Puberty blockers are not a wild or experimental new drug. They have been to children for decades, for a completely different reason: early puberty.

This does not imply that puberty blockers are an appropriate intervention for children presenting with gender dysphoria though.

I'm inclined to trust medical authorities over the opinions of internet posters.

The health authorities of several European countries have halted the routine use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoric children, due to a lack of evidence that this intervention helps rather than harms.

The health authorities of several US states have done the same. Politicians are not medical experts. I'm not aware of any legitimate medical authority that would agree with this fearmongering.

I wasn't talking about politicians, it is medical experts who have driven this decision in the health authorities I was referring to - e.g. England, Sweden, Finland.

This is from applying an evidence-based medicine approach to this. The political side of things is yet another matter.

> I won’t speak to wokeness as a whole (I think the concept is way too slippery and politically charged), but I find the specific example of providing for puberty blockers for children particularly frightening.

They are safe drugs that have long been used to delay puberty for reasons other than gender dysphoria, and are extremely well-established to be an effective intervention that greatly mitigates the extreme increase in suicidality in trans youth.

Why would it be frightening?

The health authorities of several European countries, including England, Sweden, Finland and France, have halted or severely restricted the routine use of puberty blockers in gender dysphoric youth, due to the lack of evidence that this is actually helping and not harming these patients.

It just seem super weird to me that by the state has deep say in what we do with our bodies.

The whole idea of medicine as only a thing to undo damage, to deal with problems is so old fashioned, so out of touch. It doesnt correspond to what we can do & it seems weird we socially have kind of started catching upnbut legally are still stuck with hundred year norms. There probably should be some limits but letting people play with & experiment with their body chemistry seems a simple enough proposition.

Paul Ford at Wired talking about Mounjaro for weight loss, & more generally the opening the box on self-modification is a glimpse beyond this weird fixation point medicine has been stuck upon. Great read. https://www.wired.com/story/new-drug-switched-off-appetite-m...