Boy, 16, was given estrogen at L.A. juvenile hall, suit says
latimes.com
latimes.com
Giving estrogen to men usually causes irreversible sterility for life. The doctor would have known this. The pharmacist would have known this. That they chose to proceed with the risk of sterilizing a boy without notifying his parents implies horrific things about the doctor's view of the lack of humanity of their patient.
Edit:
I added "the risk of" to the previous paragraph, as elsethread notes that the sterility outcome usually requires much longer dosing intervals. Noted, but if I remember correctly, men pursuing a change in gender are expected to sign their name or initial in the box at least ten times in a row in order to receive their prescription — once for each side effect, due to the severity and permanence of those side effects. Both doctor and pharmacist had a professional duty to review those severe side effects with the patient and their legal guardian.
This is not true, at least not anywhere I've gotten Estradiol.
Also, while I'm sure you intended to be respectful with your comment, most people getting this treatment see themselves as women who are changing their bodies to match their gender, not as men who are changing their gender.
I am assuming you have some sort of source showing that this person has the desire to transition? If not I am unclear why this fact matters in the context of this story of what appears to be a doctor forcing medication on a patient against both their and their guardians desire or consent
To be clear, by "children" I mean minors past the age of puberty, not, like, 5-year-olds.
Agree that people who call themselves "men" typically don't sign up for titty skittles.
https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc
ps. "Estrogen. Little, Blue, Different."
Would it be offensive to say "a person with an x and y chromosome"?
Even though gender is only a social construct... for some reason, taking estrogen will have totally different effects on a person, depending on that gender.
2. It is really up to the person.
At birth, nobody is "assigning" genders to you, they are attempting to observe your sex from primary sex characteristics. If they see vulva, they are observing a female; if they see penis/scrotum, they are observing a male.
While there are edge cases, it is generally pretty simple.
"Convincing a professional" is a reasonable proxy for biological sex, given that the cases that would fool a medical professional are in many (most?) cases sufficiently ambiguous that a reasonable person could take either side for what the biological sex is.
AMAB is politically neutral and unambiguous.
The whole thread started because the OP was using the word 'men' to refer to people who are just starting estrogen therapy specifically, not hormone-replacement therapy in general. The person you initially replied to was pointing out that trans women prefer to be called (trans) women at that point, not 'men seeking a gender change'.
You seem to have assumed that they were putting trans men at a disadvantage, but the discussion was never about trans men. It was always about the proper terms to use for someone who is seeking estrogen, whether they should be talked about as 'men seeking to change their gender' or 'women seeking to align their sex with their gender'.
Unfortunately, from your earlier reply, I assumed that you were insisting on the use of 'men' in this case, and I wanted to point out why I believe 'trans women' is more correct. I realize I was wrong in my assumption.
https://eje.bioscientifica.com/downloadpdf/journals/eje/181/...
Under normal circumstances, I would agree with your point, and I would likely have selected either "transwomen" or "bio-males" in this scenario. Both are exclusionary for various reasons ^2^3, and when making my selection I came to realize that all possible phrases I could use here would result in some sort of HN reply thread about the word or phrase chosen.
Technically, the most correct phrasing for the sentiment I was expressing clocks in at 26 words: "People seeking estradiol treatment for body dysphoria who are perceived as 'men' by their prescribing doctor, regardless of their self-identified gender or their physical sex characteristics". However, that itself would have resulted in a reply thread about shorter ways I could have expressed that, and encouraged a discussion about weakening the accuracy of transgender representation for the convenience of others. That would do more harm than good to transgender acceptance at this point in time than I could accept.
In the end, I considered it most productive for the guaranteed-to-occur HN tangent about my choice of phrasing here to focus on how the word "men" in transgender treatment contexts is insufficiently representative, rather than to focus on how the most-correct phrase is overly representative.
In review of the replies, I am content with the results of my choice. Many users are realizing that there is no simple wording to express this concept, and that every possible choice has issues. It will slightly improve empathy and understanding of transgender representation issues. I feel this choice of wording has been successful.
^1 Doctors are more likely to seek informed consent for procedures affecting reproductive systems (including E2/T dosing) from those they perceive as "men", regardless of the person's actual 'sex' or self-identified gender, especially when the side effects would affect virility in a fertile male.
^2 Genders that are not "women" are permitted to treat body dysphoria by increasing their estradiol levels, too.
^3 Short for "biological males", which excludes people who are not simple 'XY males', such as hermaphrodites, that for whatever reason choose to treat body dysphoria with estradiol.
Afaik all that happens is that estrogen inhibits the pituitary, which will temporarily shut down testosterone and sperm production. But with patience or sufficient antiestrogens, those can be restarted. (Testicular atrophy is another factor, but that takes much longer to occur is also reversible)
Which isn't to say that estrogen is harmless. Without proper therapy, the hormonal shutdown can take many months to undo itself, and gynecomastia can usually only be resolved by surgery.
Maybe his freedom for life?
Makes you wonder what all kind of shady medical shit is done in jails and prisons.
I've personally watched guards ignore diabetic patients in crisis, and heard them tell arrested, but not yet convicted, people to not declare any medical condition that they need medications for while in custody, because the cops didn't want to drive the arrested persons to the hospital and keep them under observation while they're prescribed the medication they need.
