on them for a few years and then removing them has no effect’.
Cross sex hormones make permanent changes to the body.
Some people regret transitioning, and consider those permanent changes “irreversible damage” (there are no good ballpark estimates for what percentage of detransitioners feel this way, however).
There is probably a social contagion of female to male transitioning, especially between the ages of 10 and 20 (various statistical anomalies support this, as well as this group being the most susceptible to social contagion in the past).
There are minors who are rushing through the process to get hormones, and there are some activists who are supporting that, and supporting legislation that does the same (if you are interested in the process that these doctors and investigative journalist would recommend, it is generally the wpath standard of care, found here).
There are issues at stake with parental consent and involvement with the process.
Those are the ones cited often by right wingers. However, there are a few more points that nearly all of these experts agree on, which are conveniently forgotten:
Transitioning is a legitimate medical process that is helpful for a category of people.
There are no medical steps taken relating to transitioning before age 10.
There is a cohort of people who demonstrate gender dysmorphia consistently for their entire childhood (ages 3-10) who have been shown to be benefited from hormone blockers and cross sex hormones.
Few, that is all a mouthful. Why do I need to lay all of that out? Because it frames the question of what the law does.
Did the law just ban schools from providing hormones without informing parents? Did the law restrict itself to a waiting period or minimum number of doctors visits before receiving hormone therapy? Did the law only protect a small group of the most vulnerable to outside influences, like children under 10? As you can guess, the answer is no. In fact, feel free to read it yourself here. It is fairly short, and pages 8-10 are the important ones (though it will be more understandable if you read the pages before it).
The law is a blanket ban of any medical activity related to gender for transition for someone under the age of 18. While it makes an exception for intersex people or genetic disorders, is no other consideration of circumstances. It does not matter if the child, the parents, and 5 different doctors have all agreed for 10 years that this is the right choice. It does not matter if they have followed the wpath standard of care to the letter.
Why does that matter? Because the experts and doctors that you are citing (directly or indirectly through people repeating their ideas and numbers) mostly believe that there are children who would benefit from a transition done right. And this law bans that.
Now, you can disagree with those doctors. Say the whole system is corrupted by leftism, and that even these dissident voices are part of the trans agenda. But then you are left with almost no one supporting your position.
That is ok. It is fine to believe that all transition under a certain age is harmful. Or even all transition is harmful. I disagree, but you can support that position. But will you legislate it?
Sure, the government, when it is pretending to be legitimate, is protecting the rights of individuals. There are things that you have the moral right to stop parents from doing to their children, like beating them, locking them in a closet for a week and so on. It is that old moral test of “if it would be moral for a guy to show up with a gun and use force to stop it, there should be a law to stop it.”
And kids are always tricky. Their rights are in escrow, the parents are custodians making decisions, but they still can’t do something that really hurts kids long term. So why can’t you legislate this away (even if it is the right choice sometimes)? Because of all of the other things that would have to be illegal.
If I was allowed to make things that caused permanent damage to children that parents consent to their children doing illegal, do you know what I would ban? Veganism. Soda with meals. The Covid vaccine (just for children, not for everyone), the Jehovah's Witnesses, Amish and Scientologists not taking their kids to a doctor if they are sick or injured. Football.
Tons of things. They cause incredible, permanent harm to children (though not to every child all of the time). But we don’t ban those, because parents have a say in how their child is raised. If it is not something obviously harmful, that 99% of the population is against (like beating them, starving them, etc.) we don’t intervene, since people think that what we do with our kids is also causing irreversible damage.
The argument that illegalizes transitioning in minors is the same one that mandates Covid vaccines and bans beef because it raises your cholesterol.
So where does all of this leave us? Being against that law is a reasonable libertarian position. It is even a reasonable paleolibertarian position, simply to avoid the precedent that the state can control parents’ medical decisions.
You may still personally support the law. But it is at least reasonable to have this as a position, and Erik was not a nutjob for opposing it. The caucus doesn’t have a plank on trans rights for a reason, and that is because, like Erik agrees, the wars, the fed, the drug wars, and Covid tyranny matter more.
Dave Smith famously said that with lockdowns, wars, and genocides going on, you would have to be an idiot to spend all of your time, or lose allies over fighting transphobia (of something like that, I am paraphrasing). And I will parrot him: With lockdowns, wars, and genocides going on, you would have to be an idiot to spend all of your time, or lose allies over fighting transphobia.
The Mises Caucus has spent hundreds more hours talking about the trans issue that Erik’s nomination brought up than Erik spent talking about it or promoting it. Let’s finally put a disagreement over a relatively minor issue to rest, and get back to some real shit.