Issue Number 1002 | Life Without Puberty | Advocate.com Life Without Puberty  |  | Advocate.com

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Life Without Puberty
Hormone blockers for minors, the trans movement's new frontier.
From The Advocate  February 26, 2008
Life Without Puberty

Many transgender people have just one regret: not transitioning sooner. That may soon be a thing of the past as a growing number of trans kids turn to puberty-blocking hormones.

The Food and Drug Administration has long approved hormone blockers for nontransgender children experiencing early puberty. But a growing number of U.S. physicians are legally prescribing these blockers to trans youth at the onset of puberty—an investigational off-label use. Doctors argue that medical intervention at that point is safer than letting trans children endure the wrong kind of puberty or take medications without supervision.

Some transgender minors delay puberty until adulthood; others begin cross-sex hormones soon after starting hormone blockers while minors. Though the treatment is reversible, prescribing minors hormone blockers is clearly an incendiary issue. Psychologist Kenneth Zucker believes that forcing transsexualism is dangerous for children who simply don’t fit normative gender roles. Other practitioners advocate a different kind of intervention: forcing normative gender roles on gender-nonconforming children, e.g., making a little girl, even if she identifies as a boy, wear dresses and play house.

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