Thread

California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states

83 points · 136 comments · dabinat

GeekyBear · 1790826103 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
1. john_strinlai · 1790826457 · focus · HN ↗
  >but old enough to decide that they want to have sex change surgery.
  an under-18 can not unilaterally decide to get sex change surgery in california.
  1. GeekyBear · 1790827512 · focus · HN ↗
    How about puberty blockers?
    Should people who are still legally defined as children be allowed to make a decision on those?
    john_strinlai · 1790827674 · focus · HN ↗
    >How about puberty blockers?
    an under-18 can not unilaterally decide to go on puberty blockers either.
    GeekyBear · 1790828654 · focus · HN ↗
    If a parent can't give consent for marriage, they shouldn't be able to consent to gender-affirming care, right?
    > The California Department of Health Care Services, a branch of Newsom’s administration, said Friday that state dollars will be used to reimburse providers of gender-affirming care for youth covered by Medi-Cal, the state version of Medicaid...
    Gender-affirming care includes medical treatments that help align a person’s physical characteristics with their gender identity. Care typically begins with therapy and may progress to puberty-blocking medicine and hormone treatments, and in rare cases for adolescents, surgeries.
    <a href="https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/09/29/california-to-fund-gender-affirming-care-for-trans-youth-on-medi-cal/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/09/29/california-to-fund-...
    john_strinlai · 1790829156 · focus · HN ↗
    >If a parent can't give consent for marriage, they shouldn't be able to consent to gender-affirming care, right?
    my comment was about you incorrectly saying minors can "decide that they want to have sex change surgery" (later changed to puberty blockers), which they cannot just decide to do.
    GeekyBear · 1790961299 · focus · HN ↗
    You introduced the word "unilaterally" as a strawman argument.
    If a minor can get a sex change with parental consent they should also be allowed to marry with parental consent.
    zzrrt · 1790829874 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not fully on-board with trans ideas, but here's a stab at an argument: Marriage is not, I don't know, "romance-affirming care." That's the difference. It is not considered critical to a young person's identity to be married, while gender-affirming care is.

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