It really, really bothers me that with ROGD in girls or any of these conditions where teens are taking cross-sex hormones, they are not experiencing their natural puberty and then they may potentially have permanent changes which will prevent them having the full experience of sex and sexuality that they should have had.
It bothers me because
- It is a human rights issue
- The fact that adults are making decisions that they understand but an undeveloped teen cannot, about how this could seriously affect their sex lives, for ever.
- The over involvement of adults into a child’s future sex life which is for the individual alone to make decisions about - ONLY.
- Adults know that they are creating a situation where these young adults are going to have to explain their body changes to potential sex partners and that other people are going to have questions about how their body functions etc. In other words their privacy is permanently invaded really, this person becomes a sexually curiousity to certain people. Can young teens understand that?
- Apparently permanent sexual dysfunction can be a result of transition, lack of orgasm or other issues.
- They are of course usually sterilized if they take a certain formula of drugs.
I currently have three teens of both sexes. I see so much mental development happening at the same time as their physical development. Each year they mature so much. We just don’t know what interrupting natural puberty does to the brain. Then of course trans kids are not experiencing puberty at the same time as their peers, so they are out of step in terms of physical, mental, emotional, sexual and intellectual development.
The whole thing makes my blood boil as we are removing their right to their own rate of development. If their puberty has been halted from 12-16 and then they get the cross-sex hormones, where is the moment or timeframe when they are caught up enough on these years of development that they have missed that they are suddenly able to understand the magnitude of the decisions they are making?
This could explain how once they are on the “medical pathway” there is no turning around. Where in this process are these young people going to have a chance to reach a level of mature critical thinking?
Every single child going through this process on the NHS, where they transition or not must be followed for outcomes (which I hope is happening but I fear is not) because we don’t know what most 28 year old transitioners think about the decisions they made at 18.