Yeah, but the narrative!
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Not that kind of blocking!
Even Experts on Transgender Health Are Warning About the Dangers of Puberty Blockers
“Members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health have raised alarms about the use in teens and young children of “puberty blockers.” Some countries have already scaled back their use, given the horrifying side effects when taken with cross-sex hormones, including sterility and an inability to orgasm.”
[snip]
“That’s the concern of Dr. Marci Bowers, who is due to become the president of WPATH in 2022.”
Dr Bowers built her career operating on adults, but she has also operated on teens: in 2018 she performed a “penile inversion” on Jazz Jennings, a 17-year-old who had been put on blockers aged 11. But Dr Bowers told Ms Shrier she was “not a fan” of putting children on blockers early in puberty. She worried, she said, “about their reproductive rights later. I worry about their sexual health later and ability to find intimacy.”
In 2018 Lisa Littman, a researcher, was hounded and lost her job as a consultant after coining the term “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (rogd) to describe the social contagion of trans-identification among teens, mostly girls. Dr Bowers appeared to acknowledge the existence of “this rogd thing” as she called it. “I think there probably are people who are influenced. There is a little bit of ‘Yeah, that’s so cool. Yeah, I kind of want to do that too.’” In some cases, she said, girls with eating disorders were being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, “then they see you for one visit, and then they recommend testosterone.”
“And yet, despite ROGD being acknowledged as a problem, the drive continues to authorize puberty blockers and other treatments despite little or no mental health counseling.”
[snip]
It is exceedingly rare for health-care professionals in America to criticise—or even question—the practices that have become prevalent in the medical treatment of gender-dysphoric youth. Professional bodies, including the American Association of Paediatrics, have endorsed “gender-affirmative” care, a model that accepts patients’ self-diagnosis that they are trans, and the use of blockers. Anyone who publicly dissents tends to be castigated.
“Laura Edwards-Leeper, a psychologist who helped found America’s first transgender clinic for children in Boston in 2007, is changing her opinion about puberty blockers."
She says Dr Bowers’s comments, especially about the effects of blockers on sexual function, have “shaken up” many in the field. Yet she notes some doctors are responding by talking about how they might control or slow treatment, without mentioning the role mental-health professionals should play in all this. That they are discussing the risks at all nonetheless constitutes progress.
“Gender dysphoria has been a recognized psychological condition for more than 50 years. It’s believed that real gender dysphoria afflicts only one or two children per 100,000 live births. …”