Is hormone therapy and puberty blockers the same?
Puberty blockers — also called hormone blockers — delay or stop puberty-related changes in your body. With parents’ consent, some doctors prescribe puberty blockers to trans patients at the first sign of puberty. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is also called gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT).
If only some parents knew some of the side effects to hormone therapy. It is terrible to read an email like this one from a Mother who was trying to help her transdaughter. Because her daughter started puberty blockers at an earlier age it caused complications
According to this website
A. Hormone blockers to cross-sex hormones stunt genital growth in males & may permanently damage sexual function
When young dysphoric males are given hormone blockers at the onset of puberty, it stops genital growth (“micro penis”), and this becomes permanent if the youth goes on to cross-sex hormones. There isn’t any evidence available as to whether all of these effects on sexual function in a pubertal male are “fully reversible” (we now no they are not-see updates) if the youth stops blockers and resumes a “normal puberty.” Suppose the youth does not want to go through life with an 11-year-old’s penis. In that case, the youth will now have to have a portion of their colon or peritoneal lining around the stomach extracted, along with skin from the abdomen, to make a “neovagina” (rather than inverting a penis, which is how doctors do it on adults).
Is all gender-affirming care for children ‘experimental’?
What is in Puberty blockers? they contain gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogs, which suppress the body’s release of sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone.
Puberty blockers weren’t designed for gender-affirming care, their use for this purpose has been studied and isn’t considered “experimental” by experts. Every medication has side effects, but doctors monitor the side effects of medications used to suppress puberty.
Evidence suggests that people who take feminizing hormone therapy may have an increased risk of breast cancer when compared to cisgender men — men whose gender identity aligns with societal norms related to their sex assigned at birth. But the risk is not greater than that of cisgender women. Also, several studies reported a significantly higher incidence of venous thromboembolism, ischemic stroke, and myocardial infarction in transgender women receiving gender‐affirming HT than in cisgender men and cisgender women.
Like puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormone therapy medications aren’t approved specifically for gender affirmation use. They have been approved for contraception, managing menopause, for male pattern baldness and more.
when surgery goes wrong
During our research we found individuals who have suffered serious side effects and infections due to their surgery. Scott Newgent (a trans man) described the surgeries that he has had and the complications afterwards which included a Hysterectomy, double mastectomy. This is his emotional story.
People need to understand this. Right now we are taking children who do not fit at a time when they are desperate to do so, and we are robbing these kids of the opportunity to find internal happiness. We are telling children who would grow up to be lesbians, gay men, autistic, awkward, Nobel winners, all the kids who are going to grow up and be cool, butt-kicking adults because they experienced hardship in childhood, all the kids whose childhood experiences that made them dig deep to find a core belief in themselves, and saying, “There is something wrong with you. If you just take this hormone blocker, or inject these synthetic cross-sex hormones, or chop off your otherwise healthy breasts, you will fit in. And if oops we are wrong and you are not trans, then don’t worry because it’s all reversible.” In other words, we are lying to our children – and to ourselves as a society.
Scott Newgent