If you don't declare any medical conditions during the intake process, and then you have a medical crisis while in custody because you don't have the medication you need to manage your condition, they aren't liable, and good luck convincing the cops to take you to a doctor.
I've heard from case workers that the medical staff in prisons delight in purposely not treating, under-treating, or mistreating prisoners' medical conditions. They just throw anti-psychotics at people because those medications keep the prisoners sedated and compliant, despite the fact that APs have serious side-effects that can be permanent and disabling.
I friend and neighbour of mine, on completing their nurses training, went to work at the local prison.
The medical care they dispensed there was far above what the prisoners received out side. And we have a good general medical system.
The guards may well have been sadistic when away from medical personnel, I cannot say.
There are all sorts of problems of all sorts of different sorts - and if it bleeds it leads - but given that I despair at the reports I keep getting from the USA. ARe things realy getting that bad?
It's always been this bad, it's just that people who weren't given a voice now have some new means to be heard and are actually being listened to instead of having their experiences discounted and discarded.
How can any body sleep at night?
Ok let's check. Did youth protection do medical experiments on unwilling patients (and by that we mean that BOTH the child and the parent were not asked for permission, and very often not informed at all):
US: aside from this incident, there have been many others [3], including youth protection services specifically [5] Netherlands: yep (and the officials got paid by Janssens Pharmaceutica) [1] Belgium: yes [2] Germany/Austria: jawohl [4]
And if you consider untried psychological treatments as medical experiments as well, and they can certainly have extreme negative consequence, then we should perhaps just say that every kid in youth protection gets experimented on, as this is very close to the truth.
If you think this is the worst they did, you should not Google "aversion therapy LGBTQ youth protection". That was a psychological "treatment" for not being straight that included torture, on purpose. Note that they still treat unwilling children for not being straight. Google "Gender identity disorder treatments" for example. What any sane person would call torture is still being used (ABA, for example).
And let's not forget what ritalin, official treatment for a whole range of (often misdiagnosed) conditions given to children. It is often compared to cocaine, for good reason.
Nobody can be trusted with power over other people's children. Certainly not psychiatrists, who have a LONG history of abuse centuries old, with essentially constant scandals continuing even today.
[1] https://www.socialevraagstukken.nl/experimenten-met-psychofa... (it continued, at least, into 2016) [2] https://lib.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/001/392/898/RUG01-0013928... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio... [4] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05112-1 [5] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7736157/ns/health-aids/t/governmen...
The US press is pretty good at finding the bad reports. So count them - then count the population, and realize that, while even 1 case is too many, as a percentage, this kind of horrible stuff is very rare.
There are bad actors everywhere. We don't condemn the Canadian healthcare system because of people like this guy.
[1]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ucla-aware-of-odim-s-winnipeg...
One simply cannot build a prison system capable of processing a percent of your population without the ability to either whole heartedly endorse, or at least ignore some pretty shocking abuses. A society that cared more about the rights and dignity of prisoners would not build such a system in the first place.
For comparison Canada currently imprisons 139 people per 100,000 residents, America currently imprisons 655. Germany is at 71, France is an 97, the Netherlands is at 63. America is literally incarcerating people at 4.7x the rate of its northern neighbor, and at 9-10X the rate for similarly rich EU countries.
But as a mildly funny anecdote to break the seriousness; Liechtenstein's prisoner stats have a funny detail -- Total prison population: 12.
Police unions are some of the most powerful organizations. Not being able to fire bad actors is one of the worst parts of unions. I've never understood why there hasn't been a movement to reform them. Their coworkers get stuck with them too and bringing the whole unit down.
Instead we're always sold some nostalgic narrative of past golden eras of unions. Glossing over all the warts and cruft built up over time. We're long overdue for modernized unions.
The gains unions won for their members were worse than zero-sum, because they merely redistributed from profit (shareholder income) to worker income, while resulting in collective bargaining agreements that reduced the flexibility of the labor market.
The violence they were involved in was almost universally started by them, as illegal action that violated the employer's right to their property, and replacement worker's right to work at their site, was their main source of leverage.
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elijah-mcclain-was-injected-ketamine-while-handcuffed-some-medical-experts-n1232697
Well certainly the doctor got this theory from someplace. They believed this young man would be better behaved if he had less testosterone and more estrogen, and went ahead with a treatment against scientific evidence (and ethics quite frankly).
So where did the doctor get this theory? Let's ask ourselves that question, and follow up with this question: what other theories are medical and science professionals getting that aren't science based?
* Treating people against their will outside of specific extreme circumstances which this was not one of
* Coercing vulnerable populations into treatment
* Concealing treatment plans from guardians
* Treating in a manner that is not in line with evidence based practice
* Treating in a manner that is not designed to advance the patient's well-being but is instead designed to pacify the patient for another person's convenience
* Running what amount to illegal clinical trials that have not been validated for medical and ethical soundness, safety, and legitimacy by a medical oversight board
* Insurance fraud (I don't know how payments work in correctional facilities, but generally speaking there is zero probability this treatment plan would result in reimbursement from an insurer. I would naively assume they lied about what they were doing for reimbursement)
As a healthcare practitioner, behavior like this makes me sick. The legal system should open up on this guy with all they've got.
