"Trans" is getting big. Should kids be allowed to transition?

Kids aren't so great at decisions. Yet, medical intervention allows for a very burdensome "choice."

Calm down dude, you need to get off Twitter.
…was my initial reaction when I saw Jordan Peterson’s tweet about Elliot (previously Ellen) Page. “Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page had her breasts removed by a criminal physician,” he wrote. I thought it was crass of Peterson to call Elliot Page a sinful narcissist in front of 3 million people while at the same time calling the physician who respected the wishes of a fully-grown, 35 year old adult “criminal.” Before long, he received a suspension from Twitter and was notified that he must delete the tweet.

We’ll come back to this in a moment, but first let me ask you a question: Have you ever thought if you could achieve something, go somewhere or change something about yourself it would solve all your problems? What about feeling what way yet not knowing exactly what that one thing was?

The massive problem with giving a new choice to kids

In a TEDx Talk at the University of Nevada, a pediatric endocrinologist Tandy Aye starts off by telling the story of parents who knew they needed to advocate for the rights of their 12 year old son who identifies as a girl and they decided to allow her to live in her “affirmed gender.” These parents then took their child, Avery, to a gender clinic for kids to start her on gender affirmation therapy which is the use of “medicines and possibly surgery later on to physically align someone with the gender at which they identify.” Tandy Aye explains she is one of the doctors who treat children like this at Stanford Children’s Health. 

Tandy Aye matter-of-factly explains how she can simply put puberty “on hold” for children like Avery. She says she can put Avery on a pubertal blocker for 2 to 3 years and then add estrogen if necessary. However, if Avery then decides that developing into a male would be preferable, Tandy Aye can stop the drug and Avery will go through “the pre-programmed puberty that she was supposed to have.” 

Aye makes it sound like the puberty stopping drug is like getting a forbearance on your student loans, just a bit of extra time to think while you figure things out. “Later on, she can decide if gender affirmation surgery is right for her or not,” she says, slowly lingering on each word of “gender affirmation surgery” as if she’s explaining to you a new type of exciting technology.

Puberty is a complex phenomenon involving multiple hormones including leptin, androstenedione, DHEA, DHEAS, cortisol, FSH, luteinizing hormone, testosterone, andestrogen, estradiol, growth hormone, thyroid stimulating hormone, thyroxine, and triiodothyronine just to name a few.(S) Yet, for Tandy Aye it’s just a matter of starting or stopping a “program” with her pill of choice. 

Though, it does seem pretty reasonable. If a parent thinks that their son truly troubled by the fact that they weren’t born a girl, and if you can put the child’s puberty on pause to give them more time to think about whether they want to develop with male characteristics or female characteristics, then why not?