Trans surgery for adolescents

I have four children. Several of them qualify as "athletic".

One of them approached us as a high school sophomore and informed us that they needed surgery due to back-pain.

That child was angry with us as we followed the proper route to investigate such things. They had already told us what the answer and the problem was. The fact that a non-doctor cannot simply demand a surgery (for very good reasons) didn't make a dent in their demands.

Curmudgeon, our family doctor, referred us/our-child to a sports medicine specialist.

That doctor examined our child and prescribed "stretching" as the first step in the hierarchy of interventions. My child dismissed "stretching" as a solution. Said "I stretched. It doesn' work". Said they needed surgery.

The doctor, who was easily 6'-4" tall, bent over at the waist with his knees locked and with no effort placed the palms of both hands on the carpet. "Until you can do this, "stretching" is the only treatment I am going to offer."

Of course, my muscular, athletic kid could not even come close to doing that.

Multiple trips to pain specialists. "Surgury" my kid demanded. 

"We try other things first" the people who had attended, and graduated from medical school insisted.

The demands for surgery abated somewhat after my child's birth-mother had back surgery and...it did not fully resolve her issues and there were complications.

When that child left our house we stopped providing as much "help" with regard to medical care. At one point our child scheduled a trip to the pain-specialist and got "the shots" and handed us the bill. We had not been informed ahead of time regarding the visit.

We didn't hand it back, although that is what my inclination was. Mrs ERJ informed our child that the bill was the last one we would be paying out of OUR pocket. If our child determined that they absolutely needed the shots, they could find a way to fund it.

Relations were a little bit frosty after that, but we healed up.

As our child got older, more informed and more sophisticated, the talk about surgery died away. There may be some smoldering resentment about our not automatically accepting the argument "It is my body. I know what I need".

Scar tissue is eternal. The scar tissue from relationships. The scar tissue from surgeries. It is part of what forms the immutable parts of our personalities.

"Gender affirming surgery"

Put me down as "Against it". Children under the age of 18 have no business making those kinds of decisions.

---Added later: The motivation for this post is the legislation that is percolating through the California Legislature that will remove children from the parent's home if the parents refuse to provide "gender affirming care" for their children.

That is, Child Protective Services will remove the children and initiate court proceedings to label the parents as child-abusers. The children will be given the "gender affirming care" against the parent's will. The parents will undoubtedly be given the bill by the State and if they don't pay it their wages will be garnished.