site banner

To Escape the Body: A Review of Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, pt. 3 – How Transgenderism Harms Women And Children

Part 1 – The History of Transgenderism: r/theschism, r/BlockedAndReported, themotte.org

Part 2 – the Causes and Rationalization of Transgenderism: r/theschism, r/BlockedAndReported, themotte.org

Part 3 – How Transgenderism Harms Women And Children: r/theschism, r/BlockedAndReported, themotte.org

Part 4 – How Transgenderism Took Over Institutions And How Some Women Are Fighting Back: r/theschism, r/BlockedAndReported, themotte.org

Part 5 – Conclusion and Discussion: r/theschism, r/BlockedAndReported, themotte.org

Last time, we discussed what Joyce thinks are the causes of transgenderism, how they render many or even most trans people as not really trans in the first place, and what gender-identity ideology (GII) says in the first place.

This time, we’ll go over what Joyce sees as the harms of transgenderism.

Think Of The Kids!

Joyce starts by reminding us that there is a fairly high desistance rate among cross-sex identifying kids and this was known since the 70s and 80s. But this is obviously an inconvenient fact for GII, Joyce asserts, so it gets ignored.

I don’t think this is a good start, I think the modern argument TRAs would offer are that you should not stand in your child’s way of deciding their identity, even if they would desist later. Jesse Singal’s famous (or infamous) 2018 Atlantic article highlights the alarming rhetoric aimed at parents skeptical of transition (“Would you rather have a live daughter or a dead son?”), but I don’t know of cases where desistance has been ignored. I do, however, see serious debate between pro-trans and anti-trans advocates on how many desist in the first place.

Anyways, let’s jump to the 1990s. Clinicians at the time began to wonder what could be done to help the kids who would not desist. It was not clear how to identify them, and if you simply waited until they were older, then you ran into a big problem.

Puberty.

Puberty has strong and lasting effects determined by your sex (really, hormones) that cannot be fully undone by surgery. A trans woman who undergoes male puberty is going to have a deeper voice, certain facial features, and larger body (notably hands and feet). Trans men don’t have as many visible leftovers if they transition (barring breasts). But going through this was obviously discomforting to these kids, so why not try to delay puberty and see who desisted?

Thus, Amsterdam clinicians decided to start injecting small groups of kids with puberty blockers. This was predicted to be a free lunch – the kids who desisted would be taken off the blockers and develop as normal, the ones who persisted could grow up until they were 16 and old enough to consent to the irreversible stuff.

Joyce details a catastrophe as the outcome.

Of the seventy children enrolled in a study between 2000 and 2007, every single one progressed to cross-sex hormones. Almost all had surgery at age eighteen…These children were all highly gender-dysphoric, and had not desisted by the start of puberty.

Joyce admits that it was possible the clinic somehow picked out only persisters, but she is highly skeptical of this. If every other study Joyce cited found major desistance, then the more likely explanation was that puberty blockers had disrupted the body’s process for resolving dysphoria.

But the results were taken up with gusto by others, and Canadian and American clinics began prescribing these blockers not long after. UK’s Tavistock was initially cautious, but began routine assignment in 2014 after, according to Joyce, they were pressed by activists.

All this might have been more acceptable if the criteria for assignment were strict, but Joyce says they’ve been assigned more and more to kids with less severe dysphoria and even those who aren’t transgender, but non-binary or gender-fluid.

I’m not sure how to verify the numbers exactly (even Joyce admits we don’t have clear counts). The number is clearly greatly increasing, but it’s not clear if this just reflects that the right number of kids are getting them, or too many are. I will say that she’s correct on the broadening of who can get blockers. The Mayo Clinic, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, and Cleveland Clinic all say that you don’t have be trans, but just questioning your gender to get it.

But is the broadening of the accepted reasons really a problem? Assume for a moment that puberty blockers worked as advertised (no interference with normal desistance processes). Is there something inherently wrong with offering kids who are experiencing discomfort with their gender puberty blockers? One might argue that categories like non-binary or genderqueer don’t exist and are artificially created for ideological reasons, but if they do, I’m not sure what the issue is.

