I know it seems crazy that a parent wouldn't read up on all the details of the drugs, but if we change the context a bit, I suspect that it isn't unusual. How many parents read all the literature on other serious drugs doctors prescribe for their kids? I think for man, there is an assumption that when a doctor prescribes insulin, or chemotherapy, or Ritalin, they know what they are doing and have the expertise which the parent doesn't.
Medical science is just complicated enough that being under medical care often means putting yourself in the hands of other people.
Do you think there's any possibility of there being 'real' trans people? I say this just because a lot of the comments in this thread seem to think there's not?
I think there's some confusion over hating your body and true body dysmorphia, my understanding is that trans people feel trapped by their biological features, such as breasts and penises and therefore want to get cosmetic surgery to change that, or use hormone blockers to stop breasts growing etc
I suspect that part of the reason people have a hard time thinking about this is there is a very concrete sense of the definitions in mental health disorders. As if they are categorised in as solid a way as something like a broken arm or being anaemic. People don't really have an awareness of the degree to which something like anorexia, say, is culturally specific. Presumably there are mental processes of some kind that underlie these across the human species, but we don't always know a lot about that.
We know for certain that there are people who develop issues with disassociation with their body, and at least in our culture, their sexed bodies specifically. There are also people who develop them with regards to other parts of their bodies. But we would not typically say that such people are "really" disabled, for example, or should really be very think, or have smaller noses, whatever.
There seems to be some evidence that some people with dysphoria around the sexed body can alleviate some distress by presenting as if their sex was different. That doesn't make them "really" anything, and more than someone who pretends to have a disability is truly trans-abled. It's just a rather limited way of coping with a situation where someone hasn't found a better solution.
There seem to be a number of reasons people disassociate with their bodies, but it's pretty common for teens to do so to some degree as their bodies completely change. It takes time and experience to reintegrate, for almost anyone. But when you have a generation raised with little ability to cope with any mental o even physical discomfort, and a narrative that says its abnormal to feel that way and may mean you are "really" a different sex, they are not well equipped to do so.