“transition poses some ethical questions. Such as, from what age should you be allowed to irreversibly change your body.“
This of course completely ignores the fact that puberty makes irreversible changes to your body. But let us just rephrase the question: “from what age do you gain bodily autonomy?” Now it gets very easy to answer: From the moment you’re fucking born.
I’m sorry, I’m reblogging this twice in a row it is that important
Stand up and say it again for the people in the back row.
This is all completely true and correct, of course, but on the topic of changes that irreversibly change a child’s body, prithee, go and talk to a fucking ballet dancer.
If you start ballet at 16, you are too old to ever expect to be able to do it seriously. If you start at 12 you’re too old. If you want to do ballet as a serious thing, as a career, you need to start at like eight years old or even younger, because your bones and joints need to be trained while they’re still flexible in order for you to be able to perform many of the required motions and stances of ballet. In particular, you need to be able to perform turnout of the hips, but all of your joints in your legs and feet will be affected, and this irreversibly changes your body.
And yet! Nobody talks about this as a negative thing! Little girls say they want to be ballet dancers, and if their parents have enough money, that’s what they get to be! Does it cause problems in later life? Yeah, sometimes! Often, even! But nobody talks about that because it’s a thing for cis people to do and so naturally it’s all fine!
Go and talk to a fucking ballet dancer.
Even common everyday sports do this. If you play soccer for a few consecutive years sometime between the ages of 8 and 15 it will permanently affect your knees. If you play a lot of soccer and for longer it will affect the entirety of legs, muscle and bone, and not for the better. Almost every soccerplayer in the world has a shortening of the back of the thigh muscle that will cause pain as they age. Most develop severe knee problems by the age of 30. People don’t age out of sports in general around 30 because they’ve “passed their prime physical condition” in the sense that age has taken it’s toll, but in the sense that the sport itself has taken it’s toll. And yet, no one is advocating against letting children play sports.
Even playing music as a child can alter your body. I can physically show you proof that I’ve been playing stringed instruments for the bulk of my life. When I spread my fingers out on my both my hands you can see a difference in how far my left hand and my right hand can reach. Ending up with arthritis or just general wrist and joint paint isn’t uncommon for musicians. Doing almost anything physical with your body from a young age can and will leave lasting effects on it, yet we still refuse to give bodily autonomy to trans kids.
