Oklahoma tries banning gender care under age 26.

[EvisceratedJester]

Your brain keeps developing for your whole life actually, every time you learn new information (unless you're a pro lifer).

In this case, we are specifically talking about the maturation of the prefrontal cortex, which is a major neurodevelopmental milestone. From adolescence up into your mid to late 20s, the prefrontal cortex is going through a period of major development, with this area going through significant myelination. While the brain does develop throughout the entirety of your life, there are periods of major brain development that tend to happen earlier on, before your 30s.

Hence why, for example, you may notice that teens generally tend to be more likely to act out impulsively compared to adults. It's because their prefrontal cortex and the connections between that area and the limbic system (the socioemotional system) are still maturing. The issue here is more so the lack of nuance and understanding when it comes to this developmental period and decision-making rather than it being an issue as to whether or not our brains are always developing.

 

[SilentSadness]

In this case, we are specifically talking about the maturation of the prefrontal cortex, which is a major neurodevelopmental milestone. From adolescence up into your mid to late 20s, the prefrontal cortex is going through a period of major development, with this area going through significant myelination. While the brain does develop throughout the entirety of your life, there are periods of major brain development that tend to happen earlier on, before your 30s.

Hence why, for example, you may notice that teens generally tend to be more likely to act out impulsively compared to adults. It's because their prefrontal cortex and the connections between that area and the limbic system (the socioemotional system) are still maturing. The issue here is more so the lack of nuance and understanding when it comes to this developmental period and decision-making rather than it being an issue as to whether or not our brains are always developing.

I don't think it makes sense to use this as a metric. People who are young have less experience of the consequences of their actions, so that will lead to less informed decisions. It just seems ageist for someone to suggest that young people can't make their own decisions due to an "undeveloped brain" as if it has a magical property that is locked until a certain age. Personally, I think it's got nothing to do with lack of nuance and everything to do with people justifying their opinion with arguments they don't actually care about. So to be clear I agree with your original point.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I don't think it makes sense to use this as a metric. People who are young have less experience of the consequences of their actions, so that will lead to less informed decisions. It just seems ageist for someone to suggest that young people can't make their own decisions due to an "undeveloped brain" as if it has a magical property that is locked until a certain age. Personally, I think it's got nothing to do with lack of nuance and everything to do with people justifying their opinion with arguments they don't actually care about. So to be clear I agree with your original point.

It actually does have to do with a lack of nuance. To say that the brains of those during adolescence up into young adulthood are likely not fully developed is correct. To say that this impacts their ability to make decisions under certain circumstances is also correct. The cognitive control system is involved in more careful and deliberate decision-making while the socioemotional system is involved in more intuition-based decision-making. The socioemotional system begins its development earlier compared to the cognitive control system, hence why teens tend to make more impulsive decisions and engage in more risky behaviours.

The brain system involved more in reward-based decision-making is more active during this period compared to the area involved in planning (the cognitive control region). This isn't something that can just be simplified down to just young people having less experience, even if that may play a small factor in this. This particular pattern of behaviours that we see amongst adolescents are patterns of behaviour we even see in other animal species during their periods of adolescence as a result of the differences in the timing between the development of these two brain systems.

While I understand that you agree with my overall point, I just feel the need to point out that the whole "the brain is always developing" argument just doesn't work here since we are specifically focusing on a major developmental milestone that does have a noticeable impact on how we make decisions. The issue is with people oversimplifying things. From a neurological perspective, they are sort of right, as in that the maturation of the prefrontal cortex does finish, on average, around the age of 25. What they get wrong is that this is an average and not a magical number (just like you said), that some studies now suggest that the process of myelination around this region can continue up into your early 30s and that younger people are still capable of good decision-making (on par with that of adults) under the right circumstances.

A lot of this does come down to a lack of nuance since most people usually hear about the "25 means good big brain, ooga booga" factoid and just roll with it because it is science. They don't understand the full scope of how complex this topic really is. People generally tend to like having clear-cut ways to categorize things, so they default to treating 25 as this sort of magical number, not realizing that it's not. To add to this, most people don't have a background in neuroscience which might make understanding the complexities and nuances of this discussion more difficult. Thus, I don't think that we can just make this out to be a case of people "people justifying their opinions with arguments they don't care about". In my experience, in most cases of having heard this argument being used, it was usually in progressive spaces from people who actually do seem to mean well and who genuinely believe in this fact wholeheartedly, trying to use it to explain certain experiences or feelings in their life.

 

[WatchmeBurn]

Sick and tired of things getting worse in the world.

It actually does have to do with a lack of nuance. To say that the brains of those during adolescence up into young adulthood are likely not fully developed is correct. To say that this impacts their ability to make decisions under certain circumstances is also correct. The cognitive control system is involved in more careful and deliberate decision-making while the socioemotional system is involved in more intuition-based decision-making. The socioemotional system begins its development earlier compared to the cognitive control system, hence why teens tend to make more impulsive decisions and engage in more risky behaviours.

