A clip from RFK Jr.'s recent interview about his plans for women’s health

Trump really has a talent for picking the absolute worst possible people for any position.

Cool, you’re finally building a metro in the capital city. Now do the rest of the country, since it’s clearly that simple. Just do it.

Polygamous marriage was a religious rite in Mormonism, presented as a requirement to get into the best part of Mormon heaven (as an aside, Mormonism divides heaven into 3 main tiers, ranging from “totally cut off from God and everyone you ever loved but still better than life on Earth” to “you get to be God”. And this is a simplification since the theology is wild). So when I say “practiced”, it’s just the usual terminology for when religious people do something dictated by their religion.

Technically, Mormon church leadership has disavowed polygamy, but like other people commented, they still teach that men can have multiple wives in the afterlife, and the current leader of the Mormon church has an… [interesting marriage at the moment (his second wife, so he fully expects 2+ wives after he dies.)] (https://mormondisclosures.blogspot.com/2013/09/same-tract-attractions.html). The exmormon subreddit has more discussion about this, if you’re willing to visit Reddit.

Mormons in Utah (a territory at the time) practiced polygamy, but the federal government made ending it a requirement for statehood. So since we’re just ignoring federal laws now…

I’m not shocked they’re doing it, I’m just shocked they didn’t use it to bring back polygamy too

Nothing disingenuous here, just asking questions so I can better understand your position. It’s clear that you’re passionate about the welfare of children.

I was operating under the assumption that all your statements in this thread were part of a larger argument for your position. I’ll walk through my thought process, hopefully you can correct my inference.

Those hormones are responsible for more than just sexual development. We can’t actually pause our bodies. We are bypassing a part of the development phase and saying “see it started again” when in reality it was just continuing for the remaining period it was supposed to be active for.

Here you state that hormones are essential for more than just sexual development, no disagreement there. The statement was made in the context of a discussion about brain development, correct?

This is EXACTLY the point I’m making. Should we shove steroids into the boy and estrogen into the girl? Push up and padded bras in lieu of boob jobs? Are we in such a hurry to cram drugs down someone’s throat that we can’t let them develop and then make a decision on their own when they are capable of?

Here you imply that individuals whose bodies do not produce the hormones associated with the sex they were assigned at birth should not be given treatment to rectify that.

So I see two claims here: first, that hormones during puberty are required for brain development, and second, that individuals should wait until they are legally adults to receive any kind of hormone-related medical treatment.

A catch-22 is by definition circular nonsense, a paradox that’s only way out leads you right back into it.

So say an individual doesn’t start puberty for whatever reason (which starts on average between ages 8 and 14, according to the NIH). This means, according to your assertion, that their brain will lack the necessary chemicals to mature in the average timescale. Meaning, that at 18 – the age of consent for most of the US and when you assert that an individual is mature enough to make these decisions – their brain will not be mature enough to make that decision. How can they ever get the treatment they need to enable that development if their brain never develops to the point you would be comfortable with them making that decision? Wouldn’t they still be an immature teenager trapped in an adult body, not ready to understand the consequences of their actions? Who gets to make the medical decision for them, if anyone, or are they trapped in some kind of limbo, unable to consent to anything for their entire lives?

And yes while we can use drugs for treatment - very frequently we employ counseling and other less drastic methods before resorting to drugs.

Can you help me find some more information on this? To my knowledge, therapy and counseling are essential parts of treatment for gender dysphoria, but it sounds like there must be doctors recklessly prescribing hormone therapy and I’d love to know more about that so I’m not caught off guard again.

This is EXACTLY the point I’m making. Should we shove steroids into the boy and estrogen into the girl? Push up and padded bras in lieu of boob jobs? Are we in such a hurry to cram drugs down someone’s throat that we can’t let them develop and then make a decision on their own when they are capable of? My original statement is just that.

Elsewhere in this thread, you assert that hormones produced during puberty are essential to the cognitive development of these children you seem to care so much about. But now we should make those same children wait nearly a decade – delaying this vital development – until they’re legally adults? Because their developing brains are too underdeveloped to make the decision to seek medical treatment that would allow their brains to develop, as you claim? That’s quite the catch 22.

Out of curiosity, what medical treatments do you consider allowable for minors? Can a student struggling to focus in school take medication for executive function disorders? Bipolar disorder is commonly diagnosed in adolescence, do those individuals have a legal right to seek treatment before their 18th birthdays? Or something that can potentially be treated with over-the-counter medication, like insomnia, or even seasonal allergies? Do we – as you say – cram drugs down these children’s throats, or wait until they’re 18 so we can make sure that they really do want treatment to improve their lives?

After all, maybe those kids are just lazy, want attention, or like staying up late, we better wait until they’re legally adults to make sure they don’t just grow out of it.

strengthen Ukraine’s credible defense

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There used to be a quiz where’d you’d guess if his face was bigger or smaller than “normal”, but it looks like it got deleted