For Joyce, however, the problem goes beyond just kids on the verge of puberty. Pro-trans messaging has come to include the idea that kids from a very early age can indicate their gender. Diane Ehrensaft, Director of Mental Health and founding member of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, is quoted as saying that kids as young as three years old can indicate their knowledge of their gender.

This is an inversion of John Money’s ideas, though no less highly unconventional. Where Money had argued that gender was malleable in the first 2.5 years of life and then unchangeable, the modern GII argument seems to be that gender is known from birth.

Both, however, would argue for social transition at an early age. This is unacceptable to Joyce because these are always presented as reversible (both transition and blockers), but part of what she calls the “cascade of interventions”. It does not appear that kids tend to desist even if you just socially transition them. The age at which interventions are happening is lowering as well, with some kids getting cross-sex hormones and even surgery before 16.

If you want to see how nasty activists of any sort can get if you question their views, Joyce points to a controversial figure in this discussion space, the man named Ken Zucker. Zucker is one of the biggest names in gender medicine and has seen at least 1500 gender dysphoric kids. He edits Archives of Sexual Behavior but is known for authoring studies which showed the high desistance rates among kids. Zucker even introduced puberty blockers alongside someone else into Canada in 1999.

I won’t detail the entire controversy, Singal has also covered that here here. Joyce, for her part, argues that the campaign to get Zucker taken down was very much to send a message to anyone else who tried arguing like he did.

Medical Issues With Puberty Blockers

Not only is there a dearth of reliable evidence that kids benefit from taking puberty blockers, Joyce argues that there are other side effects that complicate the matter.

  1. Only your natal hormones can make your ovaries/testicles mature.

  2. There is anecdotal evidence that your sex life may be less-than-fully realized.

  3. Puberty, even if partial, is what makes your penis or vagina develop into an adult’s, blocking it can keep your genitalia child-like, leaving not enough skin to do standard reassignment surgery.

  4. Eggs and sperm cannot be frozen for later if they are never active to start with, and they only activate in puberty.

  5. Trans men and women suffer from higher rates of diseases (not the same ones for both).

The drugs themselves are another issue. Joyce claims that they’ve never been put under clinical trials and aren’t even made for that purpose according to the manufacturers. They’re meant for treating adults for hormone-related conditions or to chemically castrate sex offenders. There are concerns that they may cause a significant IQ drop and prevent calcium from being laid down in bones.

From a cursory glance, I think Joyce is correct. Google Scholar doesn’t list too many studies that actually look at the issue, I only found one meta-review, published in 2020. There was also a piece from 2019 in the BMJ that discussed possible issues with even trying to study it from an ethical perspective. Wikipedia lists some adverse effects.

Progress Is A Circle

But there is another effect in promoting transgenderism, and gender-diversity to a lesser extent, in children – the reinforcement of gender stereotypes. Joyce picks Introducing Teddy: A Gentle Story About Gender and Friendship as her example of this, where the titular Teddy becomes a girl by turning his bow tie into a hair bow.

Such stories of children for children are increasing common, and they do not endorse any explanation of a child’s alienation from their sex other than a discordant gender identity. Joyce argues for familiar explanations: homosexuality or seeking (parental) approval.

Thus, it is damning to Joyce that so many pro-trans or trans-inclusive arguments and lessons to children just enforce gender stereotypes that are the product of the culture. Why are these people acting as if these stereotypes were instead naturally implanted into people?

Parents V. The World

Even more damning is how this divides parents from children. Obviously, transphobic parents would always have a problem with any suggestion of a trans child. But with an increasingly harsh attitude towards anyone who questions their child’s identity or the idea of teaching these ideas to children, there are now stories about kids cutting contact and leaving their homes.

