Parental Rights vs Trans Kids Rights?

Most reasonable people would agree that everyone in a free society should have the right to do whatever they want to do unless and until that right starts to interfere with the rights of others.  When there is such a conflict, which is often the case, it is important to put one's personal opinions aside in the interest of figuring out what is the greatest good.

The reason people do not have certain rights and responsibilities until they are 18 years old is because that is the age we as a society have determined to be the time when a person can reasonably be expected to know enough about the world to make decisions with full understanding of their implications.  

This is the reason that we have to wait until we are 18 to vote, get married, pay taxes, buy cigarettes... even older to rent a car or hotel room or run for office or buy booze.  Some decisions have been granted to slightly younger people - generally 17 year olds can enlist in the military and see an R rated movie, while 16 year olds can drive unaccompanied and apply to be emancipated from their parents if they can establish due cause.  There is obviously some wiggle room in the later teen years, as maturity levels vary widely between individuals, and we all know some 40 year olds that you would not trust babysitting your kids or house sitting for you.  But there are certain age restrictions nonetheless because what would the vote of a five year old really mean?  That they have mastered the art of eeney-meeney-miney-mo?

When it comes to issues of sexuality, things start to get a little dicey, as is the case among adults as well.  An 18 year old can be arrested for "statuory rape" of their 17 year old partner if the minor's parents have it out for them, even though the age of consent for sex is 16 in many places.  It can't be that the water in one state makes for more mature 16 year olds than in others.  So the age restrictions do seem to be rather abstract.  But the point is that all 50 US states have a minimum age of 16 for consent to sex, which means across the nation, no one agrees that teens younger than 16 are generally mature enough to understand the full reprecussions of sexual intimacy and the potential fallout, both physical and emotional of engaging in what many (myself included) believe is an activity best suited for adults married to each other.  But that's a digression.

Interestingly, we already see a disconnect between the laws on the books about minium age of consent and the age at which an adolescent can get an abortion without their parents' consent or knowledge.  If the teenager is of the age of consent in their state, then they must by extension be considered old enough to handle the ramifications of that decision, including an unintended pregnancy.  For instance, the state of Oregon does not grant minors under the age of 18 consent to sex, yet neither does it require parental consent or notification either.  This is a mixed message.  On the one hand, the state is saying that a 16 or 17 year old is not old enough to enter into a sexual relationship, yet that same state is saying that if they do anyway, they can then proceed to decide if an abortion would be the best course of action should they get pregnant.  Isn't the former much less involved than the latter?  Many people do regret their abortions, not to mention the invasiveness and potential complications from an abortion.  Shouldn't they be accompanied by their parents when making such a life-changing decision?

So already we see that the idea that 18 is a magical age at which a child becomes an adult is wrong.  There is no such magic moment.  It is a very nuanced situation.  And you know who can best help determine when a child is ready for the responsibility?  Their parents.  Not the government, and not the child themself. 

If a child or tween cannot consent to sex, how can they consent to anything else having to do with sexuality and gender?  How can they realistically grasp the ramifications of undergoing irreversible therapies such as hormones or surgery when they haven't lived long enough to get that they can't just click undo and go back if they change their minds?  And I think it goes without saying that adolesence is a time of self-discovery, when teens try on different identities in order to figure out which is the best fit for them.  To insist on the minor committing to the first identity they try on in the name of "allyship" is terribly misguided.

I of course have in mind here the idea that when a child expresses that they feel they are of a different gender than has been affiliated with their sex, we are seeing the government stepping in to interfere with how the child's parents choose to handle this ubiquitous growing phase.  That is not to say that children cannot know that they were born "in the wrong body".  But it is simply too soon to know for certain which children will stick with this identity realization, and which will try it on for a while and then move on to something different.  

For this reason, I support the idea of letting a child try on different genders so long as they do not require any permanent ramifications.  They can change their outfits, their hair, their name, their pronoun... all things that, should this turn out to be a phase, can be changed back.  And even if it is not a phase, and the child does end up not identifying with the gender associated with their sex, if we believe that gender is a spectrum, how do we know that the child may not grow up to identify as nonbinary, and any intentional, invasive treatments did more harm than good if they only forced the person to present more of a different gender, but still of a binary gender nonetheless?  

There is no reason to jump to life-long changes when a child expresses a desire to transition.  We can support them without making them responsible for decisions they are simply too young and immature to make on their own.  This is too great of a burden and it is irresponsible parenting to rush the process, and even more irresponsible governing to interfere in what should remain between the child and their parent.

What I know the retort to all of this is, is that "not everyone has the benefit of having compassionate, understanding parents".  I totally get this and sympathise, but what does that say about the state of our society that we presume that parents are not doing their job and therefore the child is better off with the state than with the very people whose role is to protect them and provide for them and prepare them for adulthood?

If we start bypassing parents, we might as well keep lowering the age of majority, until parenting is a mere 5 year stint that ends when the parents drop off their child at mandatory kindergarten, to be educated, indoctrinated, and essentially raised by the state.