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The Endocrine Society has published guidelines advising that children as young as 12 be offered puberty blocking drugs to 'buy time' for a gender change. (Emphasis added.)Can you say "unintended consequences"? The potential for disastrous outcomes from such a Dr. Frankenstein approach to sexuality ought to cause sensible people to shout, "Hey, wait a minute!"
Puberty is a disease that needs to be cured? None of these pre-adolescents might ever have cause to regret such a drastic medical intervention? Seventh-graders (who would not be allowed to work a part-time afterschool job in an ice-cream shop) are deemed sufficiently mature to decide that they need hormone therapy as prelude to a sex change?
Mister Huxley! Paging Mister Huxley! Mister Aldous Huxley, please pick up the courtesy phone . . .
I don't know if anyone under 40 gets the Huxley reference. Brave New World has been off the reading lists ever since it was decided that youth needed to be taught to fear the increasingly unlikely spartan totalitarianism of 1984 and that they should never be taught to look too closely at the promise of happy work, pleasant drugs, non-reproductive sex and the other blessings of our Ford.
ReplyDeleteAs it is some combination of BNW and Brazil seems to be the future. I would worry about that but only Alphas worry about such things and they should take Soma if it concerns them overmuch.
'Brave New World' was on my book list in high school (I'm at 35)..
ReplyDeletebut that was a very conservative little town in Arizona as well..
I was listening to a talk show about this.. the use of pharma to block puberty.. one of the side effects was sterility..
could not find anything about any side effects from the medication at the links..
"Puberty is a disease that needs to be cured?"
ReplyDeleteIt is if a child is genuinely gender-dysphoric. Development of the "wrong" secondary sex characteristics is a nightmare to such a child; it also means a person who does go through with the change will have a lot more appearance problems afterwards.
"None of these pre-adolescents might ever have cause to regret such a drastic medical intervention?"
Some might. Others might be grateful that the blockers allowed the decision to be postponed, and thus avoided making a dreadful mistake. And some others might be grateful that the blockers enabled a more complete and successful transition than would have been possible if normal puberty was completed.
And of course, the decision should not be at the whim of the child, but made jointly by the child, parents, and competent medical and psychological advisors. (Not self-serving faddists like the notorious John Money!)