I've been barraged with commentary on whether or not kids should transition lately; I know that transgender people are the wedge issue (it's a consequence of the pendulum swing after 10 years of really aggressive, lenient trans legislation that basically told people who had reservations to Shut Up), but it basically bums me out.

Like, why wouldn't it?

A lot of it in Canada comes down to whether children have morphological autonomy. I tend to be an absolute libertarian about this; I feel like we should all get our substances in stores and do whatever we want to ourselves. I think that if our bodies now belong to the state, we've made a lot of steps in the other direction already, so we'd want to undo those too. [1]

But if our bodies belong to ourselves -- why does that start so late that we don't get the opportunity to have a relatively normal life, in the case of trans kids? There were like <100 cases in Alberta, it's a tiny population and it feels dramatic and taboo to do. I know that there's this conception that it's super high status to transition -- it just does not (and did not) seem that way to me at all. It feels weird, and icky, to humans basically universally; people feel like anything is possible, anyone could be anything, and that feels wrong and scary. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure where the world is going, so it's a little late for hesitation now. We're all gonna be whatever body we desire to Be soon enough.

I think I just have more faith in the opinions of a kid about themselves. I grew up being like, noticeably more intelligent than my peers but also my parents and my teachers. The thought of being held back from something I *knew* was true, something that was *obvious*, because they weren't ready for it, is maddening to me. I couldn't imagine doing it to someone else. And I think that if someone gets swept up in the madness -- if someone does something to themselves they regret -- it's fundamentally a life lesson. I would rather sit on the side of assuming positives if it's vocalised than to assume negatives until somehow "proven."

But this makes me aware that I grew up in a different era than the one we're in. And overall I feel like I've lost track on whether the internet is a good inflluence. For me, as a kid, it was the only place I felt stimulated, the only place where I was able to discuss anything. The internet for me was a site of long-form, slow-paced conversation. YouTube came into existence by the time I was, like, 16 or so, so it was just kind of a cute thing when I was already pre-adult. Now it's the hypnoprism.

[1]: Fundamentally the idea that we're part of a larger entity, like a Community or a Folk or whatever, and therefore it overrides our personal freedoms so long as we procreate on behalf of the state and work on behalf of the state, is, idk, the F word.