The brain system involved more in reward-based decision-making is more active during this period compared to the area involved in planning (the cognitive control region). This isn't something that can just be simplified down to just young people having less experience, even if that may play a small factor in this. This particular pattern of behaviours that we see amongst adolescents are patterns of behaviour we even see in other animal species during their periods of adolescence as a result of the differences in the timing between the development of these two brain systems.

While I understand that you agree with my overall point, I just feel the need to point out that the whole "the brain is always developing" argument just doesn't work here since we are specifically focusing on a major developmental milestone that does have a noticeable impact on how we make decisions. The issue is with people oversimplifying things. From a neurological perspective, they are sort of right, as in that the maturation of the prefrontal cortex does finish, on average, around the age of 25. What they get wrong is that this is an average and not a magical number (just like you said), that some studies now suggest that the process of myelination around this region can continue up into your early 30s and that younger people are still capable of good decision-making (on par with that of adults) under the right circumstances.

A lot of this does come down to a lack of nuance since most people usually hear about the "25 means good big brain, ooga booga" factoid and just roll with it because it is science. They don't understand the full scope of how complex this topic really is. People generally tend to like having clear-cut ways to categorize things, so they default to treating 25 as this sort of magical number, not realizing that it's not. To add to this, most people don't have a background in neuroscience which might make understanding the complexities and nuances of this discussion more difficult. Thus, I don't think that we can just make this out to be a case of people "people justifying their opinions with arguments they don't care about". In my experience, in most cases of having heard this argument being used, it was usually in progressive spaces from people who actually do seem to mean well and who genuinely believe in this fact wholeheartedly, trying to use it to explain certain experiences or feelings in their life.

I don't think this is relevant to the question of trans 'policy' though as the rates of regret from transitioning are extraordinarily low-lower than the vast majority of medical treatments. If there was a large % of people who regretted transitioning once they were adults that'd be one thing, but it's just not how it works.

It's not like young people just go to the doctor and get a surgery the next day anyway, you have to have counselling to understand your feelings better before any of that starts (which is fair enough, as not everyone questioning their gender ends up being trans).

It's not a decision in which one can impusively make permanent changes to themselves.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

Sick and tired of things getting worse in the world.



I don't think this is relevant to the question of trans 'policy' though as the rates of regret from transitioning are extraordinarily low-lower than the vast majority of medical treatments. If there was a large % of people who regretted transitioning once they were adults that'd be one thing, but it's just not how it works.

It's not like young people just go to the doctor and get a surgery the next day anyway, you have to have counselling to understand your feelings better before any of that starts (which is fair enough, as not everyone questioning their gender ends up being trans).

It's not a decision in which one can impusively make permanent changes to themselves.

It is relevant considering the fact that the thread is about Okalahoma banning gender-affirming care for trans folk under the age of 26. This goes back into how the whole "brain fully develops at 25" thing that gets thrown around all willy nilly can actual have potentially devastating consequences. Did you even bother to read my post?

 

[WatchmeBurn]

It is relevant considering the fact that the thread is about Okalahoma banning gender-affirming care for trans folk under the age of 26. This goes back into how the whole "brain fully develops at 25" thing that gets thrown around all willy nilly can actual have potentially devastating consequences. Did you even bother to read my post?

I did read it, but I think the whole discussion is irrelevant to the point. Gillick competence is a thing and I'm sure other countries have their own versions. "Fully developed" is unimportant when minors can legally make their own medical decisions as long as they're cognitively developed enough to understand the implications of them. It's established law.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I did read it, but I think the whole discussion is irrelevant to the point. Gillick competence is a thing and I'm sure other countries have their own versions. "Fully developed" is unimportant when minors can legally make their own medical decisions as long as they're cognitively developed enough to understand the implications of them. It's established law.

Yeah, I don't think that you read any of what I said. This thread is about how Oklahoma was trying to ban gender-affirming healthcare for those under 26. The reason they chose 26 is likely in reference to the whole "brain is fully developed at 25" factoid that tend to get thrown around. This leads to a discussion on neurodevelopment, ageism, and how ageism intersects with other forms of oppression, such as transphobia. The main of my post was to point out how people need to realize how dangerous this type of unnuanced rhetoric is and how it ends up harming others, such as trans minors, due to it being used to push for harmful policies. 25 should not be treated as a magical number. The rest of my post mostly goes into explaining some aspects of decision-making and neurodevelopment in order to better highlight the point that I'm trying to make.

 

[SVEN]

And, here in Scotland, our devolved SNP Administration have the dichotomy of voting at 16 years of age as at that age they are fully mature , whilst maintaining that persons convicted of crime under the age of 25 years of age should be treated as juveniles.
Brain hurts.