There is evidence to support this indirectly, at least one school district in the US said that its staff were not permitted to reveal a trans kid’s status to their parents. This was picked up last year by right-wing media, which is presumably why the district removed the document from their site.

Schools are not the only intervening institution; the government is in on it as well. Joyce refers to a 2019 British Columbia court case involving a 14-year-old trans boy named Max and his father.

In 2016, aged twelve, she was referred to the school counsellor. Unbeknownst to her parents at the time, she mentioned feeling a commonality with the transboy protagonist of a film she had seen online. The counsellor concluded that Max was trans, arranged for a change of name and pronouns in school records, and referred Max to a psychologist, who recommended testosterone and made a further referral to a paediatric endocrinologist.

A consent form was sent to the Jacksons; the father refused to sign…But under British Columbia’s Infants Act, a child of any age has the right to medical treatment that is opposed by parents if the doctor thinks it is in the child’s best interests, and that the child is ‘mature enough’ to decide. In 2019, the supreme court of British Columbia ruled that Max could consent to medical transition independently of the father’s wishes (his ex-wife was no longer opposed). His refusal to refer to his child as a boy, and continued opposition to transition, were ruled ‘family violence’, and he was banned from speaking to the press.

Tangentially, I will note my confusion over this case. The Guardian reported the following:

“I will be stranded between looking and sounding feminine and looking and sounding masculine. I would feel like a freak,” the teenager wrote in an affidavit which was read out in court on Tuesday.

But I don’t know what would cause this. This may just be a teenager not able to speak clearly, but w/o drugs or surgery, how would you be stuck in such a manner? I would understand if Max was upset about looking/sounding feminine while trying to be masculine, but the wording is…odd.

A Threat To (Cis) Women

The elephant in the room for who stands to lose, according to Joyce, is cis women. They stand to lose many things they had once relied upon, not the least of which include single-sex spaces.

You may remember the name Jessica Yaniv if you’re more online. Yaniv is a trans women and trans activist who, in 2018, began asking wax salons if they would wax her genitals. The reporting I find from this time suggests that Yaniv hadn’t had surgery, meaning she still had her penis and testicles. This doesn’t work for Brazilian waxing; testicles are simply too sensitive to some of the techniques. When she was refused, she brought anti-discrimination cases in British Columbia against the women who refused.

Joyce says it was unclear which way the case would be decided. In the end, however, the court ruled that Yaniv was in the wrong and described her as a vexatious litigant who was acting in bad faith and motivated by money over actual discrimination.

Sounds like a victory for cis women, right? No, unfortunately. The court did not decide against Yaniv on the basis of the defendants having a religious right to refuse service, but on the basis that she had made self-admitted racist remarks against them. The defendants were South and East Asian women, you see.

What I don’t quite understand is where Joyce actually falls on this idea of religious freedom to not accept the tenets of GII. Does she greatly support religious freedom in all cases, or just strategically in this one because it happens to support her view that trans women are a threat to cis women?

The more classic problem, of course, is the bathroom question – is it okay to ban trans women from women’s restrooms? Here, I’ll point to there being no evidence that it’s problematic, but this may be because the culture hasn’t really caught up yet. I don’t think we can really extrapolate from the present to the near future.

Joyce, however, goes a different route – crime statistics.

The little evidence that exists shows that at least some of the males who identify as women are very dangerous indeed. Of the 125 transgender prisoners known to be in English prisons in late 2017, sixty were transwomen who had committed sexual offences, a share far higher than in the general male prison population, let alone in the female one.

So either transwomen are more likely than other males to be sexual predators, or – more probable in my view – gender self-identification provides sexual predators with a marvellous loophole. Whichever is true, allowing males to self-identify into women’s spaces makes women less safe.

Of course, prisoners are perhaps not representative of the overall trans population. But I would agree that self-ID is a dangerous thing and shouldn't be the basis by which we decided transgenderism. I would say that it specifically applies to spaces like women's restrooms, but I don't know of any practical way to allow for people to critically evaluate whether someone is trans that also accommodates self-ID.

