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I got into an argument on JK Rowling recently. That was mildly annoying, but then it shifted to transgender stuff in general, and the puberty blocker discussion in particular was very vexing to me. I just genuinely don't know how anyone can be okay with the idea, especially now that we know way more about it than we did 10 years ago. The dismissal of the Cass Review on the part of the pro-trans side has increasingly looked like the stereotypical right winger doing mental somersaults to any science they dislike. But I have some questions on it, there were some things I didn't have great answers to.
What are the actual requirements for getting prescribed puberty blockers? The pro-trans tribe insists that it is a very rigorous process involving thorough checking of gender dysphoria, and it's not commonly done, despite being a readily available tool in the toolbox of clinical practice. I do not believe this after examples I have seen, but I have nothing to cite.
Is there any actual scientific evidence in favor of social contagion playing any part in transgenderism? The pro-trans tribe claims that social contagion plays no role, and to me, it's trivially true that social contagion plays an astounding part, as well as fetishism and abuse, and autism. I have no idea how many kids genuinely become gender dysphoric due to genetics, if there are any at all. And if there are any, I certainly don't think that it's a given that they need puberty blockers. How the hell did that become the default? But anyway, has The Science turned up anything on social contagion?
Are there any actually valid critiques of the Cass Review? Pro-trans tribe will cite the Yale Law retort, then when I point out the responses to it, either holes are poked in them or they just go back to their priors that the Cass Review was methodologically bad, done by a transphobe, misinterpreted studies, and went against the scientific consensus and ruined its own credibility. Actually, they say the same about the recent HHS Report. Please show me if there are any published valid critiques of the Cass Review besides the Yale thing.
What are the probabilities of serious consequences from puberty blockers? I brought up infertility, and the pro-trans tribe claimed that it's actually a very low chance and that it's not anyone's business anyway because not everyone wants to have kids. The latter half of that is completely inane when we're talking about life changing decisions for a demographic that cannot consent, but the former, I don't know. Do puberty blockers cause the infertility, the loss of ability to orgasm, and the complete lack of penis tissue with which to create a neovagina, or is it the ensuing hormones that do this?
Sadly, none of this will do anything to convince anyone on either side anyway. There's really no way out of this hole that has been created. Sometimes, I kind of hate this world. I really thought "don't give minors seriously debilitating life changing pills to solve a solely mental disorder" was an easy hill to stand on, but the fighting was just as vicious as anything else with the gender issue.
Edited to be slightly less angry.
Look like puberty blockers were prescribed for trans reasons to about 1400 kids in 2021, with that number increasing by about 200 kids / year. Puberty blockers were additionally prescribed to about 20,000 kids in 2021 for central precocious puberty (puberty starting before age 8 for girls or age 9 for boys).
As a point of comparison, about 3100 teens between the ages of 12 and 19 died in car crashes in 2021.
Is there a reason you think that puberty blockers, specifically, are a big problem?
You don’t see the difference between random accidents and intentional mutilation of children for an incoherent ideology?
I do see the difference, but moral panics over "think of the children" have a history of having the reactions be cures that are worse than the disease, and I see no particular reason to think that this time is different. Do you have a reason to think that this time is different?
This is a gigantic own goal that's more likely to be seen as akin to lobotomies 50 years down the line than anything else. It's close to unprecedented in human history to issue major invasive surgeries which barely even impact the longterm suicidal incidence and just shrug and call it self-expression
... I don't think puberty blockers are as damaging as lobotomies, and also puberty blockers in the context of gender affirming care are like 10x less frequent than lobotomies were at the peak of that craze. I think people 50 years from now (assuming the world of 50 years from now substantially resembles the world of today) will probably think of it similar to how we think about high schoolers smoking or using tanning beds (i.e "basically not at all").
There were about 40,000 lobotomies ever in the United States over the course of decades and there are about 1.5 million Trans people in the United states. Even if only 10% of them are pursuing surgical correction/puberty blockers, that doesn't really line up. Lobotomies were likely more damaging case-by-case, but a 30%~ suicide rate indicates that there is no particular happiness coming from gender confirmation.
Most of the 1.5 million trans people in the US are not minors, and the fraction of the trans minors who go on puberty blockers is about 3%, not "only 10%". Unless you're talking about what they do once they reach adulthood, but if you want to forbid adults from doing things they want to do with their bodies, trying to add regulations around what kids can do probably won't help.
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