Is there something I'm not getting here? My understanding is that puberty blockers just delay puberty--you stop taking them, and everything proceeds as it would have without them, so taking them isn't some kind of permanent, drastic step. It just gives you some breathing room to grow up and understand your own identity, then make choices about your body and hormones, etc. But they seem to be arguing that puberty blockers cause irreparable damage--but the only concrete example of "irreparable damage" is that most people who take puberty blockers end up deciding to transition. Is that some kind of gateway drug argument? Like, the takaway isn't "We're mostly seeing kids who take puberty blockers grow up and decide to transition, so it looks like we're pretty good at determining who needs puberty blockers," but instead "The puberty blockers are forcing cis kids to transition against their will"?????? What is going on here?
Yeah, you've understood the idiocy of the argument. It's a weird sleight-of-hand aimed at tricking well-meaning but ill-informed people into thinking that trans kids don't have any agency or sense of self.
Is there something I'm not getting here? My understanding is that puberty blockers just delay puberty--you stop taking them, and everything proceeds as it would have without them, so taking them isn't some kind of permanent, drastic step. It just gives you some breathing room to grow up and understand your own identity, then make choices about your body and hormones, etc. But they seem to be arguing that puberty blockers cause irreparable damage--but the only concrete example of "irreparable damage" is that most people who take puberty blockers end up deciding to transition. Is that some kind of gateway drug argument? Like, the takaway isn't "We're mostly seeing kids who take puberty blockers grow up and decide to transition, so it looks like we're pretty good at determining who needs puberty blockers," but instead "The puberty blockers are forcing cis kids to transition against their will"?????? What is going on here?
Yeah, you've understood the idiocy of the argument. It's a weird sleight-of-hand aimed at tricking well-meaning but ill-informed people into thinking that trans kids don't have any agency or sense of self.
OK thanks, because I was seriously wondering if there was something I was missing--it just doesn't make sense at all.