The UK and EU are hardly a paradise for trans people. Until recently they even REQUIRED trans people to be sterilized, I suppose under the dual assumptions that 1.) they weren't fit to have children and 2.) if there's a genetic component to being transgender it's best to weed it out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/world/europe/european-cou... (this was only stricken down in 2013)

These days, you'll notice a lot of europeans calling to clamp down on transgender people because they'd prefer for them to be gay. Conversion therapy is conversion therapy, however, and whether you do it US style where you try to make someone a good straight Christian or European style where you try to make them a feminine male or butch female, it's still wrong.

As for sterilization, people bring this up without pointing out that we can bank sperm and eggs. A treatment plan for trans youth can wait until they reach a tanner stage (these are the stages of puberty) where they can bank before starting puberty blockers. That is more reasonable than an outright ban.

As for Lupron's side effects, parents are informed about possible side effects. Just like with precocious puberty. It remains telling that families are allowed to access these treatments for some reasons but not others. The double standard betrays prejudice and political meddling in the affairs of parents and doctors.

> any legitimate discussion or criticism about gender-affirming care, possible social cause that's driving the increase of trans-identifying teenagers

Trans-identified is a term created by anti-trans activists initially as an "in joke" because calling someone a trans identified male or trans identified female created acronyms that spelled traditionally female and male names: TIM and TIF, where TIM would be applied to trans women and TIF would be applied to trans men. A group that is serious about improving the world wouldn't choose their terminology so as to make fun of or harass people. A hate group would.

> or how certain trans rights infringes on women's rights

It's not at all clear that trans rights infringe on women's rights. The right to segregate yourself from elements of the population that you find distasteful isn't guaranteed. Otherwise we'd still have Jim Crow laws in the American South and lesbians would still be barred from women's sports due to concerns about them being predatory in locker rooms - yes this was a big concern in the 1980's.

> the capture of cultural institutions by radical activists

This is conspiratorial thinking. "Institutions" are made up of individuals and operate under some guiding principles. They aren't captured like territories in a game of risk.

> This would also mean that statements made by countries that are arguably more progressive than the US (i.e. UK and European countries) about the current trans issue would fall into that category as well.

The UK and EU have different politics than the US. They are economically more egalitarian, but socially can be very conservative.

> it's hard to believe that the medical and activist organisations in the US are actually acting in good faith

Why would you conflate medical and activist organizations? Isn't it possible that you are the activist, and that you'd like to bend medical organizations to your will because they disagree with your own prejudices?

> Anyone of sound mind can clearly evaluate that my point isn't transphobic. The reply to this comment is a demonstration of what's wrong with the US.

Saying that nobody can disagree with you unless they are mentally unwell, and then calling someone who disagreed with you an example of "what's wrong with the US" is very odd behavior. It doesn't seem like the way someone operating in good faith would behave.

You've really been running wild in this comments section, as have I. I can see that we're both very interested in this topic, but from different sides.

What I'll point out here again, is that you continue to paint reputable organizations that disagree with you as "ideological" while maintaining yourself as some sort of unbiased outside observer. This is blatantly untrue.

You are the one trying to change the facts being reported by reputable sources. You are the activist who is engaged in a campaign of attempting to ideologically modify unbiased institutions.

I think the trans topic can really rile people up, and there's no shortage of think pieces of conspiracy theories about it. Same as has existed around lots of minority groups that caught the attention and ire of the larger public.

You aren't the unbiased observer however. You are an activist, and it shows in your writing.

Allowing a trans child to go through their natal puberty is not a neutral act. A trans person who "passes" has a much better lifetime outcome thanks to facing less discrimination and having less body image issues (not many people living as females would enjoy being called a man in a dress and harassed regularly based on their body proportions regardless of their chromosomes).

> and not the shallowly insulting straw man argument you present as the only option.

It's not a shallow straw man. Anti-trans activists want to ban care for trans people outright. They want conversion therapy - or what they have slickly labled "gender exploratory therapy" - to be the only treatment available.

If we hadn't lived through many decades where such treatment was already the only option and seen how disastrous it was I may be less inclined to say they are acting in bad faith, but, alas, we know exactly what conversion therapy does: it creates incredibly traumatized adults who are still trans.