Reply to Could 13 yo DD just be discovering she is trans?

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[quote=Anonymous]    I share your concern about unqualified clinics popping up, and I empathize that you and your child had a bad experience.  When a child tells you he/she's transgender it can be shocking and it is hard to know where to start.  Speaking from first hand experience, it did not take us much effort to determine there were very few skilled, knowledgeable practitioners in this area.

Any time one messes with hormones there are potential side effects -- think about the history of birth control pills.  And it is important to only receive treatment from very experienced endocrinologists.  Each situation is different, and parents are justified in asking many questions, getting second opinions, and not accepting a recommendation without evidence to back it up in the context of a given child. I've read the news stores you cite, googled Lupron, and read several others as well.  Part of my search has also included reading reviews from many people who talked about the side effects -- mostly minor -- putting them in the context of the condition or disease being treated.

But again, this is all in a vacuum.  No one should undergo any medical treatment unless there is a reason to do so.  Lupron was approved decades ago for children with premature puberty, but has also been used to help in reducing testosterone to better treat cancer, to help with endometriosis, and other conditions.  If I were in a doctor's office with a 7 year old I would probably react very differently to a Lupron suggestion than if I were with an 11 year old.  One key issue is what is "long term" treatment and effects. The original studies repressing premature puberty are from around the 1980s.  While they have been criticized, I don't see anything in the specific instances cited in the articles you posted that really make the case that there is a specific, severe problem here.  Of course there are hundreds - maybe thousands -- of adverse events.  And some serious ones.  The same is true for most medications - just watch the drug advertisements during the evening news.

Several years ago we declined an option to put our child on Lupron in connection with treating a different medical condition that may have had a better result if puberty were suppressed.  The doctor explained to us this would be an off label use, and that the original safety studies were conduct on children who were different in some significant ways from ours.  Yet, he believed they were close enough to our situation that there should be no significant side effects, and we could stop if there were. It was a close call, but t the time the benefits of treatment did not seem sufficiently great to warrant any side-effect risks at all.   At the time, we also did not know our child was transgender.  In retrospect, if we had known then what we know now we likely would have made a different choice.  I have personally been to a suicide funeral for an acquaintance of our child, and my DC personally knows several other transgender kids who have taken their lives or attempted to do so. These are not made up stories -- they are facts.  I have met a number of parents whose trans children have been hospitalized with depression.  I have seen a biological component seem to run through extended families. It is against this backdrop that any risk/benefit analysis should take place in deciding upon medications.  The dangers to a trans kid can be just as real as the dangers to a cancer patient put on Lupron as part of a broader treatment regime.  It all depends on the specifics.  I am not pushing blockers on anyone -- but I sure think they have a place in the doctor/parent toolkit. [/quote]

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