[simondotau]

But surely puberty, not just maturity, is necessary to fully understand the sexual experience and whether your feelings about yourself crystalise differently in the presence of sexual drive. Not to mention, the idea of delaying puberty seems like an invitation for unrelated and/or unforeseen downstream consequences on biological health.

[erxam]

It is not. Precocious sexual drive is possibly amongst the worst things there is for gaining sexual maturity. Also known as 'thinking with your dick'. CSA aside, you can do a ton of damage to your life by just going along with your sexual drive.

I am a virgin at 27 years old. What am I missing about the sexual experience? Is it somehow locked out to me? Or… can I access it intellectually, and reason about it with its ups and downs?

There's a reason the consent age does not start at puberty.

[TimorousBestie]

I’m really scratching my head at the response to this one. Do people around here really believe consent should start at puberty?

I’m aware that’s kind of a meme in certain highly religious and/or conservative communities but it’d be shocking if it were a mainstream position.

[andsoitis]

> I am a virgin at 27 years old. What am I missing about the sexual experience?

Sex.

[simondotau]

> What am I missing

Sexual identity is an important component of gender identity. Encouraging people to make conclusions about their gender identity before they understand their sexual identity seems risky to me, especially when a child is being asked to make decisions with potentially life-altering medical consequences.

To be clear, a person does not need to have had sex to understand their sexual identity. They need to know what they find attractive and how their sexual identity relates to their own body. Even if someone feels like the opposite gender, that does not necessarily mean their sexual identity will automatically align with that.

It may be true that the transgender experience is something more fundamental to the self than “mere” sex. But when the choice is between one set of trade-offs and another, such as intervention versus non-intervention, I would contend that understanding one’s sexual identity is a critical piece of information.