"This boy was super aggressive towards me, a doctor! so I must punish him for that transgression against me, a doctor! and ensure that I make an example of him! I have just the thing, I'll humiliate him by making him into a girl! I'll lose my license, but it's worth it because I'll be remembered forever as the boogeyman in every juvey in the country!"
A doctor with medical credentials would know far better than anyone else, the foundational and fundamental damage done to someone with induced gender dysphoria, the practical effect of giving an ordinary man estrogen. This is psychopathic behaviour that has become all too routine in our national prison complex.
Despite a lack of scientific evidence not against. Don't think this has been tested and disproved in a scientific manner. And for ethical reasons probably won't be.
A relationship between male hormones and aggressive behavior while sometimes questioned is generally well supported. Yes that's not ODD but one can easily see the train of thought here.
What the doctor did is obviously very unethical and wrong (if the story is true)
But it certainly doesn't seem like a random out-of-nowhere idea to me.
Seems equally likely to me that the doctor was unethically treating based off own untested hunches as it is that it was a purely sadistic action.
That a relationship exist is well supported. The cause and effect, as per more modern research, however is one that more recent (ie > last 30 years) has found to be quite different than previous assumptions.
Throw in a random number of test subjects in a room, observe aggressiveness, and then measure testosterone and you get a clear pattern. Now change the test by first measuring the testosterone and then observe aggressiveness, and the data is all over the place.
The part that more modern research is questioning is not that the relationship does not exist, but rather in what direction the arrow points. Can behavior effect hormone secretion? More and more data seem to support that very theory.
The result was not great for either. The more aggressive an individual were the smaller the effect is. Testosterone also get secreted by other areas of the body so you also need to add suppressive drugs for that. Biggest effect was measured by chemically removing testosterone for women as they have the smallest amount to begin with. Going from above average testosterone in men to below average gave no results. Castrating the most violent criminal, usually against their will, has some studies showing minor results while others no results.
There is something called the challenge hypothesis. The theory is that testosterone acts as a modulating effect for managing social status. When an individual suddenly gain status the body reacts by secreting testosterone. Testosterone in turn regulate how much energy an individual will spend on behavior to retain that status. For animals that gain and maintain status by exclusively aggression, this then correlate nicely with testosterone. Reducing a male dogs testosterone would reduce the amount of effort they will spend to defend their status against other male dogs, and since dogs are very territorial, there is ample of opportunities where such behavior occurs. However for very aggressive dogs the effect will be much smaller, so its not a solution in those cases and the solution instead tend to be euthanasia.
Social status for humans is massively more complex, and the relation to violent crime even more so.
That behavior affects hormones, again, is interesting but doesn't tell us much.
What we're really discussing here is whether significantly cutting off testosterone would reduce aggressive behavior over time. That the relationship between testosterone levels and aggression isn't perfect is a nuisance.
For example reducing testosterone would reduce bodily strength significantly. Would that reduce aggression? Perhaps. Reducing testosterone is sometimes shown to increase empathy. Could empathy help reduce aggression? Perhaps. You could then argue that it's "not testosterone" and one should refrain from physical exercise and attend psychological empathy training to get the same effect. Logically it's a valid argument but practically speaking it misses the point.
The data we have from chemical castration of sex offenders is very solid. There are people criticizing it saying that something else is at play[0]. But nonetheless it's very effective in practice.
The data from animal experiments is strong too. There's definitely a profound change in behavior. Again, it's sometimes called into question over some oddly specific behaviors but it seems rather uninteresting to me.
In your later comment you mention some experiments from a long time ago on violent criminals but I have a hard time finding anything that isn't about sex offenders or animals. So I'd appreciate a link.
As far as theoretical arguments against it go, I'd say the strongest is that high levels are simply a proxy for some irreversible virilization that happened earlier in life. Which would much better explain why both criminal male and females are relatively high T.
[0] say that people who accept the treatment are naturally predisposed to have lower recidivism
> The data we have from chemical castration of sex offenders is very solid
The data show same result for female chemical castration of sex offenders. Usually the study goes something like this: a self selected set of child sex offenders volunteer for chemical castration, and later they report a diminished desire for sex. The problem with linking this to aggression is on several layers. It self selected for individuals that want to reduce their desire for sex. It is self reported. And it is about diminished desire for sex.
Will reducing bodily strength cause a reduction in aggressiveness? If we leave the topic of sex offenders and look at aggressiveness as a whole, bodily strength might very well effect social status and thus fit the challenge hypothesis. Crippling a high social status individual and they will likely spend less energy on defending their status, through the result is going to vary depending on the culture.
The empathy studies are interesting (the book above list a few of those). According to one such study, giving men increased testosterone does not decrease their ability to read emotion in an eye test, but giving it to women does reduce their ability. Again this show a repeating pattern of those studies where within normal range, high or low testosterone levels can not predict behavior. You need to give people testosterone so that they are outside human levels to get any significant effect, and then the result is often minor unless taken to a very extreme level.
> As far as theoretical arguments against it go, I'd say the strongest is that high levels are simply a proxy for some irreversible virilization that happened earlier in life. Which would much better explain why both criminal male and females are relatively high T.
What is your source for that? Criminals have higer rate of violence, and if violence causes testosterone secretion, then the higher level can be explain by the increase violence. male-male competition in prison is also likely a bit more intense than outside which would also explain a higher level of testosterone.
