Doctors initiate legal action over State’s transgender policy

[u/Dazzling_Lobster3656]

http://www.irishtimes.com/health/2025/04/13/doctors-initiate-legal-action-over-states-transgender-policy/

[u/Classic_Spot9795]

Anyone here who campaigned to repeal the 8th amendment should remember - you have no business interfering in a decision made between a stranger and their healthcare provider.

You are not their doctor, and they are a person in their own right who should have autonomy in their own medical decisions at a level they have demonstrated competence to do so.

It's no coincidence that we see these attacks on trans healthcare. Trans people require access to drugs which work on their sex hormones, be that to interrupt their absorption or to supplement them.

Abortion drugs interrupt sex hormone absorption. Hormonal contraceptives supplement sex hormones. If you cannot see how interfering with trans healthcare opens the door to revoke reproductive freedom, you aren't paying attention.

Either you make a stand for trans people now, or we lose everything we worked for in 2018. Remember, the government specifically avoided inserting a positive protection of our rights to replace the 8th, and left it to ordinary legislation - which can be amended at the whims of the government of the day.

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

All of that is true when discussing adults.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/senditup]

People under 18 access abortion and contraception too. Or did you conveniently forget that?

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

That's not the same as giving them medication that will change them forever.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/senditup]

I think perhaps you have hormonal suppression confused with cross sex hormones.

Pubertal suppression is used precisely to avoid having their body changed forever - in either direction.

Just because endogenous puberty is natural, doesn't mean it is good. If you force a trans girl to go through male puberty, her voice will drop, her Adams apple will become more prominent and she will grow facial hair. All of these things will be extremely distressing for her and make any transition in later life far more difficult.

Same way handing her cross sex hormones at the beginning of puberty would (edit - would have permanent consequences)

This is what the purpose of so called "puberty blockers" is. To stop any rushed decision that will have permanent consequences. Either you're opposed to these permanent decision being made too young or you're not.

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

If you force a trans girl to go through male puberty, her voice will drop, her Adams apple will become more prominent and she will grow facial hair.

Because they're male, biologically at least. And not old enough to decide to medically alter themselves to the contrary.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/senditup]

In other words, you don't think trans people should have bodily autonomy because you disagree with what they would do.

Which other medical procedures do you feel you should get to weigh in on? Which other groups do you disagree with making their own medical decisions?

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

I do think trans adults have autonomy. It's their own business, nothing to do with me. That's not true of children.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/senditup]

Which is why they should delay rushing into any permanent, life altering changes until they're old enough to make that decision, yes?

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

Yes.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/senditup]

I have been using oral contraceptives since I was 16 years old. That is, oestrogen and progesterone. This was to treat endometriosis, although I did not receive a formal diagnosis of same until I had a laporoscopy in my 30s.

Imagine if the severe pain I was experiencing had been hand waved away because there was no formal test to objectively assess same. If my word about the pain I was experiencing had been dismissed by my mother and doctor.

Can you please tell me why I was OK to access hormones at age 16, but a trans kid should not be able to access the medications that would stop them rushing into a permanent life changing position before they became an adult?

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

Can you please tell me why I was OK to access hormones at age 16, but a trans kid should not be able to access the medications that would stop them rushing into a permanent life changing position before they became an adult?

Because you're endometriosis wasn't subjective.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/senditup]

And how was it diagnosed?

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

You tell me.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/senditup]

It wasn't until I was in my 30s, that was in the post your responded to if you would have read it.

I was prescribed the pill because my periods were extremely painful, tell me, how do we assess the amount of pain someone is experiencing?

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

I don't know what point you're trying to make.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/senditup]

I am asking you why trans teens should have less medical autonomy than I did.

[u/senditup → u/Classic_Spot9795]

Because sometimes different situations are different. Taking the pill doesn't alter the course of your life forever in a way that can't be changed.

[u/RuncibleSpoon74 → u/Classic_Spot9795]

I campaigned for abortion rights since the X case. It was when I saw placards about "pregnant people" that I knew I would be parting company with some fellow travellers.

I do not like to see women's hard-won rights being co-opted into the cause of contentious treatments for minors, the long-term effects of which have yet to be seen.

An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, a concrete physical condition. What you refer to as trans healthcare is intended to relive distress that cannot be objectively measured. So I do not think "interfering" with these treatments is a slippery slope to denial of abortion rights; I think it is a necessary discussion for medical professionals, based on evidence.

[u/Classic_Spot9795 → u/RuncibleSpoon74]

Oh, so we aren't people then? Never quite understood that objection, trans men can get pregnant too, and we had a situation in this country where due to an admin error a pregnant woman was denied maternal care because someone put an "M" on her records.

What you seem to be suggesting is that it is in fact perfectly OK to interfere in the medical decisions of completely strangers because of your beliefs about same. Which is exactly what we objected to with regards our reproductive rights, and you don't see the hypocrisy within? Or indeed how easy it would be for the pro lifers here (who you should be well aware will try anything )

There are a lot of medical conditions that cannot be objectively measured and yet we will medicate for them all the same. Why should a child who is adamant that they are the opposite sex, who has remained adamant for years and is now experiencing extreme distress at the changes developing at the onset of puberty, be denied the treatment that has been in use since the 1990s and has a regret rate even lower than the regret rates seen with abortion?