So there’s something called Hormone Replacement Therapy.
It’s where doctors refer you to endocrinologists who measure the hormone levels in ng/DL or nanograms per deciliter in your blood.
The endocrinologists then recommend a dosage of estradiol and progesterone, or testosterone if the child is transitioning from “female to male”, in order to bring their hormone levels into a healthy range for someone their age of the opposite sex.
The body is surprisingly flexible especially during development when your bones and ligaments are still forming and your epiphyseal plates are still porous and malleable. When they go from blockers to HRT, their body will make puberty of the opposite sex happen, and they will look completely natural as a member of that sex, with the exception of their gonads/genitals.
These are almost always the trans people “you can’t tell” with. It’s easy to blend in when you never went through “the wrong puberty” so to speak.
That happens after the blockers, and is basically the final decision before permanent changes happen, usually at 14 - 16 years of age after having the child on puberty blockers and regularly therapy sessions.
No medicine will be prescribed until puberty begins, and no surgeries will be prescribed until adulthood in most cases. There are some rare exceptions in some states, but it’s still at the parents discretion.
If the child and you decide transition isn’t the right choice, the child can simply go off the puberty blockers, and regular puberty happens in line with their assigned sex at birth, with a minimal change in development.
If your child is showing signs I absolutely recommend talking to multiple doctors and therapists about all of this, and if it seems right you may end up wanting to schedule some pediatric therapy for them to really investigate and potentially diagnose… or simply to learn that it really is just a phase, which is also worth knowing for sure from professionals, that way you don’t have to second guess yourself as much.
Professionals make mistakes which is why I recommend seeking multiple opinions just to be sure.
If you make the child feel safe and give them options, they will show you their true unfiltered nature, whatever that may be.
Some little girls are tomboys early in life but grow up and remain female and live as women, because it’s not about what toys they like or how they interact with others… it’s about whether or not they have clinical gender dysphoria and feel sad or scared at the idea of growing up and living as their birth sex.
Doctors are your friend. They became doctors to help people. Let them try!
Thank you for your response. As you can probably tell, I wasn’t aware of the details of the procedure, and how much the timelines matter. I never felt the need to find out before because in general I trust healthcare professionals (and do support this type of care), but understanding more about it is certainly helpful and educational. Of course I can Google things, but then we miss the opportunity to learn from one another, right?
About your advice of talking to our doctor about when my son says he’s a girl. This is really interesting to me. I had not considered it before at all, didn’t even cross my mind, and I can immediately say I won’t take him now. There’s multiple reasons for that that are of a personal nature that I won’t share here, but I can tell why I’m immediately dismissive of the idea. These are personal beliefs.
He’s still very young and he’s just figuring out that there’s the concept of gender, and that we in general use these labels for one type and other. It’s not something that is currently of any concern to me, not at home, nor the community we live in. All we care about is that he’s happy, healthy, and that he becomes a good person at this stage. I believe that giving this any weight now, will make it into a thing. I don’t want to influence this, he’s just a tiny kid. Of course that would all change if it persists. If the school starts giving signals that something is afoot for example. But I imagine that that will still take quite some time. Again a personal belief here (and perhaps more controversial here): to me it feels like doing this now, in the situation we’re in, feels like a gross overreaction (albeit orders of magnitude less extreme than immediately think about something like conversion therapy!). I think it’s just completely normal behaviour, why consult a doctor? He’s in a safe environment and can figure thing out for himself for now.
If my kid finds himself in this position, I will do everything in my power to make this as smooth as possible. He will not be traumatised by this if he wants this.
I do thank you for the suggestion, I hadn’t thought about it myself and understand it comes from a good place.
So there’s something called Hormone Replacement Therapy.
It’s where doctors refer you to endocrinologists who measure the hormone levels in ng/DL or nanograms per deciliter in your blood.
The endocrinologists then recommend a dosage of estradiol and progesterone, or testosterone if the child is transitioning from “female to male”, in order to bring their hormone levels into a healthy range for someone their age of the opposite sex.
The body is surprisingly flexible especially during development when your bones and ligaments are still forming and your epiphyseal plates are still porous and malleable. When they go from blockers to HRT, their body will make puberty of the opposite sex happen, and they will look completely natural as a member of that sex, with the exception of their gonads/genitals.
These are almost always the trans people “you can’t tell” with. It’s easy to blend in when you never went through “the wrong puberty” so to speak.
That happens after the blockers, and is basically the final decision before permanent changes happen, usually at 14 - 16 years of age after having the child on puberty blockers and regularly therapy sessions.
No medicine will be prescribed until puberty begins, and no surgeries will be prescribed until adulthood in most cases. There are some rare exceptions in some states, but it’s still at the parents discretion.
If the child and you decide transition isn’t the right choice, the child can simply go off the puberty blockers, and regular puberty happens in line with their assigned sex at birth, with a minimal change in development.
If your child is showing signs I absolutely recommend talking to multiple doctors and therapists about all of this, and if it seems right you may end up wanting to schedule some pediatric therapy for them to really investigate and potentially diagnose… or simply to learn that it really is just a phase, which is also worth knowing for sure from professionals, that way you don’t have to second guess yourself as much.
Professionals make mistakes which is why I recommend seeking multiple opinions just to be sure.
If you make the child feel safe and give them options, they will show you their true unfiltered nature, whatever that may be.
Some little girls are tomboys early in life but grow up and remain female and live as women, because it’s not about what toys they like or how they interact with others… it’s about whether or not they have clinical gender dysphoria and feel sad or scared at the idea of growing up and living as their birth sex.
Doctors are your friend. They became doctors to help people. Let them try!
Thank you for your response. As you can probably tell, I wasn’t aware of the details of the procedure, and how much the timelines matter. I never felt the need to find out before because in general I trust healthcare professionals (and do support this type of care), but understanding more about it is certainly helpful and educational. Of course I can Google things, but then we miss the opportunity to learn from one another, right?
About your advice of talking to our doctor about when my son says he’s a girl. This is really interesting to me. I had not considered it before at all, didn’t even cross my mind, and I can immediately say I won’t take him now. There’s multiple reasons for that that are of a personal nature that I won’t share here, but I can tell why I’m immediately dismissive of the idea. These are personal beliefs.
He’s still very young and he’s just figuring out that there’s the concept of gender, and that we in general use these labels for one type and other. It’s not something that is currently of any concern to me, not at home, nor the community we live in. All we care about is that he’s happy, healthy, and that he becomes a good person at this stage. I believe that giving this any weight now, will make it into a thing. I don’t want to influence this, he’s just a tiny kid. Of course that would all change if it persists. If the school starts giving signals that something is afoot for example. But I imagine that that will still take quite some time. Again a personal belief here (and perhaps more controversial here): to me it feels like doing this now, in the situation we’re in, feels like a gross overreaction (albeit orders of magnitude less extreme than immediately think about something like conversion therapy!). I think it’s just completely normal behaviour, why consult a doctor? He’s in a safe environment and can figure thing out for himself for now.
If my kid finds himself in this position, I will do everything in my power to make this as smooth as possible. He will not be traumatised by this if he wants this.
I do thank you for the suggestion, I hadn’t thought about it myself and understand it comes from a good place.
Just make sure he feels like he can tell you anything.
If he’s scared to talk to you, he’s going to end up resenting you.