There’s then a really uncharitable attempt at showing TRA hypocrisy.

Arguing that vulnerable males must be allowed to identify out of male spaces because males are so dangerous undermines any argument that males should be admitted to female spaces on demand.

Obviously, she and her opponents disagree on many things. But it’s not a contradiction if your opponents believe that sex is malleable like gender to also believe that trans women and women should therefore be kept in the same space, segregated away from cis men.

There are more arguments Joyce makes for the preservation of single-sex (basically only women’s) and the dangers of allowing trans women to enter those spaces, but they’re not very interesting or worth expounding on. If you understand the argument that males tend to be more violent, especially sexually, towards females, you’ve read about a dozen or so pages in this book already.

Mods are mean and limit me to 20k characters, check the comments for the rest of this post.

That's all for this part. Next time, we'll go over some more modern history and how some cis women are fighting back against this. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

But is the broadening of the accepted reasons really a problem? Assume for a moment that puberty blockers worked as advertised

"Please concede 90% of the argument" isn't what I would call a good faith line of persuasion, honestly.

The elephant in the room for who stands to lose, according to Joyce, is cis women. They stand to lose many things they had once relied upon, not the least of which include single-sex spaces.

Men would probably stand to lose too, if they hadn't already lost everything to feminism already. There are no male-only spaces anymore, only "mixed" and "women's".

"Please concede 90% of the argument" isn't what I would call a good faith line of persuasion, honestly.

I don't follow. It's important to assess what our true objections to something might be.

Men would probably stand to lose too, if they hadn't already lost everything to feminism already. There are no male-only spaces anymore, only "mixed" and "women's".

Have we ever seen a trans man get a men-only (de jure or de facto) space shut down or even try that? I've never heard of that happening, but obviously that's harder in an age with fewer men-only spaces.

I don't follow. It's important to assess what our true objections to something might be.

Most of the objection to them is that they don't work as advertised.

Have we ever seen a trans man get a men-only (de jure or de facto) space shut down or even try that?

Shut down? No. Gained entry to? All the time. Just from experience, gay sex clubs and saunas now require you to accept vagina in these venues, if the person owning it claims to "feel like a man", whatever that actually means. That the purpose of these places is for people who like dick to vigourously have sex with other people who like dick doesn't seem to matter or even register.

Most of the objection to them is that they don't work as advertised.

Sure. But I'd want a clear statement from objectors that they would be fine with blockers in the future if they were better. I don't want to assume that, hence me making that argument.

Shut down? No. Gained entry to? All the time. Just from experience, gay sex clubs and saunas now require you to accept vagina in these venues, if the person owning it claims to "feel like a man", whatever that actually means. That the purpose of these places is for people who like dick to vigourously have sex with other people who like dick doesn't seem to matter or even register.

Interesting to hear, I hadn't really thought about that. My passing knowledge was related to lesbian bars dying off, I hadn't considered gay bars.

I think the problem is inherent in the blockers. They do what exactly what it says on the tin - halt puberty. The problem with that is they are being used for the purpose of allowing a person to mature and a brain to develop enough to make an adult decision. But they halt puberty, the process that changes a kid brain into an adult brain.

I don't think this has been sufficiently studied. If it ever gets studied either:

  1. I'm wrong. Teen brains still mature as normal on puberty blockers. Despite this, nigh 100% of kids who go on puberty blockers to treat dysphoria go on to hormone replacement. In this case why bother with blockers at all? Seems like medication and risk without a purpose. Better to come up with a new protocol that focuses on preserving sexual health and end appearance.

  2. I'm right, in which case puberty blockers are not actually giving kids time to mature and make adult decisions. We still have kid brains making the final decision to go on HRT, it's just a 16 year old kid brain instead of a 12 year old kid brain. We still have immature kids making adult decisions. It is possible that normal puberty is the thing that causes desistance and acceptance of sex assigned at birth.

