We’ve all heard children say things like “Look at me, I’m a robot” or “When I grow up, I’m going to be Captain America.” We smile when children say these things, because we know that children live in a world of imagination unhindered by reality. Why then does the medical community and culture at large think it is acceptable for children to make irreversible health decisions?
“Gender-affirming” healthcare is the only area of medicine where patients make their own diagnosis and prescribe their own remedy. Meanwhile, physicians frighten parents with warnings of their child’s suicide while convincing parents that there are no long-term effects to puberty blockers and hormone treatments. The tragic fact is that puberty blockers and gender procedures effectively sterilize children and cannot be reversed. Not only are the medical principles of informed consent and parental involvement for minor patients often ignored, but gender transition for children rejects alternate causes and remedies. Since most cases of juvenile gender dysphoria are resolved by the time of puberty, physicians should stop pushing gender transition on minor patients as the only solution.