Treating transsexual kids: wait for, then delay puberty to treat

[ccharles000]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/09/transsexual-kids-wait-for-then-delay-puberty-to-treat.html

The nation's oldest and largest organization of endocrinologists has recommended that physicians treating children with gender identity disorder intervene to delay puberty at its first signs and wait until a child is at least 16 before offering hormonal therapy that would begin his or her gender transition.

In a new clinical practice guideline unveiled today, the Endocrine Society tackled some of the most ethically sensitive decisions endocrinologists face in the treatment of those who are born of one gender, but identify themselves strongly with the opposite gender. Indeed, the society urges that its physicians rely on a mental health professional to render a diagnosis of transsexualism, which is termed gender identity disorder in the psychiatric profession's current diagnostic manual.

The new practice guidelines also recommend that no action be taken to intervene in the hormonal balance of a young child who identifies as the opposite gender of his or her birth. "A diagnosis of transsexualism in a child who has not gone through puberty cannot be made with certainty," the group concluded.

At the first signs of puberty, however, the new guidelines recommend that physicians use hormone therapy strictly for the purpose of suppressing pubertal changes until an adolescent has reached the age of 16. At that point, the group concluded, "cross-sex hormones may be given."

[imdjh]

1. I'd like to see the next generation accept their bodies and their gender, and be accepted.

Instead of seeing doctors and altering healthy bodies to conform to some visual idea of gender.

[Warpy]

2. I can't begin to understand what transsexuals go through

I just know it's very real and that they don't feel comfortable in their own skins until those changes are made.

Their brains are very different from those of us who accept the gender our bodies developed.

Right now, we know enough to do body surgery. We don't know enough to do effective brain surgery/medication/alteration.

While it would be nice to think everybody should be just like we normally developed people are, that is just not happening.

It's not our job to understand what they're going through. It's our job to accept them for who they are at any point in the transformation and support them as fellow human beings.

[enlightenment]

3. And I'd like to see people who don't know what they're talking

about refrain from commenting occasionally.

[imdjh]

4. That's your way of saying you disagree, and that's OK.

[enlightenment]

5. Yes, it is.

I disagree because your opinion is completely and utterly uninformed. You are, of course, welcome to it and to the response it garners from others.

[imdjh]

6. Just to make sure here.

You do understand that what I was saying was that I hoped that a person could be transgender and accept both being transgender and his or her body the way that it is, unaltered by dangerous drugs and surgeries. Right? I wasn't saying that I hoped that one day a male would accept that he was born male and act like it. There are trans persons who aren't considering drugs or surgeries.