The Old Paradigm brought death and injury to Transsexuals--STOPPING PUBERTY was the best example.

Children and their parents are aware of transsexuality from the first stages of childhood:  age 2-3 years, if not earlier.  At first the transsexual child isn't even aware there's a problem.  She knows she's a girl.  She prefers dolls and other girlish things.  So the toddler naively proceeds to live as a girl.

It's the ADULTS who have a problem:

"You can't be a girl!  The obstetrician looked between your legs and said you were a BOY!  Take off that dress, put away those dolls, and enjoy Quake like a normal boy."

THAT is the central issue of Transsexuality in Youth:  Who's right about the child's gender?  The child was listening to their inner being;  the adults were reading the Old Paradigm Training Manual. 

If allowed, a transsexual girl would grow up just like any other girl.  She'd be a princess, learn to dance and chatter on the phone.  No guilt, no conflict, no hate crimes, no psychiatry.  Transsexuality could be a non-issue (or a medical fact of life to deal with).

A problem arises if the adults force the issue:  "I know better than you!"  they tell the child.  The debate will continue throughout childhood and youth, because Gender never changes.  Only biology can change.


Fast forward to adolescence.  The transsexual child still insists they're a girl, even though they're being forced to live as a boy (wrong-gender expression).  Puberty only makes the wrong-role agony worse.  Far worse.

What to do?  

Stop puberty, of course.  Maybe the child will finally come to her senses and change her Gender to what the adults have known all along.


The process is known as Artificial Delay of Puberty.  The adults reassure the child that it's perfectly safe and in their best interest.  Safe to shut down the body's hormone regulation system for 5-10 years during childhood. 

Stopping puberty involves injecting a hormone that turns off the part of the brain that triggers puberty, the hypothalamus.  Well actually the hormone (Lupron) turns off only the sex hormone part of puberty.  Hopefully the other parts of puberty will follow suit:  growth, the adrenal glands, and the thyroid.

No one really knows what controls those other parts and how the four parts are linked.  It IS known that thyroid problems are common during puberty, as are problems with the adrenals and skeletal growth, particularly scoliosis (deformed back) and hip socket development.   It IS known that polycystic changes in the ovaries are more common in adolescent females taking exogenous hormones.

No formal studies have ever been done regarding the risks of delaying puberty, because submitting normal children to such extreme measures would be too risky-and therefore unethical.

There's one aspect that IS certain:  Stopping puberty always leaves a transsexual in the dust academically and socially.  While the rest of the school transforms into muscular giants envied for their athletic and sexual prowess, the non-pubertal transsexual will goes through high school short, thin and undeveloped--a 6th grader body in a 12th grade gym class.

Puberty can make boys into mathematical geniuses and girls into fluent authors, lack of puberty leaves transsexuals in remedial classes.


Why stop puberty?  Why destroy transsexual adolescence?

Old Paradigm faithful claim that transsexual children are too young "to choose to switch genders".  ...Even though other children are allowed to choose NOT to "switch genders".

...And transsexuals ARE old enough to choose to give up the fight.  Lupron is stopped the instant a transsexual throws in the towel.  Puberty happens and the changes are irreversible.

Supposedly Stopping Puberty allows a child to wait until they're mature enough to "make the right choice about their Gender".  

...Except stopping puberty stops maturation!  After 5 years of stopped puberty, the hapless child is just as capable of "making a choice" as they were before.  Remember that remedial class they're in?

Puberty is stopped until the age of legal majority, whatever that is:  16 years old--18 years old--sometimes even 21 years old (that's 10 years of stopped puberty).  That time limit reveals the REAL concern:  The issue is NOT about the child's reasoning skills (which could easily be verified by testing at age 10.)  The issue isn't any medical or health consideration.   The issue is blame and responsibility.   If an "underage" youth does something, the ADULTS have legal responsibility.   After the age of majority, it's the person's own responsibility.

Transsexuals are barred from right-puberty by lawyers, judges and legislators--the people who determine policies such "legal majority" and "emancipation of adolescents".

Early transitioning (during childhood) provides the best outcome with the lowest risk.  Most transsexuals would take that option if it were available.  There's no evidence of benefit from delay, in spite of the high price to be paid.

By regulating access to right-puberty, lawyers are making medical decisions that impact the life and health of adolescent transsexuals.  Decisions that are uniform global mandates untarnished by specific patient details or medical evidence,

Stopping puberty is a punishment for being transsexual; a last-ditch effort to force a transsexual to submit to adult standards before the adults no longer have control.

Stopping puberty proves that adults are right and children are wrong.  Or, more accurately, adults have more power.

BUT...  What if the child wasn't transsexual after all?  They thought they were, they thought transitioning would help them, but they were wrong?

In medicine that's called a Wrong Diagnosis.  Diagnosis is the PHYSICIAN'S responsibility, not the patient's.  Anyone caring for a transsexual patient must have sufficient knowledge and experience to make the correct diagnosis.  Otherwise the patient should be referred.

Stopping puberty allows physicians to avoid making a valid and reliable transsexual diagnosis.  

After legal age, the patient can make the diagnosis and demand the treatment they think best....  If there's a bad outcome, it's the patient's fault, not the doctors'.  

Stopping puberty is bad medicine, any way you look at it.

EARLY TRANSITION YIELDS THE BEST OUTCOME AT THE LOWEST RISK

TRANSSEXUAL YOUTH SHOULD NEVER ENTER THE WRONG PUBERTY!

© Cassandra Branch MD