As expected. Why would it not work in females? You'll be easily getting these levels to a very "unnatural" level below the low end for both males and females.
The studies aren't just on self reported feelings. You're looking at reductions in recidivism exceeding 50%. Yes some studies show a much smaller reduction, but AFAIK every study does show some improvement. Sure as I noted myself it could be self-selection as some argue, but nonetheless there isn't a study out there outright disproving it. There are a few countries where it's mandatory but not sure if there's any data from these.
When you've got studies showing efficacy, to disprove them you'd want something of higher rigor. Say a proper RCT. If one says self selection taints the result then you want a study that controls for that.
Again I'm absolutely not opposed to the notion that there's some cultural/societal feedback loop involved. I'm just arguing that administering strong blockers MAY help with many issues relating to aggressiveness. And that these arguments on just how linear or predictable the relationship is are interesting but not that relevant to disproving the practical efficacy of such a treatment.
I fully agree that one shouldn't demonize the hormone itself and anyone who has high levels. That's what that line of research tells me as far as I'm concerned.
> What is your source for that?
Regardless of what causes violence we have a huge undeniable discrepancy between males and females. If we go with the explanation that violent behavior bumps T up that goes nowhere in explaining the enormous sex difference. Don't remember the exact ratio off top of my head by it's definitely somewhere around 1 to 10 so not buying a purely societal explanation. And if you look at the extremes, say serial killers or very brutal forms of murder it grows even wider apart.
So it would seem logical to me that in these violent high T females either the T does matter or it doesn't but is an indication of virilization earlier in life.
As to the claim that testosterone levels would be a proxy for earlier virilization - for example digit ratios are believed to be an indicator of virilization in utero and studies do show that they correlate with adulthood T levels[0]. Pretty sure there are studies relating it to criminality too.
Personally my hunch is that it's a bit of both. Say if we put everyone on these drugs I'd imagine overall violent crime would drop but males would still be vastly outnumber females.
Gun control may also have an effect on recidivism for gang related violence involving military weapons, but is unlikely to effect child sex rapists. Not everyone that work for once set of criminals work for an other set of criminals, nor are recidivism and aggressiveness the same thing.
And there are studies where violent criminals of the non-sex offending nature were given testosterone reducing drugs. It did not work.
> Regardless of what causes violence we have a huge undeniable discrepancy between males and females
That kind of research are plenty in gender research. Men are X more likely to be math professors, having a job, and a number of other gender stereotypical aspect. There is a lot of culture involved and it very hard to separate culture from biology.
But even considering what we know about biology, aggression and crime are not the same and female on female aggression tend to be different than male on male aggression. Culturally we tend to ignore the former and focus on the later.
And finally, there is some evidence that in many cultures male aggression get rewarded with social status, and in the challenge hypothesis, that would link aggression with testosterone through culture. Game theory experiment has demonstrated that testosterone can influence players to be more or less aggressive in an economic game depending on the design of the rules. If aggression is rewarded with maintaining status then injecting players with testosterone increase aggression. If the game is changed and it is cooperation that is rewarded, players with raised testosterone play more cooperative. All cited in that above book.
2.9%/7% vs 58% (this one is on surgical on chemical)
Fedoroff, J.P., Wisner-Carlson, R., Dean, S., & Berlin, F.S. (1992): "All patients received equivalent amounts of group psychotherapy. Of these, 17/46 (37%) relapsed. The rate of relapse among subjects receiving treatment with medroxy-progesterone acetate (MPA) was 4 out of 27 subjects (15%) whereas the rate of relapse among subjects not receiving MPA was 13/19 (68%) "[1]
15% vs 68%
And since you bring up math professors, there's actually a study showing a single dose of testosterone improved spatial cognition in females [2].
Again I'm not opposed to cultural angles. I don't doubt that culture makes small innate differences look much bigger. But that's more philosophical/anthropological, it doesn't tell us much on whether a drug would or wouldn't work at scale. We could go on and deconstruct every psychiatric drug this way.
[0] https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541244 [1] https://doi.org/10.1300/J076v18n03_10 [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016643281...
This does not mean estrogen causes aggression. It mean estrogen is as a sex hormone, and sex hormones are connected to behavior which is relevant for recidivism.
> I don't doubt that culture makes small innate differences look much bigger. But that's more philosophical/anthropological, it doesn't tell us much on whether a drug would or wouldn't work at scale.
Understanding biology is needed in order to understand whether a drug would or wouldn't work at scale. Take Oxytocin as an example. A great hormone that makes mothers bond with their child. It has shown to improve prosocial, operate like an anti-depressant, improves trust, make people more generous, and even improve wound healing. It have been considered for use in everything from medicine to vitamin supplements.
More modern research however find that there is a problem. It improves prosocial behavior for the in-group but it also create anti-social behavior towards the out-group. It increases trust with the in-group, and causes fear with the out-group. It make women increase parental behavior and at the same time increase racist behavior, and it makes perfect sense. It a hormone that is connected to the goal of sexual reproduction. It increase behavior that benefit offspring during the first years and it strengthen the bond between mother and the child nearest blood-relatives so that the child has the best likelihood to survive. It also protect the child against non-related individuals who is an increase risk of being a threat.
Understanding what a hormone actually do is critical to understand its medical effect.
Restitution, Rehabilitation and isolation should be the 3 goals of a true justice system.
