Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM
Is it a good idea to let your 16 year old get a tattoo?
Is it a good idea to let your 16 year old get married?
How many 16 years date "the love of their life, they are going to be with forever and ever?" How many of those relationships last more than a year?
How many young people experiment with same-sex relations, only to never do it again once they are in their 20s?
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Ah, to be sixteen again!
Seriously, I guess the question is 'what age is one an adult?' Here eighteen is old enough to make that choice and become the opposite gender, whilst at sixteen one is still technically a minor. People can marry at sixteen, have sex at sixteen, work full-time at sixteen, drop out of school . . . if they can do virtually everything an eighteen-year-old can, (except drink and vote) then why can't they change sex, too?
Don't get me wrong, I fully agree with you. I just don't think a couple of years will make a hell of a lot of difference to a person's emotional/mental state, I mean if you think back to being eighteen it was only barely better enlightened than sixteen . . .
Perhaps each individual case should be assessed by professionals before allowing someone to change gender? I have an acquiantance who's twenty-three and still jumping through hoops so that the doctors will allow him the surgery he desires. Now I know he's with the NHS, not private, so he's required to . . . but wouldn't it be best if
everyone, regardless of age, had the same assessments? I mean some sixteen-year-old's may be capable of making that choice, and som forty-year-olds may never be ready.
I just question whether age is
always a factor . . .