Transgender people whose families accept them fare far better, HRT and SRS can also do quite a bit for the person’s psychological welfare.
…Given the huge benefits from transitioning that have already been documented…
The problem is that it is not OK to use an immoral means to achieve a desired end, even when it is meant to do someone else a kindness. Everyone wants their family member to be happy with themselves, but there is a limit to what can be asked. It is not moral to teach children (or anyone else) that is possible for a physician to change someone’s physical gender by changing their external appearance. White lies are not even moral, we may not morally teach our children to tell them, but this goes way beyond a white lie.
If mothers were less likely to commit suicide if they had access to abortion, for instance, that wouldn’t make abortion a morally-permissible means of achieving maternal mental health. You don’t kill someone in order to give someone else a life that is easier to manage, even if the person who “benefits” could live with that bargain. You cannot morally treat mental illness by lying to people who are capable of understanding the difference between reality and fantasy. I’m not yet willing to believe that people who have this affliction ought to be written off as incapable of accepting the reality of their actual gender.
We are talking about irreversible mutilations and hormonal intervention meant to facilitate living under objectively false pretenses because it is too painful to accept reality. I don’t want to minimize the pain of gender dysphoria but when this form of self-hatred is “treated” by what is called transitioning, it is actually a pseudo-suicide of the persona who has the hated gender and replacement of that persona with an invented persona that feels more comfortable. The treatment is based on a lie. I do not see how that is morally acceptable when the patient is capable of understanding the difference between fantasy and reality.
For instance, let us say that we are dealing with someone who has dementia, such that the person is incapable of remembering their spouse has died, their parents have died, all their siblings have died. It is cruel to keep telling this person that everyone they want to see is dead! They are incapable of remembering it, and so they suffer the shock of hearing this news every time. If they are so far gone that they cannot tell reality from a dream state and can’t remember what is said to them from one moment to the next, they have gotten past the point of deceiving or being deceived. If they have a better grip on reality than that, however, it is not moral to lie to them in order to make them more manageable. Avoiding a cruel truth is OK; telling lies is not.
This situation is also a bit different than when your uncle Bob decides to flout moral law, abandon his valid marriage to Aunt Sally, go through a civil marriage with someone new named Sue (or John), and wants your children to call the spouse the government recognizes in a marriage you do not recognize as possible as Aunt Sue (or Uncle John). It is not as if Bob is going to go back to his wife Sally because you refuse to have anything to do with Sue or John. Sue or John may be under the misguided impression that their marriage is as valid as anyone else’s. You can be kind to Sue, (or John) and even Bob without trangressing moral law. What you may not do is recognize their civil marriage as valid.
I think if your brother, your child’s Uncle Nick, decides he wants everyone to call him Nicole, then it is OK to address him as Nicole. We allow adults to choose the names they go by, let him choose it. We give that to anyone out on the street.
You can even accept that his deep-seated unease at being a male may be something he cannot change and that how, when and if he comes to accept that he is male is his own business. If he is not in need of commitment, his mental health certainly isn’t your business to treat! It does not harm children to learn to MYOB about how their relatives handle their health care, including mental health care, and how they handle their moral choices. They can learn to keep their mouth shut and treat someone the same even when that someone uses make-up or clothing that doesn’t suit them or when they use affectations to be someone they are not. IMHO, they’ll do better if they MYOB on those things, including in this case.
I do not think that means you need to
agree or teach your children that Nick has managed the impossible feat of becoming a woman. You are not morally bound by kindness to teach your children to call him Aunt Nicole. If he doesn’t like Uncle Nicole then teach your children not to offend him by calling him that. Call him Nicole, tell him “I think you’re confused, I’m not alone in that, but I also know you didn’t ask me. Your life is yours to run; my validation is mine to give or not as I honestly see the situation. We’re going to do the best if we each stay on our own side of our own boundary and, as much as possible, mind our own business. We can do that. I think you’re my children’s Uncle Nick, you think you are Aunt Nicole…we’ll split the difference and they can call you Nicole simply because that is the name you want and leave out the Aunt/Uncle thing because we very clearly do not agree on that.” That is how you might treat Sue or John, after all.
Your brother Nick who believes he is a Nicole and a she may not cope very well with that. This is worth some heart-to-heart communication, but when an adult sibling won’t accept the reality that is their lot in life, it is necessary to let that be your sibling’s business and not yours. If you are lucky, they will return the favor.