Victims should have a path to restitution when possible (some crimes this is not)
Criminals should have a path to rehabilitation when possible (some crimes this is not)
For when the other 2 fail, Isolation is the final step, isolation means we isolate people that have been proven to be a danger to others and do not have the ability to be rehabilitated.
Retribution is just unethical, it makes the population of a system of retribution to be no better than the criminals they are abusing.
Support for retribution is a visceral reaction but holds no value or place if the goal is justice.
also I see you one of many that confuse rehabilitation with giving people a slap on the hand, or "club med" type of facilities.
Retribution is in no way needed to prevent Vigilantism (Vigilantism is never justified or justice). Actual justice, and restitution prevents that just fine.
Rehabilitation has many aspects, and in the case of addiction it would include a medical and psychological treatment for that addiction
There has never been any study that shows tossing a person in a prison with no treatment does anything to solve the underlying issue which just leads to recidivism, in the case of a drunk driver, it is likely they they were caught many many times leading up to their imprisonment, this highlights the failure of the retribution system and where a rehabilitation system would achieve a better outcome
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice#Purposes
And you believe we should not treat minors different than Adults? this is another area where i disagree with many, as I 100% disagree with this modern trend of prosecuting teens as adults
Yes
I am curious also, do you support the trend of digging up 30 year old comments from peoples past and holding them to account for them, aka Cancel Culture?
I am wondering is this mentality is linked
I am a firm believer in second chances, automatic expungement of criminal records, and various other things that do not hang past mistakes over peoples head for the rest of their lives
One of those is having a separate system for juvenile's as when understand impulse control does not really form in humans until around 20-23 years of age.
I would like science to inform our justice system, not lizard brain emotions for revenge
And you read that where?
Why Is Retribution Used? The impulse to do harm to someone who does harm to you is older than human society, older than the human race itself (go to the zoo and watch the monkey cage for a demonstration.) It's also one of the most powerful human impulses — so powerful that at times it can overwhelm all else. One of the hallmarks of civilization is to relinquish the personal right to act on this impulse, and transfer responsibility for retribution to some governing body that acts, presumably, on behalf of society entire. When society executes retribution on criminals by means of fines, incarceration or death, these punishments are a social expression of the personal vengeance the criminal's victims feel, rationally confined (it is hoped) to what is best for society as a whole.
Of course there are more sophisticated ways of thinking about retribution, and it's a good idea to be familiar with them since a judge (and that other kind of judge, the criminal law professor) is unlikely to accept "because it's a natural impulse" as justification for retribution in punishment. And with good reason.
Is Retribution Ethical? While "it's natural" tends not to carry much weight in the criminal law, "it's morally right" can. Moral feelings and convictions are considered, even by the criminal law, to be some of the most powerful and binding expressions of our humanity. In binding criminal trial juries to restrict guilty verdicts to situations of the highest certainty, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is also often described as "to a moral certainty." It is to their moral feelings of what is truly right that jury members are asked to look before delivering a verdict. It's perhaps not too much of a stretch, then, to argue that it's morally right to make criminals suffer as their victims have suffered, if that's the way one's moral certainty points.
No matter what one's moral feelings are about inflicting deliberate harm on a human being, the majority of the U.S. citizenry still holds that it's right to exact retribution on criminal offenders, sometimes even to the point of death. This is almost certainly true of the majority of victims, and their loved ones, for whom equanimity becomes more and more difficult depending on the severity of the crime. What rape victim does not wish to see her attacker suffer? What parent does not hate the one who killed their child? The outrage that would result from leaving these passions for revenge unsatisfied might be seen as a dramatic failure of the entire criminal justice system. It's a good argument for retributive justice, then, that in this world public vengeance is necessary in order to avoid the chaos ensuing from individuals taking revenge into their own hands. And, until the moral certainty of a majority of society points towards compassion rather than revenge, this is the form the criminal law must take.
Eye for an Eye leaves everyone blind.
Further I have always taken issue with the concept of "injury to society", I am an individualist so to me society is just a bunch of individuals working under voluntary cooperation
Criminals injure an individual not society, thus any restitution is owed to individuals not society at large
>>The impulse to do harm to someone who does harm to you is older than human society, older than the human race itself
Granted however the entire purpose of civilization, especially western civilization is to become greater than are base instincts, to allow reason and logic to rule over emotion.
Civilization to me is not a conduit to "relinquish the personal right to act on this impulse, and transfer responsibility for retribution to some governing body" as no one has a personal right to act in retribution, and since no one has that right they have no ability to transfer that right to the governing body.
The only ethical use of force is in defense, imitation of force is always unethical
Fines should be in service to restitution, including a "pain and suffering" fine which is often viewed today as "punishment" but in reality is restitution for the victim(s).
The problem is we have removed the concept of restitution from the criminal system and leave it to the domain of civil law almost exclusively with a few exceptions (normally property crimes)
Incarceration should be about rehabilitation and/or removal from society as a defense not retribution. The Prison system should be humane, where inmates would not be physically abused by other inmates or guards, not be subjected to systematic physical or psychological abuse, should be provided basic nutrition, and health care, etc
This can not be said to be true for the US prison system today
It should also be a place to get mental health treatments, and even learn new skills or other methods to return as a productive member of society
>> the majority of the U.S. citizenry still holds that it's right to exact retribution on criminal offenders
This highlights why I will never support a direct democracy. Mob rule almost always the worst outcome
>>This is almost certainly true of the majority of victims
Which is why we separate victims from being judge and jury, emotional responses are not good for civilization
>>What rape victim does not wish to see her attacker suffer? What parent does not hate the one who killed their child?
