> Please do not repeat this right-wing talking point.
Please do not make this a partisan issue. Some of us have been following the sexually regressive trend of calling our children's bodies defective and broken because they don't match the viewers' sexual stereotypes for quite a while now, and there was pretty widespread consensus across political and religious ideologies that our kids didn't need surgery to be okay.
> It is a moral panic, and it causes real harm to kids who need genuine mental health support who are instead being dismissed as being part of a trend.
That's circular. They need help because they're caught in a trend which ignores the actual issues in their lives (bullying, divorce, academics, etc) and provides a one-size-fits-all solution of body modification.
> All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily explained by a more tolerant society accepting it. The same appeared when we stopped pathologizing left-handedness - all the kids didn't suddenly become left-handed, but the ones that were felt comfortable no longer hiding it.
This sounds compelling but is not accurate. Left-handedness is a testable "condition" whereas transgender is some adults' interpretation of how people and their genitals should look based on how they act, especially with regard to things the observer thinks of as sexualized, such as who plays with dolls. Society was getting more tolerant, back in the 00s you'd never have a teacher scold a child for using wrong-sex toys because we'd largely gotten rid of the concept. Now it's back and we're telling children their actions and desires are wrong, BUT we've got a surgical solution!
Fifteen years ago a boy could have worn a dress to elementary and wouldn't have socially risked anything worse than if they wore the wrong brand. Now they risk their teachers "helping" them make huge life decisions they can't even comprehend, and telling them to keep the discussions secret from their parents. That's a lot less accepting than it used to be.
> with some exceptions that get consistently magnified by those with an agenda, it is not something you can just do on a whim, and generally requires a lot of counselling and a lot of effort to pursue hormonal or surgical changes.
This isn't true, the fast track (affirmative care) is the only one allowed in most schools and clinics and by WPATH guidelines. Very rarely do teachers, counsellors, therapists, or health care providers pause to help children with preexisting issues before literally telling them that they're born incorrectly and offering solutions - even if those solutions (drugs and surgery) aren't always immediate.
> There are incidents of detransitioning and those that regret it. Those rates are lower than those that regret knee replacements.
This is not correct. There are no proper studies that follow medical transitioners long enough to usefully make that claim. The studies that exist have egregious failures such as not accounting for dropouts or controlling for comorbidities. And knee surgery is widely known to be almost ineffective for many people, making it an exceptionally misleading comparison.