Following election season, everyone has the ads still fresh in their minds–the internet, the radio and the television broadcasts all looking to convince the citizens of Ohio to vote one way or another. As it has been for years now, the issue of transgender individuals is a hot topic in elections past and future.
However, lumping puberty blockers in as the same issue as transgender rights is where parties are going more and more wrong. Regardless of the position that one holds on the regulations on the laws surrounding transgender legislation, treating puberty blockers the same does more harm than good, to all children, trans or cis.
Puberty blockers are a specific kind of medicine that prevents the body from producing the hormones that continue puberty after it has started. These days, the use of puberty blockers is synonymous with transgender healthcare. While this is true –they can be an excellent tool to help trans and questioning kids to safely explore their genders – puberty blockers are just as valuable to kids who are confident in their cisgender identities.
Back in 1993, puberty blockers were officially approved by the FDA for the purpose of treating precocious puberty, defined as development in female children before eight and male children before nine. While not being physically harmful – as it only causes the natural process of puberty to occur earlier – the condition can be alienating for kids and can cause unnecessary stress. Any manner of being “othered” can very easily leave a child isolated and even victim to bullying. Taking away the approved treatment makes no sense, especially considering that puberty blockers have been found to only have harmful effects when used far beyond puberty.
On the other hand, many trans kids take puberty blockers in order to avoid the dysphoria of growing into a body they don’t identify with, or to take more time to figure out their identity without permanent changes. Since many legislative officials are against allowing minors to go on hormone therapy for fear of permanent damage that could be regretted, this offers a compromise between the ideas.
Once trans children become adults, they can shift their treatment from puberty blockers to hormone therapy, with the right prescriptions. Or, if they’ve come to realize that hormone therapy isn’t the right option for them, they can simply go off puberty blockers and allow their body’s natural production of testosterone or estrogen.
As of now, according to U.S. News, ten U.S. states have laws in place that restrict the distribution of puberty blockers, many of which include exceptions for cisgender children. This makes it clear that the laws regarding such treatments are not, in fact, for concern of the treatment being good or bad. It is only about restricting healthcare to those that lawmakers deem unworthy, in this case, transgender kids.
In their sweeping statements, anti-trans advocates and lawmakers make puberty blockers a fear-worthy paragon of why to vote with them. Ultimately, this only serves to undermine the actual benefits of such healthcare.
Puberty blockers have been proven to be far from harmful to kids, trans and cis alike. The anti-trans rhetoric that they are can only cause harm to all children.
