Okay, I have a question and figured this might be a good place to ask anyway. I am confused about these puberty blockers. Are they not dangerous? I understand this sounds like a rightoid dogwhistle, but I am just trying to learn. The human body is a bit tricky, and it doesn’t seem prudent to just forcefully halt a process, especially one as complex as what happens during puberty. Thank you in advance.
Puberty blocking medicine has been in use already for about 40 years, for children who start their puberty too early. Now it can also be used for children who, upon beginning puberty, start experiencing or continue to experience gender dysphoria. The medicine is not used on children who have not begun puberty.
Once usage stops, puberty will resume. “It’s more like a pause. If we stop the medicine, puberty can restart,” says Dr. Cartaya. She adds that once it begins again, the body will go through puberty that’s associated with the sex assigned at birth. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-are-puberty-blockers/
Children can go off these blockers and resume their natural puberty when they want to, or, when they are a bit older (I believe in the U.S., it’s after 16) they may start hormone therapy that gives them the opposite sex’s hormones.
The article linked above notes: “Puberty blockers are generally safe when used on a short-term basis. They’ve even been used to treat conditions like prostate cancer, breast cancer and endometriosis.”
The main ill effect of puberty blockers is that it can limit bone mineral density, so the child’s doctor will monitor the child’s vitamin D levels and make sure they receive enough calcium.
Okay, I have a question and figured this might be a good place to ask anyway. I am confused about these puberty blockers. Are they not dangerous? I understand this sounds like a rightoid dogwhistle, but I am just trying to learn. The human body is a bit tricky, and it doesn’t seem prudent to just forcefully halt a process, especially one as complex as what happens during puberty. Thank you in advance.
I made a comment touching on this topic recently: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/320572/comment/249005
An excerpt of my post:
The article linked above notes: “Puberty blockers are generally safe when used on a short-term basis. They’ve even been used to treat conditions like prostate cancer, breast cancer and endometriosis.”
The main ill effect of puberty blockers is that it can limit bone mineral density, so the child’s doctor will monitor the child’s vitamin D levels and make sure they receive enough calcium.