So I'm against blockers on principle and I don't see a way to get me to change my mind.

The problem with that is they are being used for the purpose of allowing a person to mature and a brain to develop enough to make an adult decision.

I think you're mistaken. The WPATH SOC 8 explains the purpose as: "In general, the goal of GnRHa administration in TGD adolescents is to prevent further development of the endogenous secondary sex characteristics corresponding to the sex designated at birth. Since this treatment is fully reversible, it is regarded as an extended time for adolescents to explore their gender identity by means of an early social transition (Ashley, 2019e). Treatment with GnRHas also has therapeutic benefit since it often results in a vast reduction in the level of distress stemming from physical changes that occur when endogenous puberty begins (Rosenthal, 2014; Turban, King et al., 2020)."

But they halt puberty, the process that changes a kid brain into an adult brain.

That's why WPATH recommends not using them until after puberty has begun: "The use of puberty-blocking medications, such as GnRH analogues, is not recommended until children have achieved a minimum of Tanner stage 2 of puberty because the experience of physical puberty may be critical for further gender identity development for some TGD adolescents (Steensma et al., 2011)."

In this case why bother with blockers at all? Seems like medication and risk without a purpose.

One reason is to allow casting a wider net. If close to 100% of kids who go on blockers continue on to cross-sex hormones, that suggests the blockers are being used fairly conservatively, i.e., only the kids who are most likely to go on cross-sex hormones anyway are getting them. Which suggests they may be screening out a lot of kids who, nevertheless, will go on to transition one day after having gone through natal puberty. Expanding the use of blockers would give those kids a chance to make that decision at a point in their physical development where it'll be easier, safer, and more effective, with minimal impact on the ones who decide to resume natal puberty.

We still have kid brains making the final decision to go on HRT, it's just a 16 year old kid brain instead of a 12 year old kid brain.

It's a 16 year old kid brain with 4 years of experience living as the opposite gender, learning about their options for hormones and surgery, etc., instead of a 12 year old kid brain with zero experience. Don't you think that experience might be useful for decision-making?

You're getting a lot of replies for the first point. For the second point, it seems comparable to a 12 year old making a decision to take cross-sex hormones after living as the opposite sex since they were 8. If the experience is the only factor, not the maturity, then that would be just as acceptable as giving cross sex hormones to 16 year olds who have been on puberty blockers since they were 12.

But I think the general public expects that 16 year olds are able to make more informed decisions in general than 12 year olds, and a large part of this depends on the difference in general maturity and problem solving ability - not just experience. For there to be proper informed consent, the kid needs to be able to understand life long choices. The kid needs to understand not just the words "increased risk of heart disease or stroke" but needs to have a conceptual understanding of risk and what it is like to go through a stroke, what happens after, etc. It's one thing to know the words that it will be harder to have sexual pleasure or start a family, it's another thing to be able to conceptualize what that would mean for them as an individual (I would say most 16 year olds would be unable to fully appreciate it, let alone 16 year olds who have brains that function like 12 year old brains.)

The experience of dressing in a certain way and cutting hair in a certain way is absolutely trivial and never entered my mind as a concern with regards to informed consent and making permanent medical decisions at 16.

For there to be proper informed consent, the kid needs to be able to understand life long choices. The kid needs to understand not just the words "increased risk of heart disease or stroke" but needs to have a conceptual understanding of risk and what it is like to go through a stroke, what happens after, etc. It's one thing to know the words that it will be harder to have sexual pleasure or start a family, it's another thing to be able to conceptualize what that would mean for them as an individual

I don't disagree with much of that, but the unfortunate reality is, those risks exist no matter what.

They have exactly the same capacity at age 12/16/whatever to understand the risks of going on blockers and then possibly cross-sex hormones as they do to understand the risks of not doing it: what it's like to go through a series of major surgeries to correct things that could've been prevented (funding them if they aren't covered by insurance, taking weeks away from work to recover, etc.) and to live with the things that could've been prevented but are now uncorrectable, what it's like to have to reintroduce yourself to everyone you know as an adult, to update your photo ID when you no longer resemble your old photo, and so on.