Many, it is not uncommon for victims to want to see their attacker isolate, not not be able to hurt them or anyone else again. I believe it would be uncommon for victims to advocate torture, abuse or suffering. People that maintain this desire past a grieving or shock period psychologically are probably not far removed from the criminals they are waiting to abuse.
>>until the moral certainty of a majority of society points towards compassion rather than revenge, this is the form the criminal law must take.
No, I neither agree that the majority of society points to aggression nor agree that even if it did then that is the form society must take. As I said before mob rule is almost never the correct outcome. If you look back in history you will see all kinds of atrocities committed due to statements like the one you just made "Well the people demand it so we must do X".
The concept of human rights and equality demands we reject retribution as the basis of criminal justice
Mainly Zero-Aggression principle, under which the only ethical use of force is for defense of either yourself or others, and only to the extent eliminate the aggressive force being applied.
>>If a billionaire is found guilty of pedophilia, and offers to build for himself a lifetime "prison" that is really a 5-star resort, should he be allowed to do so?
That is a strawman and a red herring all in one. No a person should not be allowed to build their own guided cage, however the prison s/he is sent to should be humane, where s/he would not be physically abused by other inmates or guards, not be subjected to physical or psychological abuse, should be provided basic nutrition, and health care, etc
This can not be said to be true for the US prison system today
Further the system I advocate for would provide for massive amounts of restitution for the victim(s) of this billionaire, unlike the system of today which holds the criminal has a "debt to society" but not necessarily their victims where any restitution would be secondary to the retribution offered to society as "payment" for this debt
I advocate for victim restitution being the primary goal, and hold that society is owed nothing in the equation.
This once a person is isolated from society and can not harm anyone, continued abuse or violence is unethical, "punishment" in captivity is unethical.
> That is a strawman and a red herring all in one. No a person should not be allowed to build their own guided cage
This is a direct implication of what you're proposing. The fact that you don't like the implication, doesn't make it a strawman.
You stated that the only goals of the criminal justice system should be rehabilitation, restitution and isolation. Allowing a billionaire pedophile to sequester themselves in a self-funded 5-star resort, is consistent with all of your stated goals, while still being minimally aggressive, and maximizing their welfare. If you find this objectionable, you need to revise your earlier claim.
If the doctor REALLY did want to lower testosterone levels in the 16 year old, there's a slew of medications that would have been more effective (Spiro, Lupron, Bica, etc). That amount of Estradiol isn't going to do much to lower T levels.
For those unfamiliar with the back story of the novel, Kesey conceived the plot and characters while tripping on peyote while at work in the ward...his revelation being the patients were the sane ones and the workers enforcing the rules where insane, which was a metaphor for the modern dystopia he lived in. Times Magazine described it as: "a roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the invisible Rulers who enforce them."
I want to get kids soon. I hope they get a strange as I was. Stupid, funny, dangerous.
It’s time-consuming and takes awhile to learn how to tug properly, and in a certain sense can be psychologically painful to go through, but the results I’ve personally seen so far have been very encouraging.
Sorry again to hear what happened to you.
Do you have any resources or guides you recommend on restoration? I've looked in to manual tugging and some of the stretching devices. The devices don't seem practical to wear around discreetly on a day to day basis, and I haven't gotten manual technique to show results yet.
Results are very slow and I started from a very tight cut. I’m still not even at a “loose cut” level so I have quite a bit left to go.
Not sure if you’ve heard of it, but red light therapy makes a big difference in the rate of tissue expansion.
http://www.jmbe.org.tw/files/1641/public/1641-4366-1-PB.pdf
I think adding RLT to manual methods will drastically improve your results. Just a couple sessions of fairly high intensity RLT a day does wonders.
—-
TL;DR: like you I’m still figuring things out. But I’m pretty encouraged overall.
This news article exists because it’s an exception, not the rule.
Don’t confuse this with normal or common treatment. Even one case is too many, obviously, but it’s not the norm.
What are these normal treatments? Pharmaceuticals like Ritalin and Adderall? Asking because I don’t know not that I’m taking this anywhere, but when people talk about behavioral control of children acting out of line with some kind of “norm”, I’m uneducated as to what the norm is or what the status quo for this is.
What I do know (via anecdotes of having sister who works in childhood behavioral science), medicating kids was for a long time the norm and is being harshly critiqued and challenge more recently, but I admit not really bothering to look into this much further.
My mom bought into this stuff in the 1990s and I never had proper treatment as a child. Only until I was an adult and saw a doctor myself was I properly diagnosed. The medication was a life-saver in my 20s.
As much as pro-pharma stuff is being pushed behind closed doors there's also tons of pseudoscience "appeals to nature" fallacies [1] being pushed in all public channels, where all chemicals are treated with suspicion. I wish there was more of a balance in the media, because this anti-pharma narrative is everywhere now.
I'm not surprised this manifested into anti-vaxxers. Anyone saying that medication as a solution is still treated with reverence in popular discourse is deceiving themselves. Doctors have all heard the stories by now too.
