“We need to be cautious!” would be much more compelling if the standard medical approach to trans minors was not already immensely cautious.
The standard may be cautious, but a significant number of individual clinicians are not. But pointing out that a concerning number of care providers have looser-than-standard medical approaches gets the speaker attacked as a traitor to the cause.
When red-state bans are discussed, you will also hear liberals say that conservative fears about the medical-transition pathway are overwrought—because all children get extensive, personalized assessments before being prescribed blockers or hormones. This, too, is untrue. Although the official standards of care recommend thorough assessment over several months, many American clinics say they will prescribe blockers on a first visit.
People act like natal puberty is the neutral choice here - it’s not. The first wrong puberty made me actively suicidal and that’s not unusual. If a kid has gotten so far as to get to a doctor about this, it’s pretty clear that something is up (cis people generally don’t question their gender in the first place) and by waiting on puberty blockers you’re allowing further suffering and irreversible harm to a trans kid. Puberty blockers are a very low risk way of hitting pause and if the kid decides to go through with natal puberty they can just stop taking puberty blockers with no harm other than a delayed puberty.
… do you think transition care for minors is just handed out at the grocery store checkout or something?
“We need to be cautious!” would be much more compelling if the standard medical approach to trans minors was not already immensely cautious.
I dread to think of how quickly your sympathy would’ve been sapped for Black rights in the 1950s and 60s.
The standard may be cautious, but a significant number of individual clinicians are not. But pointing out that a concerning number of care providers have looser-than-standard medical approaches gets the speaker attacked as a traitor to the cause.
Bolding mine, quite from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/transgender-youth-skrmetti/683350/
People act like natal puberty is the neutral choice here - it’s not. The first wrong puberty made me actively suicidal and that’s not unusual. If a kid has gotten so far as to get to a doctor about this, it’s pretty clear that something is up (cis people generally don’t question their gender in the first place) and by waiting on puberty blockers you’re allowing further suffering and irreversible harm to a trans kid. Puberty blockers are a very low risk way of hitting pause and if the kid decides to go through with natal puberty they can just stop taking puberty blockers with no harm other than a delayed puberty.
Puberty blockers are an overwhelmingly safe way to buy time for a patient, fuck’s sake.