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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]            I have read 17:31 and all the cites.  I concede that my "no harm, no foul" might be a bit glib as some of the science re puberty blockers in some instances is unclear. BUT, I don't think your conclusions - or perhaps your implications -- are supported by the articles you cite.  Even the first article raises the problem of the real pscyho-emotional problems arising from experiencing puberty of the gender with which one does not believe he/she/ze belongs.  The way I read it, even if some things are uncertain about blockers the benefits are so certain - so much so the article suggests some doctors think it is unethical to withhold puberty blockers.  And your suggestion in your third paragraph is off base in a misleading way.  It is the cross-hormones that cause the sterility -- not puberty blockers as far as I have heard.

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I just reread my initial post, and I believe it's clear I'm saying that it is the puberty blockers followed by the cross-sex hormones that cause sterility. Neither does on its own, and I don't believe I implied otherwise in my previous post. Cross-sex hormones can damage fertility, but it isn't a sure-fire path to sterility like the combination is.

Yes, some doctors believe it's unethical to withhold puberty blockers. There are still others who think it is unethical to lead children down a path that leads to sterility before they're even old enough to go to the bathroom without asking for permission.

The largest concern with the puberty blockers is that upwards of 90 percent (I don't have the exact figures on hand now, but I'll happily gather the citations if you'd like them) of children who start on blockers continue on to cross-sex hormones, according to top gender doc Johanna Olson. So although it's said that the blockers are used to buy time to decide, it's pretty clear that the decision is almost exclusively to continue on to hormones, and thus sterility and other lifelong medical concerns.

This sounds great on the surface- what a high success rate!- but the issue that is often overlooked is that before puberty blockers became commonly used for this purpose, 60 to 90 percent of children who identified as transgender (the figures range because they come from a host of studies) later desisted and identified as their birth sex. What was the turning point in returning to birth-sex identification? Going through puberty. Most of the children went on to be emotionally-healthy gay or lesbian adults. Now, among the population that receives puberty blockers, the numbers have reversed in a matter of a less than a decade.

Presently, puberty blockers are increasingly common. But by avoiding puberty, you are avoiding the stage that previously allowed growing adolescents to figure out who they really felt they were- whether that was gay and cisgender, or, more rarely, straight/cisgender or transgender. This is a huge red flag.

My concern is the health and happiness of these children, just like the doctors and their parents. But I'm afraid the mainstream approach is currently going in a direction that is unintentionally doing more harm than help, and as these children come of age within the next decade (you can already see some of it on YouTube vlogs), we will see the irreversible emotional and health effects they're battling.[/quote]

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