Denying them a choice in the matter doesn't make any of the risks go away, it just forces them into accepting one set of risks instead of the other.

The experience of dressing in a certain way and cutting hair in a certain way is absolutely trivial and never entered my mind as a concern with regards to informed consent and making permanent medical decisions at 16.

It probably should have, because I don't think the experience of social transition is really very trivial at all. It's not just about the self-contained act of putting on different clothes or getting a different hairstyle; it's also about how your interactions with everyone else are affected by whether they perceive you as male or female.

They have exactly the same capacity at age 12/16/whatever to understand the risks of going on blockers and then possibly cross-sex hormones as they do to understand the risks of not doing it:

In cases like that, where a kid (under 14 at least) faces consequences in every direction, typically the doctors and the parents/guardians look at concrete data, test results, imaging, prognosis learned from studies, and make the best decision together for the kid (with the parent being the final arbiter outside of especially egregious decisions where the data is very, very clear - like blood transfusions.) They don't freeze the kid in cryo until their birth certificate says they're old enough and then have the kid make the decision.

It feels like we're trying to invent medical ethics 2.0 for this group, ignoring all the lessons of the 20th century that created medical ethics 1.0.

More comments

That's why WPATH recommends not using them until after puberty has begin:

The reason they do that is because starting them too early permanently halts the development of sexual function (see my Marci Bowers quote from the other comment), it has nothing to do with the development of the brain. There's no evidence starting them after Tanner II helps minimize the impact on the brain.

Also keep in mind that this proves blockers are not reversible, contrary to what is often claimed by professionals in trans case.

One reason is to allow casting a wider net. If close to 100% of kids who go on blockers continue on to cross-sex hormones, that suggests the blockers are being used fairly conservatively, i.e., only the kids who are most likely to go on cross-sex hormones anyway are getting them.

This could be easily tested with randomization, which is seen as unethical by trans activists for some reason. Other potential explanations for the same result could be the blockers themselves preventing desistence, or the sunk cost fallacy encouraging people to continue interventions once they started. There's no reason to assume your explanation is more likely to be true.

Which suggests they may be screening out a lot of kids

I'll need to double check, but as far as I remember the Dutch Protocol just took in the order on which they were referred to the gender clinic, so they did not really screen anyone out. I'll post about it in a separate comment once I find more info.

easier, safer, and more effective, with minimal impact on the ones who decide to resume natal puberty.

There isn't really any evidence for that, and blockers do not have minimal impact.

Don't you think that experience might be useful for decision-making?

How does the experience of changing your name, dressing a different way, or going to the other bathroom help to inform you about making permanent modifications to your body?

The reason they do that is because starting them too early permanently halts the development of sexual function (see my Marci Bowers quote from the other comment),

That claim is absurd on its face. Is there any actual evidence for it?

There's no evidence starting them after Tanner II helps minimize the impact on the brain.

There's no evidence that there is any impact on the brain to minimize in the first place.

Also keep in mind that this proves blockers are not reversible, contrary to what is often claimed by professionals in trans case.

I suppose it would prove that, if it were true that blockers permanently halted the development of sexual function.

There isn't really any evidence for that

Can you clarify this statement?

If you're saying there's no evidence that transition is easier, safer, and more effective for people who haven't completed natal puberty, then that's simply absurd - such a claim would imply a total unfamiliarity with both human sexual development and the procedures involved in transition. So I have to assume that's not what you mean.

How does the experience of changing your name, dressing a different way, or going to the other bathroom help to inform you about making permanent modifications to your body?

It helps inform you about how committed you really are to living as the other gender. If you can't stand being called by a girl's name or being treated as a girl, you might wanna think twice about becoming a girl, right?

That claim is absurd on its face. Is there any actual evidence for it?

