Puberty blockers followed by hormones erase sexual function
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull said:
“Taking puberty blockers then, the drug that blocks the hormone that, um, encourages estrogen production. If you block that for an 11 to 16-year-old who then goes on to cross-sex hormones, it doesn't impact their sexual function at all.”
If puberty is blocked before sexual development completes, it is intuitive to assume that adult sexual function will be permanently absent or impaired. This sounds like straightforward biology.
The evidence here is genuinely still being gathered, and honest uncertainty is the right register, but that is very different from presenting permanent loss of sexual function as an established fact. What research we do have consistently shows that trans adults who have had gender-affirming hormonal treatment report improved sexual satisfaction compared with their experience before treatment, and that genital sensitivity and the capacity for orgasm are retained by the great majority. The mechanism is not as simple as 'blocked puberty equals absent function': the body, and sexual experience, are shaped by far more than a single developmental window. A young trans person frightened away from care by a worst-case scenario stated as certainty may live through years of an unwanted puberty and all that it costs them, based on a claim the evidence does not support.
What I said at the time:
“It improves their sexual function.”
Young trans people and their families who are frightened away from care by an overstated worst-case outcome presented as fact.