Puberty blockers prevent the surgery critics say they fear
Dr Helen Webberley on TalkTV: the conversion therapy ban, with Julia Hartley-Brewer, TalkTV
Puberty blockers are a radical, irreversible intervention with no medical precedent, handed out for ideological reasons. Critics say they should not be given to trans young people, while in the same breath worrying about surgery later.
The contradiction at the heart of that argument is one I find myself returning to again and again. Puberty blockers prevent breast development in transgender boys. The surgery critics say they are trying to avoid is precisely what blockers make unnecessary. These are medications with decades of use in medicine, and in this context they do exactly what good preventive care is supposed to do: they spare a young person from a physical change they did not want and cannot easily undo. The argument against them collapses the moment you follow it to its conclusion.
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