What do you think would compell Dr. Marci Bowers, a board member of the WPATH, to make such an absurd claim publically?

There's no evidence that there is any impact on the brain to minimize in the first place.

This response makes this entire exchange rather confusing:

But they halt puberty, the process that changes a kid brain into an adult brain.

That's why WPATH recommends not using them until after puberty has begun:

There's no evidence that there is any impact on the brain to minimize in the first place.

And "no evidence" is a bit of a strong statement, anyway.

I suppose it would prove that, if it were true that blockers permanently halted the development of sexual function.

How many examples of people who were blocked still in Tanner stage 1 can you give that had no issues with developing sexual function?

Anyway, there's plenty of evidence for blockers not being reversible. They have permanent impact on growth, and bone density, and even brain development as cited above. Blockers halting sexual development is more of a written confession on top of the evidence.

If you're saying there's no evidence that transition is easier, safer, and more effective for people who haven't completed natal puberty, then that's simply absurd - such a claim would imply a total unfamiliarity with both human sexual development and the procedures involved in transition. So I have to assume that's not what you mean.

If it's so absurd, it should be trivial to point out the issues with this statement.

The argument for puberty blockers is supposed to be that, particularly for trans women, going for male puberty causes a host of changes that would have to be reversed later on, be it dropping of the voice or changes to the body structure. Fair enough, except their are trade-offs. Puberty blockers are not a magical pause button, they just block the body's interaction with certain hormones, while development continues. So maybe your body, your face, and your voice will be more feminine thanks to puberty blockers, but your penis will be smaller making vaginoplasty more difficult, your bones will be weaker putting you at high risk of early onset osteoporosis, and you might end up with a few IQ points shaved off, putting a bit of an asterisk around that "easier" and "safer" part.

Further, while puberty blockers for trans women come with trade-offs, puberty blockers for trans-men make no sense. A Trans man can take testosterone at 50, and their voice will drop just the same, they will develop a lot of the same secondary sex characteristics, and it's easier to cut off your breasts after they grow, and you decide you don't want them when you're mature, than it is to have them re-grow if you decide you wanted them after all when you're mature. Given that trans men are currently a majority of referrals to gender clinics, it would seem on average puberty blockers do not make transition "safer" or "easier".

Further still, your original statement was "easier, safer, and more effective, with minimal impact on the ones who decide to resume natal puberty". To the extent puberty blockers help trans women, the statement is clearly false for trans-curious men who end up going the cis route. If puberty blockers were the magical pause button they are advertised, it would be one thing, but you don't get your development window back. If you allow me a bit of hyperbole: ending up as a dim, brittle midget with micropenis is not what I'd call "minimal impact". And here the downsides affect trans-curious women as well, while offering no benefit.

It helps inform you about how committed you really are to living as the other gender. If you can't stand being called by a girl's name or being treated as a girl, you might wanna think twice about becoming a girl, right?

Yes, but the question was in the other direction: how does not being bothered by being called a girl's name, or being treated as a women show you you'll be satisfied with hormones or surgery? Go ahead and "treat me like a girl", and see if I care. Not letting you come close to me with hormones or a scalpel, though.

More comments

If close to 100% of kids who go on blockers continue on to cross-sex hormones, that suggests the blockers are being used fairly conservatively, i.e., only the kids who are most likely to go on cross-sex hormones anyway are getting them.

Or, that blockers inhibit normal desistence. Why do you ignore the most obvious option?

I don't think an explanation that relies on novel speculation about the causes of gender dysphoria and/or the effects of puberty is necessarily more "obvious" than one that relies on a common statistical phenomenon.

What common statistical phenomenon? 100% diagnosis accuracy rate? I'd be shocked if most doctors could diagnose anything short of a broken arm 100% accurately.

More comments

Where’s the control group in these studies. You can’t draw any conclusions without a control group and randomization.

And you would need to see if the people who didn’t take puberty blockers/transitioned were better or worse off than the ones who got the interventions.

More comments