But that also doesn't mean doctors haven't played a big role in this, including those who massively over-prescribed painkillers, benzos, and antidepressants in the last few decades - which have help distract from all the real positive benefits they provide.
[0]https://www.npr.org/2005/11/16/5014080/my-lobotomy-howard-du...
Perpahps who was behind the board that made this decision was a group of (infiltrated) pedophiles
That's what they call mouthy rebels these days
I had one, in class (5th or 6th grade), and I remember the experience was eye opening. Teachers had to spend a copius amount of energy just to keep him in check.... his behavior would oscillate between funny/to scary dangerous within minutes.
at some point he got in trouble for trying to put the classroom on fire (see how fast do the desks lit/catch fire).... and got trouble again for trying to do the same to his neighbors. He eventually got removed (and I assumed ended up in juvenile correction facility).
Normally this label is not given to kids that have run of the mill problems (aka ADD/ADHD), but only for serious cases.
That would be "conduct disorder" actually, something rather more severe than just ODD. If a kid shows a pattern of behaving in blatantly antisocial ways that demonstrate a severe lack of empathy for others, that's pretty much it. Setting stuff on fire is actually a tell-tale sign, as is willful animal cruelty.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201801/...
A small but not trivial portion of the public immediately lapses into a near-rage at anything that appears to be an authority figure. People seem to grow out of it.
Maybe it's PTSD from poor interactions with past authorities, maybe it's some kind of pack hierarchy hold over, who knows-- but it appears to be a pretty widespread phenomena.
It doesn't stop being real just because the description could also be abused to dismiss someone who has a legitimate complaint about a particular authority.
With the Internet, they now all get together and organize extremist groups. Before the Internet, they had trouble achieving a critical mass. This seems to be more of a middle aged thing than something people grow out of.
I don't know the specifics of this case.
Really.
Not violence. Just "argumentative behavior".
The interview discusses her new book's findings about hormone therapy given specifically to teenage girls through the means of "informed consent", which led to terrible developmental and reproductive damage that was in most cases irreversible.
The event is confusing for several reasons - not only are testosterone levels not linked to ODD, even if they were, there are drugs that can gently reduce testosterone production. Estrogen isn't one of them.
This is pretty tragic, reading the article there is no way this is an isolated incident
If somebody assaults my testicles and renders me infertile, that is an extremely serious crime; this doctor may well have done the equivalent (along with completely destroying the boy mentally) with the stroke of a pen.
There has been unfortunately few studies done on transgender people or on young people. (I welcome any links to studies you have!)
Ouchi said the boy, now 17, was released in April and will require surgery to treat the physical issues he developed as a result of the estrogen treatment.
...
The boy’s father said the hormone therapy has had a long-term effect on his son, who now scares easily and has become antisocial. “He’s like a different person. He just wants to be in his room, and he don’t come out for nothing, all day in his room,” the father said. “He was never like that.”
What I am about to say is in no way a defense of the doctor or his actions. What percentage of parents would say this exact same thing about their teenage children? It is perfectly normal behavior and I'm not sure there is anything to link it to the unnecessary hormones forced on the unfortunate kid.
How could one possibly discern this from the effects of going through juvie in general. I'd certainly feel betrayed by society, regardless of what meds I was given.
Suicide rates among people who transition are generally correlated with minority stress [1,2], not transition itself: "The myth that transition leads to SITBs continues to be used to deny transgender health care access and legislative rights, despite a lack of empirical support for this position and repeated research debunking it." (SITB= suicidal thoughts and behaviors) [3]
1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6813817/
2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5178031/
3: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/trgh.2019.0009
> 13 days of hormone therapy are unlikely to cause sterility.
Yes, it's possible he won't end up sterilized by this. However:
The breast growth triggered in men by medical doses of estrogen is not reversible and requires surgery to correct. There will be social ramifications for life. There may be other (non-virility) physical ramifications for life.
Perhaps he was already overweight, high fat percentage (which results in high e2 in males) and some gynecomastia already?
Further I would be willing to bet that he was swallowing all 2mg at once and not taking the pills sublingually or buccally split across the day.
It is up to the lawyers to decide and maybe he had better breast development than any trans woman I know, but everything in my experience tells me that noticeable gynecomastia takes longer than 13 days on e2.
I actually had blood drawn a couple of weeks ago to check for this very thing. I’m male, and while my testosterone levels are in the median range, my estrogen levels are very high relatively speaking. I’m operating under the assumption that it’s caused by recent weight gain - thanks, quarantine - so I’m working to lose that weight and will check it again.
Interestingly, there don’t seem to be many accepted options for reducing estrogen levels. My PCP suggested broccoli seed extract, but made it clear that it wasn’t a well-supported or accepted treatment. The most reliable treatment is a change of lifestyle.
None of those symptoms (infertility, "complete mental destruction" or, heh, "assault on the testicles") are alleged here. He got an inappropriate drug, possibly punitively. And that's horrifying enough without painting figurative spectres of the unimaginable cruelty of... emasculation?
> He got an inappropriate drug
He was injected† with non-indicated (as in, there is no literature on this rogue prescription) contradictory sex hormones during adolescence and under duress; I don't know why you're downplaying this, I hope it's just because you don't know what this means.
