Editor: I read with interest your editorial ‘A challenge to common sense,’ (the Times, Jan. 24) about teens eating soap pods. Your editorial of course makes complete common sense and I think all adults would agree with you.

What amazes me is that when we try to apply the same logic to gender identity issues, we don’t seem to exhibit the same common sense.

As you clearly express, experts indicate that teens have an underdeveloped pre-frontal cortex that leads to questionable social behaviour and poor decision making.

This is exactly what Chilliwack School Board Trustee Barry Neufeld is saying when he argues against gender reassignment treatment for children and teens.

If we all agree that the underdeveloped brains of teens lead them to make bad decisions and exhibit poor social behaviour then why would we encourage life-altering treatments when they express fluid gender identity feeling as a teen?

Just as you recommend parents taking a firm role in steering their teens to good behaviour choices in the use of laundry soap, we also need to steer their decisions with regard to gender identity.

We know that statistics indicate that most teenage gender issues solve themselves as the child matures. We need to all support common sense as expressed by leaders like Barry Neufeld.

We need to encourage our children and teens to wait until they are more mature before making life-altering decisions with regard to their gender.

David Nielsen,

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