link to original reddit post by /u/mattman119

I was browsing around libertarian sites and saw an article on the front page of the Libertarian Party website entitled, "Attacks on Trans people are an attack on Liberty." Curious, I read the post, and was rather dismayed to see a lot of what I considered to be social justice babble. The worst of it (in my opinion):

In Texas, there is an effort to classify gender-affirming care as child abuse — which can be classified as a felony with corresponding jail time. Right now there are parents wondering if they will have to uproot their families and flee their home state rather than neglect the carefully considered care that is helping their children thrive.

There is perhaps nothing more dangerous to individuals and families than elected officials who value their own opinions over the love and devotion of a parent seeking expert opinions and the best life for their child.

(Emphasis mine)

Now, I'm an engineer, not a doctor. But there are a few things I've come to believe about the world we live in today (feel free to disagree):

  1. Science, especially sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, have all become heavily politicized in recent years. There seems to be an erosion of objectivity over what constitutes a mental illness that needs to be resolved and an identity that needs to be affirmed. I have a general sense that a politically-motivated parent could find a like-minded doctor to provide the "expert opinion" they want to hear about "the best life for their child."
  2. Of the extremely small percentage of people that suffer from gender dysphoria, I'm willing to believe that, for a portion of those patients, sex reassignment surgery is the correct treatment. I'm not willing to believe that treatment can be reasonably or ethically prescribed to anyone under the age of 18. Hell, you can't even be assigned an official Meyers-Briggs personality type before you're 18, but you can know your gender before you enter puberty? It makes no sense.
  3. The TERFs are right. I'm willing to accept trans women and trans men as their distinct genders, but they are not magically men and women. For sports in particular, a trans woman would never be able to suppress her body's natural hormone production to compete on an equal playing field with biological women (which is not a slur, that argument is ridiculous). Trans women will win out almost every single time when competing against other women.
  4. A private business has every right to deny trans people (or anyone) access to bathrooms and locker rooms (unisex alternatives would solve this issue, but that's too easy). Same goes with really any aspect of running a business. Not saying I would necessarily agree with their stance, but freedom of association is a matter of principle, not convenience.

Am I off my rocker here, or is it the LP with that drivel? For context, I live what most of you would consider a "conservative" lifestyle (my Catholic faith is a big part of my life) and my fiance's family is full of "Forever Trumpers," some of who are cops. I haven't stopped calling myself libertarian - even though I live conservatively doesn't mean others have to - and I've gotten into more than one sparring match with them over police abuse since George Floyd.

But when I see the LP post something like this it makes me wonder if I've wandered too far off the reservation, or if the liberty movement represents me as much as I assumed it did.