[plorkyeran]

The entire purpose of puberty blockers is to enable deferring the decision until you are an adult and can make a well-informed decision. The make an irrevocable decision right now options are to go through natural puberty or immediately go on HRT.

We also let children decide on inflicting life-shattering bodily harm to themselves all the time. The classic examples are things like contact sports (children playing tackle football is pretty fucked up) and ballet. In the latter case they're like four when they commit to having deformed feet.

[a_shovel]

Puberty blockers are not meant to be prescribed from onset of puberty to adulthood. (I don't think anyone wants to be just starting puberty at 18.) They're meant to buy time for the patient to make a decision and get counseling if they need it if they're not sure they want a natal puberty or HRT at the onset of puberty. They will have to decide as a minor.

[HedonicEscal8r]

I disagree with this, puberty blockers should be used sparingly and certainly should not be taken until adulthood. Can you imagine starting puberty at 18?

Trans children deserve to mature at the same time as their peers.

[alexgieg]

Who are you to decide this for them, beyond and above the professional psychiatrists and psychologists who evaluate them based on actual science, and their own parents' informed decision?

[MSFT_Edging]

> certainly should not be taken until adulthood

When do you think puberty happens?

[pseudalopex]

They meant trans people should be allowed hormone replacement therapy before legal adulthood seemingly.

[slowmovintarget]

No, that is not the purpose of "puberty blockers." Those drugs were developed for four different reasons:

1. To delay extremely early-onset puberty in children as young as seven or eight who had a pituitary disorder.

2. To treat advanced prostate cancer.

3. To treat endometriosis and uterine fibroids in women.

4. As part of a treatment for breast cancers, part of fertility protocols, or treatments for endocrine disorders.

This notion of using these drugs to disrupt healthy and physiologically normal puberty, was not even a little part of their purpose. It's how they're being used now in some cases.

The fact is that administering hormone disruptors or synthetic hormones are the opposite of what should be done, as gender dysphoria often resolves itself as the process of puberty and natural maturation unfolds. Interventionism, in these cases, is extremely harmful.

Adults making these choices are a completely different case.

[alexgieg]

Could you link to recent peer-reviewed meta-studies of medical literature showing "gender dysphoria often resolves itself as the process of puberty and natural maturation unfolds"?

[pseudalopex]

> No, that is not the purpose of "puberty blockers."

The context was gender dysphoria treatment. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.[1]

> This notion of using these drugs to disrupt healthy and physiologically normal puberty, was not even a little part of their purpose.

Gender dysphoric puberty has unhealthy effects.

> gender dysphoria often resolves itself as the process of puberty and natural maturation unfolds

I never saw this claim supported by studies which did not include children who did not meet gender dysphoria criteria. And those studies found persistence predictors when they looked. Meeting gender dysphoria criteria for example.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[slowmovintarget]

The context was medical intervention for a minor. You trying to narrow it to be only that of treating gender dysphoria has the convenient effect of having to only consider whether the suffering is related to the dysphoria, and not the broader consequences such as whether a minor is able to understand those consequences.

The suffering in the moment is "I want" and the damage the treatment has in satisfying the want creates "I can't ever..."

Discussing that requires the broader context, so your redefinition doesn't work.

Puberty doesn't have unhealthy effects, the dysphoria does. There is also evidence that treatment doesn't resolve the worst "effects" namely depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation or tendencies. Those often return after the initial euphoria of getting what's desired wears off. It's why there's a fair percentage of kids that later regret having done that to themselves, and it's why the suicide rate for those who receive transition treatment doesn't actually go down, and in some cohorts the rate actually went up.

If we really cared about people suffering from dysphoria we'd look at these facts and be forced to reconsider how quickly we reach for these treatments.