> infertility
Infertility is a common outcome of sex hormone therapies.
> ...the unimaginable cruelty of... emasculation?
If suppressing gender dysphoric people is wrong, how can it be moral to medically intervene to deprive an adolescent of the normal functioning of his body, and an already solidified gender identity? Using non-indicated medical interventions to emasculate or defeminate somebody who is already secure is a form of extreme cruelty, from basically any moral frame, yes.
† Correction from helpful reply: not injected, taken as pills. I got the "injection" thing from this thread, had thought it was pills before.
I'm not downplaying this at all. It's you who are boosting your interpretation because of "assault on the testicles", "mental destruction", "sex hormone", and other things that tell me what you're really upset about is his masculinity and not his well being.
No, I don't think this is any worse than had he gotten an equivalently dangerous drug (say, fentanyl for sedation, which has also been alleged in juvenile detention facilities IIRC). And I'm point out the fact that you do is... unseemly.
The "assault on testicles" thing was not even part of my description of the boy's condition, it was part of my hypothetical of a crime with potentially equivalent (or probably less severe) outcomes. And for your information, sex hormones are a basic and widely-accepted concept; just because some people are afraid to call them that in the English-language publications of some corrupt institutions in the last five to ten years doesn't mean they went away. Go ahead and tell any trans person on HRT that sex hormones aren't a thing; if they believe you, they'll be horrified, if they know how wrong you are, they may be too flabbergasted to even begin to tell you.
> ...what you're really upset about is his masculinity and not his well being.
I think that you ought to do some introspection as to why you consider those things not to be related. I suspect you are concerned about some people's security in their gender identity, but you seem to want desperately to paint it as a minor thing that they seem to have treated this boy's gender identity (and sexual function) as a disposable lab material; maybe you personally place no value on masculinity, but that's not for you to decide on this boy's behalf.
> ...an equivalently dangerous drug (say, fentanyl for sedation, which has also been alleged in juvenile detention facilities IIRC)
fentanyl is generally safe, the safest opioid AFAIK, and its effects wear off in seconds or minutes (which is why it is often administered through slow-release patches or lollipops).
There's nothing wrong with being trans and going through HRT so long as you do it with full and knowing consent. You do that because you feel deeply dysphoric about the gap between the body you've been forced into and your true identity, but it's not without cost. To force both the cost and dysphoria onto someone is, again, truly abhorrent.
Where are you getting this intent from? I don't see anything in the article to suggest this was the doctor's goal.
This has literally nothing to do with trans issues, as far as I can see. It’s about medical intervention without informed consent.
And don't even try the "this is a medical professional" - the kid got gyno and this is not an approved procedure - it's exactly the same as the coach doping kids.
I'm fine if you're super upset. But if you're MORE upset because of the gendering interaction, that's wrong. The poster above clearly was.
But I sort of agree, there is no proof this is ideological (in fact it sounds just as likely that the doctor was experimenting), the other guy is spinning it his way as well - I think you can say that without the need to defend/downplay the action.
I can think of another prison "doctor" who's known for "experimenting" on unwilling victims. Claiming to be doing experiments, yet without any hint of scientific rigor.
If the claims made in the article are true, this guy belongs in prison no matter his excuse. Whether or not an ideological motivation can be proven or ruled out is completely irrelevant.
I agree with that. I think it was probably motivated by petty vindictiveness. I suspect most violence inflected by prison staff against prisoners is.
I don’t care at all what the doctor’s motivations were - I only care about their actions. In this case, those actions were taken without consent and had a significant negative impact on the patient. Whether they “meant well” or either of us agree with their motivation is completely irrelevant to me.
I understand that others see it differently, and that’s fine. My observation is that this disconnect is almost always always unstated and caused a ton of misunderstandings.
Why do you get to decide whether it’s bad or not that the boy loses his “manhood”? What if he (gasp) likes being male?
Are you saying it’s not inherently bad to rob men of their masculinity?
I strongly disagree.
This isn’t about gender as a social construct. This is about a licensed medical professional causing significant changes to a person’s body without their consent.
Completely irrespective of how an individual perceives their own gender, that perception is a core part of who they are. So yes - I am absolutely more upset about this because of the “gendering interaction”. I would be equally upset if this person saw themselves as asexual or androgynous and was administered sex hormones without their consent.
That's orthogonal to universal healthcare or even a single payer system. There's nothing preventing you from having the whole country be represented collectively, but still have private insurers, like in germany. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2019/how-drug-prices-a...
Not sure if this is an earnest defense of the state of healthcare costs in the US but you'd have to be deluded if you think that the rampant profit-seeking in the US for healthcare is merely the cost of doing business.
It's brand name drugs that are cheaper in other countries.
[1]https://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/events/en/R&Dpaper2...
(edit) - and just to reflect on what happened to this child, in addition to the physical changes & social problems, this "treatment" would have surely induced gender dysphoria, which any trans person can tell you is awful as hell.
This is sickening, not so much for the drugging but the 'oppositional defiant disorder' interpretation. Knuckle under, kid.
However, simply on a factual basis (I assume the story was based on an established practice anyway), I remember as a kid reading a story in 1001 nights where some male child was castrated to stop him being bolshy. They do that to animals for the same reason and with the same effect. There's precedent.
Nice connection.